How Mountains Move

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- Question if it were possible to learn

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a superpower, would you want to learn it?

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And what if that super power

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was the ability to move mountains?

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And by mountains I mean the seemingly

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insurmountable obstacles

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standing in the way of your life.

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I know all of us have places we feel stuck,

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like there's something that's just in our way

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that we can't seem to get past.

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By the way, I'm Kyle, I'm a Pastor.

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This is Crossroads Church. What does that mean?

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It means I believe you were born for adventure

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and we exist here to guide

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and equip you for that adventure.

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No matter what your thoughts are on church

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or on God or any of that,

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I'm just pumped that you're with us today.

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So if you want to move mountains,

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if you said, "Yes, I'd like the superpower,

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Kyle, that's be great."

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Great news, Jesus promised that through Him you can.

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Let me say this, this promise, which

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I'm about to show you in just a second,

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in all the promises of Jesus,

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they're not reserved for the people

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who have it all together

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and do all the right stuff all the time.

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The only criteria to having any promise of Jesus

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is having an open mind and open heart towards God.

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That's it.

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If that's you today, I believe today

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is going to help you move forward

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past the mountain standing in your path.

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And here's the promise, the actual words from Jesus.

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This is Mark 11:23, Jesus said:

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That's an amazing promise, right?

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I mean that's incredible.

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I mean it's one of the most exciting

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things Jesus ever said.

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Here's the problem,

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it's also one of the most misunderstood.

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So let's start with some important context

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to get towards understanding.

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First, Jesus didn't say these words

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in a sterile classroom.

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He was walking outside.

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He said it on a specific day,

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which I find very fascinating.

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It was on the Tuesday of the week He was crucified,

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which happened on Friday, just three days later.

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And if you understand exactly where Jesus was

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when he said this,

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the story gets immediately more interesting.

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See he was walking from a town called Bethany,

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which is just on the back side of a mountain

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just outside of Jerusalem over here.

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He was walking up the mountain

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and standing on the crest of the hill.

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Now, I want you to read this with me again.

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He said:

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Now Jesus didn't just say any mountain,

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He didn't say a mountain,

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He said this mountain.

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And this moment right here is where we get off track.

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See, we apply this to any situation,

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any problem in our life.

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But Jesus said this mountain.

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Which mountain was He talking about?

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Well, generally, when someone is speaking

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and they say this, they're pointing. Right?

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Like, if I walked into the donut store

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and the person said, "Which donut you want?"

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And I said, "I would like this donut."

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I would be very unhelpful and frustrating person. Right?

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Instead, I would say, "I want this donut,"

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and I'd be pointing at something.

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See, I don't think Jesus is being frustrating here.

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I think from that very spot right here,

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He was pointing at a specific mountain.

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Why? Because there's one that stands out

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above all the rest from that location.

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It's the only mountain in the world not made by God,

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the most unique mountain in the entire world.

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It was actually built by the man

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who had tried to kill Jesus since He was born,

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a guy named King Herod.

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Who's King Herod? He's the original Lord Vader.

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That's what you need to know.

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And this mountain was basically His Death Star.

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He had built it as a fortress

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and it stood tall over everything.

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Get this, Jesus had seen this mountain

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since He was born, because not only

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can you see it from this spot

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just outside of Jerusalem, the city where He died,

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you can also see it from Bethlehem,

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the city where He was born.

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And so, quite literally, this mountain

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had loomed over his entire life.

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I wonder, do you have a mountain like that?

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Is there an obstacle that's always been

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in your way as long as you can remember?

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Well, that's what this mountain was to Jesus.

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That's important because Jesus here

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He's not saying you can rearrange

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creation to your liking.

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Like you could literally just say,

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"Hey, mountain, I would like you to go

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over here into the sea and become an island."

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Make another Hawaii or something. No.

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By the way, if this is what He was saying,

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I would move the Austrian Alps

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outside of Salzburg to my backyard.

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It would be fantastic.

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That's not what He's saying though.

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He's saying the feared obstacles,

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the ones that have loomed tall and imposing

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over your entire life,

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maybe over generations before you,

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those are the mountains that can move.

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Here's the thing, I don't know

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if you've tried this, but I have.

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I have to be honest,

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when I say to these mountains, "Move,"

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sometimes they don't.

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Money has been a thing in my life for a while.

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Back in my earlier twenties,

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I had a house for sale.

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I was double mortgaged.

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I had had a house I sold, put it for sale.

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I bought another house before this one sold.

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And immediately I realized I was in hot water

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because double mortgage payments

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and I didn't have to double the money

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that I used to have it, so I had a problem.

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It was a mountain looming over my life.

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And I said, "Move mountain.

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God, sell my house, today, God."

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Many days I went, "Today, God, sell my house, move."

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The mountain didn't move.

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It took almost a year a year to sell the house,

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it drained my bank account.

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It's awful, it's hard.

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We've seen this at Crossroads.

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We got to do work around the world,

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often times we we do work in places

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where there's a mountain that's loomed

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large over people's entire lives,

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over generations there's been poverty

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and there's been pain.

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We say move mountain and the mountain

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doesn't seem to get up and move.

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I went to a refugee camp recently

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on the border between Mexico and the US.

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It was an awful place,

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2,000 people living in total poverty,

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no food, no sanitation. It was awful.

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I literally watched families not having food,

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kids hungry, laying on the ground.

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I said, "God, sent food, these people are hungry,"

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and no bread came out of the sky.

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I wonder about you.

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Have you ever had a mountain like this

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and you've said, "God, move it," and it didn't?

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I've seen people's faith break apart on these rocks.

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I've seen guilt set in,

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"Maybe I did something wrong. I mean, I prayed for healing.

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I said the thing that He said

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and the person didn't get healed.

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I asked for a miracle and then I got nothing.

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I set out to change the pattern of my life

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that's been broken since the beginning,

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but the mountain state blocking my path."

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This is what I call one of

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the make or break moments in the Bible,

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literally, it can make you walk away from God

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or it can be the key to breakthrough in your life.

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The stakes in this one couldn't be bigger.

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I think understanding holds the key to breakthrough through

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and misunderstanding could be the thing

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that causes you to one day

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just deconstruct it all and walk away.

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Now, what is clear here is that Jesus made a promise.

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He said the mountain can move.

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The question is how?

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And that's the question that we're going to spend

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the entire rest of our time together answering.

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I think what we find you'll find

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incredibly refreshing and life-giving.

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There are two popular views on how mountains move.

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The first is the agnostic view basis,

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basically says, "Mountains don't move,

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you just live life, you die.

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It's hard sometimes. Get over it."

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And then there's a religious view.

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It says that mountains move

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when you have enough faith.

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And here I'm using religion in a negative sense.

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It's like the self righteously religious person,

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the person who believes that

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they're spiritually superior because

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they've got the right smarts

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and the correct set of beliefs, all that stuff.

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A people who hold on to the religious view

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don't hold on to faith.

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See the core of the religious view says

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that complete faith

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is complete intellectual agreement.

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It says when you intellectually agree

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to the right set of beliefs,

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God gives you salvation and power,

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like to move mountains in return

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like a contract or a reward.

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And in this view, your faith is only

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as strong as you are certain of the right beliefs.

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The more you're certain, more faith you have,

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the more faith you have,

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the mountains will just kind of poof.

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The image I get here is like magneto and metal,

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you know, just like grabbing the metal

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and pick it up and put it over here.

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It's like that.

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So is your mountain cancer?

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The idea is, well, just having a faith

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and, poof, you'll be healed.

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Is the mountain you're facing debt?

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It would say just having enough faith,

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and poof, a check will magically come in the mail.

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Is the mountain mental health?

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Just having a faith, and poof,

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one day you'll wake up without depression.

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Now the enemy of faith in this view is doubt,

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because doubt decreases certainty.

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Therefore doubt's evil, which means

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you should shun it and avoid it at all costs

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because if salvation hinges uncertainty over doubt,

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well, it would be wildly dangerous

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to even consider something new, you could doubt it.

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And here I want to be completely clear.

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The religious view of faith as certainty

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is incredibly destructive and incredibly dangerous.

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Never considering a new viewpoint,

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never considering that maybe you're wrong.

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That's not virtuous. It's prideful.

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See doubt isn't the enemy of faith.

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I think it's an essential companion.

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If you want to know more about that,

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you can actually check out an episode

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we did just a while back called Said No One Ever.

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But I want to make this point:

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Holding religious view leads to delusion,

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absolute delusion.

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The biggest delusion is that you're God.

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See, it's on you.

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If you just make yourself certain enough

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that the mountain will move it and it will,

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that actually requires zero dependence on God;

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it's all about you and you alone.

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And the Bible says that an idol is anything

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that takes the place of God in your life.

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A major role that God's supposed to play

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is your source of power.

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But if you get your power from your own certainty,

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then your certainty is an idol.

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You're not getting power from God.

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You're getting power from what you think about God.

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It's different. It's different.

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Now if you choose the religious view

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and you're smart enough to know that you're not God,

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the only other possible outcome, I think,

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is that you will eventually lose your faith.

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You'll deconstructed at some point

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and you'll walk away from the whole thing.

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Because sometime you'll have a moment

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in your life where there's a mountain

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and you say move and it won't

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and it'll lead to guilt and shame and anger.

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So I just don't have what it takes

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or God's not for you or He's not there.

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You just walk away.

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Maybe that's you.

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Maybe that's a friend of yours.

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I know many people who've gone through this,

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people who have been told that

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the continued pain of their life,

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it would have vanished

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if they just had enough faith, enough certainty.

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You're only in that wheelchair because

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your faith isn't strong enough to stand.

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I've heard that said to people.

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I know people who've had spouses

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suffering from cancer and they were told

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that if they just had enough faith,

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if they were certain

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that their spouse would be healed,

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if they were certain that

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they could command the cancer away,

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if they were certain enough

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that the cancer would have vanished.

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But it didn't and now they're left

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to shoulder the weight of feeling like they failed.

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Listen, if this is you, I'm sorry,

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that should have never been said to you.

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And it's not true. It's not.

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That kind of certainty

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is not what Jesus was talking about here.

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What faith is meant to be is so much better.

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And that's what we're going to dig into next.

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Hey, let me be clear,

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sometimes the mountains do just move.

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That's called a miracle and I've seen them happen,

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but they're called miracles for a reason,

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because they don't happen all the time.

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We'll get back to that in just a minute,

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but first, two quick things.

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One, if I can help you in any way,

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I would love to,

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just email me at kyle.ranson@crossroads.net.

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Two, one of the places

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that you may feel stuck in your life,

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a mountain in your way might be finances.

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Like I mentioned earlier, if that's true,

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I want to invite you to do something

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you've probably never done before called giving.

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And let me just say off the bat,

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I realize how self-serving that sounds

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for a church to offer to help you with giving.

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And so we've designed a way

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to take some of that out for you

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and eliminate some of the risk.

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It's called our 90 Day Tithe Test,

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and it works like this.

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You try giving for 90 days

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and if at the end of those 90 days

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you don't feel and sense

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more of God's power in your life,

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you're not feeling that mountain move,

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we'll give you all your money back.

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No questions asked.

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Crossroads is supported by a community

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of generous givers from around the country,

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people like Christine.

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- Back in November 2019, I was church hopping.

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I went to a lot of churches.

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I felt like I didn't belong

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and threw my hands up in the air and said,

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"I'm done. I'm not doing this anymore."

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So I'm sitting at my kitchen table

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and I had this deep longing desire

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to be back in community.

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We're in the middle of a pandemic.

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What am I going to do?

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I can't go anywhere. Church is closed.

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I can't even go see my family members.

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What am I going to do?

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I'm on Facebook and a Crossroads Church ad came up,

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it was sponsored.

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So I clicked on the message

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that was on the Facebook page and I listened to it.

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And I'm like, "Oh, wow, this is pretty neat.

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This is pretty cool."

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I think it was in July of 2020

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where I kind of wanted to be --

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have a little bit more, to be more in community.

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As I explored, I was really mesmerized

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just by the work of what Crossroads was doing,

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that the church members for giving

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and where that money was going.

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I loved seeing that Masters of Disaster,

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you know, went to Texas to help flooding victims,

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Puerto Rico to capture messages,

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when Crossroads paid medical debt.

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I just -- I started giving financially.

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It's just so -- it really makes me feel

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like I'm a part of the community,

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even though it's online.

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It's just -- it's fantastic.

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And I don't know how else to explain it,

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but with Thanksgiving.

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- I love that story.

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Notice she never said she was certain,

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she just stepped out in faith.

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Now there's one final nail in the coffin

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of this idea of certainty faith

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that we have to talk about, it's this:

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this idea of faith as intellectual certainty

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actually fails the very test of intellect.

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I don't know if you knew this, but there are

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45,000 different denominations of churches in the world

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and there's actually 2.4 being born every single day,

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Which means there are 45,000 different

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belief systems to pick from,

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which means your odds of picking

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the right belief system are very, very low.

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Now what most people do is they just

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kind of inherit a belief system from their family.

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And if that's not you, if you're like,

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"No, I don't believe what my family believes,"

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you're probably going to do

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what the other group of people do,

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which is form a new one with your friends.

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You're going to read books about theology,

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different stuff, have great conversations,

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and then choose what you believe.

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But again, just consider

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there are 45,000 different systems of belief.

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Your odds of picking the right one are extremely low.

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In fact, you have a 99.998% chance of picking wrong.

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By the way, this assumes

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that one of them is actually right.

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Faith is not certainty. It's not.

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Faith is risking a relationship.

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And when you have that kind of faith mountains move.

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How? I actually met an interesting person

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in an unexpected place who unpacked this for me.

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I took a trip to the US-Mexican border

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a few weeks ago just to view the situation down there,

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which is crazy. You know?

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There's people all over in hurt and in need.

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And when you go down there,

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everyone says the same thing.

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They just say it's incredibly complex.

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There's no easy solutions in sight.

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It's just incredibly complex,

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which is another way of saying it's insurmountable.

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It's a mountain if they've ever seen one.

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But get this, in the middle of this place,

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facing this insurmountable mountain,

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I found a 4 foot 10 inch giant who's moving it.

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Her name is Pastor Margarita Martinez

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and her and her husband, Hugo,

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pastor a tiny 50 person church in Alamo, Texas.

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They're doing amazing work.

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They're housing 45 unaccompanied minors,

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feeding them every day, clothing them.

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They're helping people with their immigration cases.

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They're feeding hungry people all over.

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They're moving mountains.

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And I got to have lunch with the pastors,

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which was amazing.

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I imagine it was like, kind of like

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what it would have been like having lunch

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with someone like Mother Teresa, just amazing.

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And so I asked Pastor Margarita, I said,

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"There's this verse, I'm sure you know it,

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the one where Jesus says,

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'If you have faith, you can move mountains.'"

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I said, "The mountain you're trying to move

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of helping all of these thousands and thousands

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of people, of generations after generation

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of poverty and neglect, have you ever

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asked Jesus to just, you know, move it?"

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And she looked at me thoughtfully for a while

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and she said, "You know,

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when I asked Jesus to move mountains,

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do you know what He says usually?

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'Climb them.'"

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That's the answer right there.

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Faith is not a certainty.

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Faith is risking the relationship.

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Faith is having enough of risk tolerance

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to go up the mountain.

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It's not about intellect.

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It's about relationship.

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And she got that.

00:18:48

Mountains move when you have enough faith to climb them.

00:18:52

Faith is not an intellectual concept.

00:18:55

It's about relationships.

00:18:57

It's about saying to God, "I trust you enough

00:19:01

that I will follow You up the mountain."

00:19:04

And you might be thinking, "Hey, Kyle,

00:19:09

I thought Jesus said to move the mountain

00:19:12

and now you're talking about climbing the mountain."

00:19:15

Yeah, here's the thing you don't understand,

00:19:17

when you climb the mountain,

00:19:18

the mountain moves from in your way

00:19:21

to in your rearview mirror.

00:19:22

It moves from in front of you to behind you.

00:19:25

It moves from being a menace in your path

00:19:28

to being a memory about how God came through.

00:19:30

It goes from being a barrier

00:19:31

to a boast about God's power. It moves.

00:19:34

And see we don't get this because we think

00:19:36

that God is all about saving us steps.

00:19:38

He's not.

00:19:39

He's trying to get you to close your exercise rings.

00:19:41

If you read the Bible, you read story after story

00:19:44

about person after person whose life was spent

00:19:47

following God up and down the mountain.

00:19:51

Lower.

00:20:01

If you look at the New Testament,

00:20:02

you'll find people like Paul,

00:20:04

a guy who climbed literal mountains

00:20:06

to talk about Jesus and share Him

00:20:08

with people who lived far away,

00:20:09

who also faced metaphorical mountains,

00:20:11

many obstacles in his path.

00:20:13

If you look at the Old Testament,

00:20:15

you'll find Moses, who climbed all kinds of mountains.

00:20:18

It's actually this amazing scene with Moses

00:20:20

in Exodus 19, where God is on top of a mountain

00:20:23

and He calls Moses up to talk to Him.

00:20:25

So Moses goes up and God says one thing to him

00:20:27

and then sends him back down.

00:20:28

And then God says, "Actually, come back up again."

00:20:30

And Moses goes up again, He tells him another thing,

00:20:32

he goes back down.

00:20:33

"Actually come back up again."

00:20:34

He ends up going up and down this mountain four times.

00:20:37

It's really clear in the story that

00:20:39

God could have just said one time,

00:20:40

"Moses, come all the way up here.

00:20:42

I'll tell you everything you need to know."

00:20:43

And that's it, it could've been one trip.

00:20:46

Why didn't God do that?

00:20:48

Because God isn't trying to save us steps.

00:20:51

He's trying to train us to climb mountains.

00:20:55

That scene, not coincidentally, happens right before

00:20:58

one of the most pivotal moments in the entire Bible,

00:21:01

when God gives them the Ten Commandments.

00:21:03

When he says, "This is what My heart is like,

00:21:05

this is what matters to Me," right before that.

00:21:08

Up the mountain and down the mountain.

00:21:11

He puts mountains everywhere in the Bible.

00:21:13

The capital city of the Nation of Israel,

00:21:14

Jerusalem, it's on a mountain.

00:21:16

If you go there today, you hear people saying,

00:21:18

"I'm going up to Jerusalem," no matter

00:21:20

if they coming from the east or the west,

00:21:22

the north or the south, it's because the only approach

00:21:24

is to go up the mountain.

00:21:26

The temple of God, the place where God dwelled

00:21:29

before Jesus was in the middle of that city

00:21:32

on a mountain, Mt. Moriah.

00:21:33

The location is still there.

00:21:35

It's in pretty much complete ruins.

00:21:37

Interestingly, all that's left is a lower wall

00:21:40

and some steps that go up.

00:21:43

You know, the only time the full divinity

00:21:45

of Jesus was ever shown? On top of a mountain.

00:21:47

Do you know that one day Jesus said

00:21:49

He's going to come back?

00:21:50

Do you know where He said He's going to come back?

00:21:53

On top of a mountain.

00:21:55

Why? What does it all mean?

00:21:58

It means this: in the middle of your difficulty,

00:22:02

in your doubt, God is saying,

00:22:04

"Will you have enough faith in Me to climb the mountain?"

00:22:10

And faith is needed here

00:22:11

because you can't climb it on your own.

00:22:13

It's an insurmountable object without Him.

00:22:15

You can only get there by God's power.

00:22:18

But if you have enough faith to take that first step,

00:22:20

God will meet you on the mountain.

00:22:23

Psalm 121:1 says:

00:22:33

As I lift my eyes on the mountain. Why?

00:22:36

Because that's what God is.

00:22:38

I don't know what the mountain is

00:22:39

that's looming over your life,

00:22:42

but I know that God does.

00:22:43

And the question is, will you put your faith in Him?

00:22:46

Will you have enough faith to simply start to climb?

00:22:49

You know, regardless of what that mountain is,

00:22:51

I'd like to pray for you right now.

00:22:53

I'd like to pray that you'd have the faith

00:22:55

to overcome the doubts that says

00:22:57

that God's not going to be with you, because He will.

00:23:00

If you start to climb it, God will go with you.

00:23:03

I'd like to pray for you right now.

00:23:05

God, I pray for everybody watching

00:23:07

whatever the mountain is, that You would give us

00:23:09

the faith to take the first step,

00:23:11

give us the faith to start to climb,

00:23:13

to find the first foothold,

00:23:14

to grab the first rock ledge,

00:23:16

to start to follow You up the mountain.

00:23:17

I pray for victory.

00:23:18

I pray that those mountains would move

00:23:20

from in front of us to behind us. Amen.

00:23:24

Hey, if you're resonating with this message,

00:23:26

I really would encourage you right now

00:23:27

to not tune out, but to stick with us.

00:23:30

Right now, we're going to do a song.

00:23:31

It's called worship. It's just saying words to God,

00:23:34

expressing a heart towards Him that says,

00:23:36

"God, I want to put my faith in you."

00:23:38

Let's sing this together right now.

00:23:42

- Hey, my name is Justin.

00:23:44

Do you ever think about what makes

00:23:46

Jesus different than any other king or god?

00:23:53

Like most kings or most leaders, or many gods,

00:23:57

they want your stuff, right?

00:24:01

Like I remember walking --

00:24:02

I remember walking in India a year ago

00:24:05

and seeing different shrines to different gods.

00:24:08

And there was just coins all over those.

00:24:10

There was money thrown at those.

00:24:13

And the thing that makes Jesus different

00:24:15

than any other king or leader that I know of,

00:24:17

He doesn't want your stuff thrown at Him.

00:24:20

He's not satisfied with us just saying,

00:24:22

"Here, you can have this

00:24:24

and there will be distance between you and me

00:24:26

because I gave you something that'll satisfy You."

00:24:28

The thing that makes Jesus different is

00:24:31

He says, "I want all of you.

00:24:34

I want you, not your stuff."

00:24:39

There's even times throughout history

00:24:41

where God has told His people,

00:24:43

"I don't want your sacrifices.

00:24:46

I don't want your songs,"

00:24:48

which is convicting for me

00:24:49

as one who sings a lot of songs.

00:24:52

He says, "I don't want your songs if it's not you

00:24:56

and if it doesn't show up in action,

00:24:59

your daily life."

00:25:01

And so we're going to give you a chance,

00:25:04

give us a chance together to say

00:25:06

what everything, every day in my life

00:25:09

should start like this: Good morning, Lord.

00:25:12

How do I bless you?

00:25:14

I want you to have me today.

00:25:17

That's what we're going to sing.

00:25:18

That's what we're going to give you a chance

00:25:20

to say to God in conversation right now.

00:28:26

- Let's just take this moment.

00:28:29

You've got nowhere else to go right now.

00:28:31

Just take this moment and let's just listen.

00:28:36

Let's ask God that question:

00:28:38

how can I bless Your heart today?

00:28:42

Take a moment, ask Him.

00:28:44

Maybe say it out loud where you,

00:28:46

"Lord, how can I bless Your heart?"

00:29:31

I don't do that enough.

00:29:34

Silence makes me uncomfortable these days, right?

00:29:39

But if I started every day by going,

00:29:41

"Lord, how do I bless Your heart?"

00:29:42

Even in this moment, what is it?

00:29:44

What just sparked in your brain?

00:29:46

To encourage someone? Great.

00:29:49

To send a text right now to someone

00:29:52

you just want to say, you want to build up,

00:29:54

"Hey, I just want to tell you what you mean to me."

00:29:57

Great.

00:29:58

A phone call or maybe, "No, I need to --

00:30:04

I need to get rid of that." OK.

00:30:06

"Oh, I need to go this way."

00:30:10

When we start with that question,

00:30:12

how do I bless You, then we get the chance to say,

00:30:15

"Then you can have me, God, you can have my yes."

00:30:21

And so right now, we're going to hold

00:30:23

that thing that sparked in your mind,

00:30:25

sparked in your heart.

00:30:27

Give Him a, yes, I will walk this way, Lord.

00:30:31

I will walk with you.

00:30:34

We'll put it to a melody.

00:32:37

- If today resonated with you,

00:32:39

I have a great next step.

00:32:41

We have part two of this message that I'd love you to watch.

00:32:44

It's all about how to take the first step.

00:32:46

You can find that within the link in the description,

00:32:48

or if you don't see a description,

00:32:49

just go to Crossroads.net/keepwatching.

00:32:51

We'll see you next week.

	The Obstacles Of Life	0:00
	How Do We Move Mountains?	7:23
	Seeking A Life Of Adventure	12:52
	Faith Is Not Certainty	14:52
	Going Up 🏔	20:00
	Bless Your Heart	23:43

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