Can Jesus Relate to Me? | Real Encounters Week 2

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The Jesus Myth.

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A pilgrimage to the most controversial places on earth.

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Investigating ancient stories of Jesus.

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Separating the myth from the truth

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and discovering what it means for you today.

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The third season of Real Encounters with God.

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All new on location in Israel.

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New places, new people, new encounters.

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Real encounters with God: The Jesus Myth.

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Hey, welcome to Real Encounters with God.

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I'm Brian Tome, the founding and senior pastor at Crossroads.

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We're going to get to Israel in a moment,

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but I've just got to tell you,

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it is crazy how we filmed this over a month ago,

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and yet the things that we said are so relevant today.

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I think you're going to find some hope, some peace,

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and maybe even some joy today.

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It's also joyful to say last week we gave away our offering,

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which just kind of crazy to do.

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It's the kind of things that people of faith do.

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We gave away our offering, $230,000 came in

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to help aid medical workers who have child care issues.

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That is amazing. That's what a church does.

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I just want to remind you that if you're a part of Crossroads' team,

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we've always got to be concerned about the mothership.

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It's the daily bread and butter, day to day ministry

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that enables all these great things that happen.

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So I hope that you're able to be faithful,

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if God's been faithful to you and you still got a paycheck,

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you can go to Crossroads.net/give to be involved

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in the things that God is doing through what we're doing

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here in our country.

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So enough of that, let's get on with our episode.

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Welcome to Real Encounters with God: The Jesus Myth.

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We're going take a pilgrimage to find out who He was

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and what took place in His life.

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Have you ever thought, "What can a guy who lived 2000 years ago

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before we had a handheld devices possibly tell me about life?

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I mean, wasn't this guy just some thinker, some teacher,

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some guy who just kind of walked around in a high class Birkenstocks?

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What could He possibly have to do with my life today?

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How could He possibly understand?

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How could He speak to me?

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Was He just a little a lowly carpenter?"

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We're going to start our pilgrimage going to

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one of the harshest environments on the planet

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to shine some light on exactly who He is.

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Have you ever felt alone, maybe even weak.

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Weak relationally, like your friends are just not doing it for you?

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You might be married by now and you're not married

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or if you are married, it's just not going well?

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You ever felt weak emotionally, like you just --

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you just can't hold your emotions together?

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You just can't hold your feelings together,

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they're getting out of control?

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You ever felt weak physically?

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Like you just can't perform the way you want to perform?

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You can't do the things you want to do?

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You can't keep up with other people?

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You ever felt that kind of weakness?

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How about spiritually?

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Have you ever felt weak spiritually?

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This idea of spiritual growth or prayer

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sounds like a really great idea,

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until it comes to actually doing it.

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It's hard, it's difficult.

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If you can identify with any of these things,

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Jesus can identify with you because He felt alone,

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He felt weak at times.

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The Book of Hebrews, it says this:

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He's been alone, too.

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He gets you.

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He can empathize with those feelings.

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In fact, He's been alone right here in the wilderness.

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Our crews set up the camp in the wilderness

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while I spend some time away from their campsite

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in solitude, imagining what it was like to be alone,

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all alone out here.

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All right. I am here in the wilderness.

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Alone. Very, very alone.

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It's like a deafening sound in your ears when everything is silent.

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It's actually kind of nice.

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It makes me think about, hey, I need to be doing this more often.

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Of course, I haven't been out here for 40 days,

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but nonetheless, it's -- it's good,

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it's actually refreshing and probably healthy for me.

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I think of things I normally wouldn't think of.

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Just kind of decompressing, you can feel it.

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So, I don't know how I would do this for 40 days,

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but I"m glad I've done it for a little bit here.

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Jesus is strong. How strong?

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He can go 40 days and did go 40 days without food.

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That was really tough. None of us could do that.

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But He does something else that none of us have probably done,

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at least in memory, He goes 40 days being by himself.

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When is the last time you went 40 days being by yourself?

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We can't go four minutes without checking our devices

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and staying connected.

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He goes 40 days.

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At the end of that 40 days, as if that's not bad enough,

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He has a special visitor.

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His name is Satan, or the adversary or the tempter

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or Lucifer or whatever you want to call him by.

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And he gives Him three enticements.

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They're named the Three Temptations of Christ.

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The first one he gives Him at the end of this 40 days

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when He's hungry is he says, "A stone, huh?

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It looks kind of like a piece of bread does it?

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Oh, Jesus, yum, yum, yum, yum, yum.

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Don't You want this to be turned to bread and satisfy Your hunger?"

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This is a test.

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A temptation has two angles to it.

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One is the enticement angle, and this is what Satan is doing.

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He's enticing Him to have this turned into bread,

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to use His strength, to use His power, to meet His needs

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in a way that God is not ready to have Him meet His needs.

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Because, number two, the second thing about it

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is a temptation can also be a test.

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It's something that God uses to make a stronger.

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As strong as Jesus is, He's actually getting stronger

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as a result of these things.

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I don't know about you, but for me, education was difficult.

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Being in school was difficult.

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Tests were very difficult.

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And I can tell you for sure,

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I would never have learned anything were there not a test.

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I would've never crammed for a test.

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I would have never stayed up late.

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I just wouldn't have.

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That doesn't just ring true in education,

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it rings true for everything in your spiritual formation.

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Unless there's some difficulty,

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unless there's some squeezing of you,

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unless there's some denial,

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unless there's something that doesn't come natural to you,

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you're not going to grow.

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You're not going to get spiritually stronger.

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And this is what God wants.

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He doesn't want you to exist on this earth, on this planet.

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He wants you to be stronger.

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He wants you to be like His Son.

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He wants you to have capacities that you wouldn't have had

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had you not step in to the test,

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had you not stepped into the difficulty.

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The problem is, as soon as we have difficulty,

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we try to escape.

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We try to medicate ourselves.

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We try to create bread out of all kinds of things

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that are trying to fill us up that can never fill,

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as Blaise Pascal, a French mathematician, said,

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"That God shaped hole that is inside of us."

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We have all kinds of fake bread.

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This is not intended to be bread.

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This was a stone.

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And Jesus wasn't going to fall for it.

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I'll tell you what else isn't intended to be bread,

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your workaholism schedule.

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That's not intended to be bread.

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That's not intended to satisfy you.

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Your and my endless climbing for more notoriety

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and more fame or more success at work,

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tThat's not to be the bread that satisfies us.

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Or pornography or use of pornography,

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that's not supposed to be the bread that satisfies.

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In fact, it never satisfies us.

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We never get to the end of doing that,

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or the other things to go, "Whoo, man.

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I feel closer to God right now."

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It doesn't doesn't work that way.

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I can just go on and on and on and on and on here

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about the things that we do, try to consume,

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trying to turn things that aren't ever going to satisfy us

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into making us feel right.

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Friends, God wants us to be strong.

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He wants you to be strong.

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That means He's going to allow you to be enticed

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by things that are very difficult

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and sometimes feel like you are alone

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and you're never going to get away from it.

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Here's the thing: Jesus, He proves His strength,

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He increases His strength because He passes the test.

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This is the same with all of us.

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There is a test that God may be facing you with right now,

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whatever it is, any of the things I just mentioned,

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or a reaction to somebody who's giving you grief,

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a reaction to are you going to forgive somebody

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who is even asking for forgiveness?

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A reaction to something.

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Our ability to withstand the temptation

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is going to be the thing that dictates our strength.

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It's going to be the thing that gets us closer to God

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or draws us away from God,

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because Jesus said, "Man doesn't live by bread alone."

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Whatever those things they are, we live by the very Word of God.

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Anyone who can live survivor man style

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in a harsh condition for over a month has my immediate respect.

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I mean, I don't know if Jesus has knives, if He needs them or not.

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Knives are just kind of fun to play with,

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but He's by himself in a very incredibly harsh environment.

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And there's so much that's going on here.

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This is one of things that is so unique about Jesus

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versus other high religious figures, spiritual figures

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in other forms of religion and spirituality,

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is the book of Hebrews says He was tempted in every way.

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Whatever you've experienced, whatever you've been tempted with,

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He's been tempted with that.

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You might say, "Oh, certainly, He has been tempted to--"

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Oh, yeah. He's been tempted to do that.

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He's been tempted in every way, yet without sin.

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He understands the pain that you and I are going through.

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He gets it.

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And the neat thing, too, about His life

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relative to our life is the difficulty.

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We've got difficulty. He's got difficulty.

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It says at the end of the temptations

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and after the devil left Him,

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the angels came and ministered to Him. After.

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Now I'm thinking, boy, angels would have been nice

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like maybe around day 10,

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maybe around day 39 it would have been really nice.

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But it's after.

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Here again, we can learn from Him.

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Jesus had to go through the difficulty,

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and then He got some spiritual relief.

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Sometimes we're in spiritual difficulty right now

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and we're crying out to God,

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"God, would you please send me some spiritual relief."

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And He might be forming you right now

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the way He couldn't form you if He sent you some spiritual relief.

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Friends, just hang on.

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Sometimes all you can do is survive and fight the temptation,

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but eventually angels will come.

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Eventually relief will come.

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We can learn from Him and apply it to our lives.

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So let's make a pilgrimage to where Jesus grew up:

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The town of Nazareth.

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We went to the Church of Nutrition,

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a place where twelve essential minerals and vitamins

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are contained for all spiritual pilgrimages of all time.

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I just think that's an amazing: The Church of the Nutrition.

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You just get your vitamin C every time you walk in there.

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But nonetheless, this church is right over top of what

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we are very confident is the early childhood home of Jesus.

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It's one of the greatest modern archeological finds.

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Great, great reasons we believe this is the place

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where Jesus grew up under Joseph's tutelage, His father,

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and under Mary's tutelage, His mother.

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It's kind of on lockdown.

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We were hoping to do an entire episode right in there,

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but we couldn't get permission on that.

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So we stuck some shots with our iPhones.

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So Jesus grew in wisdom and stature.

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He was a guy who developed

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and this is likely the place where he was developing.

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His dad teaching Him how to make a door.

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His dad teach Him how to make a room.

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Growing His muscles, growing His wisdom

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and having intensive spiritual conversations right here in this area.

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This is a relatively recent archaeological find.

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It's absolutely the first century, absolutely, the first century.

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It's a very, very high likelihood that this was Jesus's home.

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We can't know for sure, but I tell you it's pretty special being here.

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Well, so the theory is that Jesus and the brothers

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they had actually made this for Joseph.

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That's a pretty impressive thing, you know,

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thinking and He could have just hewed this out with his own hands.

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So, yeah, literally maybe standing where Jesus stood

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and feeling things and touching things that He touched.

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Pretty intense.

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This trough for water was very well made

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by Jesus and His father.

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And that tomb where he was placed, I could just imagine

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Jesus and His brothers as they were burying His father,

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creating a tomb, bawling, weeping,

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tears running down their face.

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No one wants to bury their own dead,

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somebody who is affected their life so much.

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Jesus was the Son of God, but Joseph, His adopted father,

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was an amazing man.

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If I was God, I would want to make sure that my son

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grew up where there was a great father figure.

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And we're very confident that that was Joseph.

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And I can just sort of feel the emotion here

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of what Jesus might have felt throughout His whole life

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and at the end of Joseph's.

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I'm here on the hillside around Nazareth,

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where you see this kind of stuff all the time.

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It's basically an old quarry where they've chopped up stone.

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Nazareth was the place -- it was the place if you wanted rock.

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It wasn't a very respectable place,

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that's why they always say Jesus of Nazareth.

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They're kind of jabbing at Jesus a little bit,

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like you come from this nowhere town

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where all they do is pound rock.

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But that's where He was.

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That's the midst of His town.

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That's the history of His background.

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Everything about Jesus's life was difficult.

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Maybe that's part of how He got so strong

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is He went through such difficulty.

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That's how we get strong, right?

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If you want to get stronger muscles,

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you have to break down your muscle fibers

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to get stronger muscles.

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You want to have a stronger mind?

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You've actually got to break down your mind

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and take classes you don't want to take to get a stronger mind.

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Jesus went through this process.

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In the Book of Luke it says that

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Jesus grew in wisdom and in stature.

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Obviously He came out of Mary as a wee, wee, wee, wee little guy

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and He grew in stature, but it also says there

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that He grew in wisdom, He got more wise as time went on.

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He saw more insights.

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He learned how to do Rubik's Cube.

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He learned how to see His way through problems.

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He grew in wisdom and stature.

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And He understands where you and I've been

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because he had an incredibly difficult life.

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We're not talking about just difficult like

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walking miles at a time to get anywhere He was.

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He was a very, very rigorous guy,

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but we're also talking about a very emotionally difficult life.

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He was regularly hounded and accused of being a bastard.

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People would say, "Oh, yeah, you're born of God."

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Actually, even towards the end of His life,

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He gets into Jerusalem and a religious leaders are saying,

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"We know who your dad is, or we don't know who your dad is."

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They're accusing Him of this all the time.

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This plagued His life.

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He was made fun of and ridiculed regularly

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for having a family of questionable origin.

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God was His father and God gave Him

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an amazing earthly father who's name was Joseph.

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We don't know much about Joseph at all after the age of 12.

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There's a story that's in the Bible about Jesus when he was 12.

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And then somewhere between 12 and 30 when Jesus comes public,

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Joseph dies inside of there.

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He's an amazing dad, I believe.

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If I was God, I would want to have an amazing dad for my son.

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In that process, he dies someplace.

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When did he die? When Jesus was 13, 14, 15, 16, 20, 22?.

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I don't care who you are, man, when your dad dies,

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especially at a young age, it's tough. It's tough.

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This strengthened Jesus and it also put a wound on Jesus

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that He had to grow out of.

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Whatever, I don't know what your pain is.

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I don't know what your difficulty is.

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But I do know this: Jesus can understand it.

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Whatever it is, He's been there.

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He's felt the brunt of stones falling on Him.

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The Book of Psalms 18:2, it says this:

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Jesus's classroom wasn't a classroom.

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Jesus's classroom was the hard knocks of life.

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His classroom, how He grew was by walking a lot of miles

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and getting emotionally sometimes abused.

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That's how he grew in wisdom and stature and strength,

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but He never forgot where He came from.

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He never forgot what it was like to be in need,

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what it was like to have difficulty in His life.

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And this is why this verse makes so much sense for Him.

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It says He's a shelter. He's a rock.

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Right here, it's blowing in here pretty significant right now.

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Wind, you can't tell it as much because

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I've got a shield from this wind right here in the rock.

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And I come in here and it's really warm.

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This is -- this is what Jesus is like. He's a rock,

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He's a shield, He's a fortress, He's a foundation.

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There's a protective nature to Jesus.

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Have you ever allowed Jesus to bring His strength

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and His protective nature to your life?

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It's what He wants to do, you know.

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He understands your difficulty; He's been there.

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He understands growing pains; He's felt them.

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Jesus knew loss. All of us know loss. I know loss.

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Not too long ago a person who was

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a rock in my life in many ways, Kathy Beechem.

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She ran all of our sites.

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She was on our senior leadership team.

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She had experience in just about every walk of life.

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Kathy was just a strong, strong woman.

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And I once said to God one time, I said, "God,

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she's one of the people, man, just don't take her from me."

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And what do you know, He did.

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He took her from us, anyone who knew her.

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And I felt in many ways like a rock was gone from under my life.

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I felt incredibly vulnerable.

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And that's when God really reminded, Kathy --

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Kathy's not my rock.

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As impressive as she was and as wise as she was

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and as just rock solid, being able to bring any wisdom

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at any moment in any meeting and just being tough as nails

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and always -- and also being jovial and lighthearted

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and just amazing every which way.

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As much as I thought there's no way

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I could do my job without her, God just corrected me.

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"Kathy is not your rock. I'm your rock.

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I'm your foundation."

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God wants to be your rock and foundation.

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He doesn't want anything else to be a rock and foundation.

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Nobody else can be your fortress as well as He can.

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That's what He does.

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Well, I hope you're enjoying our episode.

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You know, we are a church and we're about much more

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than just watching things, we're about doing things

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and responding to people.

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If you need some social interaction,

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if you need someone to pray for, need somebody to talk to,

00:23:16

we'd love to interact with you.

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You can go to Crossroads.net.

00:23:21

My friend Kyle talked to a guy

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who found a way through fear thanks to Jesus.

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For many of us who are fearful right now,

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I hope this is an encouragement that Jesus can be

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right there next to you, just like this story.

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- I'm here with my friend Otis.

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We're in an airplane hangar, Otis.

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Why are we here in this airplane hangar?

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- Well, we are here in this airplane hangar

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because I've had a cool encounter with Jesus

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through aircraft and jumping out of perfectly good airplanes.

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- OK. Tell me about that story.

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- So when I was growing up, I had literally terrified of heights.

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There would always be this exploration that stopped

00:24:04

because of fear, you know.

00:24:06

And so then I joined the military.

00:24:09

And when I was on active duty,

00:24:11

I had an opportunity to apply to go to jump school.

00:24:14

And I said, "You know what? I'm going to do it,"

00:24:16

because one of my philosophies is

00:24:17

whatever you don't face, we'll stay in your face.

00:24:19

So I signed up to go to jump school

00:24:22

and I was able to face my fear of heights.

00:24:26

- Oh, wow. So tell me about kind of you and Jesus

00:24:29

early on in your life as you're facing this fear,

00:24:31

as you're getting to jump out of airplanes.

00:24:34

- So I always was in a church environment,

00:24:38

but I guess my relationship with Jesus

00:24:41

didn't really start until I was actually in the military.

00:24:45

- It sounds like in some way the foundation of your life

00:24:48

is built on, at least early in your life, is fear.

00:24:52

What are some of the ways that that held you back?

00:24:55

- Just trying things, right?

00:24:58

Because fear always shows up.

00:24:59

And when it shows up and always ask a question.

00:25:02

And the question it asks is: what if?

00:25:03

And so, when I was jumping, what if your chute doesn't open?

00:25:06

What if you land wrong?

00:25:07

What if you break your leg?

00:25:09

So it's always this what if.

00:25:11

And those what ifs were the things that were holding me back.

00:25:14

Because I was like, man, what if that happened?

00:25:16

Man, yeah, that wouldn't be good.

00:25:18

So then I pump my brakes, right, and not go forward.

00:25:22

I felt Jesus had more for me than I was experiencing.

00:25:25

And this thing called fear was in the way.

00:25:28

And so my goal with Jesus was to deal with that monster

00:25:33

once and for all.

00:25:34

And what better way to do that, right,

00:25:36

than jumping out of a perfectly good airplanes?

00:25:39

- I still get afraid and the difference is,

00:25:43

I know now that Jesus is walking with me. Right?

00:25:47

Right there I firmly believe there are a lot of people

00:25:49

who are stuck and not fulfilling the call of Jesus because of fear.

00:25:54

- What's an example of maybe where Jesus helped you

00:25:56

go from fear to the other side and get the strength?

00:25:59

- I was a member of Toastmasters International

00:26:02

and I was blessed to win their championship,

00:26:05

their world championship of public speaking.

00:26:08

And so after winning that, I felt the call from Jesus

00:26:11

to go out and start a company that speaks

00:26:15

and trains and all those kinds of things.

00:26:17

And I was a banker at the time.

00:26:19

I put in my two weeks notification, my resignation.

00:26:22

So week one goes by and I'm nervous,

00:26:25

but I'm still kind of hanging on.

00:26:27

Week two comes and I'm like, you know what?

00:26:29

Maybe I really didn't hear from Jesus.

00:26:32

Maybe I should go and ask for my job back. Right?

00:26:34

I'm literally getting ready to go Wednesday

00:26:38

and ask my boss can I stay.

00:26:41

And I hear clearly in my spirit, "Hold."

00:26:44

And then I just turn and act like I was going somewhere else.

00:26:46

So I get home that night.

00:26:48

There's a voicemail from a gentleman

00:26:50

who owns a communications company

00:26:52

and he asked me to come work for him.

00:26:54

I decided to do that.

00:26:56

We met on Thursday. Did all that.

00:26:58

I called him on Friday, which was my last day at the bank.

00:27:00

And man, it's been up and to the right ever since, right?

00:27:04

- So if you step back from your life,

00:27:05

what has had to die in you and what's come alive?

00:27:09

- Dying is the death of fear and it's a daily death,

00:27:14

right, it's putting that thing down daily.

00:27:16

And what's come alive is courage.

00:27:19

I've been through so many tests with Him,

00:27:21

so many fearful things with Him that He's brought me through.

00:27:24

I clearly hear His voice and I'm like, "He's got me."

00:27:27

- That's awesome. Hey, man, thanks for your service.

00:27:29

-Oh, you're welcome.

00:27:30

- It's been awesome. Thank you.

00:27:31

- All right. No worries.

00:27:32

- You're welcome.

00:27:34

- Jesus is starting to feel more flesh and bone maybe to you.

00:27:39

Maybe He's starting to feel more relatable.

00:27:41

He grew up, He had an actual childhood.

00:27:45

He skinned His knees.

00:27:47

He had highs and lows of His days.

00:27:51

He was an accomplished builder.

00:27:55

And as He was building and going about His life

00:27:57

in an occupation that all of us could understand,

00:27:58

because all of us have occupations.

00:28:00

Yes, He had an occupation.

00:28:02

As He was going about it, we continue to learn

00:28:04

more things about Him and maybe ourselves.

00:28:06

We'll learn from my friend, Tsuriel Bar David,

00:28:10

an amazingly insightful and spiritual guide

00:28:13

who's going to help us in our pilgrimage.

00:28:29

So where are we right now?

00:28:31

- We're hearing Galilee.

00:28:32

We're on top of a hill, which is about 900 feet above sea level

00:28:36

in a place called Sepphoris, in Hebrew tzippori,

00:28:39

which is tzippor is abird.

00:28:41

So this hill, which is not very high,

00:28:44

but still it's higher than all the valleys around it.

00:28:47

So it controls this region and that's why it's got its name.

00:28:50

And this city from the 1st century B.C.

00:28:53

turned to be the capital of Galilee, the most important city.

00:28:57

- So this is, at the time of Jesus this thing is here?

00:29:00

- Right. Everything that you see over here, around you,

00:29:02

all those buildings and streets and things

00:29:04

are from that time also of Jesus.

00:29:06

Jesus lived in Nazareth about four or five miles away from here.

00:29:11

And He would probably come with His father to work here.

00:29:14

Of course, wherever you have big cities, wherever you have people,

00:29:18

there is jobs and people would come there.

00:29:20

- He's got a very small city where He is in Nazareth.

00:29:22

Not enough work there. They're coming here regularly.

00:29:26

Pretty confident that He was working

00:29:28

on houses here as a builder. Agree?

00:29:30

- Yes, of course.

00:29:31

Even today, you know, we say it's four or five miles,

00:29:34

so it seems as if it's a long distance to walk.

00:29:36

- Yeah.

00:29:37

- But even today, the builders in Israel,

00:29:39

they wake up at around 3:30 in the morning

00:29:41

and they spend around 2, 3 hours

00:29:43

to get to the places where they work.

00:29:45

We read in the Bible that people would walk.

00:29:47

You know, David will send by his father, Jesse,

00:29:50

to see what's going on with his brothers 20 miles

00:29:53

he had to go just to bring them some lunch

00:29:55

and to check what's going on.

00:29:56

Joseph, we'll send by his father, Jacob,

00:29:58

something like 70 miles to walk and see where are his brothers.

00:30:02

- We don't even want our kids

00:30:03

walking to the bus stop on their own.

00:30:05

We don't want them walking them down the block

00:30:07

on their own we're so freaked out.

00:30:08

Miles and miles.

00:30:09

- We are spoiled.

00:30:10

Back then, they were tough, that's for sure.

00:30:13

- Jesus, that's a good point about Jesus though,

00:30:15

that had to have a level of rigor to His character.

00:30:18

He had to be a pretty tough guy.

00:30:19

- Yeah. And imagine that Jesus is coming to a city

00:30:22

and He enters into people's homes to build things.

00:30:26

I mean, this is what He would do.

00:30:27

It's in a personal level that you see how they live,

00:30:30

how they speak, what do they have, which things inside.

00:30:33

It's a very personal thing.

00:30:34

It's not that you are a farmer, that you go outside.

00:30:36

It's not that you are a shepherd,

00:30:38

that you are out in the mountains.

00:30:39

It's in people's homes.

00:30:40

He saw everything. He knew exactly what people think.

00:30:42

- That's fascinating, because one bigger stress points

00:30:45

we have is when we have contractors come in our house

00:30:47

because they see our stuff, they see our junk.

00:30:49

It's a little weird to think like,

00:30:51

"What if Jesus came in my house

00:30:53

and was building out an addition or something like that?" Really?

00:30:56

- Would there be things that I'm hiding?

00:30:58

- Yeah. Right. Would I not want Hime to see

00:31:00

what's on my counter or hanging on the refrigerator

00:31:02

or whatever it is?

00:31:03

That's really fascinating.

00:31:04

So the resourcefulness and the strength of Jesus

00:31:08

we really see here at sites like this.

00:31:10

- Yes, it's exactly. This is the places that Jesus would be,

00:31:14

this is what He would experience.

00:31:15

And this is how it would look like.

00:31:17

- That's good stuff.

00:31:24

As we saw in Nazareth, a lot of rocks, a lot of rocks everwhere.

00:31:27

It was a quarry. It was a rock town.

00:31:30

Did you see a lot of trees there?

00:31:32

No, I didn't see a lot of trees there.

00:31:34

That's the problem, because many of us believe

00:31:36

and have been taught that Jesus was a lowly carpenter.

00:31:39

What do you need to be a carpenter?

00:31:40

Well, you need a lot of wood, for starters.

00:31:42

Not a lot of wood there.

00:31:43

Secondly, carpenters aren't lowly.

00:31:47

The only reason you'd call a carpenter lowly

00:31:49

is because you don't know what you're saying.

00:31:50

Most of us don't work with our hands any longer.

00:31:52

You wait until you need to build something

00:31:54

and then get your carpenter and ask him if he's lonely or not.

00:31:57

Not only are carpenters not lowly,

00:31:59

but here's the crazy thought, just consider it.

00:32:03

Jesus wasn't even a carpenter.

00:32:05

No, He wasn't a carpenter.

00:32:08

There is mention of him being a carpenter in the New Testament,

00:32:14

but the word that is used there specifically is the word tekton.

00:32:17

Tekton means master craftsman or builder.

00:32:21

It is material agnostic, if you will.

00:32:25

Jesus would have been building with the stuff

00:32:27

that He had at His disposal, which is stone,

00:32:29

which is what He did.

00:32:30

And more than that, if you think about the things

00:32:33

Jesus talked about, we talk about the things that we know

00:32:35

and we have experience with.

00:32:36

He doesn't talk a lot about wood, one metaphor,

00:32:39

not judging somebody, not taking the speck out their eye

00:32:41

until we take the huge beam out of your eye.

00:32:44

But man, stone metaphors galore.

00:32:47

He talks about counting the cost before you build a tower.

00:32:49

Why? Because as a builder, He would have been building a tower.

00:32:53

The scripture speaks of him of being a chief cornerstone.

00:32:57

He has passages and teachings

00:32:59

about what your life should be built on.

00:33:01

And clue, it's not being built on pressure treated wood.

00:33:05

It's being built on stone.

00:33:07

Here is how He teaches it:

00:33:42

Jesus talks about what all of us

00:33:43

who've worked in construction know,

00:33:46

the most important thing is the foundation,

00:33:47

and it really needs to be stone.

00:33:50

One of the construction jobs I led as the GC

00:33:53

was an addition on the side of a house and it was on a hill.

00:33:58

As we put peeled away the dirt we noticed that

00:34:03

on the side the house where there should have been a footer,

00:34:05

a concrete foot, they had just taken the block

00:34:08

and they had set it on dirt.

00:34:11

And on top of that there were these huge gaps

00:34:15

in the foundation underneath the dirt

00:34:17

that you could stick your fist through.

00:34:18

And then we realized, oh, that's why this house is stucco,

00:34:22

actually Drivit.

00:34:23

They just covered over all this stuff.

00:34:24

So the first thing we had to do is go in

00:34:27

and peel back all the stuff with a shovel.

00:34:30

I was peeling back the dirt underneath the block

00:34:32

and then doing forms and pouring concrete in underneath it.

00:34:36

You know, Jesus is not a philosopher.

00:34:38

One of the myths is He's a good teacher.

00:34:40

It's for many of us teaching is about philosophies.

00:34:43

Woo, that's a new thought I hadn't had to.

00:34:45

You know, here's a clue:

00:34:46

Jesus didn't come to give you a new thoughts.

00:34:48

He didn't.

00:34:49

He comes to build your life and he says here,

00:34:53

if our life isn't built on rock, and specifically on Him,

00:34:57

and what's the Bible call Him? The chief cornerstone.

00:35:01

There it is again.

00:35:02

If our life isn't built on Him, whenever pressure comes

00:35:06

and tension, we're gonna be buffeted

00:35:08

and we're gonna be blown down.

00:35:09

We're going to literally slide down a hill.

00:35:13

That's not good when that happens.

00:35:15

This project I did, once I did that,

00:35:18

the house starts sliding a little more for a little bit.

00:35:21

And then people got really upset.

00:35:23

And then my project was in the local paper

00:35:26

and it was called a, quote, Rape of a Hillside.

00:35:29

That was that was a great day in my construction career.

00:35:33

Jesus wants to build your life.

00:35:34

And if you have anything built on anything other than Him,

00:35:39

you're in danger.

00:35:40

Why are elections so stressful for us?

00:35:43

Why are politics so fever pitch for us?

00:35:45

"Oh, I hope the right president gets it."

00:35:47

Because we're building our life on

00:35:50

a presidential candidate who can only be there four.

00:35:52

maybe eight years anyway.

00:35:53

We're building our life, some of us,

00:35:55

on a vision for America that might not be God's vision

00:35:59

and won't last.

00:36:01

America is shifting sand.

00:36:04

We're gonna be excavated someday.

00:36:07

Jesus, His teachings still abide.

00:36:10

His life still works because it works.

00:36:12

You will build on something.

00:36:14

Your body beautiful and it will shift and you will age.

00:36:16

Gravity is a bummer.

00:36:18

Your mental capacity, someone is going to come along

00:36:21

smarter than you at some point

00:36:22

and get the career that you want to have.

00:36:25

What is your life is built on?

00:36:27

I want you know that Jesus wants you to have a great life

00:36:31

and He wants to build your life, but that means

00:36:34

you and I have to choose to be built on Him.

00:36:47

Well, we've seen that Jesus handled

00:36:49

all the temptations that you and I have handled.

00:36:51

He's understood how to be isolated.

00:36:55

He's been tempted.

00:36:57

He's grown up in a home with probably

00:37:00

a lot of emotional stuff happening at home like you and I.

00:37:03

He's lived an incredibly rigorous life

00:37:07

in every way, shape and form.

00:37:09

I don't know about you, but I want to be more like that.

00:37:11

I want to experience what He's experiencing.

00:37:13

So we found out about a site that's quite a hike.

00:37:18

We grabbed the crew and went in search of

00:37:20

to a place where even our guide Tsuriel had never been to,

00:37:24

but to get there it was going to be a slog.

00:37:27

It was going to be a true adventure.

00:37:32

So we're trying to find the original Cana,

00:37:37

which was the place where Jesus did His first miracle.

00:37:39

There's a big city, Kanna, that everyone knows,

00:37:42

but it's not the original city Cana.

00:37:44

The original city of Cana is just,

00:37:46

I understand there's some ruins. There's a hill.

00:37:49

Very few people have ever seen it, let alone found it.

00:37:52

We're trying to find it with some off road maps

00:37:55

and we're having some difficulty

00:37:57

But we're going to try to press on

00:37:59

and get to the actual location.

00:38:01

- We're going to celebrate with wine if we get there.

00:38:12

- (speaking foreign language)

00:38:18

- All right.

00:38:20

So we're going to go on a little exploration.

00:38:23

We see what's before us.

00:38:25

We're going to go up there and see what we find.

00:38:27

And it's pretty windy and pretty cold,

00:38:29

but former Israeli special forces can take whatever comes our way.

00:38:35

- Where he be?

00:38:37

- I know where he is, let's go.

00:38:42

- So we're here in Galilee a few miles north,

00:38:47

northwest, let's say to the known Kanna,

00:38:53

which is also a modern village today,

00:38:54

an Arab village in Israel.

00:38:56

So there are some that suggest that

00:39:01

the hill that we are climbing right now,

00:39:04

is the original Cana that was here 2000 years ago.

00:39:07

We are still in a --

00:39:09

- You've been here before?

00:39:10

- No, I've never been up here.

00:39:11

- Oh, I get to something for the first time that you do.

00:39:14

So, actually, I'm the expert.

00:39:16

If you've never been here, I can --

00:39:18

Can I just pretend like I'm the expert?

00:39:19

- You can say whatever you want.

00:39:21

- The wind, guys, is really -- these are maybe

00:39:24

the most extreme conditions I've experienced in Israel

00:39:29

the number of times I've been here.

00:39:30

It is cold, it is windy.

00:39:33

We might get dumped on with rain.

00:39:35

It also makes you wonder like,

00:39:37

was everything that they wore, was it all cotton or wool?

00:39:40

Like what, did they have anything for rain?

00:39:42

Would they oil the cloths or anything?

00:39:45

- Goat's hair is a waterproof.

00:39:48

- Yes. Yes. That's why for example

00:39:52

they're all made of goat hair

00:39:55

and it's protected during the wintertime.

00:39:58

- Something's been living here.

00:40:01

- Yeah. Someone was cutting those stones, cutting inside.

00:40:06

It can be, you know, a small quarry even,

00:40:09

that they dig stones in order to build their houses.

00:40:12

And this is already some ruins.

00:40:15

And again, we're talking about a site

00:40:18

that had people living here for centuries

00:40:21

already during the second temple period

00:40:25

and all the way through the Byzantine and even

00:40:26

probably Crusaders were here building some of their stuff.

00:40:32

- Wow.

00:40:33

- Oh, look, what a great view from up here.

00:40:35

- My goodness. I see a view. I see no cave.

00:40:39

We've been walking around trying to find a cave.

00:40:42

- For half an hour.

00:40:43

- We're going up and over.

00:40:45

All we had to go on was an image of a cave

00:40:47

from an archeological friend of mine named Bob.

00:40:50

We split up to search the hill.

00:40:52

It was definitely not an easy find.

00:40:57

- Wow, there are some kind of base it appears here around.

00:40:59

- It absolutely is right here.

00:41:01

Oh, oh, oh, oh, I see cave.

00:41:06

I see hole. -

00:41:08

- Perfect. Let's go inside and see it.

00:41:17

- So I'm no -- I'm no archaeologist.

00:41:20

My archaeologist friend tells me the cave and if this is it,

00:41:25

it's hard to say because they said they blocked it off.

00:41:27

As the story goes, this was a chapel that

00:41:31

they had excavated from, what was it, 100, 200 A.D.

00:41:35

or something like that, which would've been --

00:41:36

- Animistic pro Byzantium, I understand. Right?

00:41:39

- Right. Exactly. And they had a place

00:41:42

where there was indentations for jars

00:41:44

that were supposedly memorializing

00:41:47

where the jars were water were turned into wine.

00:41:51

Those holes, that wasn't the actual place they put the thing,

00:41:53

but it was memorializing which is again

00:41:55

why many people think this is --

00:41:58

this archaeologist thinks this is the Cana.

00:41:59

This is Cana, this is where the miracle took place is this region.

00:42:02

- We definitely know that people used to live here

00:42:06

when Jesus is in Nazareth. That's for sure. This is 100%.

00:42:09

- This has been great.

00:42:10

Seriously, this has been a highlight for me.

00:43:21

I just -- I just love this scene.

00:43:24

I don't mean just the scene of this. I love this.

00:43:26

I love the scene that's painted in that scripture.

00:43:29

He decides to honor His mom

00:43:30

and decides to do the bold, strong move.

00:43:32

He takes water that's in these stone jars.

00:43:35

Maybe, maybe somewhat like this, except chiseled out.

00:43:39

And He takes it and He turns it all into wine.

00:43:43

And let me say it is real legit wine.

00:43:46

We know it's real legit wine because, of course,

00:43:49

a real legit wedding often has real legit wine.

00:43:52

And the wine steward, the person who's in charge

00:43:54

of all the celebrations to make sure everyone celebrating right,

00:43:57

when he tastes the way he says, "Oh, my goodness,

00:43:59

normally people wait for the cheap wine later,

00:44:02

but you brought the best wine."

00:44:04

He wouldn't say that about Welch's grape juice.

00:44:06

The best wine.

00:44:07

Sometimes. Sometimes the best stuff that God brings

00:44:11

is at the very end.

00:44:12

We want it right at the beginning.

00:44:14

We don't want to wait for it.

00:44:15

We don't want to be patient for it.

00:44:16

We don't want to have to be in any sense of tension.

00:44:18

But sometimes He waits to the end.

00:44:21

Man, some of you, God's not given up,

00:44:22

you're just going to have to wait a little longer.

00:44:24

It's part of the spiritual formation process

00:44:27

that He works with us.

00:44:28

He makes us stronger while we wait for Him

00:44:32

to bring His strength.

00:44:33

And when He brings it, friends, I'm telling you, He is not cheap.

00:44:39

Ephesians 3:20 says that

00:44:41

He can do exceedingly more abundantly,

00:44:45

exceedingly more abundantly than you could possibly imagine.

00:44:48

This is what we see with this wine.

00:44:50

He brings a thousand bottles of wine. A thousand.

00:44:54

That's how this all translates into, a thousand.

00:44:56

I tell you what, I'm sure there wasn't a thousand people there.

00:44:58

I'm very confident of that.

00:45:00

He gives overflowing, abundant wine.

00:45:03

I just want tell you, man, if you're hurting

00:45:04

and you need the strength of God,

00:45:06

you might be right on the precipice of meeting the strong one.

00:45:11

If you're right at the end of the term

00:45:12

and you're staring at another final

00:45:15

and you're low on energy and you need to --

00:45:18

you're right in the position where the strong one can come

00:45:23

and give you wine.

00:45:24

If you're right at the end of your infertility treatments,

00:45:27

if you're right at the end of your patience

00:45:29

for whatever the medical thing you're dealing with,

00:45:31

you're right at the place where oftentimes

00:45:34

the strong, abundant one shows --

00:45:36

If you're right at the end of your business

00:45:38

and you're not sure how I'm going to hit payroll,

00:45:40

oftentimes this is the place that God has been waiting

00:45:42

for you to get to a place of desperation

00:45:44

where He wants to come and bring something

00:45:47

beyond what you can expect that helps you know

00:45:50

that He's completely strong.

00:45:51

When you are at the end of whatever it is you're doing,

00:45:54

friends, this oftentimes is the place where the wine comes,

00:45:58

the real wine, and it comes from God, it comes from Him

00:46:01

instead of us and our own stuff.

00:46:03

I'm telling you, friends, the God of the wine is for real

00:46:07

and He's a strong wine

00:46:09

and He knows what's happening in your life.

00:46:10

Let me pray for you right now.

00:46:11

God, I pray for all of us who are at the end of our rope,

00:46:16

we're on our last nerve, we're on the last step,

00:46:19

w're at the end of the line.

00:46:21

We need Your strength.

00:46:24

Would You come, would You visit us?

00:46:25

God, bring the wine. Bring it.

00:46:27

Bring it in abundance.

00:46:29

Do for us what we can't do for ourselves,

00:46:31

what we have been waiting for.

00:46:34

Jesus, thank You for being the kind of God that does care

00:46:37

and has resources to spare and is a God who blesses

00:46:41

and enables the party to go on.

00:46:43

I pray these things according to your name, Jesus. Amen.

00:46:57

Well, I hope seeing that Jesus is just as relevant,

00:46:59

just as strong, and just as generous as He's always been.

00:47:03

We don't want to just sit and passively receive,

00:47:05

we also want to be engaged in all kinds of ways.

00:47:09

Two ways you can engage right now.

00:47:11

One, if you want to be part of the Crossroads team,

00:47:13

we'd love your help to be able to keep building into people.

00:47:16

You can go to Crossroads.net/give.

00:47:19

Secondly, we're gonna sing right now.

00:47:21

You can sing along to a screen.

00:47:22

And for those of us who have guitars,

00:47:25

we're actually going to put the chord sheet on it.

00:47:27

You can actually strum along or try to strum along if you can.

00:47:31

So let's do that right now.

00:58:16

Man, I love -- I love that song, I love that verse.

00:58:19

I want to make sure that we all understand

00:58:21

exactly what we're saying here.

00:58:23

You know this means that, like, if I want to build my life,

00:58:27

I'm building on God. I'm not building it on America.

00:58:30

I'm not building it on a thriving economy.

00:58:33

I'm not building it on a Hallmark picture

00:58:35

of what my family's supposed to look like inside of my mind.

00:58:38

I'm not building it on my parents' expectations for my life.

00:58:41

I'm not building it on whatever my political preferences are.

00:58:45

I'm not building -- Oh, I'm getting personal now.

00:58:48

I'm not building anything except I'm building it

00:58:51

on God and His love.

00:58:53

That doesn't have to be what all of us are saying.

00:58:56

I know very few of us believe it,

00:58:58

but sometimes you've got to sing it to believe it.

00:59:00

And sometimes when you believe it, you just sing it

00:59:02

and you just take a sort of defiant fist in the air

00:59:05

and say, "No, I'm building my life on something different.

00:59:08

I'm not building my life on normal America.

00:59:11

I'm not building my life on the way life has been happening.

00:59:13

I"m building myself on God.

00:59:15

There are the greats of the faith that have gone before me

00:59:17

So let's say that to Him right now. Come on.

01:01:21

Man, that was good stuff' wasn't it?

01:01:23

Hey, we'd love to keep engaging with you.

01:01:25

You can go to crossroads.net.

01:01:27

We'd love to pray for you, interact with you any way we can.

01:01:30

We want to love our neighbors.

01:01:32

That doesn't stop right now.

01:01:33

Figure out a way to love your neighbor

01:01:34

and engage with them while having healthy social distance.

01:01:39

While we leave you, we're gonna give you a little taste

01:01:42

of what our Kids' Club crew have done.

01:01:44

A whole crew went over to Israel as well

01:01:45

to be able to build on your kids.

01:01:47

Check this out and we'll see you next week.

01:01:52

- This is Israel.

01:01:53

Israel is real.

01:01:55

It's a real country where the events in the Bible really happened.

01:01:59

Like the Judean wilderness.

01:02:02

Like the time a guy named Zacchaeus climbed a tree,

01:02:05

met Jesus and his life changed forever.

01:02:09

Even though thousands of years have passed

01:02:12

and even though a lot in our world has changed,

01:02:14

the truth is still: God is with us.

Myth or Messiah | Real Encounters Week 1

Can Jesus Relate to Me? | Real Encounters Week 2

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