We Sacrifice

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- Well, hey, welcome to Crossroads.

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I'm Andy, pastor of Crossroads Anywhere.

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And we believe that church is bigger

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than any single day of the week or place on the map.

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Crossroads is a church that you can belong to

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no matter where you live, literally anywhere.

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We've actually got people all over the country

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and the world and actually just heard a story

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this week that demonstrated that just beautifully.

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One of our regional leaders, people who acts

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as sort of a pastor and representative of the church

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for their part of the country or the world,

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drove two states away, hours, hours out of his way,

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because he heard that another member

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in the Crossroads community was stuck in the hospital

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long term recovery from a surgery on their birthday.

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He showed up with cake, with presents,

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and even with a zoom call full of friends

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to sing Happy Birthday and celebrate.

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I just love that level of connectedness and relationship

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that just doesn't let geography or distance get in the way.

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That's sacrifice. That's sacrifice to drive all that way

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to help somebody feel loved and cared for and connected.

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And sacrifice is exactly what Brian is talking about today.

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How we as a church sacrifice, and as a result,

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we get to experience more of God.

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Now we're going to talk more about that later.

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But first, we're going to start off with some music.

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And these songs are our prayers set to music.

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The first song is exactly that.

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It's actually the Lord's Prayer from Matthew 6 in the Bible,

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in the form of a song.

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And in that scripture, Jesus says,

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This is the model for how we should pray.

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So maybe if you don't know where to start with God,

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maybe you've never prayed or said anything to Him before,

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consider just starting with these words

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in this song right now.

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and journal alongside other people.

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Download the app and get started today.

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One of the great things that's coming up

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is actually a book study.

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Actually, it's two book studies,

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one for men and one for women.

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Brian Tome has just released a brand new book

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called The Five Marks of a Man: Tactical Guide.

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And Alli Patterson has just released a book called

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How to Stay Standing: Helping Women Build a Faith That Lasts.

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We've got kickoff events for each of these book studies

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that you can attend in person or online at the end of October.

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We want you to get in a group

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and strengthen your faith with these books.

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Learn more or sign up now at crossroads.net/Anywhere.

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Now, in this series, we're exploring

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who God has made us to be as a church.

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And today, Brian is specifically talking about how we sacrifice.

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Now, sacrifice isn't just checking a box for us.

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It's something we take personally.

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But before we hear from Brian, here are a few stories

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from real people in our community

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about how we sacrifice.

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- I know all of us have stories of sacrifice

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where we've seen that happen. Share some of those.

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- Yeah. Okay. Well, I'll start with a story from the beginning.

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Like, we're meeting in that middle school.

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We're doing three services.

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Parking lot is full, we're so going.

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We're like, "We're going to have to buy a building." And so.

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- What year is this?

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- I think it's two years after we started, I mean.

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- 98? - Yeah. So, so we're like, okay.

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So we identified that there was this

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Home Quarter hardware store that was going out of business

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and we wanted that building.

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And so then we went, "Okay, well we had to get a loan."

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And no one would give us a loan because we had no equity

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Figure that, right?

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So then it came down to the four families on the spiritual board.

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So it was Brian and Libby Tome, Brian and Nancy Wells,

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Tom and Nancy Shepherd, and then my husband Jim and I.

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It was like, "Okay, we're going to put up

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our houses as collateral so that we can get a loan

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so that we can go bid on this building."

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And then Brian goes to the auction to bid on this

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and literally up to the last dollar

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that we were authorized to be able to bid,

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we got the building. - Wow.

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- Which was amazing, I mean, that's like God's provision.

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And we were, like, people will ask us afterwards, like,

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"Well, weren't you concerned?"

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And we're like, "Well, yeah,

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I guess if people hadn't stepped up,

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we could have been thrown out of our homes

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and had to maybe live in apartments

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while we were trying to build up enough equity

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to maybe buy another house."

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But but we knew that to reach friends

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that we would have to sacrifice.

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And fortunately, we didn't have to do that

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because once we bought the building, we did the campaign

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and a lot of people sacrificed to actually be able

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to build out the building.

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The one that we're in right now, actually, that's Oakley today.

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- We tell those, like, war stories around our kitchen table

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and the Tome family when we all get together because

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it was for years we didn't have any toys in our house growing up

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because all of our toys went into Kids' Club.

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But my whole life I grew up just thinking it was normal

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to go, like, in and out of having things

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and not having things

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because our family was in a mode of regularly sacrificing

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so that there was more room for people

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to meet Jesus at the church.

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And so whether that was financially or like,

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we were at church from 6 a.m. to 2 p.m. most of my childhood

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because we were doing all the jobs.

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And at four years old, I was on the building ops team

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as a facilities team member, as well as my brother.

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And so, but we look back on all the sacrifices and go,

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"Oh, that shaped who we are as adults now."

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And so, lik, now we have our own kids,

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my siblings and I have our own children,

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and we're trying to figure out, okay,

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what does it look like for us to sacrifice

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on behalf of people meeting Jesus the way that

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we sacrificed as kids so that they learn

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that's just part of who we are and what we do

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as part of the Crossroads family

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and ultimately part of the family of Jesus."

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- One of the pitfalls of being a church of our size

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is it's so easy to think

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somebody else is going to do that.

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It's so easy, right?

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I mean, someone else is going to make the coffee,

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someone else is going to do that thing.

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And also money, I know that from the very beginning

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there's been these rumors that Crossroads

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is funded by Procter and Gamble, or they're like,

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there are a couple of real rich people

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who are funding Crossroads. [indiscernible crosstalk]

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- P and Jesus, exactly.

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And that has never been true. That has never been true.

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And I know that other churches even when they hear

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kind of how our giving works, are shocked that

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we don't have the small select group

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of incredibly wealthy people who are making this place happen.

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Like it's not true. It's, yeah, it's the sacrifice

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of just regular people every day that make it happen.

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- God takes -- He has so taken care of me

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and my family through this place.

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I couldn't repay Him enough for what He's done for my family.

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And our family is not perfect

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and I could not repay Him enough. I just couldn't, so.

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- Absolutely. I mean, giving time in some ways

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can be just as hard as giving money.

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- Harder, harder.

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- It's difficult. I've never found myself in a place

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where I sacrificed something and God didn't give me

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so much more in return that I could never have purchased

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in terms of joy and satisfaction

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and meaning and purpose and all those sorts of things.

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That's what I got this summer, so.

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- No, that's so true.

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I've never felt more connected to people. Right?

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The most I've ever felt connected to someone

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is after we sacrificed together.

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And the most I felt connected to this place

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is after things like Awaited

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or when you go hard for something,

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something about spending yourself

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on something that's worth it.

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- Those stories,

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I just love watching those stories that were on that video.

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Story behind the story on one of them.

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The first woman who talked, Vivien, she talked about

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when we put our houses, we signed our houses over

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to the bank as collateral.

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And that's not the favorite part of that story for me.

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The favorite part is when we told the church,

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everyone who was in the church,

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it was 1500 people at that at that point.

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"Hey, this is what we have to do to to secure this building.

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And we want you to know that your leaders here are really in

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and we want to make sacrifices.

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And that's the kind of people that are serving you."

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The response wasn't the one I expected.

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What I heard over and over again were people were offended.

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They said, "Why didn't I get to sign my house over?

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I'm in here. Aren't I important?

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Why wasn't I asked to sign my house over?"

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That's the caliber of people

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that are a part of our church right there.

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It's really, really stunning to me.

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It's really amazing.

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And they would do that not because they believed in

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this 501c3 nonprofit organization called Crossroads.

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They would do that or we would want to do that because

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this is a basic thing

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of what it looks like to come closer to God.

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In the book of Ephesians 5:1-2,

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I've got a lot of Bible verses for you today.

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Can you handle them? Can you handle the truth?

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You can't handle the truth,

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deep down inside in places you don't know.

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Okay, here we go. Ephesians 5:1, here's what says:

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Let's stop right there. Let's stop right there.

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The topic of sacrifice is very deep

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and it can be weighty if you start from the wrong place.

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If you think that sacrifice is about a new moral code,

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if you think that sacrifice is now the 11th commandment,

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thou shalt sacrifice, it will bog you down and bum you out.

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It starts with who God says you are.

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He says you are beloved. He says you are loved.

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All of this stuff flows out of the love of God.

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And so when we are imitators of God, what He does,

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the starting place is the love of God.

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Isn't that good news?

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Let's keep going, verse two:

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It's about love. We are loved by God. Jesus loved us.

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Now we walk and follow Him, and we walk in love.

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Jesus is a sacrifice. He is the sacrifice.

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The first time He's proclaimed publicly as the Messiah

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His cousin John says, "Behold the lamb of God

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who takes away the sin of the world."

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He is the sacrifice.

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Ancient Jews and many modern Jews would understand

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that way back when there was the temple,

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and they would bring a lamb, a sacrifice,

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and that sacrifice you would bring

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and you would lay it on the altar

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and the priest would slit the throat

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and you would put your hands on that animal.

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And as the life drained away, you would think,

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"Man, I'm the one who deserves to die.

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I'm the one who deserves to die, and God is reminding me here

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that I don't have to die forever because of His sacrifice.

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Jesus dies on a cross because He is the sacrifice for us,

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and it is His love offering to God.

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The only good reason to sacrifice is because of love.

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In fact, I don't really understand love

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if we talk about emotional things.

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If we talk about tears with love,

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I don't understand love because I don't cry that much.

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If we talk about having a quiver in your liver

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then I don't understand love that much

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because I don't have many quivers

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and I only have one liver

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and I don't have much feeling down there.

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If we're talking about, like, these spiritual warm glow

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that comes around us, I've had that before, I guess,

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but I don't have it very often to be clear.

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I like emotions. I want more emotions.

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Love can be emotional.

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I like when God gives us a jolt of love and we feel it.

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I like when there's a spiritual high.

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But love is defined in this verse, it's sacrifice,

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that's what love is.

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We know the love of God because Jesus sacrificed for us.

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That's what it is.

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And when you would put that lamb on the offering

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and it would burn, it would be a pleasing aroma

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that would go up to God.

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That's what that verse means

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when it says a fragrant offering.

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A few weeks ago, I went to a concert.

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I went to Lynyrd Skynyrd. Oh, God bless America.

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Now, some of you youngsters are going, "Lynyrd Skynyrd,

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who's he? I don't -- I don't know who he is."

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It's a they. It's a classic 70s classic butt rock band.

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They are amazing. They're all dead, but they're amazing.

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They are. Seriously, they're all dead.

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Half of them died in a plane crash back in,

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I don't know, it was 1980 or something like that.

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Ronnie Van Zant's younger brother sings,

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looks kind of like him, sounds kind of like him.

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Then everybody else is a new person in the band.

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But they killed it, utterly crushed it.

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I forgot about how many amazing songs Lynyrd Skynyrd had.

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And this one you might have heard before.

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- Ooh that smell

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can't you smell that smell

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Ooh that smell

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The smell of death surrounds you.

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- Oh, it's so good. Oh, it's so good.

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That song could be interpreted as sacrifice.

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That song is actually about bemoaning the people

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who have overdosed and the smell of death is on them,

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that's what it's about, Ooh, that smell.

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You're living your life in such a way

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that you're going to die.

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The smell of death surrounds you.

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This could be said about Ephesians that I just read,

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a fragrant offering.

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It is a pleasing aroma when someone chooses

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to die to themselves to sacrifice for somebody else.

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It's a fragrant aroma.

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And whenever you sacrifice, that is, any time you choose

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to not do something that you could do to love somebody else,

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it's a pleasing room to God.

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Every time you put off gaining financially

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or gaining in your calendar so that somebody else can gain,

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it's a fragrant and pleasing aroma to God.

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Ooh, that smell.

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God wants to look at you go, "Hmm, that smell.

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The smell that surrounds you."

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And that smell would be the smell of sacrifice.

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Sacrifice is what separates the talkers from the walkers.

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It's what separates people who talk a good game

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and appear to be spiritual

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and maybe even have Christian bumper sticker sacrifice,

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laying your life down is what separates

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people who talk about God

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and people who actually walk after God.

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That's a defining characteristic.

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Romans 12:1 gives us another example of this.

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Here's what it says:

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So when God asks us to sacrifice ourselves,

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He's never asking us to kill ourselves, thankfully.

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He's not asking that. It says a living sacrifice,

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meaning I walk around as an entity

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willing to love somebody else and lay my life down

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and sacrifice things so that God will be pleased

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that I'm being like Jesus, who sacrifice Himself.

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Do not be conformed to this world,

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but be transformed by the renewal of your mind.

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This world is conforming you and I, it tells us

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we always need to upgrade, we always need to have new things,

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we always have to be comfortable,

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we always have to have more money in the bank,

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we always have to have more time in our calendar.

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We have to say no to things, we have to draw boundaries

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and we do have to say no to things and draw boundaries.

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But many, many people forget.

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We draw boundaries and say no to things

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so that we can have more capacity to serve people

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and sacrifice for people.

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That's what love is.

00:28:13

A interesting point here, too.

00:28:16

It says this is your spiritual worship.

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I don't know why they put that word in there.

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And I hate to say this because

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it could maybe cause us to not trust the Bible.

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Every once in a while there's a word

00:28:28

that's not translated properly, this is one of those times.

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It's very, very, very rare.

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And it doesn't actually change whether or not

00:28:35

you should trust the Bible at all.

00:28:36

It's still not bad, spiritual worship,

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but the word spirit in Greek is Pneuma. Pneuma.

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It's where we have pneumonia, like, my nasal passages,

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my spirits all clogged up,

00:28:49

just stuff in here my lungs is not working right.

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Pneuma, that's not the word that's used here.

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It's the word that we know for logic.

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This is your reasonable worship is what some translations say.

00:29:03

And why do they say that?

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They say because when you understand

00:29:06

how Jesus laid down His life for you and how He loves you,

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and He went to a cross and as a lamb,

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He died on a cross for you, you just go,

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"It's just reasonable I would do that for somebody else.

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After all, I call myself a Christ follower,

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not a Christ believer, a Christ follower.

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And if He loves me that much and I'm that secure in His love,

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it just makes sense that I should be

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a person of sacrifice because I want to be like Him."

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Is this making sense at all?

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You know, we want a place where people are growing

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and that means growing to look like Jesus,

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that means growing in love, and love looks like sacrifice.

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You heard my daughter as well on the video.

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Her husband -- got married to Nick Schuller.

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That was Lena up there talking and she was talking

00:30:02

about all the the things

00:30:05

that we've had to sacrifice as a family.

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And she -- I'm glad she has some happy memories about it.

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It was -- many of our sacrifices have been painful.

00:30:12

We've been through four campaigns at Crossroads,

00:30:15

by the way, by the way, I'll say it again.

00:30:17

I've said it every, every weekend, I'll say it again,

00:30:19

there's no campaign that's coming after this series.

00:30:22

There's not an ask.

00:30:23

This is not like a set up for you.

00:30:26

This is just to help you understand

00:30:29

what our church is about

00:30:30

and what basic Bible stuff is about with love and Jesus.

00:30:34

And she's -- when we went into a campaign,

00:30:37

most of the time we would get rid of cable

00:30:39

and getting rid of cable back in 2000 or 2006 or whatever,

00:30:42

it was a big deal because

00:30:43

Netflix and those things weren't around yet

00:30:45

and there wasn't even antennas anymore for TV.

00:30:48

So it was like you had cable, you were done.

00:30:50

So we would get rid of cable and all these premium channels

00:30:52

and they couldn't see TV or watch it.

00:30:54

And I remember my kids going up on the landing of our stairs

00:30:58

to look out the window in the window of the apartment

00:31:01

next door to watch TV without sound.

00:31:06

I had my son on my podcast recently and he talked about

00:31:11

how it was such a point of celebration for him

00:31:14

and our family when we got to be able to buy

00:31:19

the double pack of crunchy peanut butter.

00:31:22

Who's a crunchy peanut butter fan? Come on. [cheers]

00:31:24

Who likes creamy peanut butter? [cheers]

00:31:27

Who likes crunchy? [cheers]

00:31:29

There you go. Good. Yes.

00:31:31

We were amazed because of our level of sacrifice,

00:31:34

we didn't have the cash to buy, like,

00:31:37

the double pack with the saran wrapped together.

00:31:40

And as we got to different places,

00:31:42

it was just a point of celebration.

00:31:44

But it was also a point of celebration looking back

00:31:46

that sacrifice is a part of our life.

00:31:48

It's just who we are. It's what we do.

00:31:51

In the book of Philippians 2:9 it says this:

00:31:54

Therefore God has highly exalted Him.

00:31:55

This is Jesus, highly exalted Him

00:31:57

and bestowed on Him the name that is above every name,

00:32:01

that at the name of Jesus every knee shall bow

00:32:03

and every tongue confess that He is Lord

00:32:06

to the glory of God, the Father.

00:32:09

Now, the beginning of this passage says, therefore.

00:32:12

In the Bible, whenever you see a therefore,

00:32:14

you should ask yourself, what's that there for?

00:32:20

Wow.

00:32:23

What's that there for?

00:32:25

And what it's there for is to tie up the previous statement.

00:32:29

Here's what said just before this:

00:32:41

God exalts Him, He gives Him the name above every name,

00:32:45

hyper exalts Him.

00:32:47

Still, that's the way it is today.

00:32:48

Go to any crowded room, nothing will cause more people

00:32:50

to turn around than if you say Jesus.

00:32:54

If you say, Bill, no one's going to, or Shanika,

00:32:58

no one's turning around. You say, you say Jesus,

00:33:02

because He has the name that's above every name,

00:33:04

it's the most well known name

00:33:05

in the history of the world, bar none.

00:33:07

And it ties to His sacrifice.

00:33:11

If you want to be great, you will sacrifice.

00:33:15

If you want to have a comfortable day,

00:33:18

you won't sacrifice.

00:33:20

Sacrifice is always the way to go to a next level,

00:33:23

if you want God to take you to that level,

00:33:24

versus you climbing and clawing over somebody else

00:33:27

to get to that level.

00:33:29

I say this stuff because I'm trying to preach to myself

00:33:32

because it's hard and I don't like it.

00:33:35

If you give me box number one and you say,

00:33:38

"Brian, right now, you can have comfort

00:33:42

and immediate gratification right now in this box,

00:33:46

or number two, in this box, you can have sacrifice

00:33:52

and delayed gratification."

00:33:55

Nine times out of ten, I'll take box number one,

00:33:57

like, give it to me right now. Give it to me right now,"

00:34:00

nine times out of ten.

00:34:01

But when I do take box number two,

00:34:07

I get further ahead with God and my life gets further ahead

00:34:10

because that's the path of sacrifice.

00:34:12

Momentarily, there's a step back in sacrifice

00:34:16

in terms of our fulfillment and satisfaction,

00:34:19

in terms of how we're measuring up against somebody else.

00:34:22

But man, there is an exaltation that comes with it

00:34:25

because we become more like Jesus and we get closer to Jesus

00:34:28

and it's really, really beautiful.

00:34:30

So if we're going to sacrifice, let me give you some ideas here.

00:34:33

I just brainstorming these and thinking through them.

00:34:35

What do we have to get over,

00:34:37

what do we sacrifice when we sacrifice?

00:34:40

One thing is this: We sacrifice our comfort addiction.

00:34:46

Sacrifice our comfort addiction.

00:34:49

I mean, we are addicted to comfort, right?

00:34:51

We want our pillow top beds.

00:34:54

We want our HVAC units.

00:34:56

We want the latest and greatest tech.

00:34:58

And there's nothing wrong with any of those things.

00:35:01

Nothing wrong.

00:35:02

In fact, I have the latest and greatest tech right now.

00:35:04

It was a a birthday present that my wife gave me.

00:35:08

This is an upgrade from my previous watch.

00:35:10

It has a larger screen for my older eyes.

00:35:13

It has a brighter screen for my older eyes.

00:35:16

And in terms of hiking around and doing hunting

00:35:18

and the map is easier to work,

00:35:19

its touches, a bunch of stuff like that.

00:35:21

So hear me, hear me,

00:35:22

I'm not saying let's all sell all of our stuff

00:35:25

and let's be naked someplace. I'm not saying that.

00:35:28

I mean, God is okay for you to have, to be comfortable.

00:35:32

If you have any kids, you like to bless your kids.

00:35:35

If you have any kids you want them to be well fed.

00:35:38

You want them to be have a level of happiness and security.

00:35:42

And it's okay for you to have that, too.

00:35:44

God wants that for you.

00:35:46

That's why when you choose to give it up, or something up,

00:35:51

it's so beautiful to God because

00:35:53

it's not something you have to give up like pornography.

00:35:57

No, it's something that God's okay with.

00:35:59

And then when you choose that, God says,

00:36:01

"That's really love. That's not sin management. That's love.

00:36:05

You're laying that down for somebody else."

00:36:09

And this is where some ancient forms of monasticism

00:36:12

had it so bad.

00:36:13

They thought that everything that was nice was wrong.

00:36:18

So you'd find some monastic orders

00:36:21

that would have beds without mattresses.

00:36:23

I just went to Germany recently and did a tour

00:36:26

and learned again about Martin Luther,

00:36:28

who was a Catholic monk who's responsible for

00:36:31

the Protestant Reformation.

00:36:32

And he was a part of a monastery that they were so hard core

00:36:36

they didn't even think they could have the comfort

00:36:38

of having food inside the monastery

00:36:41

that for any of them to eat they went out

00:36:43

and begged for every meal every day because

00:36:46

they didn't even want the comfort of having knowledge

00:36:49

that there was food inside of the --

00:36:51

Inside of the, not the convent, that's for nuns.

00:36:53

What's the one for -- Monastery. Thank you, monastery.

00:37:00

And that's why also many ancient monks would beat themselves.

00:37:04

They beat themselves because they're like, "I feel too good.

00:37:06

I feel too good. I've got to beat my flesh.

00:37:08

I'm going to pound my flesh because I can't --

00:37:11

I can't feel good. And my flesh represents sin.

00:37:13

And so if I'm feeling good, I'm getting too comfortable

00:37:15

and I must be sinful."

00:37:17

And that was just going too far.

00:37:19

God likes to bless His children.

00:37:21

He likes to bless you. He does.

00:37:23

And He loves when He sees His children take after Him,

00:37:26

which is being a person of sacrifice.

00:37:28

When we sacrifice, we sacrifice our temporal fixation,

00:37:33

the things that are immediate, we sacrifice that.

00:37:36

Why don't I have six pack abs?

00:37:40

Because I don't want to sacrifice a few beers

00:37:43

every once in a while, that's why.

00:37:45

Because I don't want to sacrifice

00:37:47

chocolate covered pretzels that I had last night.

00:37:50

I mean, it's just -- I would rather have

00:37:53

those delicacies than have a six pack.

00:37:56

And it's the way it is with anybody.

00:37:59

It's the same way it is when somebody actually

00:38:02

gets out of credit card debt, they get out of credit card debt

00:38:06

because they sacrifice the temporal satisfaction

00:38:10

of immediately pulling out their credit card

00:38:12

and having all their needs met and they cut it up

00:38:16

so that long term they'll stop their spending

00:38:18

and actually get some money in the bank.

00:38:20

But we don't sacrifice because we have this temporal fixation.

00:38:25

Sometimes we sacrifice to help somebody else

00:38:28

who's going to get ahead.

00:38:31

Sometimes we do things that we don't want to do.

00:38:36

I have a book coming out. It releases Tuesday.

00:38:41

And I would -- it's on -- It's two books, actually.

00:38:44

It's a study guide on The Five Marks of a Man

00:38:47

you can do with other guys and it's a re-release,

00:38:49

an updated version of The Five Marks of a Man.

00:38:52

Now, I put this here because I believe in this material.

00:38:56

I'd love you to preorder it. It helps an author a lot.

00:38:59

And you know why I feel very freed up

00:39:00

to tell you this and advertise it?

00:39:02

Because I don't make a dime on any book I sell.

00:39:05

Because the board came to me and said,

00:39:09

"We think that you should give and we should take

00:39:12

everything you ever make on publishing."

00:39:14

And I quite frankly, I didn't like it.

00:39:19

Quite frankly, if I had my own pure way,

00:39:21

I think I'd probably reverse it.

00:39:22

But you know what? I'm in submission and I get paid well,

00:39:26

thank you very, very much. I do.

00:39:29

And it was a sacrifice I was willing to make.

00:39:33

It doesn't hurt necessarily. I'm -- but I could --

00:39:38

Sacrifice is whenever you could have something

00:39:41

and you choose not to have it out of love for somebody else.

00:39:46

And when you get in a rhythm of sacrifice,

00:39:49

your walk with God goes to a new place

00:39:52

and the purpose of God also go to a new place.

00:39:56

We sacrifice also our peer competition,

00:39:59

like the old bumper sticker you've seen

00:40:02

the tongue in cheek bumper sticker:

00:40:04

He who dies with the most toys wins.

00:40:06

You know, that person knows that's not the truth,

00:40:08

but we all kind of laugh at that because we feel it.

00:40:11

"Wait a minute. What kind of watch does BT have?

00:40:14

I want that watch."

00:40:15

"Wait a minute, you have the latest iPhone?

00:40:17

Wait a minute, you have that car?

00:40:19

Wait a minute, you have what?

00:40:21

You have better clothes than me. You have a better --

00:40:23

Your kids are going to a better college than me."

00:40:25

And we feel this competition.

00:40:28

And when we sacrifice, we get out of that game,

00:40:32

we see it for what it's worth.

00:40:33

It doesn't -- it doesn't get anywhere.

00:40:36

When we sacrifice, we say to God,

00:40:38

"God, I'm playing a different game.

00:40:41

I'm playing a game of earning Your favor.

00:40:44

I'm playing a game

00:40:45

of having some some blessings in the future

00:40:48

that you'll determine to give me or not give me.

00:40:50

I'm playing the game of loving people,

00:40:51

and if I have something I can give them, that is fine."

00:40:55

When we sacrifice these things, what happens is

00:40:58

we end up knowing what it looks like to look like Jesus.

00:41:03

We end up acting like Him.

00:41:05

We sacrifice not to pay God back.

00:41:08

We sacrifice not because it's the 11th Commandment.

00:41:10

We sacrifice, not because we don't deserve nice things.

00:41:13

We sacrifice because we want to look like Jesus,

00:41:16

because He sacrificed.

00:41:18

He was in heaven

00:41:19

and He sacrificed all the glory of heaven

00:41:21

and He came and he was born in a lonely --

00:41:24

And placed in a lowly manger in Bethlehem.

00:41:26

And He lived a painful, difficult life

00:41:29

that ended horrifically on a cross.

00:41:34

And none of us will ever have to have that level of sacrifice.

00:41:37

But when we have some sacrifice of some way,

00:41:39

give some time to somebody, give some money to somebody,

00:41:42

give some wisdom to somebody, we end up looking like Jesus,

00:41:46

and we let God know that we worship Him.

00:41:49

When we sacrifice, we're letting God know that we worship Him.

00:41:53

I'm really excited about our Real Encounter series

00:41:56

that is coming up.

00:41:58

It's we're told by you, we've taken surveys again and again,

00:42:01

man, when you guys go to Israel and you preach

00:42:03

from Israel on location

00:42:05

in these places I'll probably never get to.

00:42:07

And you connect all the spiritual dots.

00:42:08

We've heard from you that you love it.

00:42:10

So we got another one coming up.

00:42:11

It's going to be really great.

00:42:12

I think it's going to be the best one.

00:42:14

It looks at Jesus and His great, great, great, great,

00:42:17

great, great, great, great, 13 generations before

00:42:19

His great great grandfather who was King David.

00:42:22

And it makes the tie between King David and Jesus and us.

00:42:28

One of the seminal moments in David's life

00:42:32

is in the Book of 2 Samuel 24.

00:42:35

He comes upon this guy's property who is a landowner,

00:42:40

and David wants to have a worship service.

00:42:43

He wants to give a sacrifice.

00:42:44

And Aruna, the guy who owns this land and owns all the stuff,

00:42:48

says, "Hey man, I'll take care of it. You're the king.

00:42:51

I'm going to get you the altar.

00:42:53

I'm going to get you the wood.

00:42:54

I'm going to get you the animals. My pleasure.

00:42:56

I'm just glad to have the king here on my land."

00:42:58

Here's what David says in verse 24.

00:43:12

Sacrifice cost you. Worship cost you.

00:43:15

If it's not costing you,

00:43:18

then you're not giving a pleasing aroma to God.

00:43:22

We've had four campaigns of Crossroads

00:43:25

where people gave sacrificially,

00:43:26

they went above and beyond their tithe

00:43:28

to be able to buy the buildings that we have

00:43:31

or put money towards them. We still have a mortgage.

00:43:33

And one of my favorite stories is people just who are heroes,

00:43:37

who no one knows their name, some of them I know.

00:43:40

In the early days of Crossroads,

00:43:41

I was like a one armed paper hanger.

00:43:43

We didn't have a big staff.

00:43:45

It was me and a couple other people,

00:43:47

and that meant I did everything.

00:43:48

I did the preaching, I did teaching,

00:43:51

I did the marrying, I did the burying,

00:43:53

I did all the stuff, right?

00:43:54

And we had this young couple that I married,

00:43:56

names were Matt and Holly, and then we had the campaign

00:44:00

and they had a hard time figuring out

00:44:03

what they wanted to sacrifice above their tithe.

00:44:05

And so they they said, "You know, we don't know

00:44:08

what we're going to do. We're kind of in between jobs.

00:44:10

Matt's getting a new job in our city.

00:44:12

We're not sure how that's going to work out.

00:44:14

We've got a bunch of stuff that's going on.

00:44:16

We're just -- We're just not sure

00:44:17

because our future is just very uncertain."

00:44:20

And they said, "I think what we want to do

00:44:22

is we're going to give our wedding rings."

00:44:24

They just got married, like, "Uh, really?" "Yeah."

00:44:29

I said, "Okay."

00:44:31

I said, "This is such a sacrifice and so beautiful,

00:44:34

would you mind if I told this story

00:44:36

and I'll just do it anonymously?"

00:44:39

And they said, "Yeah, if you think it would help

00:44:41

give people a model, yeah, that's fine."

00:44:43

So I said, okay. So I told the story.

00:44:46

And I had people afterwards came up to me

00:44:48

with the purest of intentions, said, "Hey, Brian,

00:44:50

I got a good idea. Me and my wife or me and my husband

00:44:53

are doing really, really well. We're doing great.

00:44:55

How about if when Crossroads gets them appraised

00:44:59

and sells them, how about you tell us how much they are

00:45:04

and then we'll pay Crossroads that amount

00:45:06

and on top of whatever we're going to do

00:45:08

for our campaign commitment.

00:45:10

And then you can give those rings back to the young couple."

00:45:13

I went, "Okay, that sounds. I'll run it by them.

00:45:18

Okay, fine. I'll run it by them."

00:45:20

So I'm back and I told them this idea,

00:45:22

"What do you think about this?"

00:45:24

And they were horrified.

00:45:26

It's like, "No, no. That's our sacrifice."

00:45:33

What were they saying? They were saying it's going to cost us,

00:45:36

and that's what love is, it costs and we love God.

00:45:41

And He's done so much for us, we want this to cost us.

00:45:46

I will not sacrifice the Lord that which cost me nothing."

00:45:50

In fact, wherever you are, whatever site you are,

00:45:53

you're in a seat somebody sacrificed for.

00:45:56

They went without cable.

00:45:58

They went -- they doubled their tithe.

00:46:00

They went without their next raise.

00:46:01

They went without a second home they were looking to buy,

00:46:05

whatever it was, people all different income places,

00:46:09

you're sitting here because this is embedded

00:46:13

in the culture of our church,

00:46:15

because it's the culture of Jesus.

00:46:16

And we take it seriously.

00:46:18

And that's why there's a place for you.

00:46:21

Anything good that God has ever done

00:46:25

to come through Crossroads has come

00:46:27

through people who are sacrificing.

00:46:29

And it's because any of us who have sacrificed

00:46:31

know it's because Jesus sacrificed for us

00:46:34

and gave me a shot out of His love,

00:46:37

gave me a second chance and gives me grace

00:46:39

to make it just another day.

00:46:43

When we sacrifice, we help our friends

00:46:45

and neighbors come to know Jesus.

00:46:47

We facilitate that.

00:46:49

John 15:13 Jesus says this:

00:46:57

Jesus is basically telling them,

00:46:59

"That's going to be me in about six chapters.

00:47:03

I'm going to be laying down my life for you.

00:47:05

I'm going to be sacrificing for you is because I love you."

00:47:09

There's so many ways, different ways of sacrifice.

00:47:12

This last week I was headed out to a meeting

00:47:14

at our base camp property where we do Man Camp,

00:47:18

Woman Camp, Vet Camp, Couples Camp, yadda yadda, yadda, yadda.

00:47:21

And I'm going and I see as I'm going,

00:47:23

I see out of my peripheral in New Richmond, this light,

00:47:28

I see a car stop and another car on its side,

00:47:31

flipped on its side,

00:47:33

I can see the undercarriage of the car,

00:47:34

the muffler and everything.

00:47:35

And I'm looking and I'm looking.

00:47:37

I'm going, "Where's ambulances? Where's the ambulances?

00:47:39

I don't see any ambulances."

00:47:41

And I'm thinking, "Oh, my gosh, am I the first one here?'

00:47:44

I'm seeing other cars around. No one's getting out of cars.

00:47:48

But I see two cars down, I see no.

00:47:50

So oh no, someone is --

00:47:53

Someone will handle. Someone will handle it.

00:47:54

So I get about 200 yards down the street

00:47:57

and I'm going, "No, I'll handle it."

00:48:01

So I've got, you know, a truck with bigger tires.

00:48:04

So I get in the median, I pull over, I'm going all this stuff.

00:48:07

I get over, I stop.

00:48:08

No one is yet there

00:48:09

and I'm thinking, "I'm going to be late for my meeting.

00:48:11

They're going to be waiting for me out there.

00:48:13

But this could be a crisis."

00:48:14

And there is, sure as heck you've got two cars

00:48:17

that have their airbags blown out, and they're just --

00:48:21

Two women who are just dazed and confused.

00:48:25

And I said, "Are you okay? Are you okay?"

00:48:27

I'm like, put my hand on the shoulder of the one,

00:48:29

"Are you okay? Are you okay? Are you okay?"

00:48:32

"Yeah, I'm okay. I'm okay."

00:48:33

And then finally a cop comes up and they're okay,

00:48:36

so I kind of leave and I'm leaving I thought

00:48:39

maybe I only did that

00:48:41

because I'm preaching on sacrifice this week.

00:48:44

I mean, I'm thinking sacrifice.

00:48:46

I'm thinking that was a sacrifice, at least to my pride.

00:48:48

I'm going to be late for a meeting now,

00:48:51

but I wanted to give love to these people who were hurting.

00:48:54

It was a small one. I mean, as I said, when I say it cost you,

00:48:58

it doesn't mean that it always has to hurt.

00:49:00

It just cost, it cost me time.

00:49:03

It cost me losing face with meeting,

00:49:07

being late and having to explain it.

00:49:08

It's those simple things.

00:49:12

But we sacrifice time, our prayers,

00:49:16

our money, whatever it is,

00:49:18

because we love people who have yet to come to know Jesus

00:49:22

and we want to give them an experience where that happens.

00:49:25

We want to be a part of a team, a community where that happens.

00:49:29

Michael Jordan said this. He said:

00:49:48

If we put that in the spiritual context,

00:49:50

if we have an individual goal to get closer to Christ,

00:49:53

to be more like Christ, when we're not grafted

00:49:55

into a community of faith and we're not sacrificing

00:49:59

for and in the community of faith,

00:50:01

it's virtually impossible to become more like Jesus

00:50:03

because He operated in a community

00:50:05

where He sacrificed for people.

00:50:07

And yet many of us have this brand of solo spirituality,

00:50:11

it's my opinions, my beliefs.

00:50:13

I just follow God as I hear Him.

00:50:15

And we cut ourselves off from a community

00:50:17

and commitment to a community and sacrifice to a community,

00:50:20

because quite frankly, we won't admit it,

00:50:22

you're just not spiritually mature enough.

00:50:26

You bought into this renegade I alone and God and nobody else.

00:50:30

And you know, and I just take care of myself.

00:50:34

And that's not the model of love.

00:50:36

That's not the model of the fragrant offering

00:50:38

we see with God.

00:50:41

We see people sacrifice prayer and time

00:50:45

over and over and over and over and over again.

00:50:47

We're in a building where I preach from right now in Oakley,

00:50:50

which is another example

00:50:52

of miracle God from people sacrificing.

00:50:54

The building was going up on the on the block.

00:50:56

We were going to go down to Wall Street

00:50:58

to bid on this building and a bunch of people

00:51:01

gathered in a parking lot right about

00:51:03

where I am right here

00:51:05

at the addition of the building to pray.

00:51:06

And as we're praying, before I was going to go

00:51:08

to Wall Street to bid in this building,

00:51:10

my daughter reaches up to me and we're holding hands.

00:51:12

She goes, "Daddy, we should march around it seven times,

00:51:14

just like Joshua did with the city of Jericho."

00:51:17

I said, "That's a great idea, honey.

00:51:18

Folks, here's what we're going to do.

00:51:20

We're going to march around the building,

00:51:22

and just like Joshua prayed and God blinded

00:51:25

and confused their enemies and they overtook the city,

00:51:27

we're going to pray that God blinds and confuse everybody.

00:51:29

We're going to -- we're going to really bid against."

00:51:32

So away we went. We go around this building.

00:51:34

It was very difficult.

00:51:35

I'm not going to tell you the whole whole story.

00:51:37

I will just say this. It was very difficult.

00:51:39

None of us were planning on walking

00:51:41

seven times around a big honking building

00:51:44

with a garden center chain link fence on the side.

00:51:47

It takes a long time. We weren't dressed for it.

00:51:49

Guys had chinos on and penny loafers.

00:51:52

Chinos, that's an old fashioned word for khakis. Okay?

00:51:58

My kids were, like, couldn't walk anymore

00:52:00

after the third lap and so I'm picking them up

00:52:02

and I'm walking, I'm carrying them on my shoulders.

00:52:05

My back was really bothering me then

00:52:06

and I'm feeling my disc compressed and I'm like.

00:52:09

And I think myself, "Okay, this is enough. This is enough.

00:52:11

Three, three times, three times ought to do it.

00:52:13

Three times ought to do it."

00:52:14

And then -- and then I sense from God, I hear from God.

00:52:17

And when I hear from God, normally it's this way

00:52:19

where a thought comes across my mind out of nowhere

00:52:22

that I wouldn't generate on my own.

00:52:25

And I think Jesus approves of it.

00:52:29

And He sends this thought to me and basically is this,

00:52:32

"Brian, you want Me to do a miracle for you,

00:52:35

but you don't want to sacrifice

00:52:37

and walk seven times around a building."

00:52:40

See, a lot of us want a miracle,

00:52:42

but we just want God to make things easy for us.

00:52:44

We don't want to sacrifice.

00:52:47

That's how miracles come. Sacrifice.

00:52:49

That's how love comes. Sacrifice.

00:52:51

That's how the next level comes. Sacrifice.

00:52:54

Not waiting and just hoping that something breaks our way,

00:52:57

though that can happen because God is a God of grace,

00:53:00

as we said before, He loves us.

00:53:02

But as far as a we can control a sacrifice.

00:53:04

So did the seven times around.

00:53:06

And what do you know? It's exactly what happened.

00:53:09

God blinded and confused our enemies.

00:53:11

We have people from major corporations

00:53:14

that missed their flights and offered us

00:53:16

2 to 3 times what we paid for that building

00:53:18

because God had blinded and confused our enemies.

00:53:22

Real story. Real deal.

00:53:25

Right now in Mason

00:53:27

they're celebrating their 15th anniversary.

00:53:30

15th, thank you, Mason Thank you, Mason.

00:53:32

15 years, they're celebrating their 15 years.

00:53:36

They met in rented facilities and sacrificed

00:53:40

to pay for Florence to build their building.

00:53:43

And they never were in rented facilities in Florence.

00:53:45

But Mason did that because they sacrificed.

00:53:48

And then when they got their building,

00:53:50

or their property, the same thing, they walked around it.

00:53:53

And then recently, Dayton, we bought some property in Dayton

00:53:57

and it was not going well with the developer

00:53:59

because they were like, "No, no, we don't want them here

00:54:02

because there's bars

00:54:03

and they're going to affect bar sales negatively."

00:54:06

And we put out a call and immediately people showed up

00:54:10

and walked around that Sears in Dayton seven times

00:54:13

and our real estate guy was on

00:54:15

with all these cutthroat people and in New York.

00:54:17

And he said to them, "Hey, you got to realize that right now,

00:54:20

right now, there's 150 people who are praying

00:54:22

around that building right now."

00:54:25

And he said the guy went silent on the phone

00:54:28

and he says his demeanor changed immediately

00:54:31

and we worked out the deal.

00:54:35

I think that's an example of sacrifice.

00:54:40

It's an example of going to a new place.

00:54:44

I was over in Germany, as I said earlier on,

00:54:48

and there's a guy there who's kind of a hero of mine.

00:54:50

His name is Dietrich Bonhoeffer.

00:54:52

Dietrich Bonhoeffer was one of

00:54:54

the very few Christian pastors who stood against Hitler.

00:54:59

Most all of the Christian pastors just bought his lies

00:55:02

and they wanted power and they were weak and they were racist,

00:55:07

and they went along with the Hitler agenda.

00:55:08

There's a few pastors, like Dietrich Bonhoeffer, who didn't.

00:55:12

Dietrich Bonhoeffer actually got thrown to jail

00:55:15

after he was tied up in the conspiracy

00:55:17

to actually kill Hitler, which I think that's awesome.

00:55:21

Pastor tries to kill Hitler. It'd be awesome.

00:55:24

And I mean, come on, who wouldn't do that, right?

00:55:27

"Aren't I supposed to love my enemy?" Not that one. [laughter]

00:55:37

And Dietrich Bonhoeffer eventually died,

00:55:40

died for his role in it.

00:55:42

And Dietrich Bonhoeffer said this:

00:55:51

When Jesus calls you, He calls you to lay down your life.

00:55:57

He calls you to stop trying to have it both ways.

00:56:01

He calls you to love people.

00:56:02

Why? Because He loved you, that's why.

00:56:08

- Hey, thank you for joining us.

00:56:09

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00:56:12

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00:56:14

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00:56:16

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00:56:20

Learn more at Crossroads.net/anywhere.

00:56:23

Now, next week, Alli is talking about how we endure

00:56:26

and why that is so important to our faith.

00:56:29

And in a few weeks, we're actually going to be

00:56:31

traveling halfway around the world to explore

00:56:33

the people and places in the Bible that make up our faith

00:56:37

in a series called Real Encounters with God.

00:56:39

We'll see you next time.

00:56:44

- The story of God told through the Land of Israel

00:56:47

is written in the pages of Scripture

00:56:49

and carved by the very finger of God into the land itself.

00:56:53

Join us on a journey to discover your spiritual roots,

00:56:57

uncover the 6 essential elements of identity deep within you

00:57:02

revealed through the life of King David

00:57:04

and perfected in the life of Jesus.

00:57:07

The fourth season of Real Encounters with God: Downline,

00:57:11

all new on location in Israel,

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new places, new encounters, Real Encounters with God.

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