How to Succeed in 2024

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- Well hey, happy New Year and welcome to Crossroads.

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My name is Andy Reider,

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Community pastor of Crossroads Anywhere

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and I want to welcome -- Oh.

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- What are you doing in here? You're --

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This is my garage. You don't just walk into my garage.

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- You weren't supposed to be home yet.

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I am. You're not supposed to be in my freaking garage.

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[tone]

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- We just want to have a little fun

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as we head into the new year.

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But actually, 2023 was an incredible,

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an incredible year for our church.

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- It was great, every measure.

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The most important measure would be

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the number of people who got baptized.

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Uh, almost 2000 -- 1973. But who's counting?

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- It's unbelievable.

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- What's really crazy about that is over 3 years

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at any point, we basically had

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a rolling 12 month average of 2000 people.

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God is using us to bring people in His family.

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It's pretty fun. - That's amazing.

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And in the Crossroads Anywhere App,

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we had 4.6 million prayers prayed in the app,

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4.6 million times people came before God

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with what they needed and praying for one another.

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Really cool.

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- Yeah, there's things that we can do with our own might,

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and things that only God can do with His might.

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So that many people are reaching out

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and they're some serious yes answers,

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is really encouraging.

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And also a thing that's close to both of our hearts

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because we got to know each other, camping,

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is our attendance at camps, like 7500 people

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from all over the country, all over the world,

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actually coming to one of our camps,

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have a primitive camping experience

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to encounter God and go to a new place.

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And it's just been phenomenal.

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Who would have ever thought of it? It's crazy.

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- It's just been a banner year for our whole church.

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There's so much to celebrate.

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I know you personally are celebrating,

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you finally got a bull elk.

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- Yes, a bull elk, a male elk, I finally did.

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More meals that I've eaten than I could possibly count

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so far and a lot more to come.

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We're talking about pure meat.

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No hormones injected into it, grass fed,

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wandering about in God's creation.

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It's unbelievable. - Delicious.

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Well, it's been an incredible year for our church.

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And I just want to capture with one brief story,

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totally unsolicited, I received this letter.

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This letter, I don't know if you can see

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this was actually from a local correctional institution,

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from inside of a prison.

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And this letter was the story of a member

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of our Crossroads community, but he basically

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in here shared his story titled

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The Purpose in My Pain.

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And he shares the story of actually being

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a member of this community, of encountering God

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at Crossroads and experiencing in prison

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the chance to essentially take revenge on people

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who had murdered his loved ones.

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But God met him there and brought him peace

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and gave him the ability to forgive.

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And honestly, enclosed with this was a $25 check,

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was him not only wanting to be a part of the community,

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but him wanting to partner with the community.

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It's just amazing, humbling stuff.

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And that's one story of countless.

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- I don't know what they make in prison.

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I know they get paid a nominal fee,

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but I don't know if that's a tithe or whatever that is,

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but it just shows he's in. -Yes.

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- He's part of us and we're stronger,

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because of you, if you're watching right now.

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- Yeah. And it's just a good reminder that

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our church is made up of all kinds of different people

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from all different walks of life,

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all encountering Jesus and running after Him together.

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And I just want to call out,

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if you're one of our community members in a prison,

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we are thankful for you, we love you,

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and we're grateful for you.

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And we're so thankful for the chance to get

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to celebrate Christmas with you this past December.

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- The last time I spent Christmas with my son,

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man, I think this was the first time

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probably since pre-COVID, so probably about 2019.

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- Last time I spent Christmas with my family

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is probably two years ago.

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I was up all night anxious about this.

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I don't know anybody from Crossroads, you know,

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at a church and people who don't know me from Adam

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could recognize and care enough

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that I could celebrate Christmas with my family.

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One of the things that I deal with

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is just feeling so insignificant

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and feeling so forgotten.

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It's just beyond words to to think that

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some strangers will be willing to sacrifice

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that we can have Christmas with my family

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just means the world to me.

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- The crossroad church, and even PCI,

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that there's people out there that even give,

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you know, that you even cross their mind,

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whether they even know who you're your name or not,

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that that means a lot to me.

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And I know that my family got a lot out of that today, too.

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- It felt good and it felt normal.

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For a little second it was like

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we weren't incarcerated

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For that moment I was just got a chance

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to just kind of be dad with my son, man.

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So it felt really good.

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It just really fueled me up.

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I hope he felt in a way, the way I felt,

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noticed, loved, not forgotten.

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And I hope that he felt like he mattered.

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- Spending this holiday with my family, uh,

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it, uh, it means the world to me.

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This is actually the first visit

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I actually had with my kid in almost a year.

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Last time I saw her, she wasn't even talking.

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I got to hear her tell her she loves me, and --

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And for her to run up and say daddy, that meant a lot.

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After this morning. I hope my daughter knows

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that I love her and today kind of gave me

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some reassurance that she still remembered who I was,

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which is a big fear that I had, that she would walk in

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and not not know who I am.

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For me today, after experiencing that, it was,

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you know, motivate you to keep going

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and remind you what what you got outside waiting for you.

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I just want to thank you guys for doing this

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because it meant a lot to me.

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- I just wanted to say thank you.

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I want to say thanks.

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I want to thank God first because I recognize

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that Crossroads and what you guys did today,

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you guys were His hands and His feet.

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And that joy, it pierces the darkness, man.

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There's a there's a cloud of sadness and heaviness

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that just sits on these places

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around these times of the year.

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You guys literally penetrated to darkness today, man.

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So it's going to -- it's going to spill

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outside of here and carry on to the compound.

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And really, man, uh, it means the world to me.

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- Banner day today, the very last talk I'll give in 2023.

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Yeah, New Year's is right around the corner,

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or maybe you're in it right now

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as you're taking in this video.

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And I want to talk about what do you do to mark

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the passage of time from the last year to the new year?

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I got to tell you right away,

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I'm not a big resolution guy.

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I do set goals, but I don't find it's really helpful

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for me to have a whole list of things that

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I want to do on December 31st, go in the next year.

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But I really do think it's important from time to time

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to step back and to set goals, but to do more than goals,

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that's the process I want to lead you through today.

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In the book of Haggai 1:5 and following,

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Haggai is having the nation of Israel.

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He's a prophet. They're coming into the brand new temple,

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and he's having them understand what their life means

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as it relates to this marking of the moment.

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And here's what he says in verse five:

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Haggai says, consider your ways.

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I'm asking you and I to consider our ways,

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to step back and get a holistic understanding

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of what 2023 was like, and are we happy with it?

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Are we not happy with it?

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Haggai says, he says, don't you notice

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you're working, you're working.

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You're not getting ahead.

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You know, if you've got a job

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and you're not getting savings, something is wrong.

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This is what Haggai is saying here. Just consider it.

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Give careful thought to your ways.

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So we're going to go through a process for you

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for the next several minutes.

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And this is a process that I do regularly.

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It's based on this Jeep right here.

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I had this on stage at our Oakley campus a few months ago.

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This is a project I've been working on for about a year,

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about a year and a half right now.

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It's a 1978. Jeep CJ7.

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I had one just like it, same engine,

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when I was in college.

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I couldn't afford the gas, so I sold it.

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You know, when you're running out of gas

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going to school every week because

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I never had enough money to put anything more than

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literally like $0.75 in sometimes.

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And you're getting eight miles a gallon.

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I just kept running out as I was driving up the road,

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Narrows Run Road, going to Robert Morris University.

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And I said, when I sold this,

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"Someday I'm going to have it again."

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This is the day, I'm restoring it.

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Everything has come off.

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I've had my hands on every single bolt

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in this entire thing.

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And it is a metaphor for my life and for your life.

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So what does that mean?

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When we consider our ways, we should ask ourselves

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in 2023 what new things I do in 2023?

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What was it? What new things?

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This Jeep I did, something new I've never done before.

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This engine is entirely rebuilt with me own two hands.

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I built this engine.

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Actually, I took it out, I disassembled it,

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I sent it to a machine shop.

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They did some stuff with their equipment that I don't have.

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Got the parts, got new parts,

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put it all together here and put it in and it runs.

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I got to tell you, it is so satisfying

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to do something I've never done before.

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I've always wrenched on things.

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I've been pretty handy, but I've never rebuilt

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a motor, crankshaft, bearings, rings, pistons,

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all of that stuff and it gives me a satisfaction.

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How about you? Look back on 2023,

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is there anything new that you did?

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Maybe you went to a camp for the very first time.

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Maybe you camped outside.

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That's a big deal if you've never done it before,

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it's wonderful.

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Maybe you got married, maybe you had a kid.

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Maybe you started your first job.

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Maybe you had your first and only graduation from college.

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Whatever it is, notice the new things you did,

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take your hand and just pat yourself on the back. Good work.

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In a day when people keep doing the same thing

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and they're in ruts, you did something new this year.

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You're to be commended. You're in the 1%.

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The second thing I do every year, and as I look at my life,

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I try to notice the dings that are in my life,

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what dents are in my life?

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I'm now at the process with this build,

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this is all primer.

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And let me show you something over here on the side.

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For weeks now I've been working on this body.

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This is all restored, reconditioned.

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There was just dings and knocks and pings all over the place.

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It's an incredibly tedious job to bang out dents,

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take body filler, put it in, sand it,

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more body filler, sand it again, put it again, sand it again.

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It's really, really, really rough.

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Which is why body work is so expensive.

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It takes someone who knows they're doing a long time,

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and I don't know what I'm doing.

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It takes me a really long time.

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But you can see right here I've got some bondo.

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This is stuff that I've put down.

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I've sanded it to fill in some dents and imperfections

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because over the decades this Jeep has had a lot of abuse.

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People kicking it, rusting, all kinds of things.

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Just got to deal with the dents.

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I think it's an important physical

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and spiritual discipline to look at your life

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and just recognize what dents you've had.

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Where have you been kicked in the teeth?

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What emails have we had that that hurt us?

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Who gave us words in the last year that have stung,

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and we're holding on to?

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What have been our our disappointments,

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whether we've been laid off or let go

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or didn't get the promotion or broken up with?

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What are those things?

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When we don't wrestle with our pain,

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we can't get to a new place.

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Haggai says, give careful thought to your ways.

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Give careful thought to the ways in which you've been dented.

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In fact, some of the things that

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haven't gone right in your life,

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it could be traced back to dents that you picked up

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years ago that you've not looked at.

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We are human beings.

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We are this essence that's soft and pliable

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and dents and cuts and bruises our hearts,

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our mind, all of it.

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Look at the dents in your life.

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This last year I have a really close friend of mine

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who had a child and had brain issues and seizures,

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and they actually ended up getting in to the doctor,

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surgery after months and months and months

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of altered diet and all that stuff

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with his infant daughter

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and cutting out a section of her brain.

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Now, miraculously and amazingly,

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through medical science and the gift of God

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and a lot of people praying for them, she's healed.

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It's beautiful. They have their daughter back.

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And about that same time, one of my grandkids was born

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and had some issues, some real issues.

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It was really, really scary.

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And fortunately all is well, all has gone well.

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But I'll tell you what, it was about 48 hours

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or 72 hours of just kicks to the gut,

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kicks to the heart, fears about what if this happens?

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What if that happens? Really difficult.

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We have to recognize these pains and bruises

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and notice what they're doing to us to be honest.

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And hopefully we'll come out on the other end

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as these stories I just told you are with with happy endings.

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But sometimes we don't have happy endings.

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Sometimes there's a permanent dent that is there.

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We just have to recognize I might never be the same.

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You could put some putty over it and sand it,

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but there may always be a dent in me.

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And it's okay to believe that.

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It's also okay to believe that there is a Redeemer

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who can redeem in 2024, and who can do for you

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things that you can't do for yourself,

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who can offer healings that you can't heal yourself.

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That is part of what we do.

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Now, it's not just the dents,

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giving careful thought to your ways

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isn't just the new things I learned with the engine.

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It's not just the the dents that I've had,

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the ways I've been kicked.

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It's also what mistakes have I made?

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So dents are I am the recipient of something going wrong,

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and I was sort of a passive participant in it.

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But then there's the where was I

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actually making a mistake myself? I did it.

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I've got over here, and you have to forgive me,

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there's just putty dust all over the place.

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But this is a transmission right here.

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It's a three speed transmission.

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I'm very proud of this.

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You know why I'm proud of that?

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Because I rebuilt this transmission, that's why.

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Oh, look at how it shifts. It's wonderful.

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You know why it's wonderful right now?

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Because I rebuilt this transmission,

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did it with my own hands and the help of YouTube University.

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And the problem was I rebuilt it three times.

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Three times. I kept getting it wrong.

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I'd put it together and things wouldn't work.

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I'd take it back apart.

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I'd put it together and there were

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these little needle bearings in there

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that they'd fall out, and I had to take it apart

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and do it again, over and over,

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weeks and weeks of work, just getting it done,

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ordering new parts, new gears.

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And it was it was mistake after mistake after mistake.

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Now I think it works.

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This is the problem is I think it works,

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but I'm not going to know until later on in 2024

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when I actually start this thing up and take it down the road.

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What mistakes have you made?

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The thing about a transmission is

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it's a pretty easy thing to mess up on

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because you're kind of proud of yourself.

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You try to figure it out.

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No one's going to judge it too much.

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But then there's other mistakes

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that really, really bother you.

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It's important for us to look back at our 2023

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and just be honest, give careful thought to our ways

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of where we made mistakes.

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I made so many mistakes I can't even think of them all.

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I made so many mistakes that covers a lot of people,

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their involvement that I can't even share

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all of them without without their buy in on it.

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I'll just give you give a couple very simple ones.

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I've hired people who shouldn't have been hired.

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I took a -- I made a mistake on my motorcycle

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in terms of how to ride the bike,

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and I had bad braking technique that caused me

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to go over my handlebars and caused me

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to be bruised and banged up for a while and sore.

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I took a trip to Alaska and I made a mistake,

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I didn't count the cost properly

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and what the finances would be on it, on that trip.

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It, uh, it it hurt me financially.

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I'm actually still recovering. I'm fine.

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But it was -- it was -- it was a mistake.

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I had a hunt and I had an animal in my sights,

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and I had a bad shot,

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and I could have still gotten one off.

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And I made the mistake. And it was just a mistake.

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I've said things from stage, when I hear it

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and I critique my talk, I think, "Oh man, I --

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I wish I wouldn't have have said that."

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I've had conversations with Lib that have been hurtful to her.

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I can go on and on and on.

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It's just some of the ones I'm willing to talk about publicly.

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Do you know the mistakes you've made?

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Are you recognizing them? Are you admitting them?

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Repentance is when you say it and you bring it out.

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When you look at the old of 2023, you say,

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"This is not what I want in 2024."

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The book of Ephesians talks about our old mind,

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the way we used to operate and the new mind.

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Here's what it says:

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So there's our old self, which is our selves

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before we come in relationship with Jesus.

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And then there's the new self, which is when

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God gives us a brand new identity,

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we receive His Spirit, we have His Holy Spirit.

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And we make the decision when I go forward with Jesus,

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I turn my back and I turn my mind

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on the old ways of thinking, and I go forward.

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This is what this spiritual principle means.

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Now, it's not related to New Year's resolutions

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or New Year's goal setting, but I think this applies

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to what you should be doing on the verge of 2024.

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I think you should be thinking about things

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that you thought, things that are in your mind in 2023,

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and you should be taking them off

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and putting on the new mind,

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choosing to think something new, to do something new.

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As a man or woman thinketh, so is he, says Proverbs.

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If you think you're going to have an awful 2024,

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you're going to have an awful 2024.

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If you think 2024 is going to be same old, same old,

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then 2024 is going to be same old, same old.

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If you think you're going to get divorced in 2024,

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then you're going to get divorced 2024.

00:20:04

If you think no one's going to have you on a date,

00:20:06

then no one's going to have you on a date.

00:20:09

We start with our mind, as one person said,

00:20:13

which is so cheesy, I hate to quote it.

00:20:15

I don't even know who it said it,

00:20:16

but there's some truth to it

00:20:18

that which you believe you can achieve.

00:20:22

You have to choose the beliefs that you want in 2024

00:20:27

that goes before the things that you achieve, new things.

00:20:31

Now, related to my Jeep here,

00:20:33

I've got another new thing that I'm doing to this Jeep

00:20:36

here in the next couple months, hopefully,

00:20:39

I'll be ready to do something

00:20:41

I have never done before.

00:20:43

I'm looking forward to this. I'm planning on it.

00:20:45

I'm going to paint this entire Jeep myself.

00:20:49

It's not the same as painting a chair

00:20:52

in your dining room, which I've done.

00:20:54

Painting a car, the whole process of priming,

00:20:58

coat, finish coat, clear coat,

00:21:00

it's very, very, very difficult, very involved.

00:21:03

That's why I've never done it,

00:21:04

because I've been intimidated by it.

00:21:06

Now I'm thinking I've done enough new things

00:21:07

and things I've never done before,

00:21:09

let's just go all the way.

00:21:10

So I'm going to be learning how,

00:21:12

for the very first time, paint a car.

00:21:15

And I don't know what it's like, but that's important to me.

00:21:17

What about you?

00:21:18

What are you what are new things you're going to do?

00:21:21

I am going to do some new things in my job description.

00:21:25

I'm going to let go things that I've been doing

00:21:28

and have other people do those things

00:21:30

so I can focus on other new things,

00:21:33

letting things go and taking up new things.

00:21:38

Are you going to do a new type of vacation?

00:21:42

Are you going to do a new type of storytime

00:21:45

with your kids, if you have kids?

00:21:47

Are you going into a new discipline

00:21:48

for how to find friends?

00:21:50

If you're lonely, you don't have good friends,

00:21:52

you're going to have to do something new this year.

00:21:54

Don't keep doing the same things you did last year

00:21:56

thinking you're going to have better friendship results.

00:21:58

You're going to have to go to different places,

00:22:00

try different things, talk to new people.

00:22:02

This is the day to do something new.

00:22:07

This next year, you're going to hear a lot

00:22:08

about revivals and awakenings.

00:22:12

It's a new thing that I want to be a part of.

00:22:15

I don't only want to be a part of a church

00:22:19

that's growing every year significantly.

00:22:22

I mean, it's better than being a part

00:22:23

of a church that's decreasing every year significantly.

00:22:26

But we've been on a crazy growth tear

00:22:28

over the last few years, and hopefully that happens.

00:22:30

But, you know, I want something new.

00:22:32

I don't want just that stuff.

00:22:33

I want to be a part of something

00:22:36

that's beyond simply having Crossroads get larger.

00:22:39

I want to be a part of seeing if God

00:22:41

might use our church, He might use our organization

00:22:45

to bring in an awakening.

00:22:47

Now, I've talked about this before.

00:22:49

I want to talk about this much more in 2024.

00:22:50

Let me help you understand what this is.

00:22:52

Revivals and awakenings are very similar,

00:22:54

but they're a bit different as I see it.

00:22:57

Revivals is when people who have a walk with Christ,

00:23:00

they come into a building and they get revived,

00:23:04

their faith gets revived, their spirit gets revived.

00:23:07

It's great. It's wonderful.

00:23:08

That's what I want more from my life.

00:23:10

An awakening, historically, is when the Spirit of God

00:23:13

comes on a region and He works through an organization,

00:23:17

there's actually a church or a churches

00:23:19

or an organization that's organizing,

00:23:21

and the Spirit of God comes on in that region

00:23:24

and there is a mass amount of people

00:23:27

who come into the family of God for the first time.

00:23:29

They get awokened to the beauty of the grace of God.

00:23:34

They start changing.

00:23:36

Charles Finney, who was one of the leaders

00:23:38

in one of the revivals that took place in our country,

00:23:41

he said this:

00:23:48

Revivals and awakenings aren't about

00:23:51

me having fresh feelings, having a fresh spiritual experience,

00:23:55

which I want to be clear, but that's not the end of it.

00:23:59

When we have a fresh spiritual experience,

00:24:01

God brings us into a new place because

00:24:05

He wants us to have new levels of obedience.

00:24:08

He wants us to do the things that He wants us to do.

00:24:13

For many of us, the mistakes that we have

00:24:16

are passive mistakes, things have happened to us,

00:24:18

or the dents we have are things that took place

00:24:21

because we weren't going to do

00:24:22

the thing God wanted us to do.

00:24:25

Those are always the hardest pain points for me,

00:24:28

the biggest regrets.

00:24:29

God is doing something to you

00:24:31

because He wants you to be different in 2024.

00:24:34

If your 2024 is what your 2023 is like,

00:24:38

your 2024 will be a failure,

00:24:41

or to use a very heavy, loaded word, you will be in sin.

00:24:46

God wants you to take off the old mind,

00:24:49

to put on the new mind, to be revived, to be awakened,

00:24:53

and to do things you haven't been doing He wants you to do,

00:24:58

and to stop doing things He doesn't want you to do

00:25:03

that you've been doing.

00:25:06

The beautiful thing is, we have a God who knows

00:25:08

all of this, and He's still here giving us grace,

00:25:10

still working through us to get us

00:25:13

the life that He's created for us.

00:25:15

That's what we're going to do as a church in 2024.

00:25:17

We're going to get there,

00:25:19

we're going to do some aggressive things,

00:25:21

and we're going to honor God the whole way,

00:25:23

and we're going to try new things,

00:25:24

and we're going to see just how God may use us

00:25:28

in new ways in 2024.

00:25:30

I can't wait to be a part of it with you.

00:25:32

We'll see you next time here at Crossroads.

00:25:38

- How are you going to spend your year?

00:25:41

Are you going to do the same thing you've always done?

00:25:46

Or are you going to go on a new adventure?

00:25:49

Are you going to play it safe or take a risk?

00:25:53

What if this year you pushed yourself,

00:25:56

got outside your comfort zone, helped other people,

00:26:00

went somewhere extraordinary?

00:26:02

What if you discovered what God wants for your life,

00:26:05

made new friends and laughed until you couldn't breathe.

00:26:09

There is no limit to what 2024 can look like for you.

00:26:14

Don't miss next year with Crossroads.

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