The Super Bowl of Preaching | 2023

Nobody thought it would happen. After decades in the making, we’re finally here. That’s right it’s the 21st Super Bowl of Preaching! Get ready for music, commercials, preaching, and a little football.

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    Well, hey, everybody. Welcome to Crossroads.
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    I'm Alli.
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    What? What are you looking at?
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    Okay, This is weird.
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    I'm -- I'm in a coffin.
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    It's creepy in here.
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    Did you ever think you would lay alive in a coffin?
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    This is actually the moment that most of us
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    spend our entire lives being afraid of:
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    laying in a coffin.
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    Most of us think that this is the moment
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    that happens at the end of our life.
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    But what if I told you that
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    this moment has already happened
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    because you were born dead.
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    That's the shocking truth we're going to talk about
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    in Ephesians 2 today: you were born spiritually dead.
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    This moment, this coffin has already been a reality
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    for you and for me and everybody else you know,
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    and that is really bad news.
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    That is really bad news for us
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    because dead people can't help themselves.
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    Dead people don't just stand up out of coffins.
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    Dead people don't come back to life on their own.
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    But Ephesians 2 doesn't stop there.
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    Ephesians 2 has these two little words
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    right in the middle of the passage
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    and they change everything.
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    Ephesians 2, those two little words are "but God."
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    You were born a beautiful, innocent looking,
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    chubby little baby, but you were dead, but God.
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    Woo, it's harder to get out of than you think.
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    Well, listen, God has done something that has
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    changed the course of human life and death forever.
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    And today we're going to talk about exactly what that is
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    so that we can be reminded we have a choice how to live.
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    You can continue through your life as The Walking Dead
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    or you can decide that today is the day
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    that you get to live your life more deeply,
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    more fully alive than maybe you ever have before.
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    Let me pray for us.
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    Lord, my prayer for today is really, really simple.
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    I want You to bring dead people back to life.
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    In Jesus's name, Amen.
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    Well, the truth that we jump into in this passage
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    we're going to deal with today is a little bit hard to swallow.
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    So first of all, I really want you to consider
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    the fact that we are living right here,
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    humans on Earth in 2023, and that that has shaped
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    our perspective on what we think of as life and death.
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    And I just want you to consider the idea
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    as we begin in this passage, that maybe
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    that's not exactly the same view
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    that God has on life and death.
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    And if you suspend that just for a second,
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    it'll be a little bit easier to hop into Ephesians 2
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    where we're going to be today.
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    But I did want to show you something
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    that will make it even a little bit easier.
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    Look at this cute, chubby, chubby little baby.
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    That's right. This is Allison Lynn, everyone.
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    Allison Lynn in Columbia, Missouri all those years ago.
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    This was me.
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    I've had 4 of these beautiful, perfect little babies myself.
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    And I know that the most offensive thing you can say
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    to a new mom is that somehow their baby
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    isn't the picture of perfection.
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    We look at little babies like that and we think
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    it's all possibility, it's all purity,
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    it's all beauty, it's all life.
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    And in many ways, physically, that's true, right?
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    But spiritually, the life inside of us,
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    the intangible life of our body, our mind,
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    our motives, our heart, our desires,
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    our spirit, that kind of life
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    starts in a very different place.
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    It actually starts right here.
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    So let's jump into Ephesians 2 and see a little bit
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    more about God's perspective on life and death
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    that Paul, the writer of Ephesians is talking about.
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    Ephesians 2:1, it says:
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    And you were dead in the trespasses and sins,
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    in which you once walked
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    following the course of this world,
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    following the prince of the power of the air,
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    the spirit that is now at work
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    in the sons of disobedience,
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    among whom we all once lived
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    in the passions of our flesh,
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    carrying out the desires of the body and mind,
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    and we're by nature, children of wrath,
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    like the rest of mankind.
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    Whoa. That is quite a passage.
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    And it begins with those words: You were dead.
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    Let's look at those: You were dead.
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    Now, this truth is not exactly what we think of
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    when we think of the beginning of our life.
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    And as a matter of fact, we've constructed
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    some narratives in our culture that help us
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    to kind of avoid the blunt kind of harsh reality
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    of this in our world.
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    We say things like, you need a spiritual awakening
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    or you just need a fan that spark of divine life
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    into a flame,
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    or you need to connect with your inner goddess
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    and find your voice or whatever.
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    We have all these spiritual sayings
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    that are kind of getting at this idea,
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    but they stop one step short of actually saying
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    what the Bible says about it, which is you were dead.
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    The spiritual reality that we're born into
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    is actually that.
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    It doesn't leave much room for anything else.
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    And the reason that I want so much for us
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    to begin in this place, even as uncomfortable
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    and kind of harsh as it is, is because
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    if we don't get the starting point right,
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    then we're going to be looking for the wrong solution
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    to the wrong problem.
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    And Paul is going to address that.
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    We need this reminder.
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    If we were written a letter like this,
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    if we are written a letter,
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    so this one's called Ephesians because it was written
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    to a community in the city of Ephesus.
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    So if they wrote one to me where I was standing,
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    like, in my community, it would be Cincinnatians
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    or maybe to our entire church you could write
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    something like Midwesterners, right?
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    We need this reminder too.
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    If we had a letter,
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    it would definitely have this reminder in it.
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    And the reason is because you are just so nice.
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    You are so nice.
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    Here in the Midwest, especially,
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    like we talked to people at the grocery store.
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    We're raised with this mindset of trying to be
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    a good person and live a good life.
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    If we encountered, though, this paragraph,
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    certainly Paul would have also used some emojis.
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    Maybe these four would have shown up
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    somewhere in this paragraph,
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    this reminder of where we all began.
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    I like the cat. I'm a cat person; don't hate on it.
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    I know you all love your dogs,
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    but you're just so decent.
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    You're just so decent.
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    And my experience tells me that
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    the better a person you are, the harder a worker,
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    the more you try to live life decently,
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    the more prone you are to forget
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    that this is actually the beginning,
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    that this is the reality of our spiritual existence,
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    no matter what the outside of our life looks like.
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    And so if we don't kind of get our heads straight on that,
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    then we end up like this woman
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    who was in one of my Bible studies years ago.
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    We were talking about this truth.
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    I can't remember if it was from this passage
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    or a different one that points out the same
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    somewhere else in the Bible.
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    But she said -- she kind of raised her voice.
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    You know, she got like, [sound FX],
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    like, got kind of worked up about it.
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    And she said, "Are you telling me
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    that my whole life I've been trying to be
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    a good person and God doesn't care?
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    That I've been working as hard as I've worked
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    and being as good as I've tried to be,
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    and that that's not important to God.
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    Is that what you're telling me?"
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    And I said, "Hey, no deep breath.
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    God very much cares how you live.
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    And also, you can't solve one problem with that solution.
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    You have a different problem
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    that requires a different solution.
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    And this requires something that goes
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    way, way, way beyond whatever we've got inside of us.
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    We don't have the spark of life inside of us
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    to solve this problem.
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    That's why Paul begins this passage
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    with the words you were dead.
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    Now, a handful of weeks ago, you all were probably like me
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    and you were watching the game, the Bengals game
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    where Damar Hamlin collapsed on the field.
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    We now know in that moment, his heart stopped.
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    It absolutely stopped. No life.
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    Now can you imagine how bizarre it would have been
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    if instead of the amazing EMTs that rushed on the field
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    to save his life, to restart his heart.
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    Can you imagine how bizarre it would have been
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    if they ran out on the field and gathered around him
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    and started going,
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    "I wonder how many pushups this guy did yesterday.
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    Probably not enough.
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    Where did he go in the draft again?
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    What was his spot in the draft?
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    Maybe if it had been a little higher,
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    he wouldn't have, you know, ended up like this.
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    Or what about charity?
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    Does this guy do charity work? Probably not."
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    Can you imagine how crazy that would have sounded,
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    how bizarre that would have seemed,
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    how very wrong it would have been.
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    They would have rushed out onto the field
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    with an urgent problem of his heart stopping, no life,
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    and would have tried to solve it by suggesting
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    he should have been a bit better of a person.
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    That's crazy talk.
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    And we can see that in the physical realm, right?
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    Like, it's no problem.
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    You can, you immediately understand
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    that in the physical realm
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    that would have not only been bizarre,
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    it would have been wrong, deeply off.
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    But for some reason, we struggle to see that truth
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    in the spiritual realm.
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    We struggle with these three little words: you were dead.
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    And so we go looking
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    for the wrong answer to the wrong problem.
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    If we don't get the problem,
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    we might even be offended by the answer.
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    How crazy would that be?
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    And we would definitely miss the signs
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    that we were living our life dead.
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    So what are those signs?
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    Let's go back to our passage for a minute.
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    I want you to see how Paul describes,
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    this is some of the the language that he uses in the passage.
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    He describes exactly what a life feels like,
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    looks like, would be like
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    if you were living it continually dead.
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    He says this:
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    you would be following the course of the world.
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    You would be carrying out the passions of the flesh,
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    the desires of the body and the mind.
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    If I were to encapsulate what Ephesians 2 says
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    a life dead, like, the Walking Dead,
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    what kind of life would that be?
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    It would be a life lived in the world of the world
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    where you just meet the next craving,
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    you just address the next need.
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    Living dead is a life consumed by craving.
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    Now I know I had one experience that taught me,
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    like, physically, what would this life kind of look like?
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    And it was many years ago
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    and I was pregnant with my first son,
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    but I didn't know it yet.
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    And I went to this meeting.
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    I was still in my corporate career
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    and I went to this offsite meeting
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    and there was, like, a kind of a big board room
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    full of people and they served us lunch at this meeting.
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    And it was sort of old school.
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    And everybody got a dish
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    of everyone's favorite cottage cheese.
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    I brought some cottage cheese with me today.
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    I got a spoon in here somewhere. Let me find this.
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    Here it is.
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    Now I am fairly revolted by cottage cheese.
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    Anybody with me?
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    I mean, this is, like, large curd.
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    This is large curd cottage cheese.
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    And it's like I would never -- I just would never.
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    I mean.
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    Oh.
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    Right.
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    So, I'm in the meeting.
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    Oh. Eww.
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    I should have brought some water up here.
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    So I'm in the meeting
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    and I have this little dish of cottage cheese
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    and I'm like, "I don't know, looks kind of good.
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    I think I'm going to eat it."
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    Put some salt and pepper on it.
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    Take a couple of bites.
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    And I was like, "Hmm, yeah, I'm liking that."
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    So I nudged the friend next to me.
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    Her name was Chris, and I said,
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    "Hey, can I have your cottage cheese?"
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    And she was like, "Please."
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    So she slides me her cottage cheese
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    and I eat her cottage cheese.
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    And here's what I start doing.
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    "You, give it to me.
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    Over there, I need that cottage cheese.
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    You gonna to eat that? Bring it over."
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    By the time the meeting was over,
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    I had eaten like seven people's cottage cheese.
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    And Chris even joked with me.
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    She was like, "Are you pregnant?"
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    And I was like, "Ha-ha."
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    Actually, I was. I was having a craving.
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    I would have been --
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    I would have been the last person
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    I would have thought prior to that moment
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    in that board room that it was just an excuse
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    that pregnant women made up to eat a lot more,
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    until I ate seven dishes of cottage cheese.
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    And here was me, I was like, you, I need it.
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    I'll take that. Slide it over.
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    I need yours. Please.
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    I'm just meeting the next thing that I want.
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    This is the life that Paul describes.
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    He describes a life where we just look at
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    what we think we need, our body tells us,
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    our mind tells us, the world tells us, and we go,
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    "I need that. I need that. Pass it over.
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    Again. Please. More."
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    This is the kind of life that Paul describes.
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    And I've got to tell you,
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    it doesn't always look like cottage cheese.
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    It's not always bad looking. It's not.
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    As a matter of fact, it's almost never evil.
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    This life that Paul describes of death playing out
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    in your life through the passions of your mind,
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    your body, the world, it actually looks pretty good.
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    I brought a few things that seem like my life of death.
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    This is what death really looked like for me.
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    At a young age I would never have had the words for this,
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    of course, but I just craved approval.
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    I want you to approve of me.
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    And I learned how to get that through accomplishments.
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    So I remember as a kid, I had a whole dresser full of trophies.
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    It might have been cheerleading,
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    it might have been gymnastics,
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    it might have been swimming,
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    it might have been academics,
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    it might have been academics at some point.
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    And I had -- I even remember dusting my dresser
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    when I was a kid,
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    and I had to lift up the rows of trophies.
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    And this is how I learned how to meet that need.
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    I wanted to know I'm okay. I've done good.
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    I'm worth something.
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    You can love me now because I did this, right?
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    Who wouldn't love somebody
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    with a whole dresser full of trophies?
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    And this was my life of death going, "Again.
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    I need that again. I need that again."
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    I learned somewhat later how to meet that need.
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    If you're -- you know what?
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    If you're younger than me in here,
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    you may have not ever gotten a paper report card.
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    I like look my kids up on the computer now.
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    Sometimes on that day when they come out,
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    I actually forget.
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    I don't have the awkward moment
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    where they pull it out of their backpack anymore.
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    That's, like, something we all need to do.
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    Anyway. Grade cards, A minus.
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    Be ashamed of that. Not good enough.
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    Sometimes when people would see this stuff in my life,
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    they would say, "Oh, you must be very competitive."
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    And I would think that never really computed for me.
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    I didn't feel competitive
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    because that's not what I was doing.
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    What I was doing is I need to know I'm worth something.
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    I need you to approve of me.
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    I need you to love me.
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    And so I'll just perform for you
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    in a way where I can meet that need.
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    I can be sure.
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    This was my life of death.
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    And do you think that looked bad to people?
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    Not at all.
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    Not at all.
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    Now, that might not be yours.
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    I talked to a friend,
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    and I recognized the same thing in her story
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    when she described, this was crazy to me.
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    But everyone else's always seem crazy.
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    She put white rugs in her laundry room,
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    like, where you would come in from the outside.
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    I have four kids and a laundry room
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    where you come in from the outside.
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    I can't imagine putting white rugs in my laundry room.
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    Her laundry room had white rugs
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    and she worked her fingers to the bone
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    trying to make sure that they stayed white.
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    And at some point, she realized, "Oh, my gosh,
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    this is like a grade card for me.
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    Am I doing a good job?"
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    She had left work. She had stayed home.
  • 00:18:05
    She couldn't tell anymore.
  • 00:18:07
    Was she doing -- was she doing a good job?
  • 00:18:09
    So she made herself a report card
  • 00:18:12
    and it just looked like a white rug.
  • 00:18:15
    And at some point she realized,
  • 00:18:17
    "Oh my gosh, what am I doing?"
  • 00:18:21
    And so maybe yours are nothing like that.
  • 00:18:23
    Maybe instead you've worked on every vacation
  • 00:18:27
    you've ever been on.
  • 00:18:28
    Maybe you can't remember the last time
  • 00:18:30
    you were attached to a boyfriend
  • 00:18:32
    or you were not attached to a boyfriend or girlfriend.
  • 00:18:35
    Maybe you're obsessing over how many followers
  • 00:18:39
    or comments or likes you have on social media.
  • 00:18:42
    Whatever it is, whatever that thing is
  • 00:18:44
    that you have to come get over and over and over again.
  • 00:18:50
    That is your life of death playing out.
  • 00:18:56
    That is the reality of who we really are
  • 00:18:59
    spiritually speaking from the very beginning.
  • 00:19:02
    And death will literally run your life.
  • 00:19:06
    And it's very hard to stop.
  • 00:19:08
    It's very sneaky.
  • 00:19:09
    It comes back in all kinds of crazy different ways,
  • 00:19:12
    even after you've seen it, even after you're free of it.
  • 00:19:16
    It'll try to sneak back in some other way.
  • 00:19:18
    This happened to me this last summer.
  • 00:19:20
    Some of you might know that I have a book
  • 00:19:22
    that recently came out, and you actually write that
  • 00:19:25
    a really long time ago.
  • 00:19:26
    Oh, thank you. That's so sweet.
  • 00:19:28
    You write that a really long time ago,
  • 00:19:30
    which I loved writing it.
  • 00:19:31
    And then you go into this phase
  • 00:19:33
    right before it comes out where you have to
  • 00:19:35
    work with some people on how to market that book.
  • 00:19:41
    I found myself, like, trying to find the formula again.
  • 00:19:46
    How can I make A plus B plus C, equal an A?
  • 00:19:49
    How can I do that? Where is it?
  • 00:19:52
    How can I meet that need?
  • 00:19:54
    You all, it's a book about Jesus. Right?
  • 00:19:57
    Like, death does not give up it's all very easily.
  • 00:20:01
    It's going to try to come back over and over and over again.
  • 00:20:05
    And it took me a hot minute, but I saw it
  • 00:20:07
    and I was like, "Oh, I know what this is.
  • 00:20:09
    This is the old way, the old life."
  • 00:20:13
    That's exactly what Paul is writing about to the Ephesians.
  • 00:20:16
    He wants them to know you had a life before Jesus.
  • 00:20:20
    Remember what it felt like?
  • 00:20:23
    It was just meeting the next need,
  • 00:20:25
    meeting the next desire, quieting the craving.
  • 00:20:28
    It was a life where death ran the show.
  • 00:20:33
    Totally ran the show.
  • 00:20:36
    I hope by now you're yearning to know,
  • 00:20:39
    you're yearning to hear what those two little words
  • 00:20:42
    that I said from the coffin are and where they lead us.
  • 00:20:45
    Because there's two little words
  • 00:20:47
    right in the middle of this passage,
  • 00:20:49
    and they come next and it is "but God."
  • 00:20:53
    You were this, and this is how you lived, but God.
  • 00:21:01
    And God did something that we're now going to read about.
  • 00:21:03
    We go right into it in Ephesians 4,
  • 00:21:08
    excuse 2, verse 4. But God.
  • 00:21:13
    But God, being rich in mercy,
  • 00:21:16
    because of the great love with which He loved us,
  • 00:21:19
    even when we were, what? Dead in our trespasses,
  • 00:21:25
    He made us alive together with Christ,
  • 00:21:32
    by grace you have been saved,
  • 00:21:35
    and raised up with Him and seated us with Him
  • 00:21:38
    in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus,
  • 00:21:40
    so that in the coming ages He might show
  • 00:21:43
    the immeasurable riches of His grace
  • 00:21:45
    in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus.
  • 00:21:48
    Friends, Oh, my gosh. What did God do?
  • 00:21:52
    This is the -- this is the truth
  • 00:21:55
    that when you start in the right place,
  • 00:21:56
    even though it feels so very weird and so very wrong,
  • 00:22:00
    this is the solution to that problem.
  • 00:22:05
    But God made us alive.
  • 00:22:08
    Now, Paul can be kind of a wordy writer, right?
  • 00:22:10
    If I was like an English teacher,
  • 00:22:11
    I could diagram the sentence for you,
  • 00:22:13
    and we would see the very simple structure
  • 00:22:16
    of this whole paragraph that says:
  • 00:22:18
    And you were dead, but God made you alive.
  • 00:22:22
    This is the core of the gospel.
  • 00:22:25
    This is the gospel itself.
  • 00:22:27
    If you've ever been one of those people
  • 00:22:29
    that sits in church and goes, like,
  • 00:22:31
    "I've heard people talk about this gospel.
  • 00:22:34
    What's the gospel again?"
  • 00:22:36
    The gospel is you were dead, but God made you alive in Christ.
  • 00:22:41
    God made you alive in Christ.
  • 00:22:42
    And this is the unbelievable reality, because
  • 00:22:46
    this is where our spiritual life begins.
  • 00:22:51
    And then God did something.
  • 00:22:53
    He sent His Son to this earth to live a perfect life,
  • 00:22:56
    not one driven by cravings and selfish motives
  • 00:22:59
    and desires that come back over and over.
  • 00:23:02
    Jesus came and lived a perfect life,
  • 00:23:04
    and then He went into a grave anyway.
  • 00:23:08
    And He did that for you, so that as He was raised back up
  • 00:23:12
    into an eternal life that overcomes any death,
  • 00:23:16
    He could share that with you.
  • 00:23:19
    That's what He wants to do, He wants to share it with you.
  • 00:23:22
    This is unbelievably good news.
  • 00:23:24
    If this is true, then that means it changes everything.
  • 00:23:28
    It changes absolutely everything about
  • 00:23:31
    how our life can be lived right here, right now, today.
  • 00:23:35
    God made us alive.
  • 00:23:36
    And how did He do it?
  • 00:23:38
    Together with Christ, by his grace.
  • 00:23:42
    Did it say if?
  • 00:23:44
    If you live a good life, if you work hard,
  • 00:23:47
    if you smile at people in the grocery store,
  • 00:23:50
    if you chew with your mouth closed,
  • 00:23:51
    if you earn a lot of A's.
  • 00:23:53
    No, it doesn't say any of that.
  • 00:23:55
    It says you were dead, and even in your death
  • 00:23:59
    and everything that means, God came to make you alive.
  • 00:24:03
    That is unreal. It's unreal.
  • 00:24:07
    And I just have to show you this one more time.
  • 00:24:09
    Look at this.
  • 00:24:10
    He didn't just make you alive.
  • 00:24:12
    He raised you up with Him
  • 00:24:15
    and He has seated you with Him
  • 00:24:17
    in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus.
  • 00:24:20
    Friends, you're not just alive.
  • 00:24:23
    Your life is alive in a whole new realm,
  • 00:24:26
    a whole new realm.
  • 00:24:27
    You may have begun your life here
  • 00:24:30
    and you will never go back
  • 00:24:32
    because you are already somewhere else.
  • 00:24:34
    You are already alive within an eternal reality
  • 00:24:38
    that is yours in Christ the moment
  • 00:24:42
    that you confess your faith in Christ
  • 00:24:44
    that you understand He did that for me.
  • 00:24:47
    He shares His life with me.
  • 00:24:50
    That is mind blowingly good.
  • 00:24:55
    And this is what God did.
  • 00:24:57
    I said today I wanted you to be reminded of what He did
  • 00:25:00
    and how that changes your reality,
  • 00:25:02
    because you really are alive in a whole new realm.
  • 00:25:04
    And if you are, then that means
  • 00:25:07
    your life works completely differently now.
  • 00:25:10
    It doesn't need to be a series of cravings that you meet,
  • 00:25:13
    instead, if I were to encapsulate a life in Christ
  • 00:25:17
    that starts here and now and never ends,
  • 00:25:20
    it would be I'm free to follow.
  • 00:25:23
    I'm free, and I'm free to follow wherever it is
  • 00:25:27
    that God is going to lead me.
  • 00:25:29
    Because God runs the show,
  • 00:25:32
    because God's plans dictate my life,
  • 00:25:34
    because God's priorities win the day,
  • 00:25:37
    because God is ruling over my life, not any other power.
  • 00:25:44
    The power of the Holy Spirit,
  • 00:25:46
    who actually comes to live in you,
  • 00:25:49
    sustaining that life, comes to live in you
  • 00:25:52
    when you come to a genuine faith in Christ.
  • 00:25:55
    And then He begins to rule over your life,
  • 00:25:58
    attacking any aspect of your life
  • 00:26:01
    that is still being lived under the rule of death.
  • 00:26:04
    Isn't that amazing?
  • 00:26:05
    And you begin to live increasingly, increasingly free
  • 00:26:09
    to follow God wherever He is leading.
  • 00:26:12
    I want you to see a picture of this
  • 00:26:14
    in the life of Christ.
  • 00:26:16
    In John Chapter 10, Jesus describes His own life.
  • 00:26:19
    And I want you to listen to how He describes it.
  • 00:26:21
    It's incredible. John 10 says:
  • 00:26:37
    Friends, Jesus at will, at the will and plans
  • 00:26:42
    and promises of His Father, He could lay down
  • 00:26:44
    any part of his life, any day that he lived,
  • 00:26:47
    or He could pick it back up again.
  • 00:26:50
    He wasn't driven by selfish motives or cravings that he had
  • 00:26:54
    or whims of the day or anything like that.
  • 00:26:56
    He was always under the authority of God
  • 00:27:01
    to put it down and to pick it back up.
  • 00:27:04
    This is the picture of freedom that we get in the Scriptures.
  • 00:27:09
    Now, it might lead you to some unexpected places,
  • 00:27:14
    fair warning.
  • 00:27:15
    A life where you're free to follow God
  • 00:27:17
    means you're following Him. Right?
  • 00:27:21
    You're not continually meeting your own desires,
  • 00:27:23
    you're following Him.
  • 00:27:24
    He might lead you to a really good counselor
  • 00:27:26
    to deal with some things.
  • 00:27:28
    He might lead you to give some things up,
  • 00:27:32
    to lay some things down, and He might lead you
  • 00:27:34
    to take up new paths that you never once
  • 00:27:37
    would have ever thought you would have been on.
  • 00:27:39
    The thing is, you're free to follow Him there.
  • 00:27:43
    You can lay anything down and you can pick anything up
  • 00:27:46
    that needs to be laid down and picked up
  • 00:27:48
    in order to follow Him.
  • 00:27:50
    Do you want a simple test to see
  • 00:27:52
    whether you're living dead or alive?
  • 00:27:55
    It's super simple.
  • 00:27:56
    One question. Can you stop? Can you stop?
  • 00:28:05
    Can you stop the work?
  • 00:28:09
    Can you stop the alcohol?
  • 00:28:10
    Can you stop the relationship?
  • 00:28:13
    Can you stop whatever it is that's been running your life?
  • 00:28:16
    Can you stop the volunteering?
  • 00:28:18
    Oh, my gosh.
  • 00:28:20
    If I was driven by volunteering, I would never sleep.
  • 00:28:22
    I have four kids at three different schools.
  • 00:28:24
    Step away from the Signup Genius.
  • 00:28:28
    You don't need a sign up for that. Stop.
  • 00:28:32
    You can be driven by things that look incredibly good,
  • 00:28:36
    incredibly helpful.
  • 00:28:37
    And God wants you driven only by one thing: Him.
  • 00:28:40
    Can you stop?
  • 00:28:45
    And if you can't, you know that,
  • 00:28:47
    that at least that aspect of your life
  • 00:28:50
    is still being ruled by death.
  • 00:28:52
    It's still being run by death.
  • 00:28:54
    And there's more life for you.
  • 00:28:55
    We're going to finish this passage,
  • 00:28:57
    these last couple of verses.
  • 00:28:58
    They give us a peek, a little peek at the life
  • 00:29:00
    that Paul means when he writes this passage.
  • 00:29:03
    So remember, you were dead, but God made you alive.
  • 00:29:07
    And this is how he finishes in Ephesians 2:8:
  • 00:29:11
    For by grace, You've been saved through faith.
  • 00:29:13
    And this is not your own undoing; it is the gift of God,
  • 00:29:16
    not a result of works, so that no one can boast.
  • 00:29:20
    For we are His workmanship,
  • 00:29:21
    created in Christ Jesus for good works,
  • 00:29:24
    which God prepared beforehand,
  • 00:29:26
    that we should walk in them.
  • 00:29:29
    God wants you free enough to follow Him wherever He leads.
  • 00:29:33
    It's a gift.
  • 00:29:36
    That you can take right here, right now, today.
  • 00:29:38
    And also this life that's waiting for you,
  • 00:29:41
    it feels like you.
  • 00:29:43
    You know, when you're just meeting needs and desires
  • 00:29:45
    and cravings all over the place,
  • 00:29:47
    I know that you don't feel like yourself.
  • 00:29:50
    I certainly don't.
  • 00:29:51
    I feel a quality about that day or work
  • 00:29:54
    or aspect of my life that's, like, off a little bit.
  • 00:29:56
    This life God has for you, it feels like you.
  • 00:29:59
    You've been created for something.
  • 00:30:02
    And not to do work like a slave over and over and over again.
  • 00:30:06
    We sang that song earlier No Longer Slaves.
  • 00:30:10
    This is exactly what it talks about,
  • 00:30:13
    that the perfect love of God comes in and frees you
  • 00:30:18
    so that you don't have to live like that.
  • 00:30:21
    But there is things for you to do.
  • 00:30:23
    There are good works that God has created you
  • 00:30:26
    uniquely to go and fulfill in this world.
  • 00:30:30
    This is a life of freedom, freedom to follow,
  • 00:30:34
    permission to leave behind
  • 00:30:36
    whatever's been running your life.
  • 00:30:41
    And we just have to ask one final question
  • 00:30:43
    about this passage, because it's kind of
  • 00:30:45
    overriding the entire thing.
  • 00:30:47
    You've got to wonder if this life is so good,
  • 00:30:51
    why does Paul have to remind a bunch of believers
  • 00:30:55
    that they can live like this?
  • 00:30:58
    Because that's what's really going on here.
  • 00:31:00
    Paul is saying, "Hey, believers in the church
  • 00:31:04
    in the city of Ephesus, you were dead,
  • 00:31:07
    and God made you alive."
  • 00:31:11
    He's talking past tense.
  • 00:31:12
    He's talking something that already happened to them.
  • 00:31:14
    Why should he have to do that if this life is so good?
  • 00:31:21
    What he wants from them is to choose it again today.
  • 00:31:25
    He wants them to remember, to contrast.
  • 00:31:28
    Do I want to live like this or do I want to live like this?
  • 00:31:30
    Because you can continue to be The Walking Dead.
  • 00:31:36
    You can continue to put yourself
  • 00:31:38
    under the rule of a spirit that isn't God
  • 00:31:41
    of a life run by death even when you've been freed in Christ,
  • 00:31:46
    because you have a choice.
  • 00:31:47
    And Paul is saying, "I want you to choose it again
  • 00:31:51
    and again and again.
  • 00:31:53
    And I want you to remember what it feels like
  • 00:31:55
    and what it looks like to not live in that freedom.
  • 00:31:58
    And now I want you to choose it again."
  • 00:31:59
    And I think there's people in here today
  • 00:32:02
    that want to choose life again.
  • 00:32:04
    One group in here has never done it.
  • 00:32:09
    You just didn't know.
  • 00:32:10
    At some point someone has to say to you,
  • 00:32:12
    "Hey, did you know you were born dead
  • 00:32:14
    and there's a way to life?"
  • 00:32:16
    Somebody needs to say that, and that's one group.
  • 00:32:20
    Others of us in here, we know full well the power,
  • 00:32:25
    the ruler, the craving, the desire of our flesh
  • 00:32:28
    that's been running the show and we're submitting to it
  • 00:32:32
    and we're choosing that over and over and over and over again.
  • 00:32:36
    And I want you to consider
  • 00:32:37
    what if you made a different choice today?
  • 00:32:40
    What if you believed you might have the authority
  • 00:32:43
    to lay it down and the power to pick it back up
  • 00:32:45
    if God ever wanted you to, but you are free today?
  • 00:32:50
    And the last group is maybe like me
  • 00:32:54
    this past summer when you're, like, you're doing it,
  • 00:32:57
    you're trying to live free and all of a sudden, crap.
  • 00:33:01
    There I am acting like my old self again.
  • 00:33:04
    And it just takes you a minute to see it.
  • 00:33:06
    And right now it's coming into focus
  • 00:33:07
    and it's time to say yes to the freedom
  • 00:33:11
    and to the life that God offers to you.
  • 00:33:14
    Right now, you can turn away from death
  • 00:33:17
    and you can walk straight into life.
  • 00:33:19
    I'm going to pray for us.
  • 00:33:22
    Lord, for those of us who have never taken you up
  • 00:33:25
    on your offer of life, I asked that Your Spirit
  • 00:33:28
    would just be all over those people today,
  • 00:33:31
    pulling them, magnetically drawing them into a life in You.
  • 00:33:36
    I pray for ultimate final freedom in Christ.
  • 00:33:41
    And for those of us who have already said yes
  • 00:33:44
    to that freedom and who are living under the rule
  • 00:33:48
    of something that is not You
  • 00:33:50
    that is dragging us toward death, I pray that
  • 00:33:53
    Your life in us would overwhelm that death, Lord.
  • 00:33:58
    Bring your Holy Spirit into those places
  • 00:34:01
    and overwhelm that death with Your life.
  • 00:34:04
    Thank You for Your Grace.
  • 00:34:06
    Thank you for Jesus who shares His life with us. Amen.

Feb 11, 2023

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