Prepare for The King

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Good morning.

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It's a very, very important day.

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We're taking off our coats here to explain something

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that's I'm going to explain in just a minute.

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What's up with all the coats?

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What's that have to do with Palm Sunday?

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What's up with Brian Tome wearing a hoodie?

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You like it, huh? You like it. Huh? You like that?

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It was a gift someone gave.

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Well, people on our music team gave it to me.

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This is one of our communities

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that used to be a Catholic church

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and the name of an album.

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I'll talk about a little bit later.

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But anyway, I just thought

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I want to wear a hoodie today because I can.

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I'm actually excited about today because

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I want to help you have the beginning of

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what could be the most important week of your year,

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or at least one of the most spiritually fulfilling

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weeks of your year.

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This is a week that's known around the globe as Holy Week.

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It's the week that starts with what's known as Palm Sunday,

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which we're reenacting Palm Sunday,

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which I'll read you some Bible verses

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and help you to know that.

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It starts that when Jesus first went into Jerusalem,

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He didn't live in Jerusalem,

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He didn't spend time in Jerusalem,

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but He went into Jerusalem on the last week of His life

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after praying at the Mount of Olives,

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He goes into Jerusalem.

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And then there's these significant things

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that happen that last week,

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such as the Last Supper on Thursday,

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such as we call it Good Friday.

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It's kind of a sick and twisted way to describe

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the Friday that Jesus got painfully and brutally executed.

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And then it ends on the third day rising from the dead.

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We are doing things as a church

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to try to dwell in that this week,

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not because we want to get more religious,

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but we want to be more in tune in relationship with God.

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Let's pray before I go any further.

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God, you are -- You are great.

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I know you as great. I know you as personal.

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And I hope that the ways that I've come to know you

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and the ways that you're communicated in the Scriptures

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would come out to us today.

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No matter who we are, no matter where we're from,

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no matter what beliefs we had coming in to this room,

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whatever room we're in, would you please form us,

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help us to sense you today and change us.

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I pray these things according to the character

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and identity of Jesus. Amen.

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You know America is getting less and less religious,

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at least that's what the polls and statistics would say.

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Fewer and fewer Americans are going to church

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or going to synagogue than ever before in our history.

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Fewer and fewer Americans actually identify

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with a specific religion, whether it be Judaism

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or Christianity or Islam.

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Fewer and fewer --

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More and more Americans are checking none, like,

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no religion on the box when we go into into hospitals,

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and there's lots that we're becoming

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a less religious country.

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I actually disagree with that.

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We're becoming less religious or less spiritual

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as it relates to practicing traditional forms of religion,

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the ones I've just mentioned,

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but religion as understood as an overall system

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that I'm doing things in and I'm engaged in,

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that kind of religion is alive and well.

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According to Oxford, religion also means:

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I tell you what,

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America is more religious than it's ever been.

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We just have different religions than we used to

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outside of spiritual religions.

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We have things that we're ascribing

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as supreme importance because we have this thing as a human.

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We need to feel like I'm involved with the story

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that matters and there's good and there's evil.

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I've said before that I came from Pittsburgh

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to help start Crossroads here in Cincinnati,

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and Pittsburgh has a very clear religion.

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It's called the Pittsburgh Steelers.

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And I've said before, if you took me at age 30,

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put me in Pittsburgh, the same volunteers,

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the same financial resources, the same everything

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to start Crossroads in Pittsburgh,

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I'm not sure it would have turned out the way it has

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because we would have been competing against

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a Sunday religion, which is the Pittsburgh Steelers.

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Pittsburgh becomes a ghost town on Sundays.

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People don't want to be anywhere at 12:30.

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They're out. They're gone.

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Whereas Cincinnati, we're now becoming

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more and more excited about the Bengals,

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understandably so here in Cincinnati.

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But there was no competition for people's affections

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at all a couple of decades ago.

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In Pittsburgh the Steelers are a religion

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ascribed supreme importance,

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and all my weekend activities revolve around it.

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UK, University of Kentucky, you folks,

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you're like, that's your supreme religion.

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Like, you think it's your birthright

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to get in the Final Four every year.

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And the rest of us we're for UC or whoever,

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yeah, we're a little bitter about that.

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But I've spent some time with our good friends

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and folks in Lexington.

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Yeah, it's more of a religion there, UK Basketball.

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UK. How's it going?

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Supreme importance.

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Environmentalism is one of our religions.

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I like the environment. I'm for the environment.

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I hope it gets better.

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I know you don't think so because

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I drive eight cylinder vehicles, but I like it.

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But I want the environment to improve.

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But for some the environment is ultimate supreme importance.

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And there is an enemy.

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The enemy is anybody who has machines

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and burns fossil fuels and industry.

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That's the enemy.

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Just like for the Steelers, the enemy was the Browns.

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And UK the enemy is whoever it is.

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We need an enemy.

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Marxism is a religion for us.

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Marxism is the idea that power is always bad,

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power is always corrupted.

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Everybody should be the same.

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And Karl Marx is known as being anti-religion.

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No, he actually was putting forth a new religion,

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which is ultimate superiority,

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is everybody should be exactly the same.

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And if somebody is in a position of power,

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they should always be brought down, always be crushed.

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Free market capitalism is a religion.

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I should be able to make more money and make more money.

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It should be as easy as possible.

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And government is the enemy.

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Government is always the problem.

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Always be anti government

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whenever they get in the way of me

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doing what I want to do to earn more money.

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See, these are just some of these religions.

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I'm hoping you're thinking right now, like,

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"What's of supreme importance to me.

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What is the overall system that I'm pushing towards?"

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Palm Sunday is known as Palm Sunday

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because people were waving palm branches.

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And we who may be a part of the Christian religion,

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we look at with them waving palm branches,

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we'll go, "Oh, isn't that cute? Waving palm branches.

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We should have all churches waving palm branches

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a sign of worship. It's so, it's so good. It's so good."

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But it doesn't mean to us

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what it actually meant to them.

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Let's go ahead and read the story.

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I'll read the story from in a couple of places today.

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Luke chapter 19. Luke Chapter 19.

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Here's what says, verse 28:

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Which is the beginning of Holy Week.

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When I used to read this, I used to think, like,

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wow, Jesus must have these voodoo powers.

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He just tells people magic words,

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"The Lord has need of it,"

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and the people go into a trance.

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"Oh, okay. You can have my donkey.

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Just take my donkey away."

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That's really not what's happened here.

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I believe what's happened here is

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Jesus went on a scouting mission the day before

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and He knew what was going to happen,

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and He wanted to fulfill a prophecy

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of the Messiah coming in on a donkey.

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And I'll tell you why this is important in just a moment.

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And He looked for donkey.

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He found a guy and He said, "Hey, your donkey,

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I want to use him."

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And this guy, because Jesus hadn't been to Jerusalem yet,

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had likely never met Him before.

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He maybe heard of Him, never met Him before.

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And because of His interaction with Jesus,

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I think what happened is he had

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a personal encounter with Jesus

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and came to know Him as Lord.

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And so He said, "Tomorrow I'm going to send

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some buddies here and I will have sent them to you.

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And so if we could borrow this, that'd be great."

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The guy said, "Good."

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That's what He said, "The Lord has need of it."

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This guy, " Oh, the guy who gave me

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a really personal, great interaction.

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Great, great, great, great. Take it."

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Big idea today is while we're going to have more things

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to do that are religious in nature this week,

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we're not trying to get us to be more religious.

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We're trying to get us to have

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a deeper, abiding relationship with Jesus.

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You got there, you will get today these little stickers,

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every significant thing we do in Holy Week

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we're going to give you a sticker.

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For some of you, this is going to be, like,

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your anal retentive type, a driven time, like,

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"Ooh, I got a sticker, I got to get them all."

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We're luring you to do things through a stupid sticker

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and you're going to fall for it hook, line and sinker

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because you want them all.

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You want to check the box?

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Fine. That's what we're doing.

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We're also doing it because you may get one of these.

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I don't know where you want to stick them,

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but I'm hoping you look at this.

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You have an internal dialog of, "Do I have

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a relationship with God through this event,

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or is this just part of my religion?"

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I'm hoping you remember when you see this sticker

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you had a personal encounter with God,

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and I'm hoping you have that today

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if you haven't already had it.

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Now what's happening with these branches,

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with these palm branches and everything

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is really important.

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Let's take a look at another account

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here in the book of John, John chapter 12,

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which tells the the same thing, but from a different voice.

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Here's what it says:

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The large crowd, large crowd.

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This now is highlighting not the disciples necessarily

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who are with him, but the large crowd,

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the masses who heard wind of this healer,

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heard wind of this great, great communicator,

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the large crowd.

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That's quoting the prophecy that happened

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hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of years earlier.

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We, because of our religious baggage,

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and sometimes religion is baggage.

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Sometimes we've been exposed to things

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inside of our religion, if you're predominantly

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of the Christian religion, that helps us not understand this.

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The word Hosanna, if maybe you're on

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some spiritual worship playlists on Spotify

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or whatever and you hear the word Hosanna!

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Hosanna! Hosanna!

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You think of all these worship songs,

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Hosanna is a word in the Bible,

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is a word that is biblical.

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But before it was in the Bible,

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it was a word that was political.

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Hosanna was a chant that you would give

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when you wanted freedom from your oppressor.

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Hosanna was something you would say when you wanted

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the person who's putting you down

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to get knocked off their throne.

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It was a cry of revolt.

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And they're waving these palm branches,

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not because it's their form of worship flags

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and worship or because they're hot.

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They're waving their flags because

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the palm branch was basically the Jewish flag.

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It was a symbol of their national pride.

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And these people are under the oppression of Rome.

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They're basically enslaved to Rome.

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And they've heard that this guy who heals people

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and does powerful things, He's come to Jerusalem,

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where Rome has put a very, very strong fortress

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because they know it's the center of the Jewish religion,

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the Jewish faith.

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They have a very, very strong presence there.

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They're like, "Okay, this guy, Jesus,

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He's coming here,

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He's going to overthrow our oppressors.

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Hosanna! Hosanna! Bring it, bring it, bring it."

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And as they wave this thing, this is something

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they would have done that was part of their national identity.

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It was actually in their currency.

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You can find old, old, old coins of this

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before Palm Sunday ever happened.

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It was remembering Judas Maccabeus

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and the Maccabean revolt, because the Jews

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have always had somebody oppressing them

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or trying to oppress them at least.

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And the Maccabean revolt led against Syria

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led them to have a brief moment of freedom.

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And these palm branches meant,

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"Come on, Judas Maccabeus, do it again.

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Come on, Jesus. Be the next Judas Maccabeus.

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Give us the country we want right now."

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This is not a sign of worship to God.

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This is a sign of worship to the religion

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of their life being the way they want it.

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Why is politics so, so contentious today?

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It's more contentious than it's ever been.

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I believe it's more contentious than it's ever been.

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We're more divided than we've ever been

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is because as America has walked away

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from traditional forms of faith,

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our religion has become politics.

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And that's why all of us get way more upset

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than we used to way back when,

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because it's now our religion.

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I want America the way I want it, darn it.

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And anybody who doesn't agree with me doesn't know God

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and should be cast out into outer darkness

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because they're stupid.

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I know people on the right and people on the left

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who both feel that way and everyone thinks,

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"No, it's my way."

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That's because it's your religion

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and you would be one of the masses

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that's waving your thing.

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"Come on, Jesus.

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Give things to me the way I want it."

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Jesus says, "Oh, you want me to be part of your agenda?"

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Jesus would have none of it. None of it.

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He said, "No, you're not going to put me

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in your political agenda.

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You're not going to put me in your agenda

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that actually might be a good agenda, giving freedom."

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So he goes and gets a donkey.

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Why a donkey?

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Because if he were to be a conquering hero

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or a general, you would come into town on a horse.

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So power.

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That's why police officers, the horses show up,

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it's a sign a power, like, "Oh, stand down."

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Big old massive horse there.

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Or if a horse wasn't available, you would at least walk in.

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You would never come in on a donkey.

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Jesus comes on, "Come along now, Donkey. Come on."

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You know donke'ys in there. Come on in there.

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People dropping their palm branches at His feet.

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And donkey says, "Woo, my toes.

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Oh, I don't have any toes."

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The donkey. - - Old Shrek, come on.

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You got to go back and --

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That's a religious experience, Shrek, The original.

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"Come along now, donkey."

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As Jesus rides a donkey, He's telling them,

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"I'm not part of your religion. Don't you get it?

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Don't be waving your national flag at me

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and putting your political agenda on me.

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I'm not here for your personal religion.

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I'm here to bring you into a relationship with God."

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I'm going to tell you a story,

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some of you aren't going to like.

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But I'll tell you anyway.

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My son and I did a bike trip recently.

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I like to do what's called adventure riding.

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Adventure riding is when you ride on

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as much dirt as possible

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so that you can then every night camp

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and you don't have any agenda.

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You don't have to have town you have to get to

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where there's a hotel.

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You go until you're tired, you want to be done.

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You stop and you pitch your tents

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and your sleeping bag and it's great.

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And you get in the morning

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and you leave when you want to.

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And we've been doing this for a long time.

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This time it was just he and I,

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we couldn't get anybody else to go with us.

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It's kind of also marking his birthday.

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He had a birthday recently.

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It was a really good father son time.

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As we normally do it we'll --

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We're going to go out way out west.

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And we don't want to, like,

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ride our bikes all the way out there because

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that burns time and burns rubber on the tires.

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So we have somebody drive them out on

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the back of a pickup truck and trailer,

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fly in, get the bikes, go do our thing,

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come back and then and then fly back home.

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After spending 6 or 7 nights on the ground,

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days sweating, you smell pretty good.

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And we used to just go straight from there

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to the airport and everybody on the plane

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would be mad at us.

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So we started instituting, well,

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the night before we leave, let's just,

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whatever town it is, let's find a nice hotel

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and let's stay at the hotel, shower up, get fresh,

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and then get off going the next morning."

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So great, we did that.

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Well, this year we did Nevada,

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so we flew out of Las Vegas.

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Now I like to play blackjack.

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I'm not a -- I wouldn't call myself a gambler

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because I've never done the --

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I've never bet on an NFL football game with the phone,

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which is so popular with many people.

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I've been to the casino, I think in Cincinnati one time

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when it first because I was curious what it was like

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and just I'm not interested.

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I've never been back again, never will go back again,

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because the folks who go to like local casinos

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too frequently are there because they're trying

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to change their financial station in life

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and it's just not going to happen.

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You're going to get worse off financially.

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If you look at it as entertainment, then, okay.

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So in Vegas, it's different because

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people with money go there for conventions.

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Their company pays them to go there

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and they're like, "I'm in Vegas.

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I may as well, you know, do some blackjack."

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So I love playing blackjack in Vegas.

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So I'm there. I'm playing blackjack.

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I'm there for hours, hours and hours and hours.

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And I'm up and I'm down. I'm up and I'm down.

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But I'm just having fun.

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I'm inside my budget of what I'm okay to lose.

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And finally it gets late.

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I'm -- one of the guys tells me earlier,

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he said, "Dude, you're doing really great.

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You should be done. Just, just leave."

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I said, "But I like it.

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I'm not here to, like, to walk out more money."

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I want to walk out more money.

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But I just like the environment of,

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like, hanging out with people like here,

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bringing me free drinks, all that kind of stuff.

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It's wonderful.

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So after --

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I told you some of you weren't gonna like the story.

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So after, it finally was getting late and I was tired.

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I'd been there for six hours at a blackjack table.

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And said, "I got to go to bed. I'm done."

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So I leave and I'm walking out.

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And if you haven't been to Vegas,

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the casinos are all designed intensely.

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Casinos are front and center,

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and everything else is confusing

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because they want you to get lost

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and end up back in the casino and then lose more money.

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So I get up.

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I haven't had that much alcohol

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that I don't know where I'm going.

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So I get up and I'm walking to my room.

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As I'm walking, I hear, "You look like fun."

00:19:17

I'm, like, I turn around, I look back here

00:19:20

and there's two very good looking women

00:19:22

that are there in this hallway.

00:19:25

They said, "You look like fun."

00:19:28

And I take, like -- I take a step

00:19:31

and I realize as I take the step, "Oh, call girls,

00:19:36

women of the night, whatever you want to call them."

00:19:39

I take a step.

00:19:40

I look at these two very good looking women, like,

00:19:43

turn around and just keep going.

00:19:45

I just turned, like, rudely.

00:19:47

I just turn around. [light applause]

00:19:48

I go to my --

00:19:50

Don't applaud me yet. [laughter]

00:19:57

I go to the elevator, I go up to my room.

00:19:59

And I have a hard time sleeping that night.

00:20:02

I am terrified actually, terrified.

00:20:06

I'm thinking, "My goodness. Wow.

00:20:09

This was, like, the perfect time to do something stupid

00:20:13

and screw up my family.

00:20:15

This is a perfect time.

00:20:17

I was this -- The cards were set for me

00:20:20

to do something that would disqualify me

00:20:23

and make me lose my job

00:20:24

and be the latest megachurch pastor scandal.

00:20:27

Oh, my gosh.

00:20:28

This is -- I mean, I'm in a strange city.

00:20:30

No one knows me. I'm alone.

00:20:31

I've got a lot of cash in my pocket and no one's around.

00:20:35

And I'm here in a hotel

00:20:37

and people want to go to my hotel room with me."

00:20:40

Freaked me out.

00:20:42

Got up in the morning, was having some time with God

00:20:44

before we caught the flight.

00:20:45

And I was like, Oh man, I was going,

00:20:47

this this could have been really, really bad,

00:20:50

scandal, I'm getting to a place in my life

00:20:52

where I'm thinking about when I'm going to end.

00:20:54

I want to be one of the few who finish well.

00:20:56

When I'm finished at 70 or whatever age it is

00:20:59

I want t, o like, I don't want to be another, oh gosh,

00:21:03

what would have been like to have told my family

00:21:05

and my kids.

00:21:06

And I'm running through all this stuff

00:21:07

and just another statistic.

00:21:09

And then I sense, God speak to me.

00:21:15

You know, when God speaks to me,

00:21:17

it's generally a thought comes out of nowhere

00:21:20

that I wouldn't generate.

00:21:22

And it's the kind of thing Jesus would say or approve of.

00:21:28

And I hear God say, He says,

00:21:32

"I hear you really concerned about all these things,

00:21:36

but you're not concerned about our relationship in this."

00:21:42

See, religiously, I was concerned about

00:21:46

what it would do to the structure of my life

00:21:48

and the things I had.

00:21:49

I was concerned about that.

00:21:51

But I wasn't concerned about my relationship with God.

00:21:54

That wasn't my first thing.

00:21:55

God was like, "No, you're going to hurt Me.

00:21:58

What's that going to say about you and I?

00:22:00

Why would you -- Why would you do that for me?"

00:22:03

See, a lot of us are in the Christian religion,

00:22:06

but we're not in a relationship with Christ.

00:22:08

You're in the Christian religion

00:22:10

and you've got principles and you've got beliefs

00:22:12

and you've got values, fine.

00:22:14

You've got principles, believes, and you have values.

00:22:16

That doesn't mean you have a relationship with God.

00:22:19

You have a theology and you have doctrines

00:22:21

and you have practice. Fine.

00:22:23

I have theology and doctrines and practice,

00:22:25

but those are all things that support

00:22:27

or come out of my personal relationship with Jesus.

00:22:33

We want you to get personal with God this next week.

00:22:36

All of these religious exercises we have set up

00:22:39

are to increase the hit rate in you being personal

00:22:43

and God having a personal touch with you.

00:22:46

So what I want you to do this week,

00:22:48

I want you to do a number things.

00:22:49

Number one, I want you to prepare your mind.

00:22:51

That's what we just did.

00:22:52

Prepare your mind for what is to come.

00:22:56

Second thing, I want you to prepare your schedule.

00:23:00

I want this to reflect, I want to challenge you

00:23:02

to reflect your schedule.

00:23:04

Anything is important you schedule it.

00:23:06

You schedule workout time,

00:23:08

you schedule meal preparation time,

00:23:10

you schedule reading time.

00:23:12

We schedule the bingeing.

00:23:14

There's always some show to find.

00:23:15

We schedule that. We make that a priority.

00:23:19

For many of us, we can't even make

00:23:20

weekend attendance a priority.

00:23:22

It's only if I got nothing better to do.

00:23:25

I'm asking not just to do that.

00:23:26

I'm saying, hey, for you

00:23:28

and your personal relationship with God

00:23:29

or to instigate and build

00:23:32

a personal relationship with God,

00:23:34

make these things important. Schedule it.

00:23:37

And then finally, posture. Posture.

00:23:40

Let's take a teachable, open posture.

00:23:45

Posture of prayer.

00:23:46

It's what's powerful about, you know,

00:23:48

when we kneel, it's a posture.

00:23:51

It's a posture where I put myself under God.

00:23:54

I kneel because I'm saying,

00:23:56

"You're up here and I'm down here."

00:23:59

Other religions say, "No, no, no, here's my agenda.

00:24:02

Here it is. Everyone has to come.

00:24:03

I'm escalating my agenda. The things I want."

00:24:06

No, the personal relationship.

00:24:07

I'm lowering myself. I'm exposing myself.

00:24:10

You're here and I'm here.

00:24:12

And God, I'm praying this week, well, first of all,

00:24:15

the rest of this time, as we worship You right now,

00:24:17

as we sing to You, as we try to get personal with You,

00:24:21

You would hear our words and hear our hearts

00:24:24

that says we want to be closer to You.

00:24:27

We want to understand more of You.

00:24:30

And I'm asking that this doesn't just happen

00:24:32

for the rest of our time together,

00:24:33

but this also goes throughout this whole week.

00:24:37

God, give us a freshness of You to see you in ways

00:24:40

that we haven't seen you or we've forgotten about

00:24:42

because we've been diluted

00:24:43

by whatever our religion of choice is.

00:24:47

You're good. Amen.

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