Walk in God’s Goodness | The Good God Journey Week 4

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- Wooh, welcome back to the Good God Journey,

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we're asking this question of is God good?

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My name is Kyle.

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- And I'm Hannah.

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And we are so glad that you're here with us today.

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As you know, if you've been watching,

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we've been doing something every week

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to spread just a little bit of goodness.

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And so this week, of course, we came prepared.

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Ready to see it?

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We've got a ball pit.

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- Come on, a ball pit in van.

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It's the best thing in the entire world.

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- It's pretty fantastic

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and it's one of the best ways to spread goodness,

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wouldn't you agree?

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It's probably also one of the best ways to spread diseases.

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We thought about this.

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These are brand new sanitize ball pit balls.

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We thought about just one lucky family

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will get a one time, only one use of this ball pit.

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- So let's get --

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We're extra prepped.

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- Let's get our gloves on here.

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- We've got our gloves, our mask.

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- We've just got to find some kids

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to convince to get into our van.

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- That sounds terrible.

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So we've got to find a family, right?

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- Yeah. Yeah, that sounds better.

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Yeah. Let's go. Let's go.

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- Hi, guys. I'm Hannah.

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- I'm Kyle and we have a question for you.

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Could you guys use a little bit of God's goodness today?

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- Yes, yes.

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- OK, we have a surprise for you. Follow us.

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- Come on.

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- Are you ready for the instructions?

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Give me a head nod like yeah.

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In there Kyle has a large egg

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and it is filled up with giant candy.

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And it is stuff that you might want.

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The team that does it the fastest

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is going to get an extra special giant prize.

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- Yes.

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- Are you ready?

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Let's get our good handshake going. Fist bump, bump, bump.

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OK, we got to do this the fastest. Go.

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Come on. There you go. That's right.

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Get those out of your way. We've got to win.

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[cheering]

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Ok, there's one more in there.

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Come on, you've got this.

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- You got this, let's go, girls.

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You're so close. Yes, good job.

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Oh, yes, give yourselves a big round of applause.

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Team Kyle.

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- Team Kyle, we can do it, we can do it.

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- Oh, she's ready to go.

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- Go, go, go, go, go, go, go.

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- Come on.

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- Keep digging.

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- She's not going to beat us, don't worry. We've got this.

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- I love the energy. Yes!

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- What?

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- What? That was record. Yes!

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- We have a prize for the winner. What is it?

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- Whoa! - Yeah.

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- You know what? That's a good duck

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and God's goodness is for everyone.

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Everyone is getting a special prize today.

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- What?

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- Isn't that wonderful?

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Do you want to see what it is?

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Yeah, that's amazing.

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- Is that incredible?

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- That's incredible.

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- I think we've gotten off to a good start today.

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- We've seen a little bit of God's goodness. Amazing.

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- Yes.

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- Let's catch up with Chuck as he talks about

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some of the obstacles that may come against us

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when we're trying to find out is God good.

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- Throw this back in there.

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- Is God good?

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Is He good on day one of working from home?

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How about day 180?

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Is God good when school is online?

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Is He good when your business is struggling?

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Is He good even when everything in the world

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makes you want to scream, "Good God, what is going on?

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And where are you?"

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That's a fair question and actually a great prayer

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because we believe there is a good God with good answers.

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- Hey, I'm Chuck Mingo,

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and this is one of my favorite things to do.

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I love leisurely casual walks in the woods.

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We're in this Journey where we're talking about

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a good God, right?

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God being a good Father and Him being a good King.

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And today, we're going to continue to talk about

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how do we live that out over the long haul of our lives.

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But I want to ask you a question.

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Think about your favorite movie.

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Now, think about the plot line of your favorite movie.

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Let me say a couple of mine.

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I love Remember the Titans.

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You remember that one, right?

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It's the one about the football team

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that wins a championship.

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I'm also a big fan of the Star Wars universe,

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all nine of the main movies

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and everything else that they've come out with.

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I love it all, right?

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Star Wars, you know that one.

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That's the one about Luke Skywalker becoming a hero.

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And I definitely and my family has a favorite superhero,

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it is the Black Panther.

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And you know that one.

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That's the one about the guy who became king.

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But aren't those movies boring or at least

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they sound boring when I describe them that way?

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You know why?

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Because I'm not describing the adversity.

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Remember The Titans is a great movie because

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that football team had to struggle through racial tension

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to become a team that won a championship.

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Luke Skywalker had both the internal

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and the external struggle of overcoming the dark side

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to become the hero that we know him to be.

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And yes, Black Panther became the king,

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King T'Challa forever, Wakanda forever.

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But the reason was because he overcame Klaw and Killmongar

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and even his own family legacy in the past

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to become the king that we knew him to be.

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Great stories require adversity.

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We love that in our movies.

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We just don't necessarily like it in our lives.

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In Psalm 34:8, a verse we've been looking at

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over and over in this series, this Journey, it says:

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we all love the first part of that verse:

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Taste and see that the Lord is good.

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And He is good.

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God is good all the time and all the time...

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That's right, God is good.

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I just took some of you back to church. You know that.

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But, that other side of needing a refuge,

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what does that mean?

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Well, you only need a refuge if life is a place

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where you may find yourself under assault.

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Guess what? That's the reality of life.

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And so we've got to figure out

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how do we walk in God's goodness.

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And the way to do that is that we have to take

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a long-term redemptive view that God is doing good,

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that He's writing a good story in your life.

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He is a good Father and he is a good King

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and he has a good story planned out for you.

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We're going to talk today about how to believe that

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when life is not good.

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You and I have a fundamental flaw

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when it comes to our view of the world.

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It's one of the reasons why we struggle to believe

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that God is good in our real lives.

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Because I want life to be a walk in the woods,

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but the truth is, life is an obstacle course,

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life is a struggle.

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It is a struggle in so many ways.

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And actually, the Bible helps us to see that.

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It helps us to see that this issue of God's goodness

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has to take place in the context of our crazy, crazy world.

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I think about it this way.

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Can you imagine if you were taking a walk

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on Normandy Beach on June 5th, 1944.

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That' might have been a great day

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to walk on Normandy Beach. I don't know.

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But I'll tell you what, not on June 6th,

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because on June 6, it was D-Day.

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On June 6, Normandy Beach became a war zone.

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And that's what the Bible actually

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describes the world that we live in.

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It says we live in a war zone.

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Ephesians 6:10-12 puts it this way:

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"Finally, be strong in the Lord,"

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Paul is writing to the early Christians, he says:

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See, when you're in a war zone, you understand

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that there's going to be collateral damage.

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And as I look at our lives and I look at our world,

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I see the collateral damage of a world that is

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disrupting and destroying itself because of sinfulness,

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because of the brokenness of humanity

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and all the things that unleashed

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in terms of evil in the world.

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Now let me make a very clear point here:

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I am not saying that God calls bad things good.

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God doesn't call bad things good.

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Cancer, sickness, illness, death,

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those things are not good.

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In fact, that's one of the schemes of the enemy.

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One of the schemes the enemy is to make us think,

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God is behind all that bad stuff

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that's happening in your lives."

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No, God never calls these things good,

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but God uses those things,

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even the things that he doesn't cause,

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things that happen because there's collateral damage,

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He uses those things for our good and for our growth,

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only if we take a long-term redemptive view.

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I wonder, what are the obstacles?

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What are the things right now in your life that are

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keeping you from walking out God's goodness in your life?

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Maybe one of those obstacles is sin and sin patterns.

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I know in my life, man, I have felt like

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I have been on this web, right,

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of behaviors that I want to change,

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things in my life that I can't break through.

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I can feel stuck and maybe you can identify with that.

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Maybe sometimes those sin patterns keep you

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from believing that God's goodness is for you.

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Maybe they keep you stuck in patterns of shame

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and that's one of the reasons you struggle

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to believe God is good.

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Or I wonder, you know, I know we've got

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young parents that are watching, right?

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You've got kids that aren't sleeping through the night.

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Man, talk about feeling like Groundhog Day.

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"Will this wall ever end? My goodness."

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Maybe you have adult kids and it's the same thing.

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You're like, "My goodness, will these kids ever leave the house?"

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You know, and so many times in our lives,

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the struggle for us and God's goodness is,

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"God, I've been here long enough.

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Will I ever be able to overcome this thing

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that seems to be an ongoing challenge in my life?"

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You know, for some of us though,

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the struggle is really around taking those steps of faith

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when things are shaky and uncertain.

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Maybe right now you're struggling with the job market.

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It's a really tough time economically for many people,

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for business owners.

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And you're struggling to say,

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"God, if I keep taking these steps,

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are you going to be with me?"

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Maybe you're someone who's been single

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and you thought, "By now I thought I'd be married.

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I thought I'd have kids by now."

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Maybe you are married,

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but you're struggling with infertility.

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There are all kinds of things in our lives

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that require us to just put one step in front of the other

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and believe that even though

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we haven't reached our destination yet,

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that God is good and He's worthy of our trust.

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I don't know what the obstacles are for you,

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but I bet you all of us have situations in our lives

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where we pause and we ask ourselves the question,

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"Can anything good come of this?"

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- I really resonate with what Chuck said.

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Sometimes life can feel like a war zone

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with all of these obstacles,

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and you have to ask yourself that question:

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can God be good through all of this?

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- It's an important question to ask because

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it turns out that life doesn't get easy

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when you trust in God as good,

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but God does show up and have your back.

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One of the places I've seen that in my life

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is with my money.

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God invites us to structure our money in a way

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that is honoring to Him and put Him first.

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And we can trust Him to be good

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by following a biblical principle called tithing.

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- If you want to join me and Hannah

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and thousands of others who have taken that step,

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it's easy, just go to Crossroads.net/give.

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Right now we're going to catch up with a friend of mine

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who share his story of trusting the good God so much

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he decided to get baptized.

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- Well, thanks for talking with us today, Brian.

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You've got an amazing story I know

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about seeing God's goodness.

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Take me back to the beginning of your story.

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- So my papaw practically raised me.

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My dad was a truck driver, so he was on the road a lot.

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My mom owned her own little beautician.

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But my dad, he was a good dad when he was there.

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And I think he tried.

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My mom was a little abusive.

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She came from abusive family.

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They divorced when I was four.

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She would later meet another guy.

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He became my stepdad and he was very abusive to her.

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So I got to see a lot of my mom getting hit on a lot

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and that bothered me.

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I just didn't get a whole lot out of the church.

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It wasn't till later on my aunt

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would take me to the Super Bowl of Preaching.

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That's what kind of led me to starting to come to Crossroads.

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I was still partying and and going out at night

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and then I'd come to church on Sunday

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and ask for forgiveness.

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And I could communicate with people there.

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Like, I feel like these people like me, you know?

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I kept coming back.

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I would come back every Sunday by myself

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just learning who God is.

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And I stayed with it.

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And I think that's what has brought me to where I am now.

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- So you started going to Crossroads,

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but not everything was magically perfect in your life

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from that moment on.

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And you struggled with some addiction issues?

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- Yes, sir.

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I started doing concrete work when I was about 16, 17.

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I was with a group of guys

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that I probably shouldn't have been with.

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And, you know, they introduced me to pain medication,

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but I was a functioning addict.

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I mean, people did not know that I was doing,

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you know, what I was doing.

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It just kind of spiraling out of control.

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But, you know, what's done in the dark comes to the light.

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It was time to make a choice.

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I started digging into the Bible a whole lot more.

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I mean, I was trying to get my mind

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away from the outside stuff.

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Some of the passages in the Bible that I would read

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felt like they were speaking to me.

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That He let's walk through green pastures,

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lay in green pastures.

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And just I wanted that. that good life.

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It was just time to move on with life

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and get over a huge, huge thing.

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- So I know you made a bold decision this summer

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to declare in front of everybody

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that you believe God is good.

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It's a decision that I'm sure people around you

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might even thought, like, "What are you doing?

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You're crazy, man?"

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So tell me about that moment this summer.

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- We were actually at The Cove on the good old Ohio River.

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And I was sitting in the field and Brian said,

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"If you want to be forgiven for your sins, stand up."

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So I, I mean, I felt God jerked me off the field, you know?

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And my buddy Mike was with me, stood up.

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And two guys from Crossroads came over

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and asked us if we'd want to get baptized in the river.

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I was like, "Oh, my gosh, that would be awesome. Yeah."

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I've always wanted to get baptized, like in a creek

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or a lake or a pond, some kind of water

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or something outdoors.

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I was baptized as a child as a Catholic,

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but I don't -- I didn't get to make that choice.

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So now I got to make this choice.

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And I've had so much guilt just from the past.

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When I came out of that water,

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I mean, it just felt so good.

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I felt like I could breathe and chains are broken off.

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To get rid of that guilt and resentment

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that I had towards myself, just to let things go,

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mainly, you know?

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I even did it with a mask on.

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So that really broke down the wall between me and God.

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I bond with Him more. I call Him a Father.

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He's my rock, my salvation.

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The things that He's putting around me,

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the doors that He's opened,

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the opportunities that I've had,

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my wife, my kids, my life, my house, my car.

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I just -- we owe it all to Him, you know, it's all His.

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I feel like I'm part of the family now

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that I wasn't part of before.

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- Man, baptism is such a powerful step

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and that story was so impactful, so good.

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He took this bold step to say to God,

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"I believe You are a good Father and a good King,"

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and declared it through baptism.

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If you want to take that same step of baptism

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that Brian took, you can.

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Great news, we're working on plans for you.

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Coming up the last week of the Journey

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so go to Crossroads.net/baptism to find out more.

00:16:37

- Let's head back to Chuck.

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- You know, one of the things that I love

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about the Bible is there are many people

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who Jesus interacts with who are asking that question,

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can anything good come out of my situation?

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One of those is a man who brings his son to Jesus

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because his son is demon possessed.

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Yes, I know that sounds weird,

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but we see that over and over again in the New Testament,

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people who literally have been infected

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and affected by a spiritual presence.

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That spiritual power that we talked about

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in Ephesians that is not God's power.

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And this boy is one of them and he's having seizures.

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And it's been happening for a long time.

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And he comes to Jesus and he just wants help for his son.

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In fact, the story picks up with Jesus

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interacting with him and his son and Mark 9:21, it says:

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See, this is not a surface problem

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that this father's coming to Jesus with.

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This is a demonic problem.

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There is a real spiritual force coming against him,

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and it's a problem that's had a long duration.

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It's been happening since his boy was a child.

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And this father, as you can imagine, is desperate

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and he is doubtful.

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And I relate to this father because, you know what?

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He's hit a wall. He's hit a wall.

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Have you ever hit a wall

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in your spiritual journey with God?

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If you haven't, you're going to.

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This is just the reality of the broken world that we live in,

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this war zone that we live in,

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that we come against things in our lives

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that we just can't seem to get over.

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And this wall stands is just a very clear reminder

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of the brokenness of this world.

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Actually, Janet Hagberg is a writer, an author.

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She's done a lot of research

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on what is a spiritual journey?

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What does it look like when you're

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on a journey of growing your relationship with God?

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And she actually would say the wall is part of the process.

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She puts it this way, she says:

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Man, I've hit some walls.

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I'll be honest and tell you,

00:19:14

month two of this pandemic I hit a spiritual wall.

00:19:17

Every part of my life was struggling.

00:19:19

My marriage was struggling.

00:19:20

I was struggling at work.

00:19:21

I was struggling to adjust to all the changes in the world.

00:19:24

I hit a spiritual wall.

00:19:26

I was walking through some difficulty

00:19:27

in my own personal life that led me

00:19:29

to places of depression and discouragement.

00:19:32

And I was in a slump.

00:19:33

I didn't know what to do to get out of it.

00:19:35

It was just where I was.

00:19:37

I hit another wall this summer,

00:19:39

first with the killing of Ahmaud Arbery,

00:19:43

then Breonna Taylor and George Floyd.

00:19:44

All of the things that happened this summer

00:19:46

put me in a place of saying, "God, again?

00:19:48

Are we here again when it comes to race in this country?"

00:19:53

And I've got a track record of walls.

00:19:55

At age 30, I hit a wall that led to anxiety attacks

00:19:58

and ultimately me needing to change my career.

00:20:01

A loss of a parent, went through that wall recently.

00:20:03

Miscarriage of a child.

00:20:06

There are all kinds of walls that I've experienced

00:20:08

in my life so I can relate to this father.

00:20:11

And Jesus says this to him, after he comes to Jesus

00:20:14

and says, "I'm struggling, I'm in a difficult place.

00:20:17

Jesus, can you help me?

00:20:18

If you can do anything, help me."

00:20:19

You know what Jesus says to him?

00:20:27

But I love the fathers honest response.

00:20:36

Friends, these might be the most honest words spoken

00:20:38

by anybody in the Bible besides Jesus and God Himself.

00:20:43

I believe, I believe, look at my life,

00:20:45

look at all the obstacles that God has walked me through.

00:20:48

I know what God can do. I know that God is good.

00:20:52

But I'm at a wall.

00:20:54

I believe, but help my unbelief.

00:20:56

And I love that Jesus doesn't scold this guy

00:20:59

for being honest about where he was in his faith.

00:21:02

You know what Jesus does?

00:21:03

He listens to him. He empathized with him.

00:21:06

He was present with him.

00:21:08

And I want you to know, when you hit your spiritual wall,

00:21:10

it may not feel like it.

00:21:12

It might seem like Jesus is distant,

00:21:14

but he is not distant.

00:21:15

He is listening to you.

00:21:18

He is present with you.

00:21:20

He is empathizing with you.

00:21:22

One of the reasons is because Jesus knows

00:21:23

what it's like to hit a wall.

00:21:26

Mark 14:36, we see Jesus in one of His walls,

00:21:30

the wall called the Garden of Gethsemane,

00:21:32

where Jesus knows the next day He is going to experience

00:21:36

unbelievable torture as He dies on a cross

00:21:38

for my sin and for your sin.

00:21:41

And Jesus says, "Abba, Father,

00:21:42

all things are possible for you."

00:21:45

In the Garden of Gethsemane, He says, "Remove this cup from me."

00:21:48

Jesus knows there's pain ahead and He's at a wall

00:21:51

and He's saying, He's asking His Father,

00:21:53

He's saying, "Father, if there's any way

00:21:55

to get around this wall, I want that.

00:21:57

But I want to follow you more.

00:22:00

Not what I will, but Your will be done."

00:22:04

Jesus hit a wall in the garden, He'd be put on trial,

00:22:08

He'd be wrongly convicted,

00:22:09

and then He would die one of the most torturous deaths

00:22:11

that humanity has ever invented, crucifixion.

00:22:16

And Jesus knows that as He meets with this man

00:22:19

who all this father can see is the wall.

00:22:21

He doesn't know what's to come,

00:22:23

he doesn't have a sense of what Jesus is about to do.

00:22:27

But Jesus doesn't just empathize with him,

00:22:29

He does something else.

00:22:30

The story goes on and says:

00:22:34

Jesus cast the demon out of this boy.

00:22:36

But it says:

00:22:48

I want you to hear those words:

00:22:50

Jesus took the boy and He lifted him on his feet

00:22:55

and he stood up.

00:22:57

Now, listen, I don't want you to take this

00:22:59

to mean that everything in your life

00:23:00

is going to have a happy ending right now.

00:23:02

That's not the point here. That's not the point.

00:23:04

But here's what I do want you to know.

00:23:06

I want you to know that Jesus will walk with you

00:23:08

until everything that is broken is ultimately made whole.

00:23:12

Hey, let me tell you something:

00:23:13

God is good because if the story isn't good,

00:23:16

then the story isn't done.

00:23:18

I think about a friend of mine who worked in a country

00:23:22

that really had, quite frankly,

00:23:24

an epidemic of sex trafficking,

00:23:27

young girls being raped for profit.

00:23:30

And when you're close to that work

00:23:31

and you see both the successes,

00:23:33

but also a lot of times when the pimps get off

00:23:36

and the girls are re-trafficked,

00:23:37

you have to ask yourself,

00:23:38

"How can you stay hopeful in that kind of work?"

00:23:41

And I'll never forget what my friend said to me.

00:23:43

He said, "Chuck, one of the things I had to believe

00:23:45

and still believe is that God has all of eternity

00:23:49

to make it right."

00:23:51

Friends, let me tell you something,

00:23:52

as much as the walls in my life, I would love

00:23:56

to get over all of them on this side of eternity.

00:23:59

The truth is, it's a war zone.

00:24:02

And in a war zone, there's collateral damage.

00:24:04

In a war zone, people die.

00:24:06

In a war zone, pain will keep happening.

00:24:09

But the hope that we have is that

00:24:12

this isn't the end of our story.

00:24:14

If the story isn't good, then the story isn't done.

00:24:18

And I believe what Jesus was doing

00:24:20

when He lifted that boy up and raised him up

00:24:22

was He was prophetically communicating

00:24:25

what He was going to experience Himself.

00:24:27

Jesus himself was going to go down

00:24:29

and be as if He was dead.

00:24:31

He actually was dead, but three days later, Jesus got up.

00:24:34

And so we had the hope of the resurrection.

00:24:36

We have the hope that our story isn't limited

00:24:38

to what happens in the 80 years or the 75 years

00:24:41

or the 55 years, or maybe sadly younger than that years

00:24:44

that we live on this earth, because our story

00:24:47

is connected to the story that Jesus is telling

00:24:49

of a resurrection, of a life that is yet to come.

00:24:52

Let me tell you why I know God is good.

00:24:54

I know God is good, because what I'm promised

00:24:57

is that I will experience

00:24:58

the same kind of resurrection that Jesus did.

00:25:02

That doesn't mean that I'm not going to have

00:25:04

a lot of setbacks on this side of heaven,

00:25:06

but it does mean that one day

00:25:08

all of those setbacks will be made right.

00:25:11

I love what it says in 1 Corinthians 15,

00:25:14

and I want to encourage you with this scripture.

00:25:17

This is after Paul has written some of

00:25:19

the most beautiful words about the resurrection of Jesus.

00:25:23

And he finishes all of that by saying this. He says:

00:25:42

Friends, your labor is not in vain.

00:25:44

The difficulty is not in vain.

00:25:46

The hard times are not in vain.

00:25:48

Going through the wall is not in vain.

00:25:49

God doesn't waste anything and He will redeem everything.

00:25:56

The story isn't good and the story isn't done.

00:26:00

When you face a wall, I want you to look for the rope.

00:26:03

I want you to look for the rope.

00:26:05

I want you to look and understand that

00:26:06

in the midst of your wall,

00:26:07

in the midst of your circumstances,

00:26:09

God is doing something.

00:26:10

He has not abandoned you.

00:26:12

He's present with you.

00:26:13

He's listening to you.

00:26:14

He's empathizing with you.

00:26:16

He will empower you and me,

00:26:18

and He will enable us to experience His goodness.

00:26:20

I think about the the wall

00:26:22

of the second month of the pandemic

00:26:24

and how it taught me some things

00:26:27

that are making me a better husband now to my wife

00:26:29

because of the difficult things we went through.

00:26:31

I think about the wall of the summer

00:26:33

and how amidst all of the pain

00:26:35

of the racial division in our country,

00:26:37

I am seeing seeds of hope and God is allowing

00:26:39

and inviting me into the work of hope.

00:26:41

I think about that every time I think about a wall.

00:26:44

I don't know what your wall is,

00:26:46

but I want to encourage you to look for a rope.

00:26:49

I want you to know that Jesus wants

00:26:50

to reach out His hand to you.

00:26:52

God is good and He will reach out His hand to you

00:26:54

in the midst of the circumstances that don't seem good,

00:26:57

that He will take you up by your feet

00:27:00

and He will stand you up in His goodness and in His love.

00:27:04

Friends, if the story isn't good,

00:27:08

then the story isn't done.

00:27:12

As we listen to this song,

00:27:13

think about what obstacles you need to lay down to God

00:27:16

and in a minute we're going to go through that wall together.

00:31:45

- To walk in the goodness of God,

00:31:46

you've got to press into the wall.

00:31:49

And how do you do that?

00:31:50

Well, I think that father in the story shows us how,

00:31:53

it's total surrender and connection to Jesus.

00:31:56

I love in the moment when Jesus is about to heal his son,

00:31:58

he has totally surrendered to whatever God is doing

00:32:00

in that moment, even to the point of being honest

00:32:03

about his struggle to believe.

00:32:05

And I think God wants the same of us.

00:32:06

When we remember that God is a good Father and a good King

00:32:10

that can totally be surrendered to no matter what we think.

00:32:12

And even with our struggle,

00:32:14

we experience more of His goodness in our lives.

00:32:16

One of the ways we practice that is by singing

00:32:18

these songs that are really prayers set to music

00:32:20

that remind us of God's goodness.

00:32:22

They remind us that He's a good Father and a good King.

00:32:24

So I want to encourage you to press in

00:32:26

and let's sing together.

00:41:16

- Man, don't let anything stand between you

00:41:19

and the goodness of God

00:41:20

that He has for you right around the corner.

00:41:22

- Yeah, and what Chuck talked about with surrender,

00:41:25

if that's something you're interested in,

00:41:26

you want to maybe surrender through baptism,

00:41:28

you can go to Crossroads.net/baptism right now

00:41:32

to find out more information.

00:41:34

And if you want to chat with us any time,

00:41:36

you can go to Crossroads.net.

00:41:38

- Next week on a Good God Journey

00:41:39

we're going to wrap things up by talking about

00:41:41

the family of God that He invites you to.

00:41:42

And that's not just any family,

00:41:44

it's a family with an amazing mission.

	Ball Pit Party 🎉	0:38
	Chuck Mingo: Walk In God's Goodness	4:13
	Chuck Mingo: Can Anything Good Come Of This?	6:58
	Baptism Story	12:02
	Chuck Mingo: Help My Unbelief	16:40
	Worship: Fathers House	27:19
	Chuck Mingo: Get Over The Wall	31:42
	Worship: You Keep Hope Alive	32:29
	Worship: God Of The Breakthrough	36:27

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