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.

Process, journal or discuss the themes of this article - here's a few questions to get the ball rolling...

Welcome to the Weekend-Follow Up This is the group part of the Bible Challenge, so your questions are based on specific Bible passages from the weekend message. Each week, your group will discover what God might be saying to you, and how you can respond through a group discussion.

  1. Which superbowl commercial made you laugh the most (from either Crossroads or the actual SuperBowl broadcast)? If none of them made you laugh…that just makes us sad.

  2. What stood out to you most from the message(s)?

  3. Why do you think that stood out to you? What do you think God might be trying to say? (It’s ok if you’re just guessing. This will give you some space to process what it might be.)

  4. What is one way you can respond to what God might be saying to you this week?

  5. Now share a prayer request for the week. Whoever loves taking notes can jot them down (and maybe put them in a group chat, if you have one). Make sure to go around the circle and pray for each other at the end of your meeting, and throughout the week.

More from the Weekend

Bible Trivia! Here’s a few questions to see if you’re smarter than Brian:

  • What did Jacob give Joseph that sparked jealousy from his siblings? Read Genesis 37:3 for the answer.
  • Who was the only female judge of Israel? Read Judges 4:4-5 for the answer.
  • What city mentioned in the book of Revelation shares an name with an American city? Read Revelation 3:7 for the answer.

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(This stuff helps us figure out how many fruitcakes to make come December)

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Got it! Enjoy your discussion.


Feb 11, 2023

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