Hooked on a Feeling | The Book Of Psalms Week 4

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The direction of your life

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can be determined by the song that you sing.

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Everybody, you included, are singing a song

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and it's steering your life

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and you might not even realize the song you're singing.

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This is many of us right now;

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we've swallowed the hook

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from one of our culture's current three songs

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and it's pulling us towads a future

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that I don't know that you want.

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- Where are we in the Bible?

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Let's begin at the beginning, shall we?

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The Bible begins in the Old Testament,

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written around 3500 years ago.

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The first five books of the Old Testament:

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Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy

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are known as the Pentateuch, or books of the law.

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The next 12 books: Joshua, Judges, Ruth,

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1 Samuel, 2 Samuel, 1 Kings, 2 Kings,

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1 Chronicle, 2 Chronicles, Ezra, Nehemiah and Esther.

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Whew. That's a lot.

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These are known as the historical books.

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This brings us to the books of the Bible

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known as the Wisdom Literature.

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It starts with Job and then into

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a collection of 101 poems known as the Psalms.

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The direction of your life

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will be determined by the song that you sing,

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that's one of the secrets of faith.

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By the way, I'm Kyle.

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The teams that make the stuff you experience at Crossroads,

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our online pastors, teaching pastors.

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We're in this series right now

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on the book of Psalms from the Bible

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It's a collection of some of the oldest and most profound songs

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in the entire world.

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Here's why it matters: because everybody, you included,

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are singing a song and it's steering your life,

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and you might not even realize the song that you're singing.

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You ever had that moment where you're in a restaurant

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or a store or wherever

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and a song starts playing in the background

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and you're shopping or eating your food

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and you're not even aware of it,

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but then hours later you're at your house mowing the grass

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or doing the dishes and all of the sudden

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you hear it coming out of your mouth.

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It's like, I don't even like this song that much,

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how did it get stuck in my head? Why am I singing it?

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That happened to me last year with this song.

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I'm going to play it for you.

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This is a real treat by the way, I happened to bring my recorder.

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I've been saving it since third grade

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This song is so catchy. I promise you know it.

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I'm going to play it not well on this recorder.

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Your mom knows it. Your mailman knows it.

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And you're going to get it within 10 seconds.

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Okay, ready? See how long it takes you.

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[recorder music]

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It's Old Town Road, that song doesn't make any sense,

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but it gets stuck in our head.

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Why?

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It's because every song has a hook.

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That's an actual term used by song writers.

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Here's a quick download about hooks

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from Crossroad Music's Robbie Reider.

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[guitar music]

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- I bet all of you could finish that musical phrase

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without me playing another note.

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You know why?

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Because it's an amazing hook, that's why.

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Now, every hook is designed to get stuck in your head,

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to get stuck in your pocket, so you take it everywhere you go.

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And any song writer who's doing their job

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is going to use 3 ingredients to make a great hook.

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First of all, it's going to have rhythm.

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Second, it's going to have repetition.

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Third, it's going to evoke an emotional response.

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So, go with me for just a moment.

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Our English language is made up of 26 random letters.

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We put them together

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so that we can speak, write and communicate.

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Now, if we went to a toddler and said,

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"Here are the 26 letters, make sense of this,"

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they would just think, "What? What do I do with all these?"

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But what we do is we set them to a melody,

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we set them to a rhythm, and we make it repeatable

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so that all of the sudden our kids are learning this.

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[singing] A, B, C, D, E, F, G,

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H, I, J, K, I, M, N, O, P.

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And that is how you make a great hook.

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Did you pick up on that?

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Robbie said a hook has three parts.

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It has rhythm, repetition, and evokes an emotional response.

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And when you combine those three thing together

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you just hear it over and over again,

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it's got a good beat to it,

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it makes you feel a particular something.

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When that happens, the hook works.

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What we say is that the song is catchy,

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which means that we get caught.

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I mean, it's just like a fishing hook, right?

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It comes in, it sounds good, so we swallow it

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and it just has us, it pulls us in a direction.

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That's a hook, they're so strong

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they get stuck in our head without us even knowing it.

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Here's why this is so critical.

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If you want a new season in life,

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you want more peace, you want more joy,

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you want more confidence, you want to stop feeling so angry,

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you want to stop feeling so defeated all the time,

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you want to stop feeling so down, so whatever,

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you have to spit out the old hook

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of the song you're singing right now

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and you have to learn a new song.

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It will not happen if you don't.

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This episode we're zeroing in on Psalm 40,

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which was written by

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the most famous and significant king in Israel's history.

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He was a military legend who defeated Golaith.

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He established the capital city of Jerusalem.

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And in true renasannace man fashion

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he was also an amazing song writer.

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We're looking at Psalm 40 because it holds the secret

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of how to see this kind of change in your life,

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how to sing a new song.

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Maybe you've heard parts of this Psalm before

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and didn't even know it was part of the Bible.

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David wrote Psalm 40, and I want you to listen

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to how he describes this new kind of life.

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Here's verse 3, David writes:

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He, God, has put a new song in my mouth -

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Praise to God; many will see it and fear,

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and will trust in the Lord.

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See, David described this new life

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as a new song in my mouth,

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new new words that I'm saying,

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new thoughts that I'm having

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that I'm expressing to myself and everybody around me.

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And this is a major insight

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that you have to wrap your mind around.

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What you say, specifically what you sing,

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what's on repeat with rhythm

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that evokes an emotional response

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will 100% steer your life.

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Not your emotions, not your neighbor,

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not the government.

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It's the song coming off your own tongue.

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Here's how James 3 describes the power of your tongue.

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If we put bits into the mouths of horses

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that they obey us,

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we guide their whole bodies as well.

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Look at the ships also:

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though they are so large and driven by strong winds,

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they're guided by a very small rudder

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wherever the will of the pilot directs.

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So also the tongue is a small member,

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yet it boasts of great things.

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See, when you're a fish.

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Got one right here.

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When you're a fish, a hook gets set in your mouth

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and it pulls you where you don't want to go.

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It pulls you out of the water

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on to a boat deck where you die. Bad.

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Why that happen?

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It's because you swallowed something

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you thought was good.

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But the hook ultimately pulls you

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towards this dangerous future,

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literally takes you to your death.

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And this right here, this fish,

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this is many of us right now.

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We've swallowed the hook

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from one of our culture's current three songs,

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and it's pulling us towards a future

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that I don't know that you want.

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What are those top three songs?

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I think, I come in at number three,

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personal, my top three list, I think.

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I think number three is fear.

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The lyrics to fear are:

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the economy is tanking, gas is up, this is awful.

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I'm going to go broke.

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I'm going to -- everything's going to be awful.

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My bank account's going down.

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And listen, friend, if you've swallowed that hook,

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I want you to know you're headed towards

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a future of crippling anxiety and a life without peace.

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That's where the hook is pulling you.

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Maybe you're singing along the lyrics

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of our second best hit, anger.

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The key line in the song of anger

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is that they're the problem, them, the other ones.

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Joe Biden is the problem.

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Donald Trump is the problem. It's it's them.

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Friend, if you've swallowed the hook of anger,

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I'm telling you you're headed towards a future

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of bitterness and resentment.

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Or maybe you swallow the number one hit

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of our current day, I think,

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which is some version of eat, drink and be merry,

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live for right now.

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Do whatever feels good right now.

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By the way, it's a form of apathy.

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I have no vision for my life, so I just do good.

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I just do what feels good right now,

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no matter what it cost me,

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no matter what it costs people around me.

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Friend, if you swallowed that hook,

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you're headed towards a future of addiction

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and perpetual dissatisfaction.

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Nothing will ever make you happy.

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And I'm not trying to guilt trip you here.

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I'm trying to help you because, listen,

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this was me last year.

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I got to the end of the year and I realized

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I spent all of 2021 singing along

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to the song of pessimism, and some version of like

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that anger and fear puts together.

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Everything is going to be bad and I'm mad about it.

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That's what I kept saying.

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That's what I saying to everybody around me.

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Now, I didn't know, but if you ask my wife,

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if you were to ask my kids, ask my friends,

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they could have told you the song I was singing.

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If it's a move you want to make, just ask.

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You don't know what it is. It got stuck in your head.

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You don't know what's coming out of your mouth,

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ask the people around you.

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And I'm telling you, it was pulling me

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to a place I didn't want to go.

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It was making me more and more and more pessimistic.

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It was a hook pulling me towards a future I didn't want.

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Listen, if you're singing those songs,

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I just want to ask you:

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Is it taking you to the future you want?

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Because the hook's pulling you

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and we think it's just words coming out of our mouth.

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It's just an innocent complaint.

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And I was just -- I'm just venting.

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I'm just venting. I'm just sharing how I feel.

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Isn't that okay? I thought we could do that.

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Yeah, venting is fine.

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But when it becomes a rhythm in your life,

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when it becomes a repetition in your life,

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when it evokes this huge emotional response from you,

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it's more than just words.

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See, the single mistake the fish makes

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is seeing the hook and thinking,

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"Yeah, that's fine, that's good."

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But it's not. It's not even neutral. It's deadly.

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And I want to be clear, this isn't me

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making stuff up or being hyperbolic or whatever.

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The stakes here are very, very real.

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The Bible makes this clear,

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it's incredibly dangerous territory.

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Listen to Proverbs 18:21. It says:

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Death and life are in the power of the tongue.

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That's huge.

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Death and life are in the power

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of what comes out of your mouth.

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That means that you can set a hook in your mouth

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that pulls you towards death.

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Or did you catch the good news?

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You can set a hook in your mouth

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that pulls you towards life.

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Now the words that pull you towards a negative future,

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do you know what you call that?

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It's called a curse.

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Do you remember the first time you ever cursed?

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I remember. I was eight years old.

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My mom had given me

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a Christian video game for Christmas.

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I did not ask for it, by the way,

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I asked for the original NES.

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This is the game, Bible Adventures.

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I do not recommend it.

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It's basically like Mario Brothers,

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except instead of Mario and Luigi,

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you were Mary and Joseph on a donkey

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and you're trying to make your way to Bethlehem

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so that baby Jesus can be born, I guess, in the manger.

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I don't know why that was a big success story,

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but that's what we're trying to get to.

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And I was playing this game one day

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and I kept dying. I kept falling in the pit.

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Couldn't get my little donkey with Mary and Joseph

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to like hop over the pit, kept dying.

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And I got so mad, little eight year old me

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had heard words on the bus.

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I heard other people saying them,

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they looked amazing, and so I just looked around,

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like, I don't see Mom, and I just yelled.

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I just yelled the F word.

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And the problem was my mom happened to be

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right behind me and I could not see her.

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So what did she do?

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She grabbed a bar of soap.

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Actual bar of soap, looked just like this,

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and she put it in my mouth

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and left it there for a very long --

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Oh, my gosh.

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She left there for a very long time.

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All right. She didn't want me to curse.

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Oh, my gosh. That's very bad.

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Don't do that to your children.

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That's a very bad idea.

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Why did she do that?

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She didn't want curses to come out of her son's mouth.

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Friends, I'm telling you,

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a curse isn't a four letter word.

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A curse is a hook that proclaims a negative future

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for you and the people around you

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and pulls you in that direction.

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The stuff that we should wash out of our mouths,

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our curses like I'll never amount to anything.

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Curses like it's hopeless.

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Curses like I'll always be stuck like this.

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I'm never going to get ahead.

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I always feel this way or I'll always be alone,

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I'll always be overlooked,

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I'll always be left out.

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Those are curses.

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They're not just words;

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it's a cry proclaiming defeat.

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But I don't know if you know this,

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God is a God of complete and total victory.

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Who promises to rescue every single one of us.

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- Hey, I'm Andy. - And I'm Hannah.

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- Here around Crossroads we believe

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that giving is a spiritual discipline.

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- That's exactly right.

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And if that's something that you're open to

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and want to take part in, you can do that super easy

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by going to the Crossroads app,

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clicking the gear in the corner,

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and simply clicking give.

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- Now let's get back to the message.

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- I want to be clear, we titled this series

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Psalms All the Feels

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because God can take all of your feelings:

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the good ones, the bad ones,

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the happy ones, the sad ones.

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He can take your cries. He totally can.

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It can be healthy to simply say how you feel to Him.

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I'm not helping you if I'm not clear.

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The kind of cry that gets His help and response

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is not a cry of whining, it's a cry of waiting.

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The first miracle of Jesus was changing water into wine,

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and the miracle you need to ask for and work on

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in your life right now

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is to change your whine into waiting.

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Listen to the beginning of Psalm 40 again:

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I waited patiently for the Lord;

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and He inclined to me, and heard my cry.

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He also brought me up out of a horrible pit,

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out of the miry clay,

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and set my feet upon a rock,

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and established my steps.

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God has put a new song in my mouth - praise to our God;

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many will see it in fear, and will trust in the Lord.

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The Word that David uses for cry right there,

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I's the Hebrew verb sheva, which means a cry for help.

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It's not a cry complaint.

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It's not a cry of outrage.

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It's a cry for help.

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See, you yell out for Him, not at Him.

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I'd be like, "Well, it must have been easy

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for David to write those words, Kyle.

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I took third grade English.

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I know those verb tenses. They were in the past.

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God had already come through, already changed his life.

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That's what changed David's song.

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If my life was already awesome,

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like David, I'd sing a new song too."

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Not so fast.

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See, now we're at the secret faith part of it all,

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because what David wrote in those verses

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that we just read that sounded like

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it was in the past tense,

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like it had already happened, it hadn't at all.

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How do I know that?

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Because just a few verses later,

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David wrote about his present situation, Psalm 40:12:

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For innumerable evils have surrounded me;

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my iniquities have overtaken me,

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qso that I'm not able to look up;

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they are more than the hairs on my head;

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therefore my heart fails me.

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See, David's present situation was awful.

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So why? Why in the world would David write

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the first three verses in the past tense

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as if they'd already happened when they clearly haven't?

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Well, first we'll talk about why he didn't.

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It wasn't to magically speak something t

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hat isn't true into existence.

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There are people out there who are going

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to teach you this thing on the lines of

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the name and it claim that idea.

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If you just name it and claim it, you get it.

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Problem is, it doesn't work.

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Watch. I am six foot six and I can dunk.

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I'm still five foot six, and I still believe I cannot dunk.

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Maybe, I don't know, maybe I'm wrong.

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Maybe I can jump super high, I don't know.

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I'm just saying it doesn't work that way.

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There's only one being in the entire universe

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who can just speak things into existence: God.

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And good news for you and me, I'm not Him.

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Doesn't work for me.

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See, David did that.

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He spoke in the past tense because he knew the secret.

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The song that you sing will steer your steps.

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It will pull you towards a future.

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It'll pull you towards life

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or it will pull you towards death.

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And he wanted to set a hook in his mouth

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that would steer him towards who he believed

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God to be: a deliverer, a healer, a provider,

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savior, a rescuer.

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See, David was stating his trust in God's name

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to be those things for him.

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He was setting his own hook.

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Now you've heard that Jesus said that

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we would be fishers of men.

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A lot of early disciples are fishermen.

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A lot of his ministry was around the Sea of Galilee.

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A lot of fishing happens right there.

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You're going to be fisher of men.

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Do you know that work starts with you?

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See, the new song is the new hook

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that pulls you towards belief in

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God, and you set it yourself.

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So even when the present is painful,

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you set the hook in your mouth

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and you sing about God as peacemaker,

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as deliverer, as provider.

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And when you do that, you're pulling your heart

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towards the peace that comes from that truth

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and experiencing it now.

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And when you do that, your whine turns into waiting.

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You go from everything is awful

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to the rescuer is on His way.

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Rather than talk or call out curses over your life, y

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ou just call out God's name.

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This is where your true faith is completely exposed,

00:18:04

completely laid bare.

00:18:05

Because waiting on God, it's a terrible idea

00:18:07

if you don't have faith,

00:18:08

if you don't believe in His goodness.

00:18:09

How would you wait patiently on someone

00:18:12

who you don't trust, you don't think is your corner

00:18:14

and isn't going to come through?

00:18:15

That makes no sense. Don't wait on that person.

00:18:17

But if you believe in somebody,

00:18:20

God, who's good and for you and victorious

00:18:24

and strong and powerful and ultimately will win,

00:18:27

why would you not wait patiently for that God?

00:18:32

Why would you not call out His name?

00:18:34

Psalm 40, I waited patiently for the Lord.

00:18:36

He inclined to me and heard my cry.

00:18:39

The question of this message is really

00:18:41

do you believe that?

00:18:42

Do you believe that He hears you

00:18:45

when you cry out for help?

00:18:47

Now someone calls out your name,

00:18:49

you turn around and answer, right?

00:18:51

And depending on how they say it,

00:18:52

you probably respond differently.

00:18:55

My wife, Sarah, she calls me Love

00:18:57

and I know if she says Love, it's like,

00:18:59

"Oh, hey, babe, what's up?"

00:19:01

If she uses my actual name, Kyle,

00:19:04

or worse, my whole name: Kyle Joseph Ranson,

00:19:06

then I know things are really bad.

00:19:08

I'm in trouble and I respond faster.

00:19:10

I just don't --

00:19:11

I know something good's probably not coming.

00:19:13

The point is, when someone calls our name,

00:19:17

we turn around ready to respond, you know?

00:19:19

Kyle. Yeah, what do you need?

00:19:22

Same is true of God.

00:19:24

The Bible says that when we call out His name,

00:19:26

we say, "God," He goes, "Yeah, what do you need?"

00:19:29

Turns around ready to respond.

00:19:31

Jeremiah 33:3 says:

00:19:33

Call to me and I'll answer you and tell you

00:19:35

great and unsearchable things you do not know.

00:19:39

We see this happen in Jesus's life in Mark 10,

00:19:42

the situation happens, it happens many times.

00:19:44

He's walking along the road, He's got places to go,

00:19:47

and someone calls out His name.

00:19:48

Interestingly, in this situation, Mark 10,

00:19:51

the guy calls out "Son of David."

00:19:53

It's a blind guy named Bartimaeus.

00:19:55

He calls out "Son of David," one of the names for Jesus.

00:19:58

And Jesus's response was this, Mark 10:51:

00:20:01

Jesus answered and said to him,

00:20:04

"What do you want Me to do for you?"

00:20:06

So when we call out, God turns around

00:20:10

ready to respond and do whatever you ask next.

00:20:14

You say, "God." "Yeah, what do you need?"

00:20:16

Just call out His name.

00:20:18

And hang with me here, this is this is so, so important.

00:20:20

There are 950 different names

00:20:22

and titles for God in the Bible, 950.

00:20:24

You can Google them, look at them, amazing names.

00:20:26

But there's actually one name

00:20:27

that you're calling out all the time

00:20:30

right now in your life, in your old song,

00:20:32

without even knowing it.

00:20:34

It's the one name that God gave the one time

00:20:37

He was directly asked, "Hey, what's your name?"

00:20:40

It happened when Moses in the Old Testament

00:20:42

saw God in the burning bush,

00:20:43

and it was a time in Moses's life

00:20:45

where God was calling him to lead.

00:20:46

And so He calls him to go and to lead.

00:20:48

And Moses's response is, "Who am I?

00:20:52

I am unable, I am unwilling, I am unqualified."

00:20:58

That's what he says.

00:20:59

And then finally, after all this complaining,

00:21:01

Moses finally stops and goes,

00:21:02

"Hey, by the way, God, what's Your name?"

00:21:05

And this is what God says in response:

00:21:07

God said to Moses, "I AM WHO I AM."

00:21:10

And He said, "Thus, you shall say

00:21:12

to the children of Israel, I AM has sent me to you."

00:21:16

I AM is a Hebrew word that means:

00:21:18

I was, I am, and I will be.

00:21:23

It's about the timeless nature of God.

00:21:25

It means that who He was is who He is

00:21:29

and is who He will be.

00:21:30

So if God was faithful, then God is faithful,

00:21:35

and God always will be faithful.

00:21:39

Moses is saying, "I'm unqualified. I'm unable.

00:21:42

That's -- that's my name."

00:21:44

See, remember when you say God's name,

00:21:47

He turns around and listens.

00:21:49

I want you to track with me here. Track with me.

00:21:51

What's another way to say God's name besides God?

00:21:55

You say, "I AM."

00:21:56

He says, "Yeah, what do you need?"

00:21:59

And then you say, "Destined to fail."

00:22:03

God says, "What?"

00:22:05

You say, "I am." "Yeah, what do you need?"

00:22:07

You say, "Overwhelmed." God says, "What?

00:22:11

That's not -- That's not my name.

00:22:14

That's not your name. What do you mean overwhelmed?"

00:22:16

You say,"I am." "What do you need?"

00:22:19

You say, "Insecure." God says, "That's not --

00:22:22

That's not what I named you.

00:22:24

That's not who I am. What are you talking about?"

00:22:27

You say, "I am." God says, "What do you need?"

00:22:29

You say, "Just so over this marriage, I'm just done."

00:22:32

You just said God's name.

00:22:34

You said I AM, and He's ready.

00:22:36

He shows up, He's there.

00:22:37

But you're singing the wrong song,

00:22:39

a song of complaint, a song of whining,

00:22:41

not a cry for help, it sounds different.

00:22:44

But what happens if you change it

00:22:45

just a little bit can change it significantly.

00:22:48

You say, "I am." He says, "Yeah, what do you need?"

00:22:50

And you say, "Protected."

00:22:52

God says, "I got you, absolutely. Absolutely."

00:22:56

You say, "I am." God says, "Yeah, what do you need?"

00:22:58

You say, "Delivered." God says, "Yes, absolutely,

00:23:01

that's who you are because that's who I AM."

00:23:03

You see, when God adopts you into His family,

00:23:06

when you believe in Him, you take His name.

00:23:09

And God's last name isn't insecure.

00:23:12

God's last name is not unable.

00:23:13

God's last name isn't incomplete, unqualified.

00:23:16

God's last name is deliverer, healer, rescuer,

00:23:20

restored, victorious. That's God's name.

00:23:23

And when you say I am those things,

00:23:25

God says, "Amen, I hear you, I hear your belief,

00:23:28

I hear your faith, and I AM on My way."

00:23:32

That's the secret of faith

00:23:33

that David puts on display in Psalm 40.

00:23:36

That's why he writes the first part in the past tense.

00:23:38

That's how much he believes it,

00:23:41

because I know I'm hurt. I know I'm delivered.

00:23:45

I know I'm established, therefore,

00:23:47

I am now singing a new song now, right now.

00:23:52

And I know maybe that's a leap too far for some of you.

00:23:55

That's okay.

00:23:56

There's a step between that and where you are.

00:23:58

It's in the very last words of Psalm 40.

00:24:01

David writes this:

00:24:02

But I am poor and needy, yet the Lord thinks upon me.

00:24:08

You are my help and my deliverer;

00:24:10

do not delay, O my God.

00:24:13

Right now you've got an old song in the mouth.

00:24:15

It's pulling you in a direction you don't want to go.

00:24:18

And the solution is so simple, just spit out the hook.

00:24:23

You do the thing the fish wishes it had done

00:24:25

before it got yanked out of the water

00:24:27

to its destruction.

00:24:28

You just spit out the hook.

00:24:30

You stop saying I'm unable.

00:24:31

You stop saying everything's awful.

00:24:33

You stop saying they're the problem.

00:24:34

You stop saying I'm going to do

00:24:36

whatever makes me happy right now.

00:24:37

When you stop singing that song, you sing a new song,

00:24:41

a new song of deliverance, of hope.

00:24:44

Say, "God, would you put a new song in my mouth?"

00:27:21

- Hey, if that message taught you anything

00:27:23

or made you curious to learn more about us,

00:27:25

we'd love to know who you are and hear from you.

00:27:27

You can create a profile at crossroads.net.

00:27:30

- We've got podcasts, shows, articles,

00:27:32

and episodes just like this one

00:27:33

that are catered to you and what you're looking for.

00:27:35

- That's all we got for today.

00:27:37

See you next time on Crossroads.

00:27:39

- There is a sacrifice that everyone can make,

00:27:41

but too many people miss it.

00:27:44

Today, we're exploring the sacrifice of gratitude

00:27:47

and how it stops us from chasing things,

00:27:49

and instead gives us the ability to reflect,

00:27:52

come to a new realization and rely on God.

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