How to Live a Faithful Life

We all want to be known as “a faithful person”, someone others can count on. Brian Tome explores how the Holy Spirit can help us live that type of life.

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    Well, I'm going to do something that
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    I don't remember the last time I've done it,
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    if I've ever done it, and that is talk about
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    the role of women in the Bible.
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    I'm going to meld that with, like,
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    a whole talk I've talked about before,
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    but like an entire talk about that,
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    melded with motherhood,
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    melded with whether you're a mom, not a mom,
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    woman, not a woman, how it relates to faithfulness.
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    And believe it or not,
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    all this is going to hopefully make sense.
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    So let's pray before I go any further.
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    God, I'm asking that You would do something fresh
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    in our rooms today, whatever campus we're in,
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    I'm asking that all of us, whether we're male, female,
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    mother, father, single, not mother, not father,
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    whatever we are, that You would --
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    You would give us something that would
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    help us understand You better,
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    help us understand ourselves better,
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    and hopefully be more faithful to You
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    when we leave here today.
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    Thank you for the honor to talk about
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    your transcendent truth, God.
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    I don't ever want to take that for granted.
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    I pray these things in according to the character
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    and identity of Jesus. Amen.
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    Well, Mother's Day is amazing.
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    We all know it's amazing.
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    I mean, Mother's Day is like, man, moms,
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    everyone shows up for church because mom tells them,
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    "I want you to go to church with me."
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    And mothers, they get, like, they get spa days
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    and they get -- they get --
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    they get they get nails redone.
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    They get jewelry, maybe get diamonds. Yeah. Right.
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    Then, and then Father's Day, we get cargo shorts.
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    That's like I said, that's it.
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    Yes. The men are plotting now. Yes. Right, Right.
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    And I've thought about this.
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    Why is it -- why does Mother's Day
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    seem to be a bigger deal than Father's Day?
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    I don't think it's sexism.
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    I don't think that.
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    And by the way,
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    today I'm going to speak in generalities.
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    You can find an exception about everything I say today.
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    Okay? So please don't do that.
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    Just try to be open to the general themes
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    I'm going to try to give you today.
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    And I would say that I think that the reason
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    why Mother's Day tends to be a bigger day
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    probably than Father's Day is, I think by and large,
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    us kids think of our mom as being incredibly faithful,
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    maybe even more faithful than our dad was,
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    maybe more present, maybe more warm,
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    maybe more, more caring.
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    Maybe it's one of my theories that could take place.
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    There's something powerful and special about a mom.
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    There's something special about a godly mom.
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    There's something special about a mother, a woman,
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    a father, a person who isn't a mother or father,
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    who has, as we talked about last week, the X Factor.
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    The X factor is the presence of God in our life,
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    specifically the presence of Holy Spirit's in our life
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    that gives us abilities and capacities
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    that go beyond what our normal learning might do.
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    We all know when someone's attractive,
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    they may not go on to a magazine cover,
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    but there's something about them that draws us to them.
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    What is it about some people,
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    wherever you drop them in life,
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    they tend to be successful in business or whatever it is.
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    They have the X factor.
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    The X factor is the Holy Spirit.
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    And when the Holy Spirit comes into your life,
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    you have powers and abilities
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    that are beyond your normal abilities.
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    You have insights, you have characteristics,
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    you have qualities that, if you develop them,
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    will be beyond what you were before.
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    Now, in the early church where this happens,
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    I talked about this last week in Acts Chapter one,
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    there is miraculous things that take place
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    and one I want to just remind us of from last week
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    was tongues came upon them.
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    This is the kind of tongues where people were speaking
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    languages that they had never officially learned
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    to tell people about who Jesus was.
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    And the people who were doing this,
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    telling people about who Jesus was,
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    they were men and women.
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    It wasn't that tongues, the ability to proclaim
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    who God was only came, only came to men.
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    It came to men and women.
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    Now, today I'm going to do what I did last week
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    at the very end of our time together,
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    I'm going to put up a QR code if you want it.
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    I'm going to give you,
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    just so you can pay attention more
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    and maybe see stuff that
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    that I chose not to include or delete.
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    I'm actually putting my actual notes
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    that are on my iPad for you to see.
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    You'll see things that are there exactly how I intended them.
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    This is not a paper.
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    This is not an article.
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    Please don't go posting it around.
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    It's not for that. It's just for my personal notes.
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    On the bottom of these notes,
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    you'll see things that didn't make the cut.
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    And I'll also have at the very end,
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    I just put this in because some of you might be curious,
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    I know Crossroads is a very big tent.
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    We're a big tent and you have a big tent because
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    you have a lot of people and you learn to live
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    with differences with one another.
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    You learn to live Republicans and Democrats together.
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    What do you know? It can actually happen.
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    You learn to do that, learn to live that way.
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    You learn to live with people who have
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    different beliefs about this and that.
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    And one of the things that there are probably
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    some different beliefs about in all of our rooms,
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    in all of our sites, is what's the role of women?
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    There's some verses in the Bible
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    that seem to indicate that women can't teach
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    or they can't lead, at least on a macro scale.
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    How does that relate to other things in the Bible,
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    this and that, other?
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    We have different people
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    have believed different things here about those things.
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    And all of us are welcome. All of us are important.
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    When I say "we," "what we believe,"
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    what I mean is those of us who have to make decisions
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    in leadership of how the church is governed.
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    For decades, we've had women
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    at every level of organization.
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    We have women on our board.
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    We've had women who are teachers.
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    We have had women who are senior leaders
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    on our staff for decades.
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    This doesn't come from any other thing
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    than looking at the Bible holistically and saying,
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    "We think women need to be elevated
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    and we think women get to play in the big game, too,
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    not just men."
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    And so we've got a little thing that we've been working on
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    and we've had for years and years.
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    Some of you clapping, some are, like, [grumbling].
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    Please, today is not about clapping or booing.
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    Just try to be open to what God might teach you.
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    But at the end of that document I have,
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    I have the thing that we've hammered through
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    as a board years ago, and you can see that
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    if you're curious.
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    Anyway, some of that might be controversial.
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    This is not what's controversial:
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    Acts 1:8 says this.
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    Hmm, might be good if I went to Acts instead of Matthew.
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    Here we go. Acts 1, there we go.
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    Who is the you? The you is men and women.
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    Jesus commissioned men and women.
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    He didn't just commission men.
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    He commissioned men and women.
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    Look at Acts 2:17, here's something interesting.
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    This is when the Holy Spirit is unleashed
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    and filling people who receive Jesus. Here's what it says:
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    Yeah. So, women can prophesy, but they can't teach.
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    That seems a little odd to me,
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    but this is what it says here.
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    The Spirit comes and everyone gets it in on that gig,
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    everybody, men and women, prophesy.
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    The early church was a movement
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    like no movement in the history of the world.
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    In fact, it's still a movement
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    like no movement in the history of the world.
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    The early church grew 50% a decade,
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    decade over decade over decade
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    over decade for millennia, 50%.
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    In fact, it's still growing today.
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    Well, it may not appear to be growing
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    in the Western cultures of Europe and of America,
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    but south of the border is taking off like a weed.
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    How would you feel if your your family grew
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    50% exponentially, kept growing, kept growing.
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    I probably might not like that, actually.
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    How would you how would you feel if your business
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    grew 50% decade over decade over decade?
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    How would you feel if anything grew that way?
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    It'd be amazing, overwhelming probably.
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    How did that happen with Christianity?
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    Didn't happen with Islam. Didn't happen with Hinduism.
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    It didn't happen with Judaism.
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    How did it happen? My theory, and some sociologists' theory,
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    is that the reason was in those other ancient religions
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    women weren't allowed to play.
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    But in Christianity,
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    Jesus unleashed 100% of the workforce.
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    Everybody gets the Holy Spirit.
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    Everybody gets the prophesy.
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    Everybody gets to go on adventure.
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    Everybody gets to tell her neighbor about Jesus.
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    Everybody gets to baptize.
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    Everybody, 100% of the workforce unleashed.
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    Jesus was a rule breaker in society in terms of this.
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    He broke the cultural norms
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    of what was expected to be with women.
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    He actually had women in His inner circle.
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    He talked to women publicly.
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    Sometimes He would plan on doing this, be at a well
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    I know this woman's going to come here. I'm going to --
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    You, as a man, you were not supposed to talk to
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    any woman you weren't married to, especially in public.
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    He would talk to women. He would teach women.
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    Presumably he would touch women.
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    He would hug women.
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    He befriended women.
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    He he stood against all of these cultural norms.
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    And that's why we have Him having such a movement.
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    We've got His mother, Mary,
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    who is one of His followers, one of His disciples.
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    When we talk about disciples, by the way,
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    many of us think about the first 12 disciples
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    or the male disciples that we have the record
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    of Him actually inviting in.
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    He invited 12 men in, also known as the 12 Apostles,
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    but recognize that there are many, many other disciples.
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    Disciple is just the word mathetes in Greek,
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    which means learner.
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    When people would refer to rabbi
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    and they would say, "Rabbi, teach us.
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    Rabbi, tell us this."
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    They're calling him his teacher
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    and they're calling themselves His disciple.
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    I don't know if you've seen it at all,
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    but it's, in my lifetime,
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    it's the best depiction of Jesus.
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    Not even a close second to anything else.
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    The best one is the series
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    by my friend Dallas Jenkins called Chosen.
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    I don't know if you've seen it.
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    Recommend it highly.
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    And Dallas does a fantastic job on this
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    in showing that Jesus's disciples were women.
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    They're are in the inner circle.
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    They're are privy to all the teaching.
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    They're involved in the game.
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    You had His mother, Mary, you've got Mary Magdalene,
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    you've got Mary, whose sister is Martha.
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    You've got -- you've just got women
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    who are around all the time.
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    And this set up Christianity to have women
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    who are leading women in leadership.
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    In Romans 16:7, there's not just other disciples,
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    there's other apostles, other apostles,
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    and one of them in Romans 16:17, her name is Junia.
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    And I said, her, her, her.
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    She is an apostle.
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    The Bible calls her as an apostle.
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    Junia is a woman's name.
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    A is a suffix in Greek that's only given to women.
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    It's a feminine name.
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    You know, like Pat can go either way.
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    Patricia, though, is always female, right?
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    That's Junia, is an apostle, a female apostle,
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    very clearly given in the Bible of Junia.
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    Powerbrokers in the ancient world
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    who were in the church who are women.
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    Now, this is all just a background.
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    I'm not even getting a motherhood yet. Okay?
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    Wait till I get the motherhood,
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    it's going to get really fun. Okay.
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    In Acts 16:13 and following, we see another woman.
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    We're not sure that she's a mother.
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    She, in all likelihood, was a mother at one point,
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    if she's not a mother right now.
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    She's a very interesting figure.
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    Let's read about her. Her name is Lydia.
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    Here's what says in Acts chapter 16.
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    Let's just take a --
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    let's take a moment and just pause right here.
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    This is talking here, it's talking about Paul.
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    Paul had a ministry that needed to be funded.
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    And Paul wasn't dumb. Paul wasn't dumb.
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    He found somebody who had a lot of money
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    and he befriended them so she could fund his ministry,
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    or at least be a patron of it.
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    And this is very common, right?
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    We know the Medicis, they were a patron of the arts,
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    and especially Christian artists
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    who were writing arts during the --
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    or drawing things during the during the Renaissance.
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    They were a patron.
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    They were funding these things.
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    Very common in the history of Christianity
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    to have somebody who has a calling
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    who has somebody who's funding it.
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    Paul has Lydia who's funding his ministry in part.
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    This is a high, high impact woman.
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    She's a dealer in purple cloth.
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    That doesn't sound like anything today
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    because we've probably got some purple in here.
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    We've got all kinds of colors in a Crossroads site
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    on any given day.
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    That's because we have colors that's cheap.
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    Back in the old days, back in the Bible days,
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    you had the color of burlap.
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    That's what you've got. You got burlap.
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    You got to wear burlap.
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    Honey, what do I got in the closet?
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    You got burlap. Good, burlap.
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    Because you didn't have money for colors,
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    and especially not the pigment of purple,
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    which came from a plant that was rare
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    and the process was difficult.
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    And so when you dealt purple cloth,
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    that'd be like selling Rolls-Royces in the '50s,
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    that would be like writing an app
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    and having a startup in 2005
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    when the App Store is newish and all that stuff.
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    It was in a capital intensive endeavor.
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    Where did she find this capital?
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    How did she figure out supply line, supply chain?
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    How did she do it? That's who she was.
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    If they had a Fortune 100 list
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    of most influential, richest women in the world
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    at the time, or at least in the region,
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    she would have been on it.
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    To be a dealer in purple cloth is really rare.
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    She is open to faith. She's a worshiper.
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    So she's got some relationship with
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    the Old Testament God or with spirituality in general.
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    The Apostle Paul builds into her,
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    tells her about Jesus. She comes to faith.
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    And let's keep going here on verse 15,
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    and after she was baptized,
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    that tells us she came to faith, she got baptized.
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    Judge me to be faithful.
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    Friends, where I'm going today, at some point
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    I'm going to circle out of motherhood,
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    fatherhood, familyhood,
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    and we're going to talk about being faithful.
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    This is what we see in Lydia here.
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    She's about faithfulness, but she is a woman of impact.
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    She has a household, not a house, a household.
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    It's a oikos.
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    To have a household means you've got
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    a big enough dwelling place
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    and people look to you for leadership.
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    It could be your kids,
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    it could be servants, it could be employees.
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    It could be people who respect you
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    and want to come under your authority.
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    She has a household.
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    Is she widowed? Is she divorced?
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    Did her husband leave her?
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    Is she married and the Bible never mentions it
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    because it's not that big of a deal?
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    Like we're, like, [mumbles]
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    "Well, certainly if she's married,
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    we'd find out about the guy's name."
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    No, Peter was married.
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    We don't know his wife's name.
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    And it's not anywhere in the Bible.
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    "Well, certainly if there's a man, we would know."
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    Why is it so shocking?
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    There's a woman who's great.
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    We just know her on her own name
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    and on her own recognizance,
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    and we don't know anything about her husband.
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    Sorry, the world doesn't revolve around men.
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    I don't know if you've ever figured this out or not.
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    Whatever she is, she is a powerful woman
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    and she has a household.
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    And by the way, when she's hosting these meetings,
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    come into her house, she's in charge.
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    She's not like making the cookies and going,
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    "Okay, Apostle Paul, do your thing over there.
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    I'm just going to do cookies here,
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    because that's all I do.
  • 00:15:54
    Cookies, I serve them up. I get out of the way."
  • 00:15:56
    One commentator puts it this way:
  • 00:16:06
    She's leading the group that came under her roof.
  • 00:16:11
    She is, is, or at least was a mother, I believe,
  • 00:16:15
    if she's got a household and all these things
  • 00:16:17
    and she is faithful.
  • 00:16:20
    Billy Graham,
  • 00:16:21
    I love what Billy Graham says about faithfulness.
  • 00:16:23
    He puts it this way:
  • 00:16:39
    Are you called to be a mother?
  • 00:16:41
    Called to not be a mother?
  • 00:16:42
    And I got to tell you,
  • 00:16:44
    and just deflate the tension in the room.
  • 00:16:47
    This is a very polarizing topic because
  • 00:16:50
    the expectations on mothers on to be a mother,
  • 00:16:52
    to not be a mother, what kind of mother you are,
  • 00:16:55
    it is very sensitive.
  • 00:16:56
    There's people in here who have painful memories
  • 00:16:59
    of when they were a mother because they lost a child.
  • 00:17:02
    We have people in our rooms who want to be a mother,
  • 00:17:04
    but it just hasn't happened yet
  • 00:17:06
    because of infertility or not the right guy,
  • 00:17:09
    not the right father.
  • 00:17:10
    We have mothers in here who have levels of frustration.
  • 00:17:13
    We have mothers in here who are having an amazing time
  • 00:17:15
    and are doing it great, great
  • 00:17:16
    and are loving, loving life.
  • 00:17:18
    It's just a sensitive of topic if you're a woman,
  • 00:17:21
    I've just found this again and again,
  • 00:17:22
    that women feel like people are judging them
  • 00:17:25
    for being a mom, for not being a mom,
  • 00:17:27
    for not being the kind of mom
  • 00:17:29
    that someone else thinks that they should be.
  • 00:17:31
    It's a very sensitive and difficult topic.
  • 00:17:33
    In fact, I shouldn't even describe it anymore
  • 00:17:35
    because I think Psychology Today
  • 00:17:37
    said it even better than I could.
  • 00:17:39
    I'll just quote them. Here's what they said:
  • 00:18:21
    Or feeling guilty that you didn't work time,
  • 00:18:25
    didn't volunteer full time,
  • 00:18:27
    feeling guilty you were in the workforce,
  • 00:18:29
    feeling guilty that you weren't in the workforce.
  • 00:18:31
    I've seen it go all ways.
  • 00:18:32
    And I think what it is, actually,
  • 00:18:33
    it's a tactic of the enemy to just mess with women.
  • 00:18:37
    I think it's attack of the enemy to make you feel
  • 00:18:40
    like it seems like the whole world is against me,
  • 00:18:42
    whatever your choices are or whatever you're doing.
  • 00:18:44
    And that's just not true.
  • 00:18:46
    God's not against you. He's for you.
  • 00:18:48
    He's for you and He wants to encourage you today
  • 00:18:51
    because you're a symbol,
  • 00:18:53
    you're a sign of His faithfulness.
  • 00:18:55
    Three big ideas today.
  • 00:18:57
    Number one, when you're a mom,
  • 00:18:58
    you are faithful to creation.
  • 00:19:02
    You're faithful to creation.
  • 00:19:03
    You're actually creating.
  • 00:19:06
    Genesis 1:27, it says that:
  • 00:19:20
    Creation is what happens when a mom has happened
  • 00:19:24
    and you need a mom and a dad,
  • 00:19:27
    or you need a male and a female
  • 00:19:29
    to participate in creation.
  • 00:19:31
    But we all know the women
  • 00:19:33
    bear the brunt of the creation responsibility. Right?
  • 00:19:37
    We all know that, right?
  • 00:19:38
    Us guys, you know, we're like, we're in, we're out.
  • 00:19:41
    Like we're gone.
  • 00:19:43
    Maybe in and out a couple more times,
  • 00:19:45
    but pretty much 30 seconds,
  • 00:19:47
    pretty much 30 seconds and we're done.
  • 00:19:49
    Like, done. I did my creation part.
  • 00:19:51
    My creation part done.
  • 00:19:52
    And then she's left with it, right?
  • 00:19:54
    And here's the half of the woman,
  • 00:19:55
    after that fun time that we have as men,
  • 00:19:58
    then the woman's got nine months, nine months.
  • 00:20:02
    First three months,
  • 00:20:04
    the body has morning sickness frequently.
  • 00:20:06
    First three months, she's vomiting the first trimester.
  • 00:20:09
    She's got hot flashes, fever, many women.
  • 00:20:11
    Why is that?
  • 00:20:12
    It's because the body is saying
  • 00:20:14
    there's a foreign life form in here.
  • 00:20:15
    Foreign life. I got to reject it.
  • 00:20:18
    It's, like, do I have a flu bug here? What?
  • 00:20:21
    And the body is trying to, "Get this thing out.
  • 00:20:23
    I don't know what this life form is. Get it out."
  • 00:20:25
    And she's dealing with it.
  • 00:20:26
    And then after about three months,
  • 00:20:27
    the body goes, "Oh, oh, oh, oh.
  • 00:20:29
    This is actually one of us. Okay?
  • 00:20:32
    It's one of us. Let's calm down. Let's calm down."
  • 00:20:34
    And then the next six months
  • 00:20:36
    are just getting progressively heavier
  • 00:20:38
    and progressively wobblier and you're waddling
  • 00:20:41
    and you're sweating more and you're more uncomfortable,
  • 00:20:44
    and you've got feet sticking up against your ribs
  • 00:20:46
    and you've got all this stuff happening,
  • 00:20:48
    you're dealing with it for six months,
  • 00:20:49
    all that's happening.
  • 00:20:50
    And then you go into the birthing area, right?
  • 00:20:53
    I'm talking like I know this.
  • 00:20:54
    I don't know this stuff much.
  • 00:20:56
    I've just seen it firsthand three times.
  • 00:20:58
    I was good in my 30 seconds and after that I just watched.
  • 00:21:00
    Right? So -- [laughter]
  • 00:21:09
    Amen, she says. How do you know? [laughter]
  • 00:21:16
    So and then she goes to give birth.
  • 00:21:17
    She goes to give birth.
  • 00:21:19
    Utterly painful process. Uh, utterly painful.
  • 00:21:24
    It's like, just watching it, it's like --
  • 00:21:26
    It's like taking your lip, scraping up over your teeth,
  • 00:21:30
    taking over your head up your back
  • 00:21:31
    and stuffing up your butthole.
  • 00:21:32
    That's what it's like.
  • 00:21:36
    And then -- And then -- And then when that happens
  • 00:21:39
    and life form comes out, then God goes,
  • 00:21:41
    "Man, this is so painful, I got to --
  • 00:21:43
    I hope this -- this woman's got to be faithful.
  • 00:21:45
    I want her to do this again."
  • 00:21:46
    So what God does is He sends a chemical wash
  • 00:21:50
    and He sends a chemical wash over the brain
  • 00:21:52
    and washes over all the memory
  • 00:21:55
    so she actually forgets the pain.
  • 00:21:57
    And then she goes, "Huh? Yeah, I'd like to have another kid,"
  • 00:22:00
    because she's forgotten it.
  • 00:22:03
    Because she's faithful in creation.
  • 00:22:08
    Psalm 119 says that God,
  • 00:22:11
    God in His faithfulness endures to all generations;
  • 00:22:13
    He has established the earth, because He is faithful.
  • 00:22:19
    A woman is not just faithful in creation,
  • 00:22:22
    a mother is not just faithful in creation,
  • 00:22:24
    she's also faithful in connection.
  • 00:22:27
    I think, again, the reason why Mother's Day
  • 00:22:30
    tends to be a bigger deal is because
  • 00:22:31
    those of us who are kids, we may be bonded
  • 00:22:34
    with our mom better because she did a better job
  • 00:22:38
    at connecting with us maybe.
  • 00:22:39
    I know this the case in my house.
  • 00:22:40
    One of my major problems, major issues was that
  • 00:22:45
    I thought my job was to toughen up my kids.
  • 00:22:47
    I thought that was what my job was.
  • 00:22:49
    And I think there's a role for that.
  • 00:22:50
    I don't mind like making my kids hearty, but like,
  • 00:22:53
    that was the only thing I thought.
  • 00:22:55
    They didn't think of me when they thought of tenderness.
  • 00:22:57
    I was tender from time to time.
  • 00:22:58
    But I didn't -- I didn't own that character quality.
  • 00:23:02
    Right? Lib did. She owned that character quality.
  • 00:23:04
    It would actually make me angry.
  • 00:23:06
    I finally realized, like, I'm getting angry
  • 00:23:08
    because I'm actually bitter that I didn't have
  • 00:23:11
    that very much in my home.
  • 00:23:12
    I was actually jealous.
  • 00:23:14
    She was giving a connection to my kids
  • 00:23:16
    that I didn't feel as much.
  • 00:23:18
    And let me just say this before I talk about my mom,
  • 00:23:20
    who is -- I'm very thankful and was great.
  • 00:23:23
    No matter who your mom was, she did the best she could.
  • 00:23:27
    No matter who your mom was, no matter who she is,
  • 00:23:30
    she's doing the best she could.
  • 00:23:32
    And she probably has improved
  • 00:23:34
    from her previous generation.
  • 00:23:38
    My mom tells a story regularly,
  • 00:23:39
    I think she would tell me this story
  • 00:23:41
    to help me understand her.
  • 00:23:43
    She would say --
  • 00:23:44
    she actually never talked about her father.
  • 00:23:47
    Never talked about him.
  • 00:23:48
    Good guy from what I understand.
  • 00:23:49
    I remember my grandfather. He was a Methodist pastor.
  • 00:23:52
    And he was an old school pastor.
  • 00:23:56
    So what that meant is the church owned the house
  • 00:23:58
    and they didn't pay him.
  • 00:23:59
    And someone, the farmers and stuff of the church
  • 00:24:01
    would stop by their house
  • 00:24:03
    and they would give them chickens
  • 00:24:04
    and give him tomatoes and stuff like that.
  • 00:24:06
    And then if he wanted spending cash,
  • 00:24:07
    he had to have other jobs.
  • 00:24:09
    So he coached football, coached track,
  • 00:24:10
    all these kind of things.
  • 00:24:11
    So basically he just wasn't around.
  • 00:24:13
    My mom doesn't have a lot of memories of him,
  • 00:24:15
    so that left my grandmother
  • 00:24:16
    to be the one in the house that that ran everything,
  • 00:24:19
    was always around who they could connect with.
  • 00:24:22
    And she tells the story of,
  • 00:24:24
    I don't know what year it was, was it 1950, '45?
  • 00:24:26
    I don't know what it was.
  • 00:24:28
    All the kids going down to the train station.
  • 00:24:30
    She said, the only -- my mom said,
  • 00:24:32
    "The only time my mother ever kissed me,
  • 00:24:34
    she took us all down the train station.
  • 00:24:36
    She was leaving and she lined us all up.
  • 00:24:38
    And she went one by one
  • 00:24:39
    and kissed each one of us on the forehead.
  • 00:24:42
    And that was it."
  • 00:24:43
    And I think it was my mom's way of saying,
  • 00:24:45
    "I wish she had a bit more affection,"
  • 00:24:46
    but also a way of saying,
  • 00:24:49
    "I am way upping the bar on affection,
  • 00:24:51
    way upping the bar on connection."
  • 00:24:55
    We need to be connected.
  • 00:24:57
    And all this stuff I'm talking about women in leadership,
  • 00:24:59
    all this stuff I'm talking about motherhood.
  • 00:25:01
    Let me just remind you,
  • 00:25:02
    I'm supposed to be the man guy, okay?
  • 00:25:05
    I'm the guy who people think talks about men a lot.
  • 00:25:08
    I'm the guy who goes all over the country
  • 00:25:09
    talking about manhood.
  • 00:25:10
    I'm the guy who would say,
  • 00:25:12
    "I think the biggest challenge in our families
  • 00:25:15
    is we don't have enough men
  • 00:25:16
    and we don't have enough men
  • 00:25:18
    who actually want to make mothers."
  • 00:25:19
    I'm trying to help you ladies.
  • 00:25:21
    I'm really trying. I'm doing my best.
  • 00:25:23
    But today is at least to encourage you
  • 00:25:26
    in your role as a mom, to keep connecting,
  • 00:25:29
    keep pushing, keep going,
  • 00:25:31
    keep recognizing your faithfulness
  • 00:25:35
    is mirroring the faithfulness of God.
  • 00:25:37
    Look at some of the verse in the Bible that show us
  • 00:25:39
    that God takes on motherly qualities.
  • 00:25:42
    In the book of Hosea 13:8:
  • 00:25:56
    This is, you know, don't want to get between
  • 00:25:59
    a mother and her cubs, not a father and her cubs.
  • 00:26:02
    In fact, those of you who don't like bear hunting,
  • 00:26:05
    the reason you bear hunt is you want to bear hunt
  • 00:26:07
    and kill the males because the males will eat their young.
  • 00:26:11
    Yeah, yeah, yeah.
  • 00:26:13
    People go, "Oh, maybe I'm for bear hunting."
  • 00:26:15
    Yeah, it's the male bears that go and eat the cubs.
  • 00:26:20
    And so Mama Bear has to protect them
  • 00:26:23
    and stand between them.
  • 00:26:25
    And that's why when you're hiking,
  • 00:26:26
    if you come anywhere between them, she will devour you.
  • 00:26:29
    It's Mama. God is saying I'm like a mama bear
  • 00:26:32
    and eventually I will crush people who come against my ways.
  • 00:26:35
    Isaiah 42:14:
  • 00:26:49
    So God feels sometimes, we only know that because
  • 00:26:52
    He likens it to how a woman is in the creation process.
  • 00:26:56
    Isaiah 66:13
  • 00:27:05
    Ruth 2:12:
  • 00:27:14
    Whose wings do we come under?
  • 00:27:16
    The mother bird.
  • 00:27:17
    It's the mother bird who's in the nest.
  • 00:27:19
    And the chicklets and the henhouse,
  • 00:27:22
    whatever, come under her wings.
  • 00:27:24
    God saying you come under my wings.
  • 00:27:26
    I'm like a mother bird who will take care of you
  • 00:27:29
    and honor you and bless you.
  • 00:27:34
    All of us, none of us are a blank slate.
  • 00:27:37
    All of us have been affected by our parents,
  • 00:27:41
    and all of us are doing the best we can to press forward.
  • 00:27:43
    And I think what God would say to you is,
  • 00:27:45
    wherever you are right now,
  • 00:27:47
    God wants to encourage you and He wants to say,
  • 00:27:49
    He wants you to be faithful as He's faithful.
  • 00:27:53
    2 Timothy 2:13, says:
  • 00:28:00
    What does that mean, He can't deny himself?
  • 00:28:01
    It means that He can't deny His character qualities,
  • 00:28:06
    and His character quality is faithful.
  • 00:28:08
    God is faithful.
  • 00:28:09
    One of the things I really wish,
  • 00:28:11
    and I tried really hard to find it.
  • 00:28:13
    I've done this a number of times.
  • 00:28:14
    I go in the Bible and say,
  • 00:28:15
    I'm going to talk about this this week,
  • 00:28:17
    so let me find the best passage for that.
  • 00:28:19
    So I went and, like, okay, motherhood.
  • 00:28:21
    Okay, let's look at this fresh.
  • 00:28:22
    I know there's a killer motherhood story here.
  • 00:28:24
    I know there's one.
  • 00:28:25
    Like there's probably one, like, five verses long.
  • 00:28:28
    I can pull some stuff out of it.
  • 00:28:29
    And I go in there and there's not. There's not.
  • 00:28:32
    There's not a great mother story.
  • 00:28:34
    There's not a great father one either.
  • 00:28:36
    I felt the same thing on Father's Day.
  • 00:28:38
    There's not, like, a great like chunk, like,
  • 00:28:40
    here's what dad, here's what --
  • 00:28:41
    There's Proverbs 31 in the Old Testament,
  • 00:28:43
    that's a woman, that's a woman chapter,
  • 00:28:46
    not specifically a mother chapter.
  • 00:28:48
    It's a woman chapter.
  • 00:28:50
    Like, what's going on back there?
  • 00:28:52
    Like, all the things that we feel guilt about as mothers
  • 00:28:54
    or as you feel guilt about his mothers,
  • 00:28:56
    like, I'm not working outside the home
  • 00:28:58
    or I am working outside the home
  • 00:29:00
    or I'm not tucking my kids in at night
  • 00:29:02
    or I'm not doing crafts with my kids
  • 00:29:04
    or I'm not doing enough crafts with them
  • 00:29:06
    or I'm not reading them, how should I be reading to them?
  • 00:29:08
    There's not a biblical thing of, like,
  • 00:29:11
    Mary, Jesus's mother take him to bed
  • 00:29:14
    and reading a scroll at night, you know?
  • 00:29:18
    Waking up and having arts and crafts with Jesus,
  • 00:29:23
    like every good mom does
  • 00:29:24
    has arts and crafts days with Jesus.
  • 00:29:28
    Nothing of Mary disciplining Jesus.
  • 00:29:30
    Nothing's in there.
  • 00:29:31
    Why? Why don't we have these, like, really beautiful
  • 00:29:35
    here's what a mom is?
  • 00:29:36
    And by the way, maybe this should feel less guilty
  • 00:29:39
    when you're not fulfilling whatever picture
  • 00:29:41
    of what you think a mom is.
  • 00:29:43
    Because guess what? The Bible doesn't give you a picture.
  • 00:29:45
    So any picture you have, culture is giving you,
  • 00:29:48
    your history of origin is giving you,
  • 00:29:50
    because the picture isn't in the Bible.
  • 00:29:51
    And by the way, if it was that important
  • 00:29:53
    for you to be a specific kind of mom,
  • 00:29:55
    the Bible would have told you to be a specific kind of mom.
  • 00:29:58
    And it doesn't.
  • 00:29:59
    So work in the home, work outside the home.
  • 00:30:01
    God doesn't care.
  • 00:30:02
    You discipline this way, discipline this way.
  • 00:30:04
    I don't think God cares that much.
  • 00:30:06
    Just figure out how to be faithful because
  • 00:30:09
    what God really wants is not for you to be a mom,
  • 00:30:11
    not for you to be a dad.
  • 00:30:12
    He wants you to be faithful.
  • 00:30:13
    He wants you to be faithful to Christ.
  • 00:30:15
    That's what He wants, faithful to Christ as a mom,
  • 00:30:19
    or not as a mom.
  • 00:30:20
    It's about faithfulness.
  • 00:30:26
    You know, God, why would --
  • 00:30:28
    why would God choose Mary as the mother? Why Mary?
  • 00:30:33
    She was it, like, her ovaries
  • 00:30:35
    are more blessed than other peoples?
  • 00:30:37
    Wasn't that. What was it?
  • 00:30:40
    I think it's because
  • 00:30:42
    Mary was the greatest woman in the world.
  • 00:30:43
    And God said, "I will find the greatest woman
  • 00:30:45
    to give my son to."
  • 00:30:47
    And why was she the greatest woman?
  • 00:30:49
    I think it's because she was faithful.
  • 00:30:52
    She was faithful to God,
  • 00:30:53
    and actually she was faithful to Christ.
  • 00:30:55
    She didn't give -- stop parenting once Jesus was 12,
  • 00:30:58
    once He was 18.
  • 00:30:59
    She's still there when He's dying on a cross.
  • 00:31:03
    No mother ever stops. Right?
  • 00:31:05
    And that's why, as old as we are,
  • 00:31:08
    we still celebrate our moms because
  • 00:31:10
    we realize she still hasn't stopped.
  • 00:31:12
    She's still going.
  • 00:31:13
    Especially in a culture where faithfulness
  • 00:31:16
    is an endangered character quality,
  • 00:31:17
    it's virtually almost extinct.
  • 00:31:20
    Because faithfulness by its nature means
  • 00:31:23
    you're doing it for a long time over and over
  • 00:31:26
    and over and over and over and over again.
  • 00:31:28
    Lib -- I got here this morning.
  • 00:31:30
    I got to get up early, I run through happens
  • 00:31:32
    at like 6 a.m. in the morning on Sunday.
  • 00:31:34
    And I get here and of course I get up before her
  • 00:31:36
    because she doesn't need to be up that early.
  • 00:31:38
    So I get here and I get a text from her saying,
  • 00:31:40
    "Hey." She texted me, "Hey, I forgot, or we forgot,"
  • 00:31:43
    I'm always the one who forgets. Always am.
  • 00:31:47
    Today's our anniversary. It's our anniversary today.
  • 00:31:54
    35 years. [cheers] 35 years.
  • 00:32:02
    She's a faithful woman. She remember before I did.
  • 00:32:04
    We've been forgetting the last several years.
  • 00:32:06
    You get up there, so many, like,
  • 00:32:07
    whatever it is, who cares? You know?
  • 00:32:09
    35. Here's the thing, the longer you do something,
  • 00:32:12
    the less people you'll be able to identify with,
  • 00:32:15
    because there are very few people
  • 00:32:17
    who do things long term.
  • 00:32:18
    And that's what faithfulness is.
  • 00:32:20
    Faith isn't I believe stupid things.
  • 00:32:23
    Faithful is I do obedient things.
  • 00:32:27
    Faith isn't I believe things
  • 00:32:29
    that are scientifically impossible.
  • 00:32:32
    Faith is I am doing things that God says are possible.
  • 00:32:37
    I'm doing them.
  • 00:32:39
    Faithfulness is in very, very short supply.
  • 00:32:42
    Faithfulness. And it's hard.
  • 00:32:44
    It's hard for me to find fewer and fewer people
  • 00:32:47
    who have been married for 35 years
  • 00:32:49
    and actually like each other still.
  • 00:32:52
    I'm employed by the same organization
  • 00:32:55
    with the same job for 28 years.
  • 00:33:01
    It's hard to find people who, shoot,
  • 00:33:04
    after it was after like after 15 years
  • 00:33:06
    I was like the longest running senior pastor
  • 00:33:08
    in all of Cincinnati after 15 years.
  • 00:33:09
    Like, already? Like weird. Weird.
  • 00:33:13
    Faithfulness. Faithfulness is very, very rare.
  • 00:33:17
    Faithfulness to Christ is very rare.
  • 00:33:20
    There is increasing numbers of people
  • 00:33:22
    who are what's known, as we've talked about this before,
  • 00:33:24
    deconstructing their faith.
  • 00:33:26
    And my heart hurts and my heart breaks
  • 00:33:28
    for those of you who are deconstructing
  • 00:33:29
    or those who may or those who are.
  • 00:33:32
    My heart hurts and breaks because generally
  • 00:33:34
    it means they've come probably a couple of things
  • 00:33:36
    have happened, a few things,
  • 00:33:37
    may have come from a very dysfunctional church,
  • 00:33:39
    married to a very dysfunctional religious family
  • 00:33:42
    of origin that's been very abusive, maybe,
  • 00:33:44
    and they got to get out from it.
  • 00:33:46
    The only way they know to get out from it
  • 00:33:47
    is get out from under Christianity.
  • 00:33:49
    Sometimes we deconstruct because
  • 00:33:51
    we've been taught things that are just stupid
  • 00:33:52
    and we shouldn't be taught these things.
  • 00:33:54
    Or if we're taught these things,
  • 00:33:55
    then we should be told
  • 00:33:57
    this is not a primary doctrine to believe in,
  • 00:33:59
    but someone tells us it is, and so we got to elevate it.
  • 00:34:01
    And then when that comes down, our whole faith comes down.
  • 00:34:04
    It bothers me.
  • 00:34:05
    I heard from people who have to go through
  • 00:34:06
    the pain of deconstructing.
  • 00:34:08
    And what also bothers me when someone has to do that
  • 00:34:10
    and they have to do it in public,
  • 00:34:11
    like people are, like, if you want to do it,
  • 00:34:14
    why do you have to like amass a following over this?
  • 00:34:16
    I don't why -- do you have to, like,
  • 00:34:18
    broadcast to people that you're doing it?
  • 00:34:20
    Why are you why do you need to be narcissistic about this?
  • 00:34:24
    I don't understand about that.
  • 00:34:26
    And then I get a little -- get a little pissy.
  • 00:34:29
    I'm like, I know that you think
  • 00:34:30
    that you're smarter than everybody else.
  • 00:34:32
    I know you do, at least that's what
  • 00:34:33
    you're putting yourself up.
  • 00:34:34
    But listen to me, listen to me,
  • 00:34:36
    astronauts are Christians, PhDs are Christians,
  • 00:34:40
    leading world authorities are Christians,
  • 00:34:43
    Nobel Prize winners have been Christians.
  • 00:34:46
    It's not that Christianity has all of a sudden
  • 00:34:48
    become nonsensical, it's that you're unfaithful.
  • 00:34:51
    There's a big difference there.
  • 00:34:53
    The difference between being nonsensical
  • 00:34:55
    and being unfaithful, when you give your life to Christ,
  • 00:34:58
    and I'll just remind us of those of us
  • 00:34:59
    who've ever done this.
  • 00:35:00
    If you've ever done this and you got baptized,
  • 00:35:02
    what you said to Jesus was, "I'm going to be faithful.
  • 00:35:05
    I died to myself. I left it in that tub.
  • 00:35:08
    I drowned at the bottom.
  • 00:35:09
    And if life doesn't go my way,
  • 00:35:11
    if I feel like God isn't blessing me
  • 00:35:13
    the way I think he should, if I'm having pain
  • 00:35:16
    and difficulty coming, this is what I signed up for.
  • 00:35:18
    I signed up to be faithful.
  • 00:35:20
    I signed up to follow Him,
  • 00:35:22
    not be blessed by Him and have a nice, comfortable life.
  • 00:35:25
    I signed up to follow Him."
  • 00:35:27
    That's what's faithful. That's what it is.
  • 00:35:30
    And that's, I think, why we're so drawn to mothers,
  • 00:35:34
    because mothers have cleaned up our vomit,
  • 00:35:36
    they've wiped our rear ends, they've slid us $20 bills.
  • 00:35:40
    They've hugged us and held us.
  • 00:35:41
    They've shown up to bail us out.
  • 00:35:43
    They keep showing up, even when we don't love them,
  • 00:35:46
    when we don't value them, when we ignore them,
  • 00:35:48
    we make their lives more difficult.
  • 00:35:50
    We keep showing up, or they keep showing up.
  • 00:35:55
    And God says to us, "Will you do the same thing for me?
  • 00:35:58
    Will you show up, whether you're male or female,
  • 00:36:01
    mother or father, single, whatever, will you show up?
  • 00:36:05
    Will you be like Me and be faithful?
  • 00:36:08
    Whether it's easy, whether it's hard,
  • 00:36:10
    whether you're rich, whether you're poor,
  • 00:36:12
    in sickness, or in health, so long as you live,
  • 00:36:14
    will you be faithful?"
  • 00:36:17
    Moms don't even have to answer that question
  • 00:36:20
    because they just are.
  • 00:36:22
    They show up.
  • 00:36:23
    And God would say the same thing to all of us:
  • 00:36:25
    Will you be like Me?
  • 00:36:29
    Somebody who spreads out His wings and helps
  • 00:36:32
    and blesses and shows up and is faithful.
  • 00:36:36
    This is the X factor.
  • 00:36:37
    The x factor that you can have is the Spirit of God
  • 00:36:41
    who lives in you and makes you, if you will,
  • 00:36:43
    a possessor of divinity.
  • 00:36:45
    But how do you know that someone actually has the Holy Spirit?
  • 00:36:47
    It's not their charismatic personality.
  • 00:36:50
    It's not.
  • 00:36:51
    It's not how many Bible verses they've had memorized.
  • 00:36:54
    It's not that.
  • 00:36:56
    It's whether or not they're faithful.
  • 00:36:58
    Whether or not they show up every day.
  • 00:37:00
    If they have the X factor of hanging in there
  • 00:37:02
    a little longer, the X factor of showing up,
  • 00:37:05
    the X factor of fighting, the X factor of nursing,
  • 00:37:08
    the X factor of hugging and holding and over and over,
  • 00:37:11
    day after day, week after week, month after month,
  • 00:37:13
    year after year, decade after decade.
  • 00:37:15
    That is the X factor.
  • 00:37:17
    That's what the Holy Spirit can give you
  • 00:37:20
    if you want Him and if you want to be like Him.
  • 00:37:24
    If you want to be like a mom who's a great mom.
  • 00:37:27
    Now, I want to I want to end our time today.
  • 00:37:29
    That's the end of my pithy time. I want to do this.
  • 00:37:31
    I want to just -- I don't want to pray over us.
  • 00:37:33
    I want to put a blessing on us.
  • 00:37:35
    I want to take a twist over Old Testament passages
  • 00:37:38
    of giving a blessing or a benediction.
  • 00:37:40
    I want to put one on you.
  • 00:37:42
    I want to air it towards the moms,
  • 00:37:44
    but I want this to be for all people,
  • 00:37:45
    whatever gender or role you may have in the family,
  • 00:37:48
    or if you don't have a family.
  • 00:37:49
    So if you wouldn't mind, go ahead and stand right now.
  • 00:37:52
    Go ahead and stand
  • 00:37:53
    and let me do an old school blessing on you.
  • 00:38:03
    May the Lord bless you and keep you.
  • 00:38:07
    May His countenance shine upon you.
  • 00:38:11
    May He lift up His face and see you and smile upon you.
  • 00:38:18
    May you be faithful,
  • 00:38:20
    just like your Heavenly Father is faithful.
  • 00:38:22
    May you be powerful just like your Heavenly Father is.
  • 00:38:24
    May you endure just like He endures.
  • 00:38:27
    And may you nurture, comfort, create
  • 00:38:30
    in the way that He does, so long as your God enables you.
  • 00:38:37
    By the power vested in me,
  • 00:38:38
    I declare you and charge you to be faithful.

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. What’s your favorite memory of your mother?

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

  3. What does the word “faithful” mean to you?

  4. Where in your life have you seen the effects of faithfulness? Where have you seen the lack of it?

  5. When was the last time a situation of a decision in front of you required faithfulness? How did you respond?

  6. What obstacles or barriers sometimes make it difficult to be faithful?

  7. What things or people in your life require your faithfulness? Name a few here specifically.

  8. How can you pursue faithfulness in your life this week?

  9. Let’s end with prayer. You can say something like, “Jesus, thank you for your faithfulness to us. Thank you for your obedience to God’s rescue plan. Give us the same faithful heart. Help us hear and obey your voice regardless of the circumstances around us. Amen.”

More from the Weekend

Bonus Questions! Check these out if you’re on a roll and want to go a little deeper.

  • What’s the difference between doubt and disobedience?
  • What things or people in your life require your faithfulness? Name a few here specifically.

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May 14, 2023 1 hr 8 mins 39 sec

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