Sermon
26 Oct 2025: Global Equip 25 Recap... Love Obedience + Sacrifice
Publisher transcript
Transcript
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Welcome to the podcast of the White Church in Adelaide, South
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Australia. We're going to hear from Hilary,
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I believe first this morning just from her time in the Global
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Equip. Global Equip recordings are
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actually available online as well.
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So I think there's a QR code that will flash up on the screen
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later. We'd encourage you to go listen
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to those as well because you can catch Revelation, the beauty of
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recordings, the beauty of technology.
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Hey, though you don't actually, we would love everyone to go
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there because you catch something from the atmosphere,
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but you can still catch Revelation from what has been
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shared through recordings. So head online, the video to the
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YouTube and stuff. So I'd encourage you to go
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listen to those. We're going to hear from Hillary
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this morning around some of the stuff that she got for us and
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she got personally. So somebody want to pray for
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Hillary as she comes and shares? OK, Craig's going to come.
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Father, thank you for the gift that you've laid on Hillary,
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Lord, and thank you for who you made our Lord.
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Father, you hold a special place in your heart for her as you
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hold a special place for us all. Father, this morning just pour
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out that blessing. Pour out that love through her
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and honor Lord and Lord, open our ears and our hearts to hear
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what you've got to say through her.
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Your humble servant. Lord, we thank you for in Jesus
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name, Amen. Oh, you want that?
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Yep. We'll need that.
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Thank you. Awesome.
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Thank you. Cool.
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Well, thank you for having me. Speaking in front of people
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doesn't like scare me, but I don't do it very often.
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So lucky you all love me. Hey, and as I mentioned this
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morning, there was a point this morning where I'm like, I don't
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even think I should be sharing because my heart is just all
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sorts of wrong right now. But I've applied some of the
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things that I'm talking about this morning and here we are.
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So yes, so we went to the Global Equip before we left, we
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expressed that we had a bit of trepidation against about doing
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it with the family. And what I've been saying to
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people since we got home was that it was equal parts
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beautiful and crazy hard all at the same time.
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Many of you would know our flight from Perth to
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Johannesburg got cancelled. And so we had 24 hours in Perth,
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which was fun. And we got to catch up with a
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girl that we used to know closely at Kingdom Life.
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She's living in Perth now and that was a real treat.
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But young kids, hotel rooms, late nights, hotel food, it was
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just, it was a bit of a rocky start to the trip.
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And then we landed in Johannesburg and Dave Progress
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proceeded to get sick. And so it was just it was a
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great first 48 hours was like I went to one of the other moms at
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the Equip and I think the first thing that came out of me was
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like, what have we done? But thankfully it got better
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from there and I've come home and I would do it all again.
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All things taken into account and part of the beautiful part
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of it was yes, travelling as a family, like our cellular
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family, but then travelling as a family.
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I got to watch my kids press into Chantelle and Daniel and
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Justin and and build those friendships.
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You know, Chantelle held Aiden for ages.
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She fell asleep on her. She, you know, it was just one
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of those things where the the family of the white church that
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was there, I feel grouped closer together in the process.
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And it was really, really lovely.
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And it's a part of the reason why us spending time together
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meaningfully. And it's substantially knits us
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together. Yeah.
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And then throughout the equip, throughout the sessions, there
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was just this constant through the prophetic words and through
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the worship and through the messages, just this constant
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encouragement just to keep on persevering, which I really felt
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for us as a church. I can remember at one point
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looking to Chantel and just being like everyone today has
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been speaking into our context. It was just constant, like, you
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know, keep on building, keep on persevering it, you know, it
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might not look the way you expected it to at this point,
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but keep going, don't lose, lose heart.
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Just keep on keeping on, which was awesome.
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I've just really felt so encouraged in that.
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And then of course, it is personal things as well, one of
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the things that grabbed my attention and has left me
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pondering for myself personally and for us as a local church and
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beyond. One of the speakers spoke about
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being captivated by Jesus. I realized because I listened to
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it again, I've been waiting for the podcast to come up so I
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could catch up. And I realized that I actually
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missed the first half of his message because I was out with
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the baby realities. And the whole message is really,
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really good. I would encourage you.
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It was session 12 if you want to go and listen to the whole
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thing. It was really, really good.
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And then I sort of got a bit derailed because I was just
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like, oh, I'm emphasizing something was emphasized to me
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that wasn't his emphasis. And then I sort of felt God to
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say, like, I knew I knew you weren't going to catch the first
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half of it. I knew what you were going to
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catch and you caught what you needed to catch.
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So here we are. And So what he said was that he
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was talking about being captivated by Jesus.
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And he said he referred to the scripture where John says, if
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you love me, you will keep my commandments.
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And then he said, we've reduced love to obedience.
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Do we have a lot of good obeyers in the room?
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And I was like, oh, and you know, obedience is good.
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And this is what he said. But we cannot forget that God
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commands obedience, but he also commands our affection and our
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love. And so I've spent a lot of time
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pondering this for myself, and I can see that I do have a
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tendency towards doing what I'm told in the word versus loving
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and walking with my Heavenly Father who wants to know me and
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for me to know him. So I, I think that I flip this
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scripture in my brain and I say, if I obey Jesus, then I love him
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or I prove my love for for Jesus by obeying him.
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But The thing is this is that Jesus, God born of a woman to
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live a life on earth, a sinless life, to take the the sins of
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the world to the cross and and in doing so pay the price for us
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that we could come back into relationship with God, that we
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may have eternal life. But The thing is with eternal
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life is that it's not about, it's not all about heaven.
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It is about heaven. But God defines eternal life.
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In John 17 he says eternal life is this, that we would know the
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Father and Jesus Christ his Son. And so when we forget that part
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of the gospel that what he paid for was that we could come back
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into the presence of God and enjoy him and know him and walk
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relationally with him, we're just missing the beauty of the
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gospel. And we can't share the gospel
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correctly if we don't have that revelation of relationship with
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God. So we we can get to enjoy a part
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of eternity right here in our day-to-day lives.
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Paul says in Philippians 3, he says, indeed, I count everything
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as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing
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Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake.
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I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish
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in order that I may gain Christ. So our first fundamental goal in
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our faith is to know and love our Saviour.
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Jesus says in Matthew 22 that the greatest commandment is to
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love the Lord your God with all your heart, mind and soul, and
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then love others as yourself. So Jesus does command our
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obedience, and he also commands our love and affection.
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And being mindful of the fact that I have a tendency towards
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obedience, I've been reading the word a bit differently and
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trying to swing myself the other way.
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But what I've noticed is, is that love and obedience are
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closely intertwined all the time.
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So practically then, how do we grow in our love for God?
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Well, first of all, I think that we need to have faith.
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We have faith even just to proclaim that Jesus is our Lord
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and Savior. But we have to have faith that
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knowing God, loving God, him loving us, that it's even a
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possibility and that it's available to us.
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In Hebrews 11, it says without faith it is impossible to please
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God because anyone who comes to him must believe that he exists
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and that he rewards those who earnestly seek him.
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So we've got to have faith that this is even a possibility for
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us. So the second thing that I think
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we need to do is to delight in his word and his ways.
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See, we come to know someone truly when we see what they do.
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And that presents a bit of a problem when we Jesus is not
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physically in front of us, but we have his word and we can see
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his life in the in the New Testament, but we can also see
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the nature of God throughout the Old Testament.
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And so we can see in there what he loves, what he hates, what
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hurts his heart, the things that makes him happy, the things that
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makes him angry. And so through all of that, when
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we switch our lens and say, God, I want to see you Jesus, I want
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to see who you are throughout the whole scripture, then we
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understand that we have an opportunity to come to know him
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better. And, and, and the question is as
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well, because sometimes when I'm reading the word, I go, I don't
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understand that at all or God that doesn't match in my head
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with who you are. Like I can't compute that.
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And those things aren't contradictions.
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They're opportunities for us to ask God questions and to grow in
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our understanding and love for him.
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I love Psalm 119. I feel like it's just, it's, I
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think the biggest Psalm in the in the Bible.
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And it, it goes on and on and on and, and the heartbeat of it is,
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is really beautiful. And so I just want to pull out.
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I mean, honestly, it's impossible.
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You could read the whole thing and it would just drive this
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point home. But I've just picked out a few
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verses from the beginning. In verse 10 of Psalm 119, it
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says with my whole heart I seek you.
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In verse 11 it says, I have stored up your word in my heart
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that I might not sin against you.
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Blessed are you. Lord, teach me your statutes.
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It's such a relational Psalm and it's amazing because it's Old
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Testament in the ways of your testimonies.
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I delight as much as in all riches to we delight in, in
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God's ways his testimonies more so than the riches of this
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world. It's challenging.
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I will meditate on your precepts and fix my eyes on your ways.
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How much time do we spend meditating on who God is and His
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ways and how it affects us because we're created in His
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image, My soul. This is verse 20.
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My soul is consumed with longing for Your rules at all times.
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Verse 24. Your testimonies are my delight.
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They are my counsellors. And so I would encourage you to
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go on. I mean that Psalm.
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You can pull out a section of it and pray it over yourself.
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Because if this isn't in our heart, Lord, let it be My heart.
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Lord, transform me into Your image.
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This is how I want to long for You.
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It's so beautiful. Psalm 37 says delight yourself
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in the Lord and He will give you the desires of your heart.
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We like that one. I think that it's a whole.
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It has a whole different meaning.
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I believe that when we delight ourselves in Lord, then He
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shifts out the desires of our hearts so that His desires are
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our desires and then He can pull them out.
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He can pull them out. Goes on to say commit your way
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to the Lord, trust in Him and He will act.
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I caught this when I was preparing he will bring forth
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your righteousness as the light and the just and your justice as
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the noonday. I just I realized that when you
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commit your way to the Lord, this is committing to obey him
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and this is what I'm when we trust in him, he will bring
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forth our righteousness that I mean that's just incredible.
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That's to me, that's saying when you trust me and you point your
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path towards my ways, I will transform you.
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I will make you like me incredible.
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And so that leads me to my next point is that we do need to obey
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love and obedience. They go hand in hand.
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And so you know, I could have walked away from the trick from
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the equipped going, Oh, stop being so obsessed with obeying
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God and just love him. But but they're not you can't
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have one without the other. They go hand in hand.
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So it's a part of our process of growing in our love for God that
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we obey him. In Colossians one verse 9, it
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says for this reason, we also since the day we heard it, do
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not cease to pray for you and to ask that you may be filled with
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the knowledge, filled with the knowledge of his will in all
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wisdom and spiritual understanding that you may work
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walk worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing him, being fruitful in
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every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God.
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So every good work increasing in knowledge, it's just they go
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hand in hand. And so we cannot emphasize one
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over the other. It's got to be both always.
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And so I'm a pretty practical person.
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I know lots of you in this room are very well versed in this,
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but we've got a lot of young believers along the way with us
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and we're trusting for more. And so we've got to understand
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that when we're talking about obedience to God, some people
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might just be like, what are you actually talking about?
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And so I just wanted to bring some really practical examples
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that we've that we've applied, I guess throughout our lives.
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We will have heard Dave speak about some of these in the past,
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so I'm not going to repeat some of them.
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But when we first came back to God, there were major things in
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our lives that we had to shift. One of them was the choice to
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come to church. And that might seem pretty
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obvious. Most people go like, I'm
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pursuing God and church goes hand in hand with that.
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But I was working at the time at at a service station and my boss
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had just rosted me on the coffee shift for Sunday mornings.
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And so, you know, I'm like, I've gone to my boss.
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I'm like, I'm really sorry, but those shifts that I said that I
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can do, I can't do anymore. And, and I explained to him why
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and thankfully he was very gracious and he was like, that's
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important, that's fine. And I'll make adjustments.
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But the point is, is that when we're convicted in our hearts,
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sometimes we have to make sacrifices.
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And so, and for us and for me personally, that was one thing
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that I had to sacrifice and God honoured me and and I was well
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looked after, but that was just a reality.
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Sometimes, you know, there are things that are important to us,
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whether it be important to us because of God and we have to be
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willing to go, this is your way. And God, if I have to sacrifice
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something to be a part of this, then I'm going to trust you to
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honor me and and provide for me because I'm honoring you first.
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Another thing that's this is an ongoing work in progress, but
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was just the understanding of love and any one of you who
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knows me knows that first Corinthians 13 is like a life
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scripture for me, but it's constant throughout my
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relationship with my husband, with my kids, with the people
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around me that I love. The constant reminder.
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See the 1st Corinthians 13 isn't a commandment, but it is a
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definition of who God is. And so when we read, when we're
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reading, love is patient, love is kind, love bears no record or
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wrongs, love endures. These are things that we, when
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we're as we're reading the word, we align ourselves to them.
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And so when I'm dealing with my husband, sorry, babe, all my
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kids am, am I being patient? You know, am I being kind?
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Am I keeping record? Am I keeping score?
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It and, and again, it's not that's an easy relationship for,
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for you to apply it to, but it actually applies to all
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relationships. And so, and this is just I'm
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trying to bring examples of how we align ourselves with God's
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word throughout our daily lives. Another one for us was our
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finances. We've been following God since
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2015 and probably about 18 months ago we finally got on
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board with His way of doing our money.
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And now I'm not talking about giving.
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Giving was something that we started way back from the
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beginning and we've consistently done that for as long as we've.
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That was one of the things that we changed in the beginning.
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But I'm talking about breaking up with the idea that credit
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cards are OK, breaking up with the idea that that debt is a
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part of our life. We still have a mortgage, but we
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have eliminated all other debt from our life.
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We don't. I don't do after pay.
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We don't do credit cards. We don't do personal loans.
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If we don't have the cash for something, we don't do it.
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And that is one of God's ways. In Deuteronomy, God lays out all
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the blessings and all the curses for his people.
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They will borrow, they will lend, but they will not borrow
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is a blessing and a curse is that they will borrow and not
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lend. And so when we understand that
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this is God's way and I want to do life God's way, then we align
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ourselves to things. And it's a process.
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It's a growing process. As we read the Word, we might
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change one thing today and then we come back to that same
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scripture and we change another thing.
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But God speaks to us and we submit our lives to him and we
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put him first and we trust him with all the details and and as
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I said before, when we commit our way to the Lord, trust him,
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he will bring forth our righteousness.
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Amazing. So as I close, I kind of walked
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away from what I was feeling to share.
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And I'm just like God. We've spoken about obedience so
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much over the last few years. Like, is it just me that's not
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getting this? Like, do I need to share this to
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the whole church? And the thing that stuck out to
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me was that this was emphasized message after message at the
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Global Equip. And so it makes me wonder, maybe
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God's bride needs to grow in her love and obedience.
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God's ways are radical in today's culture.
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Like fancy telling anyone that you don't do after pay.
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Fancy telling anyone that I won't borrow money to buy a car,
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or whatever the case may be. People will look at you like
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you've got 2 heads. Fancy telling people that I
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choose not to bear any record of wrong?
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God's ways are radical, and when we submit ourselves to the ways
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of the world around us, we lose our saltiness, we lose our
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light, we lose the thing that sets us apart from everything
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else around us. And so we need to come back to
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loving God, loving His ways, and being obedient to them.
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But it's got to be from a place of love.
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If you are coming to God's word like a rule book of things that
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you have to do, you're not living in joy and peace and
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freedom, you're bound. So we've got to love God 1st and
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obey him freely and cheerfully. And yeah.
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And so my final question, well statement I guess is in Matthew
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6, Jesus said where your treasure is, there your heart
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will be also. And so can I encourage us.
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Let us treasure Jesus and let us love him and follow him, and
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from that place change the world around us.
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Good job. I'll give you a kiss later.
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Oh, so good. Yeah.
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Like I feel like I've been talking about obedience for, you
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know, I talk about it all the time, but then you hear someone
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else talk about it and you're just like, oh, I just got to
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start reapplying some of these things, you know, like we need
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to hear other voices. We need to, you know, if we hear
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the same thing over and over from the same person, we get
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dull of hearing. And so, yeah, it's it's good to
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have other voices speaking. And I'm not going to take a
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whole lot of time here. You know, we're just going to go
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over the same ground. But you know, some of the things
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that we've, we've spoken about, we've heard in the last couple
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of weeks, our takeaways from, from, you know, me personally
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from being away. You know what Hillary shared
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this morning about, you know, coming back and, and just, you
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know, manning the the wall again and just continue to build and,
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and keep pushing in and don't be discouraged.
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And all of those things like I've come back, you know, just
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with a, with a new, new, another freshness, just a ready to go
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for another season. And so, you know, where we're
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building it, We're still building, we're still pushing
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in. We're still trusting that God is
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faithful. And you know, obedience and
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fruitfulness huge, just, you know, huge themes in all of the,
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the equip, all of the meetings and fruitfulness for us is
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something that we, we, we're dreaming of seeing.
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We are pushing in. We are trusting God for we are
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seeing, you know, we're seeing a little bit of it.
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And we're like, Lord, come on, show us.
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Show us your mighty hand. Lord, show us your mighty hand
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to save. And so expecting into this
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coming season that we're going to see more and more
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fruitfulness. We're going to see more and more
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people coming to know him. Like I've said this before, we
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want this church, we want to see this church grow through
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salvations. We don't want to see this church
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just grow through Christians coming from other places.
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We want to see the gospel do its thing.
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We want to see the Lord do he sing.
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And that's what we're hungry for, that people would come to
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know him and how good he is and know his ways and step into his
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ways and sacrifice and, and give it all up for him and for his
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Kingdom. Amen.
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This is a king and the Kingdom that we're a part of, that we
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celebrate, that we lift higher. You know, So one of the things
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that Ty had said during one of these meetings, and he said it
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before, I've taken note of it before.
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He said something about, I'm not going to quote him word for
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word, but it's just like God works in you to work through you
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and it as he works through you. So it's all happening at the
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same time. It's not this one first and then
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that first. God doesn't just, you know, you
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have to work and work and work and work so that you can be
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used. It's like someone that is saved
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is equipped to be able to share what they just received and, and
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what saved them with the next person in the moment.
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You know, you don't have to go through the the course to become
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this and that to be able to be effective in sharing the gospel.
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You know the gospel, you receive the gospel, the gospel saved
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you. You've got something to share.
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Now it's the gospel that saves it not it's not, you know your
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testimony, it's not your the way that you're walking in and out.
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It's none of those things. It's the gospel, the gospel that
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saves. So we're all equipped to share
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the gospel and God's working in US so that he can work through
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US. And the in US is, is
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sanctification. You know, this is this is like
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the being obedient. This is like The Walking this
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thing out. This is like taking on God's
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ways and allowing your own ways to wash away.
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So, you know, we might have to continue to talk about
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sanctification because we do have new believers in our midst
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now. And we're going to have to teach
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them how to walk this thing out. But all of us need a good
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reminder of that we're being sanctified and that we haven't
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made it. You know, I certainly need to
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hear that, but Jesus, like, why, you know, why did Jesus come?
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Can I ask the question of you guys, why did Jesus come anyone?
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Because this is what we would say, right?
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For salvation, for restoration, that we would be saved.
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But that's not necessarily why why Jesus came.
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It's one of the reasons Jesus came.
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It's certainly what the gospel is about.
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Jesus came to reveal the Father. He came to reveal God so that we
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would know who God was, so that we could be reconnected with
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God. That's what salvation is.
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It's the reconnecting with God. Jesus came to reveal the Father.
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Jesus restores us and puts His Spirit in US.
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Why? Why does God save us, put his
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spirit of in US and leave us here on the planet to reveal the
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Father, to reveal Jesus? That's the reason, you know that
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that's huge. It's why Jesus came.
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It's why we're here. It's why we're being conformed
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into his image, All of those things.
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Jesus doesn't just conform his US into his image so that we
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become good again, so that others can see him.
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God is Jesus is all about revealing God.
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And so This is why we gather. This is why we're here today,
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that Jesus would be revealed in US and through us.
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This is why we come together in our homes.
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This is why we share the gospel that Jesus would be revealed.
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All of those things. I love that.
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It's a pretty simple truth, isn't it?
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Like Lord, I just want to reveal you.
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I, I don't want to be obedient for the sake of just following
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the law. I want people to see you.
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I want people to know who you are, you know, and that's why we
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can get excited about being obedient and following his ways,
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because when we follow his ways, people see his ways.
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It's pretty cool. I love how, you know, we come
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together, the global equip, we come together.
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You know, our time of worship and praise is a special thing
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when there's thousands of people in a room.
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But can I say that it's not just because of the number of the
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amount of people in the room, There is a commitment to
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praising him in that room. And I was pondering that over
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over the last week or even at our time there.
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Why is it that when we come together for the global equip,
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when we come together in a larger context, you know, our
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national elders time when we come together for our national
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equips and stuff like that. Why is it that it seems like
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when we stand together and we worship, it just seems like the
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presence of God is there in a really powerful way.
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Why is that? And I was thinking about that
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and I think, you know, I you know, I think part of the reason
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that that is manifest in those places is because we have
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sacrificed something to be there.
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And I was reminded of two Samuel 24, verse 24.
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It says the king said to Ara Nana, I did not pronounce that
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right. Anyway, this is David.
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King David says this. He says nor will Ioffer burnt
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offerings to the Lord my God, that which did not cost me
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anything. So we're talking about this,
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this place where the Temple Mount's going to be.
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And King David says I will buy it.
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I will buy the oxen. I will buy the things for the
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temple because this guy was going to just going to give it.
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He was just like, oh, you, you God take it.
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It's for the Lord, you take it. And this is what David says.
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He says I will not offer anything to the Lord that
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doesn't cost me anything. And there is a really cool
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glimpse into the heart of not only David, but the heart of God
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because we know that this is 1 after my own heart in David.
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So we wouldn't want to offer God anything that doesn't cost us
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anything. And so when we get on a plane
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and when we travel over to the other side of the earth and when
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we give up finances, when we give up time, when we take time
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off of our jobs, when we load all the kids up and take them in
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a plane, all of these things, you know, it costs us something.
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It costs us something. And, and it's a very special
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thing because when it costs us something, it means something to
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us. We are there to offer something
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to him because he's worthy. We are willing to take the take
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the hit. We're willing to pay the price.
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You know, the value, there's value when we worship him.
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You know, you can measure the how much you worship God in your
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life by how much it costs you. That's a that's a real truth
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glass. If you coming to be church to at
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church if you coming to be a part of the family of God, if
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you you know, sacrificing to to follow the Lord cost you
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something that is demonstrating his value to you.
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But you know who sees that? Everyone, right?
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The people that you're witnessing to at each other in
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this room. When we look at the sacrifices
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you and I are willing to make, we see that God is worthy.
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It's a powerful thing. And so This is why people are
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looking at our lives. You know, it says that, you
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know, like people read our lives, especially the unsaved
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people. They're looking at you and I and
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they're trying to work out whether what we say is true or
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not. And it's not just through the
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words that we speak. It's not through quoting the
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scripture that we know is true. Mate, let me just read you this
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scripture because it's the Word of God.
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It's true. They don't know that.
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So how are they measuring whether what you say is true or
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not? Through your willingness to
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sacrifice, through your willingness to walk this thing
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out, right? Isn't that cool?
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My gosh. So I don't have too much more to
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say other than that, but we got things coming up guys.
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You know, there's there's there's a together night that is
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going to be a time for us to come together at Kingdom Life.
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We're going to come together as different churches, NCMI
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partnering churches in our city. We're going to come together.
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We're going to come together and worship.
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It's going to take some sacrifice for us to get down
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there and do that. I think it's going to be a
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Sunday night, Sunday PM. You know, we're going to be
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potentially, we're going to be tied from from our day and all
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of those things we might have to sacrifice together.
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Why is it important to be there? Because we want to be a part of
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what God's doing in our city. We're this church is a global
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church. We're partnered with churches
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all around the world, but we're partnered with churches in our
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city. And it's important for us to
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come together as the church in our city and hear what God's
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saying and worship the Lord together, be a part of the
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bigness and national elders. Time is in Adelaide.
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Wow, that's a relief, isn't it? We don't need to get in a plane
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and go somewhere like you don't, But there's an opportunity to
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come and serve at this thing, you know, because like this,
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that's quite a big event. There's passes and and stuff
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from all over our country. They're going to come together.
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There's got to be opportunities for us to sacrifice and to and
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to serve and and to play our part.
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You know, these, I'm just, I'm highlighting some of the ways
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that we can get, get, you know, involved in the bigger church.
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There is opportunities for us. Obviously there's later next
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year, there's going to be our, our national equip, our
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Australia equip, you know, in Sydney, a bunch of us.
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I'm sure we're going to get on a plane.
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We're going to go over there. I would encourage everyone.
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Tony's going, Tony's nodding. Tony's going.
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Good on you, Tony. Tony's coming along, you know,
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Christian, his son's going. He's so you're excited about
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that, right? It's going to be a good time.
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There is an opportunity for us to to come and, and, and go
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somewhere together. Even like Hillary was sharing
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today. It's like when we go away
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together and when we, like, you know, live our lives in another
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place and have to look after each other and take care of each
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other, we grow. We grow in our friendship, we
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grow in our relationship. It's very special.
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Such an opportunity to be a part of that.
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OK, the, the final thing that I'll just say is that, you know,
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I was thinking about our, you know, our community groups and,
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you know, quite often I think about, you know, we, we have
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this understanding that we go for ourselves.
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Like I go to the community group because you know, like we're
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going to, it's just like what I can get, you know, like I can
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grow in that place. You know, we're going to unpack
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the word together. We're going to pray together.
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I can get a lot out of that. And it's true, I get a lot out
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of our time together at the community, right?
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But it's bigger than that. And it's getting bigger than
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that because we're seeing people that are unsaved coming and
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sitting in these rooms. And that means that we're
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required to be there, not for your sake, for their sake.
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You know, I've really enjoyed like seeing us interact with
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these people and sharing and, and speaking about what God's
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doing in our lives and stuff like that.
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And that's not coming through the leadership, that's coming
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through us as a people. And so put AI just I'm trying to
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stir us up to know that you've got something inside of you that
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the Lord has put something in each and every one of us that he
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wants to come out. He wants to reveal himself in US
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and through us. So we have to come together.
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We have to be together so that what God's put in US can flow in
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US and through us because you know, when we're when we are,
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when we're the words just left my brain.
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When you use what God's given you, God gives you more.
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When you're faithful with a little, God gives you more.
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This is the principle when you hold back what the Lord's put in
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you because you know, for various reasons, some are real,
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you might be tired and all of the busy week, whatever, when
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you hold back from going and pouring out, you're missing an
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opportunity for God to put more in.
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We are being conformed into the image of our God and that just
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doesn't happen. You know, that just doesn't
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happen through just time, you know, like, you know, if, if
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there's just a lot of time, then I'll become like him.
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That just doesn't happen like that.
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You know what it reminds me of when when they say, you know,
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evolution and stuff like that. Yeah, if we can just say that it
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took a really long time, then it can make sense.
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Things just don't happen, right. It's going to take us being
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actually diligent and pushing in and doing the things that God's
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calling us to do and, and using the muscle, you know, using the
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muscle that God's put in US. And then and then he is formed
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in US and through US. Amen.
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Amen. So I'm just going to hand over
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to Justin and hopefully you can land this thing and thank you,
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bro. Yeah, but we give him give both
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of them a round of applause. Hey, I was thinking just like
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how how do we respond to what these guys have shared and Dave
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sharing on sacrifice. So I was just thinking about
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what you were sharing, Hillary, around love and obedience.
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And you know that both take sacrifice.
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Yeah. It it cost me something to buy
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flowers for my wife. It cost me my preferences when I
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want to spend time with her, when I want to show an interest
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in her, it cost me something and also cost me something to show
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obedience to God. And so both love and obedience
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cost us something. And the reward it's is amazing.
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But in the moment, it cost us something.
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I'll just we're just going to respond just to one of those two
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camps. I just feel even in me just God
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has highlighted to us as individuals, whether it's your
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love for him or whether it's your obedience to him, his and
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God just threw what Hillary was sharing is just kind of going
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hey, like love, love me, love me, love me.
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Or maybe you're in the camp where God is just pinpointed an
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area, or even as some of the practical areas that Hillary was
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mentioning or some of the areas that Dave was mentioning where
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God's kind of going, hey, this, this needs some obedience.
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This needs to just line up again with my word.
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So if we take a moment just to bow our heads and just to honor
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the work of the Holy Spirit in this place, Father, we come
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before you, we offer our hearts on the back of these words.
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As Dave said, you're working in us as you work through us.
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And so we just open our hearts to you, Lord, if there's an area
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where our affection has waned, where we haven't put you first,
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where we're not sacrificing to show you a love for you, we pray
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would you show us that area? And we repent and we said, Lord,
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we will make you our first love again.
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We make you our first love again.
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And Lord, that area that you've highlighted in our life that
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doesn't quite line up with your words, with your commands, we
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surrender it to you. And we've just asked, would your
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Holy Spirit come and center us again?
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Would your Holy Spirit come and realign and cause us to obey?
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And so we lay our hearts before you, we lay our thoughts before
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you and we pray, Holy Spirit, would you do a work in us as we
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go out from this place in Jesus name, God's people said Amen.
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Awesome guys. Thank you again Dave and Hillary
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for sharing. That was great.
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Thank you for joining us for today's message.
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For more information about The Way Church, please visit
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[email protected] dot AU.
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Have a blessed day.