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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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00:21:13
He's a shield, He's a fortress, He's a foundation.
-
00:21:18
There's a protective nature to Jesus.
-
00:21:23
Have you ever allowed Jesus to bring His strength
-
00:21:25
and His protective nature to your life?
-
00:21:28
It's what He wants to do, you know.
-
00:21:30
He understands your difficulty; He's been there.
-
00:21:34
He understands growing pains; He's felt them.
-
00:21:37
Jesus knew loss. All of us know loss. I know loss.
-
00:21:41
Not too long ago a person who was
-
00:21:42
a rock in my life in many ways, Kathy Beechem.
-
00:21:45
She ran all of our sites.
-
00:21:46
She was on our senior leadership team.
-
00:21:48
She had experience in just about every walk of life.
-
00:21:51
Kathy was just a strong, strong woman.
-
00:21:54
And I once said to God one time, I said, "God,
-
00:21:57
she's one of the people, man, just don't take her from me."
-
00:22:00
And what do you know, He did.
-
00:22:02
He took her from us, anyone who knew her.
-
00:22:04
And I felt in many ways like a rock was gone from under my life.
-
00:22:08
I felt incredibly vulnerable.
-
00:22:12
And that's when God really reminded, Kathy --
-
00:22:15
Kathy's not my rock.
-
00:22:17
As impressive as she was and as wise as she was
-
00:22:20
and as just rock solid, being able to bring any wisdom
-
00:22:24
at any moment in any meeting and just being tough as nails
-
00:22:28
and always -- and also being jovial and lighthearted
-
00:22:31
and just amazing every which way.
-
00:22:34
As much as I thought there's no way
-
00:22:36
I could do my job without her, God just corrected me.
-
00:22:40
"Kathy is not your rock. I'm your rock.
-
00:22:44
I'm your foundation."
-
00:22:46
God wants to be your rock and foundation.
-
00:22:47
He doesn't want anything else to be a rock and foundation.
-
00:22:50
Nobody else can be your fortress as well as He can.
-
00:22:56
That's what He does.
-
00:23:02
Well, I hope you're enjoying our episode.
-
00:23:04
You know, we are a church and we're about much more
-
00:23:06
than just watching things, we're about doing things
-
00:23:09
and responding to people.
-
00:23:11
If you need some social interaction,
-
00:23:12
if you need someone to pray for, need somebody to talk to,
-
00:23:16
we'd love to interact with you.
-
00:23:17
You can go to Crossroads.net.
-
00:23:21
My friend Kyle talked to a guy
-
00:23:22
who found a way through fear thanks to Jesus.
-
00:23:25
For many of us who are fearful right now,
-
00:23:27
I hope this is an encouragement that Jesus can be
-
00:23:30
right there next to you, just like this story.
-
00:23:34
- I'm here with my friend Otis.
-
00:23:37
We're in an airplane hangar, Otis.
-
00:23:39
Why are we here in this airplane hangar?
-
00:23:42
- Well, we are here in this airplane hangar
-
00:23:45
because I've had a cool encounter with Jesus
-
00:23:49
through aircraft and jumping out of perfectly good airplanes.
-
00:23:54
- OK. Tell me about that story.
-
00:23:56
- So when I was growing up, I had literally terrified of heights.
-
00:24:00
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?
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00:38:37
- I know where he is, let's go.
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00:38:42
- So we're here in Galilee a few miles north,
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00:38:47
northwest, let's say to the known Kanna,
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00:38:53
which is also a modern village today,
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00:38:54
an Arab village in Israel.
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00:38:56
So there are some that suggest that
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00:39:01
the hill that we are climbing right now,
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00:39:04
is the original Cana that was here 2000 years ago.
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00:39:07
We are still in a --
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00:39:09
- You've been here before?
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00:39:10
- No, I've never been up here.
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00:39:11
- Oh, I get to something for the first time that you do.
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00:39:14
So, actually, I'm the expert.
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00:39:16
If you've never been here, I can --
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00:39:18
Can I just pretend like I'm the expert?
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00:39:19
- You can say whatever you want.
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00:39:21
- The wind, guys, is really -- these are maybe
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00:39:24
the most extreme conditions I've experienced in Israel
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00:39:29
the number of times I've been here.
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00:39:30
It is cold, it is windy.
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00:39:33
We might get dumped on with rain.
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00:39:35
It also makes you wonder like,
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00:39:37
was everything that they wore, was it all cotton or wool?
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00:39:40
Like what, did they have anything for rain?
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00:39:42
Would they oil the cloths or anything?
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00:39:45
- Goat's hair is a waterproof.
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00:39:48
- Yes. Yes. That's why for example
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00:39:52
they're all made of goat hair
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00:39:55
and it's protected during the wintertime.
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00:39:58
- Something's been living here.
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00:40:01
- Yeah. Someone was cutting those stones, cutting inside.
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00:40:06
It can be, you know, a small quarry even,
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00:40:09
that they dig stones in order to build their houses.
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00:40:12
And this is already some ruins.
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00:40:15
And again, we're talking about a site
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00:40:18
that had people living here for centuries
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00:40:21
already during the second temple period
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00:40:25
and all the way through the Byzantine and even
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00:40:26
probably Crusaders were here building some of their stuff.
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00:40:32
- Wow.
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00:40:33
- Oh, look, what a great view from up here.
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00:40:35
- My goodness. I see a view. I see no cave.
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00:40:39
We've been walking around trying to find a cave.
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00:40:42
- For half an hour.
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00:40:43
- We're going up and over.
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00:40:45
All we had to go on was an image of a cave
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00:40:47
from an archeological friend of mine named Bob.
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00:40:50
We split up to search the hill.
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00:40:52
It was definitely not an easy find.
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00:40:57
- Wow, there are some kind of base it appears here around.
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00:40:59
- It absolutely is right here.
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00:41:01
Oh, oh, oh, oh, I see cave.
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00:41:06
I see hole. -
-
00:41:08
- Perfect. Let's go inside and see it.
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00:41:17
- So I'm no -- I'm no archaeologist.
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00:41:20
My archaeologist friend tells me the cave and if this is it,
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00:41:25
it's hard to say because they said they blocked it off.
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00:41:27
As the story goes, this was a chapel that
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00:41:31
they had excavated from, what was it, 100, 200 A.D.
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00:41:35
or something like that, which would've been --
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00:41:36
- Animistic pro Byzantium, I understand. Right?
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00:41:39
- Right. Exactly. And they had a place
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00:41:42
where there was indentations for jars
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00:41:44
that were supposedly memorializing
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00:41:47
where the jars were water were turned into wine.
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00:41:51
Those holes, that wasn't the actual place they put the thing,
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00:41:53
but it was memorializing which is again
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00:41:55
why many people think this is --
-
00:41:58
this archaeologist thinks this is the Cana.
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00:41:59
This is Cana, this is where the miracle took place is this region.
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00:42:02
- We definitely know that people used to live here
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00:42:06
when Jesus is in Nazareth. That's for sure. This is 100%.
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00:42:09
- This has been great.
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00:42:10
Seriously, this has been a highlight for me.
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00:43:21
I just -- I just love this scene.
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00:43:24
I don't mean just the scene of this. I love this.
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00:43:26
I love the scene that's painted in that scripture.
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00:43:29
He decides to honor His mom
-
00:43:30
and decides to do the bold, strong move.
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00:43:32
He takes water that's in these stone jars.
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00:43:35
Maybe, maybe somewhat like this, except chiseled out.
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00:43:39
And He takes it and He turns it all into wine.
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00:43:43
And let me say it is real legit wine.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.