Sermon
“Your Faith Has Healed You” | Luke 8:40–48
Publisher transcript
Transcript
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You're listening to The Bible Guys, a podcast where a
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couple of friends talk about the Bible in fun, in
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practical ways. Oh, good morning, good morning. We talk the
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whole night do good morning, Good morning to you and
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you and you.
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Man, that was it right there. I was just caught
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off guard.
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Yeah, well, you know, that's what I like to do, Jeff.
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I like to surprise people everybody. And it's been a while,
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it's been listen, it's a while. Well, it's it's only Tuesday,
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I know. Yeah, and I've been doing it lately on Tuesday.
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Did you catch it?
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Yeah?
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Yeah, yeah, Tuesday is my favorite good morning.
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Day, good morning.
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Yeah, who knows, Maybe I'll throw another good Morning before
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the end of the week.
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Wild So wow, you just Willy Nelly with his his
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Jeff I eat wild cherry life savers.
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That's how I roll. Hey, welcome to the Bible Guys.
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We are Chris and Jeff and we are going to
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start out our segment today with a dad joke compety.
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These are great. I haven't seen these.
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I have not looked at these.
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Desiree always chooses these for us, Yes, and so we're
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gonna love them. It's probably because of our delivery.
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It's all about us.
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It's all about well, we didn't choose them.
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That's so funny. Hey, so we're gonna vote who is
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the better batch?
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Okay, okay, better batch?
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Yeah, the better batch.
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So I have five? Do you have five?
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I have five?
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Okay, you want to start? What part of the body
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always loses? Defeat?
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Oh? I actually like it.
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I like that. I like that, And I didn't defeat
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about it too long because you would have found this.
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Okay, how about this one? My daughter was doing history
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homework and asked if I knew about Galileo. I said
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he was a poor boy from a poor family.
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Galileo.
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Go oh, I'm just a poolivode from four family. Okay, there,
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that's a good one.
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Yes, yeah, okay. I'm at the airport and there's a
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woman who's completely passed out on the baggage carousel. Oh,
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she's slowly coming around. Now.
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I like that one a lot.
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Okay, that's a good one. I'm two for two. I'm
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like Okay.
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I told the nurse I was bitten by a wolf.
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Where she asked, I answered, no, regular.
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What what read it? Again?
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I told the nurse I was bitten by a wolf where,
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she asked.
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A were wolf? No, just a regular wolf. So where? No,
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just a regular.
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Oh so it's all in the delivery.
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Of that was where he tried again.
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Only now I told the nurse I was bitten by
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a wolf where? But see it changes. She wouldn't be
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asking where, she'd say where. Okay, boo, No, I hate it. Okay,
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as you don't, I have crossed over to hate it.
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I hate number three. I'm starting a flight company exclusively
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for bald people. It's going to be called Receding Airlines.
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Okay, you are three for three. I like it.
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I like that one. I like airlines.
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And I'm i'm I'm like, I'm like a half Okay,
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here we go. A hacker just called and said he
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has all my passwords. I jumped up, grabbed a pen
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and paper and said, thank goodness, what are they good?
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I like that one. That's not sorry, that's me. Okay, okay.
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Number four, yep, this is a scientific one. So you
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have to track with me on this one. Okay. A
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dragon would never explode, but a dino mite.
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Oh my goodness, you are banging all that cylinders. Yes,
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I love it, I love it. Yep, all right here
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we go. Stephen King has a son named Joe. I'm
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not joking, but he is.
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Joking.
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Oh the joke King.
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I can't believe you.
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They give it.
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That's fantastic.
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I a good one.
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Okay, I'm not joking, but he is.
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Okay, all right, you like it? You like it?
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That was a good one. Yeah, ok for you're at
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least at like one and a half.
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Okay, I'm one and a half. You're you're four for four.
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Okay, here's the last one. I's see, what do you
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call a security guard working out outside Samsung shops?
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What?
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Guardians of the Galaxy?
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Okay, I love it like, I love it?
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Ye, Samsung Galaxy.
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Yes the phone, Yeah, yes, I love it. I think
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it's great. Guardians of the Galaxy.
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Galaxy.
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It's it's great.
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Except it's a little off. It needed to see what
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would you call some security guards working outside Samsung shops
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because it's guardians not guardian.
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Yeah yeah, yeah, okay, so little tweaking, but it's words matter.
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Yeah, it's a little Yeah. That's all right. My last one,
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I feel like I'm five for five.
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How does an Englishman invite a dinosaur for lunch?
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I don't know.
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T Rex. No, Okay, I get it, I get that one.
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I think she I just.
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Didn't like it. Do you think so?
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Do you think so she's like forget one? Said Jeff.
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Yeah, well you know what, Actually I don't. I don't.
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I don't doubt that.
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No, I don't put that past desiree wow conspiracy now, No.
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No, no, it's actually that's a compliment to her, because no,
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it's it's not about you, Jeff. It's about it's about
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knowing that that's what we were going to do, is vote.
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And she's like, what if I stacked one stack one?
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She happened to choose you, not on purpose, just because
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she had to choose somebody.
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Whatever. You have to tell yourself.
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All right, well that was wonderful.
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Okay, I loved it. I'm gonna I'm going to declare
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myself the winner.
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I'm going to immediately I share all five of your
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jokes with my daughter, who loves them, and I am
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going to share none of mine. None, or I might
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just do it just to show her how bad mine are. Okay, Yeah, okay,
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is great.
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That's a good one.
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Yeah, okay, so hey we're gonna go Hey, speaking of
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explosive stories, Wow, Wow.
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I don't know. I can't. I can't get there, man.
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Okay, how do you get there? Well, I know it's
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as good as anything, to be honest with you. Speaking
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of explosive stories, I was going to say that, but
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mine was even worse. Mine was even worse.
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I was going to say something like, you're talking about
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the lady that's slowly coming around.
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I was gonna say. I was going to say, my
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jokes were deaf, and your jokes were healing. And speaking
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of which, there was a woman who was on her
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way to death until she met Jesus, and now she's healed.
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That's so good. Ah. So in Matthew chapter I'm sorry, Luke, Luke,
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chapter eight, we're going to be reading verses forty through
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forty eight.
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Yeah, just eight verses here.
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Yeah, And it says on the other side of the
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lake the crowd Jesus is always going to the other
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side of lake. Wherever he's at, he's heading to the
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other ties, always on the other side of the lake.
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The crowds welcomed Jesus because they had been waiting for him.
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And then a man named Jerius, a leader of the
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local synagogue, came and fell at Jesus' feet, pleading with
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him to come home with him. His only daughter, who
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was about twelve years old, was dying. As Jesus went
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with him, he was surrounded by the crowds. A woman
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in the crowd had suffered for twelve years with constant
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bleeding and she could find no cure. Coming up behind Jesus,
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she touched the fringe of his robe, and immediately the
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bleeding stopped. Who touched me, Jesus asked. Everyone denied it.
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Peter said, Master, this whole crowd's pressing up against you.
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But Jesus said, someone deliberately touched me, for I felt
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healing power go out from me. When the woman realized
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that she could not stay hidden, and she began to
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tremble and fell to her knees in front of him,
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and the whole crowd heard her explain and why she
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had touched him, and that she had been immediately healed daughter.
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He said to her, your faith has been made you
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well go in peace, and while he was still speak Oops,
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that's it. I can't I can't read the next one.
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Oh that's a cliffhanger, I know.
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But we got to leave it there because we're going
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to come back and address it later.
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Oh, I see, so's it's going to be the rest
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of the story, hopefully, Okay, hopefully Luke chapter eight.
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Yeah, what Desiree told us was four through forty eight,
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so I'm not supposed to be reading forty nine.
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Okay, okay, okay, Oh, I'll start giving you bad jokes, right,
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but of them. But we but we learned the first
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half of a story. This guy named was it Gyros
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or is it Jerrus? Ah, whatever you want to say,
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because in the Chosen his name's Gyros Gyrius.
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Okay, let's say Gyrus.
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Okay, but Rus, which, by the way, it's it's one
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of my favorite moments. I'm not even kidding. It's one
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of my favorite moments in all of the Chosen Gyrus.
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It's it's so good.
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But this little girl is sick.
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Well, it's it's the way that they developed this character. Right,
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So anyway, let's not talk about him, because apparently we can't. Right,
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it's all about the woman who touched the robe.
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Jesus is on his way to go try to heal
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Gyrus's daughter, correct, she's sick, and.
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On the way he gets distracted, Yes, because a woman
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and this is the same woman, by the way, who
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had a bleeding. This is the woman who had the
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blood disease. And so she touched him and all of
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a sudden, he says, I felt healing power go out
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from me, which which, by the way, You know how
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we always have these debates. I don't know about always,
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but we've had debates before about Remember I told you
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that my professor was talking about the whether Jesus knew
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that the woman was in Samaria.
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Remember that.
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And it was a big debate in my Bible college
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in the class where Professor Pratt said, oh, Jesus just
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wanted to cut through Samaria because it was a shorter route,
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and he was trying to make a statement about politics.
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But it says I must go through Samaria. And so
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the other people in the class said, well, no, he
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knew that this woman was going to be there from
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his Jesus powers, right, And I'm saying this powers, yeah,
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I'm saying a tongue in cheek. And then and and
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what you said, as you said, I believe that Jesus
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relied on the Holy Spirit in the same way that
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you and I are capable of relying on the Holy
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Spirit today.
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Yeah, yeah, I believe that he was. There's a doctrinal terminology.
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I'm going to get into that, but there's a doctrinal
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idea that because of his incarnation, he chose to limit
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his deity. Not that he wasn't fully God, It's just
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he wasn't God everywhere. Right, So the omnipresence, the omniscience,
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the omnipotence, those things he chose to restrict in order
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to fully function as a human. So then everything he did,
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the only way he could do what he did was
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as the model man for every Christian, every christ follower,
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that he than the power of the Holy Spirit. So
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you can say, greater things you'll do than I did?
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Right? Right? Yes, So then how do you explain? So
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then how do you explain I felt Jesus powers.
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Like healing powers go from me. Yeah, right, because that's
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what he says. He says, Uh, I felt the healing
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power go out for me.
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Yeah, So so number one, the healing comes from Jesus,
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right and uh? And so yes, do we have the
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ability to pray over somebody through the power of the
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Holy Spirit and then for good to do miracles?
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And he'll how many people in the in the Bible
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have do miracle.
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No, I'm supporting this statement, Peter, I'm saying I'm saying,
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I'm saying that we do too, es right, So I
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believe that now you know whether or not a person
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has a gift of healing. I'm I'm still on the
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you know, fence about whether that he still he still
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throws out these gifts. I believe, I believe he does.
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I think he does too. But uh, you know, I'm
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a skeptic at nature by nature, right, So, but I
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believe one hundred percent that a person has the ability
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today to pray over somebody and for God to use
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them to heal somebody one hundred percent. But that still
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doesn't explain Jesus's comment about he felt healing powers go
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out from him, Because if Jesus was more like us
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in that moment, one hundred percent man relying on the
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Holy Spirit, do we feel healing power coming out of us?
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The answer is no, How do you know? Come on,
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how do you know? Well, first of all, I've prayed
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where somebody's been healed. Yeah, I didn't. I didn't feel
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any healing POWERA economy.
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Well, maybe you didn't have a lot of excess power yet.
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But by the way, did I did I my son
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maybe like Jesus had so much.
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Probably like my son.
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Who listens every day Stephen on his way to work,
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he actually tells me, he goes Chris or Dad, you
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need to go into hospitals and pray over people more,
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because uh, I did this recently in the last like
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five years, where I've gone into a hospital and I've
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prayed over somebody and laid my hands on them, and
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then coincidentally they were heading in one direction, and then
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almost miraculously, the next day, the doctors come in and say,
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I don't understand why, but you've taken a turn. And
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I'm not kidding like like and I'm not and I'm
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not saying it's me and I'm not saying you know
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that that I have these you know, the gift of healing.
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I am just saying that is what happened, right, And
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And in one case, one guy was dying and they
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had him on hospice and then all of a sudden
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he's back and he attends Heritage Church by the way,
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and and and then one guy. Anyway, it doesn't matter.
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The point is is that I feel like that's happened
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to me, I feel like I have you know, God
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has used me in that way, and and I'm like, wow,
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that's pretty incredible. But but the idea that Jesus was
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exactly like you and exactly like me, and we can
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you know, operating exactly like him. Statements like this say,
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wait a minute, he had an indifferent.
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No doubt with the amount of time that he would
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spend with his father, right that he would be deeply
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in tuned with the spiritual. And I think we wade
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into the spiritual and back out of the spiritual often,
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so maybe we're not as in tune with these things
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as Jesus was. But yeah, don't I don't think that
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this negates the concept.
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Yeah, I think I think I'm on the I think
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I'm on just on the other side of where you are.
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Whereas like, it feels good to me to say and
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believe that Jesus was in some ways. What you're saying
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is Jesus limited himself to be exactly like us. He
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wasn't exactly like us, but you're saying in terms of
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like his abilities, right, Like that feels good because that
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then puts us on the same level as him. And
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you're saying if he says, well, the only way he
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can say you will do greater things than I am
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that then I is because of that. Whereas like I'm
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just thinking, like, does it though, does he have to
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be exactly like us in order for him to make
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that statement, because he could. He could be making that
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statement by saying, through the power of the Holy Spirit,
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you can do greater things.
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Than calling you a heretic. But you walk a really
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fine line when you minimize his humanity. Sure, right, I'm
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not minimizing his deity, for sure, I know that. Right,
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So I'm not minimizing his deity, but we can't minimize
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his humanity. He was fully God and fully man, and
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so in that case, then if he was fully man.
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So here's what I find. I do find this to
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be true, Chris, And I'm not saying this is true
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about you. I do find a significant number of Christians
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who go, well, he did it because he was God.
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Also tell me that since they're not Jesus, they also
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can't be people of peace. And they also well, you know,
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I just have a temper. I'm not Jesus, and they
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start excusing so many of their behaviors. Yeah, but that
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sounds just misapplications. Well, it happens a lot though, where
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people just kind of go, I don't have as important
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of a mission. I don't have it, whereas I think
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Jesus came to seek and to save that which was lost,
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and that is our mission, and it's everybody is important,
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our part as his. The difference is we're not dying
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on the cross and resurrecting right.
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Yes, that that part of it.
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So we are not because it's not we're not sinless,
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but all the rest of what Jesus did, I think
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that we're expected to do that. We're supposed to be
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like him all the time, not some of the time.
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And we shouldn't let ourselves off the hook when we
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when we you know, mess up, or when we when
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we fall short. We shouldn't let ourselves off the hook
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because we're not God. And I think that that's why
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Jesus functioned one hundred percent as a man in the
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power of the Holy Spirit, rather than leveraging Hisah, his God,
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you know, God had his deity for it.
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So my response to that would be that just sounds
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like a big misapplication that people use as an excuse.
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Right, what happens all the time yeah, of course it does.
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Of course it does. But then if you go down
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that route, then it almost sounds like what we want
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to do is we want to conform our theological opinion
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so that we don't have excuses. So it's like, so
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there's a big difference between a theological statement because I
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often wonder and so I love it. I'm okay, I'm
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okay with the mystery of God. Right, So that's the
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true definition of a postmodern Christian who says, hey, we
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embrace the mystery of God. So I'm not I certainly
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don't think that that theory undermines his deity, and I
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certainly don't think that the other way undermindes his humanity
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at all. Even what I just said, it doesn't undermine
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his humanity. Well, I guess what I'm saying is, I
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don't think anybody knows. That's my statement. I don't think
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anybody knows how much he limited himself. And I don't
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think anybody understands like what he knew and didn't know.
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Because when I when I really truly, because I think
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about this a lot, and I thought, by.
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The way, yeah, I've thought about it comes up every
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time we come across these life.
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I thought about it a lot because of doctor Pratt, Yeah, honestly,
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And when he brought that debate up, and I'm there
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in the front row, and I made myself sit in
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the front row because he was super boring. But yes,
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and so I did it on purpose, and so I
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was forced to really pay attention. And I felt like
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I was engaged because he was so smart. He was
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just so dry, but I loved him, and I and
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I remember this debate and I'm thinking to myself, Wow,
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doctor Pratt really believes that. And and listening to all
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of these pastors kids, you know, spout out of everything,
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and I thought to myself, I wonder how it is.
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And so every time I read the Gospels, which has
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been my entire Christian life, I've thought about this, and
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I've thought about all the evidence, and I'm piecing it together,
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and I just think that there's evidence that he had
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more Jesus powers than we do walking around.
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Sure, So in Hebrews, the Bible says that Jesus was
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tempted in every way like we are, and yet he
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sinned not. So I don't know that there's anything more
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human than temptation, right, So I think that the phrase
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in every way really highlights the humanity side of what
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he's about. And then it's not hard logically if you
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just kind of follow it. Logically, he's not everywhere. He
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has to tap into the power of the Father. He
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has to be filled with the spirit right in order
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to do the things he does, which means he limited
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himself to even come and live in one body in
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one time and place. He's a creator from outside of
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time and space, limit all those things. He chose to
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limit himself, not some completely into a human body, uh,
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and then lived as a as a sinless man. And
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that's why we're without excuse, completely and totally without and
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Romans tells us where without Hebrews tells us in every
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way even as we are. And so this is why
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his sacrifice was one hundred percent sufficient for humanity. It's
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not because he had his Jesus powers to forgive our sins,
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but because he was one hundred percent man who lived
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a sinless life, didn't owe the death, and paid it
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anyways with his blood, and so that would be it.
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Now the other side is he was absolutely one hundred
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percent God. And there's that tension that we lived between
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the two.
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Yeah, I think I can still believe that he has
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one hundred percent of humanity and still believe that he
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had more.
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But anyways, he does recognize this. I love the fact
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that Jesus was on mission. This man comes and says, hey,
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would you come and hear my daughter? She's about to die.
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She just goes, yeah, sure, crowds are crazy. Well, we've
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already addressed why the crowds are crazy. Remember Jesus sent
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seventy people ahead of him, the seventy disciples, to go
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into every village he's about ready to go to. The
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crowds were huge because Jesus built the crowds to be big, right,
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That's what happened.
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And you know, incredible intentionality on purpose.
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Because a big crowd doesn't make a church, but man,
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you can make a church out of the crowd, right.
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And so he's getting exposured as many people as possible.
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But now the crowds are so big, he's having trouble
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navigating these little narrow streets getting to Cyrus's house. And
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then this woman touches him. The reality is Peter's right, Jesus,
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what are you talking about? Everybody's touching you right, right?
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Did you think that there was ever another time that
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maybe somebody reached out touched Jesus and got healed. Bible
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doesn't say it didn't happen. It's just this moment Jesus
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decided to pause, and this woman was worth his time
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and worth it. So her having this perpetual bleeding made
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her perpetually unclean for all these years. And when you
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are ceremonially unclean, you're technically not allowed to have physical
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contact with anybody of any kind.
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Let alone a rabbi.
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Right, and so the isolation, the shame, the lack of
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human contact. So her sneaking into a crowd, she shouldn't have.
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Then in that crowd, technically she made everybody else unclean
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that she touched.
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Now, is this the fall in the same category as
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the gentiles. If a gentile touched you, you'd have to
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make yourself ritually clean seven days.
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Yeah, it depends on what this issue of blood was.
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But there were multiple cleansing processes for being exposed to
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somebody who has you know, being exposed to blood.
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Yeah, isn't that crazy?
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Yeah? Yeah, So it's a health thing. That's why God
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gave those rules. But you know, it was a very
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deep part of their religion. So because it's technically she's
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making others unclean going into this crowd, she shouldn't have
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been there, right, So the humility probably the shame she
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was carrying. And then she knew what she was doing,
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and I think that's why Jesus turned around. She sneaks out.
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She touches just the hem of his garment because she's
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tried everything. There's you know, the Bible says she'd gone
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to all these doctors, she'd done all these other things.
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Well, another gospel version tells us what she's thinking. Yeah,
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another gospel says, record, if I can just tell you,
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if I can just touch the hem of his garment,
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I'll be healed. And by the way, Jesus doesn't announce that.
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He doesn't say, hey, even the hem of my garment
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has Jesus powers, right, right, he doesn't say that, right,
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But she says she has so much faith and her
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faith is great. Right. So I've honestly, we've talked about
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this before, but it's not necessarily the quantity of her faith.
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But when Jesus said little faith, he's meaning little quantity
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quality of faith, right, right, right, you have little quality
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of faith and so her faith is great.
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And so I love the fact that he pauses this
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rescue mission for this little girl, because this woman is
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so important, this woman who probably felt like she didn't
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even deserve to be there. It's why she snuck up
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on it. Jyrus was a leader of the synagogue. He's
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accustomed to power. He's accustomed to influence. He's accustomed to
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snapping his fingers and people coming and doing what he
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needed to do. He's accustomed to when other powerful people
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in town, he greets them and says, hey, powerful man,
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this is what I need you to do for me
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right now, right So, now he's got a problem, and
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you do this. I do this. Sometimes you think I've
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got a problem, who do I call? Well, we know
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so many people. We us know somebody to solve our
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problem for us. This is what he's Okay. My daughter said, Hey,
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that Jesus guy, is he in town. Let's go get him, right,
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this is what he deserves to go see Jesus. And
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Jesus responds and starts head enough to go heal him.
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This woman would have been exactly the opposite. She's not
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even allowed in the synagogues. She's not allowed in these crowds.
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She's ashamed, probably of this, this this physical issue she has.
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She probably you know, people who perpetually believe that there's
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going to be a smell all these things, right, everything
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that would go along with the embarrassment of her situation.
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And she pushes into the crowd. And while Jesus was
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giving respect to Gyrous, he decides to pause Gyrous' miracle
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to turn around and give respect and an acknowledgment of
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this woman. And I love it. I love Jesus heart
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in this moment that she's every bit is important as
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this important guy.
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That's great and I love it. So that's awesome. That's
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another great learning right there. All right, well, that's our time,
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so hopefully we will see you tomorrow. I'll the Bible
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gas h