Is God Good? | The Good God Journey Week 1

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- Hi, everyone, and welcome to Crossroads Church.

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I'm so glad that you joined us today. I'm Hannah.

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- And I'm Kyle, and you are with us on the start

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of the first week of the Good God Journey.

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It's five weeks to get to a new place

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in our understanding of this question of is God good?

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We're going to be your host for this entire thing,

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I think, right?

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- Yes, exactly right, which is so exciting because

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this world has kind of seemed really dark in 2020.

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And to ask yourself the question, is God good?

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No matter the circumstances, we knew we had to be all in

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in trying to find the answer to that question.

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We knew --

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- -- that we had to be your hosts.

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And also we kind of work here, and so sometimes

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they tell us to just stuff and then we --

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- They said, be here.

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- We're like, OK.

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And they also said be ready for anything.

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So we are ready for anything officially -- Oh my gosh.

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- OK, ok.

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- Yellow box, crack it open.

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Ok, are we supposed to wear these?

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This is not in my contract.

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- Hey, I don't think this is the one.

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- This is awful.

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- Good God! - Yeah!

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Paint can, paintbrush, it is a key.

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- Let's go. All right. - Oh, wow.

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- Do you think that's it? - I think that's it.

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- Oh, okay. Dang.

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- Oh, yeah. - Let's do this thing.

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- Hey. - All right.

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- Hey, it's three pedals.

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I think this is a stick shift.

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- Do you know how to drive a stick shift? - No.

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- (laughs)

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- You know, right? - I do not.

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I've got this.

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Okay, nothing's happening now.

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- No. - Help!

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- You guys want some help?

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- Really, I can help you.

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So you're going to follow this diagram right here.

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- OK, Ernie, come on.

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- Come on, Ernie.

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- A little feather a little more gas, a little more gas.

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Okay, so you stalled.

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- Aww!

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- It's the first time.

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- Put him in first, but him in first because

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now you're going to stop. That's right.

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This is where Hannah stalled. It's all good.

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Give it some gas first.

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Let your clutch out a little bit.

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You're in first, you're good. (indiscernible)

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Gas. Clutch in first, clutch, clutch. Second.

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- Yeah!

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Good, good, good, good, get more gas, more gas. Yeah.

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- Oh, baby!

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- Clutch, clutch. Third.

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Should be good, should be good.

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Nice, Hannah. All right, turn around.

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Break, break.

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- I'm breaking, I'm breaking.

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- You guys did great. Go ahead and turn the engine off.

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- OK. All right.

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- I don't think you need any more. - What?

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- What? - Okay. Who was that?

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- I don't know. I feel like we got schooled by a soccer mom.

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- Yeah, we definitely did.

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- It's probably time to just get this Journey started, I think.

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- I think we should go. We are ready. We got this.

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- Yeah. Listen, 2020 has been a crazy year for all of us,

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but no matter what circumstance you find yourself in,

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God can be a good God to you.

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And I look to my friend and say

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I'll bet you $20 twenty years from now

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this will be a moment worth a million

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behind us there’s a shadow

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from Rays of light that shine on us so

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6 feet of emotion

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laid off and the money gone

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only good credits bad credit

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Bad news from the media

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Good God it’s a war zone

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What gives what matters

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Some couldn't give a fraction

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whole world of distractions

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I may be shaken up

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but I won't let it get me down

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nothing else to say

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oh I got

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one five

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five ones

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one ten

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And I step to my friend and say

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(Good God)

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I’ll bet ya $20 twenty years from now

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(Good God)

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this’ll be a moment worth a million

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(Good God)

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(Good God)

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So brilliant

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Brilliant

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(Good God)

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Ray of light that shine on us so brilliant

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So Brilliant

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Brilliant

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(Good God)

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Oh I may be shaken up

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but won’t let it get me down

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nothing else to say

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oh I got

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one five

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five ones

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one ten

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And I step to my friend and say

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Good God

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I’ll bet ya $20 twenty years from now

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Good God

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this’ll be a moment worth a million

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Good God

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(Good God)

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So brilliant

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Brilliant

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(Good God)

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Ray of light that shine on us so brilliant

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So Brilliant

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Brilliant

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(Good God)

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- Hey, my name is Brian, welcome to The Journey,

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a five week journey to look at one of the key elements

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of the identity of God that He is good.

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Do you believe that He's good? A lot of us don't.

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We're going to look into that because it's critical

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for us to be people of faith and have a life that works.

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In the Book of Psalm 32:8 it says:

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Taste and see. (smacks lips)

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Taste, Mmmm. (smacks lips)

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Is it good or is it not good? Taste and see.

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We have a friend of ours who lived with us for a while,

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my, my wife and I.

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He lived with us and he had the weirdest taste buds.

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It's like if it wasn't a hot dog

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or it wasn't covered in ketchup

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or it wasn't mac and cheese, he wasn't interested in it at all.

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Like not at all.

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So we just do normal food that normal adults make

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and put it out before him.

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We called him Wazy, and Wazy was like (sound effect).

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He didn't -- he didn't like it.

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He wouldn't taste to see if something was good.

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What do you know, we we ended up pushing his taste buds a bit.

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But then I also learned a bit of his story.

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I realized he had a very dramatic and traumatic upbringing

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as a child and basically no one was really looking after him.

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And so an easy meal to throw in front of him was a hot dog

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or something squirted with ketchup or mac and cheese,

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was just pushed that way.

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He hadn't developed taste buds to taste things.

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I want you and I to develop taste buds

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to understand is God good?

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This is the question that drives everything else in your life.

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It will drive how you feel about your life.

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It will drive how you react to adversity in your life.

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It will drive how you respond to God,

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how you pray to God.

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It'll drive your faith.

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It will.

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I'm here in something that I really don't want to be in at all.

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It's a waiting room. I hate waiting rooms. I do.

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Do you know why I don't like waiting rooms?

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Because I don't like what's represented in waiting rooms.

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Waiting rooms represent pain for me.

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I'm waiting in a room before I go into the dentist.

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I'm waiting in the waiting room

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before I go into a counseling thing.

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I'm waiting in a waiting room while something painful

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is happening to somebody else on the other side of the wall.

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I was in a waiting room a number of years ago

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when we had opening night at

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our Christmas production at Crossroads.

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We had a woman, Carrie.

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Carrie fell 30 feet

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and I went and sat in this waiting room

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wondering what, what, what does this mean, God?

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What does this mean for this woman's future,

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first year college student?

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What it meant was she died.

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What would this mean for the church's future?

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God, who are You that on a Christmas production,

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if everything is supposed to be going well any place

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it would be in a Christmas production.

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How can You be good?

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It wasn't too long ago I was in a waiting room like this

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waiting for my friend Kathy, who was on the other side

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waiting to receive me, as cancer was ravaging her body.

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And this woman was a rock in my life.

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I mean, just a rock. She was solid.

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She helped me with my leadership.

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She helped me with my faith.

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Actually, she was the most grace giving,

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fun loving person that had just crazy wisdom.

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She was a female banker of the year

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back in her business heyday. Amazing.

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And when I saw her, as I prayed with her,

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God said no to those prayers and Cathy died.

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Not a lot of evidence in waiting rooms for me

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over exactly is God good or not.

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And there was another day that I was in a waiting room

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just like this, where beforehand I was going about my day,

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doing my thing and and my phone rang.

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And I picked up my phone and said hello.

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And my oldest daughter, Lena was on her side

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and she was panting, out of breath.

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She said, "Dad, dad, have you heard?

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Have you heard about mom?"

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I said, "Um, No."

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"Mom just collapsed working out.

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She's in an ambulance. She had a stroke.

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She's going to the hospital."

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"I'll be there." Click.

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I went into my truck, getting to where I'm going.

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And while I'm going there

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my mind is just starting to mess with me.

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My mind inside is like a Rolodex of all my life events now.

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One of the upsides some days,

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downsides other days of my job

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is the number of prayer requests I get.

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And when people text me or email me for prayer

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like they're never emailing me, "Hey, Brian, great news.

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I just got a raise.

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Just pray for me that I'm more thankful to God."

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I never get those ones.

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The prayers I get are,

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"Hey, my child has a brain aneurysm.

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Would you pray for me?"

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"My friend, he just had a heart attack.

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He's got two young kids. Would you pray for him?"

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"Hey, my mom got a stroke."

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"My dad had a stroke."

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so when I hear a stroke with my wife,

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I go inside the Rolodex and I look inside there.

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And I go, "Stroke. What do I have for stroke?

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Stroke, stroke, stroke, what's in there?"

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And and I pull up the Rolodex, what's in my memory

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of the things I pray for, how it ended was:

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feeding tube,

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cane,

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wheelchair,

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drooling,

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incommunicative.

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That day and that waiting room would define my faith.

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It wouldn't reduce my faith or change my faith,

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but it would actually define what my faith was.

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Did I trust in God?

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Did I believe things would be OK?

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Did I believe that God was good?

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To understand this, this question that we're going

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to be going through this entire time,

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we all have a box, a box of disappointments,

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a box of pain that makes us question

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whether or not God is good.

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I don't know what's in your box.

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Could be things like financial ruin, personal bankruptcy,

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didn't get into the school that I wanted,

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lost a child, had a divorce.

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This box of disappointments is wreaking havoc on our faith

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or defining our faith all the time.

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When you take a look at the Bible and you open up the Bible.

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Oh, what do you know, here we go.

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Someone's a religious person.

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And you actually open up the Bible,

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coming out of the pages of the Bible,

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I want you to imagine a DNA strand, a double helix,

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one of those ladder twisty things that comes up

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outside of the Bible.

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The Bible can be a very confusing

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and seemingly contradictory book.

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It's not contradicting itself so much as

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there's tensions in the Bible.

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There's sort of opposing extremes in the Bible.

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In the midst of that tension is where God resides.

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Is God one or is God a Trinity?

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Is my faith what gets me to God

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or does my works get me before God?

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Do I have personal responsibility for my life

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or is there the sovereignty of God in my life?

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And the answer is, yes,

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God is one, and He exists in three persons.

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Yes, yes, my faith in Christ gets me to God

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and if I don't have works, then my faith is dead.

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Yes, God's given me one life.

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I'm supposed to manage that life,

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take control of that life.

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And God is sovereign.

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He is ultimately in control of everything.

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See, these things are opposed to one another,

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they're just a bit complex.

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And so too, there's these opposite extremes

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of understanding God that comes

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through every single story in the Bible.

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It is whether God is a Father, a good Father,

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or He is a good King.

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Wait, is He a Father who nurtures and who comforts

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or is He a King who rules and who conquers?

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Yes, yes, He's both of those things, actually.

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He's both of those things.

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And based on what mood He's in at a specific time,

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He's going to behave a certain way in that time.

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All of us are complex creatures.

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You can't just reduce you to like, "Oh, you're a jock.

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Oh, you're a jock, so therefore you don't think."

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No, it doesn't work that way.

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"Oh, so you're you're an accountant,

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so therefore you're an accountant, but you don't do bench presses."

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No, no, no. It doesn't work that way.

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And we keep trying to reduce God being one

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or the other of these things.

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He's either lovey dovey,

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nice feely father who makes me feel good

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or He's kind of strong king that's doing His thing.

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Jesus says in the book of John 5:17:

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My father is working, and what exactly is God working on?

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Jesus talked about the Kingdom of God.

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What does every kingdom have?

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Every kingdom has a king.

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The Father is working as a King.

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He's ruling and He's working on an agenda

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that transcends our agenda,

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that is a higher arching agenda,

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and is something that you and I cannot fathom,

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it is more important than you and I would ever actually want.

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Jesus says in Luke 18:

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He's good as a Father. He's good as a King.

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If you miss God as a Father, you miss out.

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You can't understand His goodness.

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If you miss God as a King, you miss out

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and you can't understand Him as His powerfulness,

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His goodness.

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We need both of these things.

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The question that we're going to be asking

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this entire Journey is: Is God good?

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Is he good?

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Some of us just don't have an ability

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to get over our bitterness.

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And we're bitter and our box of disappointments

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have hurt us so much that we put that on God and say,

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"Well, if there's a God, then He must not care about me."

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Our culture has become increasingly weak.

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Every culture in all of world history has had problems

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and has had pain and has had heartaches

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and it has had famines and has had wars.

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All of them have in every culture

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throughout all of human history

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has an understanding of God or the transcendence,

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every single one.

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And you don't see them all just abandon their idea of God,

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whatever is their idea as soon as they have pain.

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But in our culture, because we believe that we're actually God,

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we believe that my ways are always the right ways.

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We believe my feelings are always the most important thing,

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my feelings, whenever something doesn't go our way,

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the way we want it to go, we're left with

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a core conviction that there must not be a God

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or God isn't good.

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Friends, we've got to get by,

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we've got to get over this thing of

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when life isn't going my way, then somehow there's not a God.

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That's why the atheism numbers and the agnostics numbers

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keep going up because I can't reconcile

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my life isn't going well,

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and I thought God was all about me and my life.

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He's not all about you and your life.

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He is about you. He does love you

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and He cares for you greatly as a Father would,

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and He's a King.

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I've got all kinds of disappointments in my life, a lot of them.

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I can't bench press 400 pounds anymore.

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I never could bench press 400 pounds, I don't even --

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I don't even know what I can bench press at all period

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right now, but whatever it was, it's less right now.

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When you're in disappointment,

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when your box of disappointments is full,

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when you are going down how do you respond to God?

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We don't want to gloss over the pain that we have.

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We don't want to avoid the difficult conversation

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that these things bring up.

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In this Journey we want to look right at it.

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We want to look right at those things,

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and we want to see if God will actually do something about it.

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- Man, we're jumping in, asking the big question right away:

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is God good?

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Just like Brian, I know in my life I have those moments

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that feel like, yeah, He's definitely good,

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moments when stuff works out the way I want it to.

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And then I have other moments where maybe

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I pray to ask for something

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and I didn't get what I wanted, real lost, real grief.

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And it's a real question: Is God good?

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That we have to ask in all the areas of our life.

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- Absolutely.

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That question applies in one specific area even: our money.

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We get to ask, is God good with our money?

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And listen, I'm a tither because I just believe

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that God can do more with my money than I can.

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And He has answered that question that, yes, He is good.

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- That word that Hannah used, tithe, it's in the Bible

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and actually a test that God invites us all to take

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to see whether He is a good God

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when it comes to our finances.

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If you want to know more about that,

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you can go to Crossroads.net/give.

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- Well, next, I'm super excited because

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I get to talk to my friend Sean

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who's had to ask the big question: is God good

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in the middle of some really tough circumstances.

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So I'm going to go talk to him next.

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- We're in a Good God Journey where, unfortunately,

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I don't think a lot of people believe that God's good.

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And I know you have an incredible story

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about experiencing the goodness of God,

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despite some pretty unique,

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what some might even say is crazy circumstances.

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- The week of Thanksgiving 2008, I'm happily married,

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young, 28 years old, and my wife and I,

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we were expecting the birth of our firstborn.

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And it was that Wednesday I received a phone call at work

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from my wife, it turned out that

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she was having some heart palpitations.

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We were due in the end of March.

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On January 11, Mardee's body decided to go into labor.

00:22:10

So they rushed her into surgery.

00:22:12

They came out and they let us know that we had a baby girl

00:22:15

and we were 29 weeks, 2 days.

00:22:18

She was two pounds. She was a micro preemie.

00:22:21

My wedding ring was the size of her hand.

00:22:24

She was on oxygen, but that's normal for a child born that young.

00:22:27

Mardee got to come home

00:22:29

and we made our daily trips to the hospital

00:22:32

and about a month passes

00:22:35

and she's having a really hard time healing.

00:22:40

She has a follow up appointment and they say,

00:22:42

"Well, you know, we need to send you back to hospital,

00:22:44

flush out some of the fluids, and then you should be fine."

00:22:46

And she was there for a day.

00:22:48

And then in the morning of February 10th,

00:22:50

I got a call at 5:00 in the morning from her phone.

00:22:54

And it's not her on the other end of the phone.

00:22:57

And it's a doctor and he says,

00:23:01

"Hey, you need to get here right away."

00:23:03

And she had stopped breathing

00:23:06

and they weren't able to recover her.

00:23:09

And so -- so she dies.

00:23:15

I can remember just feeling lost.

00:23:21

You just miss your friend, you miss your wife,

00:23:23

you miss everything, everything.

00:23:27

And, you know, we had -- we prayed the whole time

00:23:32

that we'd get through it and be able to live the life

00:23:37

that we had planned with each other.

00:23:40

And that just wasn't going to happen.

00:23:42

And I can remember --

00:23:45

I can remember everything, the smell the room,

00:23:48

I can -- the feel her touch.

00:23:53

I can't remember, just --

00:23:55

I don't know where the prayer came from, but it was,

00:23:57

you know, God, thank you, like,

00:24:00

the first thing that came out of my mouth was gratitude.

00:24:03

I don't know where that came from.

00:24:06

And I just plead with God really to heal my heart.

00:24:11

I didn't want to be angry with Him.

00:24:13

I asked Him, you know, don't let any seeds of bitterness

00:24:17

take root and ask someone to watch over Lily

00:24:19

and the rest of the family as we had no idea

00:24:22

how we were going to navigate the next season of our lives.

00:24:27

And we bury Mardee on Valentine's Day.

00:24:30

And I get a phone call from the hospital

00:24:32

and it's them telling us -- telling me

00:24:39

that Lily's health had taken a turn for the worst.

00:24:43

I think the first thought was, "You've got to be kidding me."

00:24:46

Like it's just this too much. I can't shoulder this.

00:24:51

I can remember thinking, like, "I don't get this God.

00:24:55

Like, I need You to show up.

00:25:00

I don't feel like You are."

00:25:05

And I can remember feeling powerless, really.

00:25:11

There's nothing I could do.

00:25:15

I mean, my wife's gone, my baby's in an incubator.

00:25:17

You know, I had a lots of ups and downs

00:25:19

in terms of wrestling with my faith,

00:25:21

of wrestling with why God would allow that to happen,

00:25:28

maybe not to me, but to Lily.

00:25:33

She fortunately, she rallied.

00:25:36

She spent four months in the NICU,

00:25:38

but she just surpassed every benchmark medically

00:25:40

that she was supposed to.

00:25:43

So we make it their first summer.

00:25:44

And I'm at a Saturday service with my mom.

00:25:49

I greet the person to my left, and she doesn't say hi.

00:25:52

She goes, "You're Lily's dad."

00:25:54

I think, "That's weird."

00:25:57

It turns out she taught with Mardee's best friend.

00:26:00

And when we were sick and in the hospital,

00:26:04

they started praying for us and that sort of thing.

00:26:08

Months passed and that friendship blossomed

00:26:11

into a relationship and we've married.

00:26:14

We've got three more beautiful kids, so four total.

00:26:18

So when I look back at some of the things that

00:26:21

have come of what's a seemingly dark moment in my life,

00:26:26

that Lily never -- she doesn't have a memory

00:26:29

that is absent of a mother's love.

00:26:33

In God's own time that first prayer that I said,

00:26:38

I didn't have bitterness; I had hope.

00:26:42

And you just hold on.

00:26:44

If you give Him a chance,

00:26:47

He might do something pretty awesome.

00:26:58

- There's a vast difference between

00:26:59

God creating something good out of a bad situation

00:27:01

and calling a bad situation good,

00:27:07

just trying to go, "La, la, la, it's good,"

00:27:09

and denying reality.

00:27:11

The latter is what we tend to do because we try to gloss

00:27:14

over the pain and the difficult conversation

00:27:17

that a lot of these things brings to us.

00:27:20

But it comes back to the core idea of trust.

00:27:22

Do we trust that these things can both be true at the same time?

00:27:27

That this is a thing that's difficult,

00:27:29

this is the thing that's awful,

00:27:31

this is a thing that's in my box of disappointments

00:27:35

and good can come out of it.

00:27:38

We want to get to a place where we can actually say

00:27:42

with confidence, God is good, He is good.

00:27:48

I don't want to just ask that question.

00:27:49

I want to say God is good.

00:27:52

Romans 8:28, it says:

00:28:03

All things work together for good.

00:28:06

All things.

00:28:07

All things work together to make my life the way I want it?

00:28:09

No.

00:28:10

All things work together to make me feel good?

00:28:14

No. A lot of them. I like feeling good.

00:28:18

Raise your hand if you like feeling good.

00:28:19

I like feeling good.

00:28:21

God's not against -- I have sometimes people say to me,

00:28:24

"Well, you know, Crossroads, they just want you

00:28:28

to feel good. It's a feel good church."

00:28:30

And your point is?

00:28:32

Oh, that's what I want to do.

00:28:34

I want to go to a church that makes me feel bad.

00:28:36

That's what I want to do.

00:28:37

I want to -- I'm only going to hear a sermon

00:28:39

unless I feel like a turd afterwards.

00:28:41

Where do we -- where do we get these ideas?

00:28:43

Yes, it's OK to feel good.

00:28:46

But the point of life is not the feel good.

00:28:50

The point of life is to serve God.

00:28:52

It's OK to have things go really, really well.

00:28:55

But my drive and passion can't have things

00:28:57

go really, really well.

00:28:58

If I have faith it's to really get well at understanding God.

00:29:04

And it's hard to see God is good

00:29:06

when we don't see our miracle.

00:29:08

When Carrie dies after falling at the Christmas show,

00:29:12

when Cathy dies after all the prayers that took place.

00:29:18

Like how does God cause all things to work together for good?

00:29:23

They died, it didn't work.

00:29:27

Well, maybe their stories are helping you and I

00:29:30

understand something right now, it's contributing

00:29:32

to how something has been working together for good.

00:29:38

I was wrestling with that question

00:29:42

while in the waiting room.

00:29:44

And I was just -- I was remembering all the pain

00:29:50

and heartaches associated with waiting.

00:29:55

As I was going internal and thinking about things

00:29:59

and fixating on things and thinking, "Oh, no, what if..?"

00:30:03

"Does this mean I've had my last conversation with my wife?"

00:30:08

Because I don't know many people have talked after a stroke.

00:30:13

Does this -- does this mean --

00:30:16

Does this mean that I've taken my last walk with my wife?

00:30:23

Does this mean every meal I'm going to have with my wife

00:30:25

I'm going to be feeding her?

00:30:28

What does this mean?

00:30:30

As I was with her in the waiting room

00:30:32

when I got to the hospital and the kids were coming

00:30:34

and they were all filing in one by one.

00:30:36

My wife was -- Libby was lying there.

00:30:38

And lay and she couldn't move anything.

00:30:41

All she could do is open,

00:30:42

her eyes are open real wide, like she was terrified,.

00:30:44

She's just looking around like, "I can't talk.

00:30:47

I don't -- I don't know what's going on."

00:30:50

She couldn't move.

00:30:54

Got the family around, put our hands on her, prayed for her.

00:30:58

I don't know what the nurse and doctors thought,

00:31:01

but like I don't care, I'm going to God here right now.

00:31:05

We have to go to Him.

00:31:06

We're putting our hands on her and we're praying for her.

00:31:11

Prayed that God would heal her.

00:31:12

We prayed that the medicine would do what it needs to do,

00:31:15

the medical professionals can do what they need to do.

00:31:18

We're praying and then she was gone

00:31:19

and she was whisked away.

00:31:20

And I said, "That's it.

00:31:23

Maybe she's going to die where she's going, I don't know."

00:31:27

So I got shifted over to another waiting room

00:31:31

and I'm sitting in this waiting room.

00:31:33

I'm looking around and I'm just -- I'm just --

00:31:36

I'm just nervous and I'm I'm not happy

00:31:39

because I told you waiting rooms freak me out.

00:31:41

I don't -- I don't like waiting rooms.

00:31:43

Things good don't happen for me inside waiting rooms.

00:31:48

And I finally realized, I've got to stop being a victim here.

00:31:51

I've got to do something about this.

00:31:52

So I got out my phone and I had my earbuds in as well,

00:31:58

and what I did was I found a playlist

00:32:02

or a specific song that I have been playing in my mind

00:32:07

again and again.

00:32:09

That song as a few years old now and it goes,

00:32:14

May the King of my heart --

00:32:18

- be the mountain where I run

00:32:20

The fountain I drink from

00:32:24

Oh, He is my song.

00:32:26

- And the refrain of it is you are good, good, oh,

00:32:34

you are -- and I'm in listening to this thing,

00:32:37

and I realized, OK, I'm going to start, like,

00:32:40

worshiping and being loud here.

00:32:41

So I went outside, I got in the hallway

00:32:46

and I just had that song on endless repeats

00:32:50

again and again and again.

00:32:52

I'm worshiping and I'm telling God,

00:32:54

"You're good. You're good. Yes, You are."

00:32:57

And what am I doing?

00:32:58

I'm telling myself, I'm reminding myself, "Brian,

00:33:01

you've seen God show up in your life again and again and again.

00:33:05

Brian, you've seen the goodness of God in all kind of ways.

00:33:09

You graduated when you shouldn't have graduated.

00:33:11

He saved you out of a house fire.

00:33:13

He's blessed you with a family, going on and on and on.

00:33:16

And what I was doing was reminding myself that He is good,

00:33:19

that He's the King of my heart.

00:33:20

And I was telling God, "God, no matter what happens here,

00:33:25

you and I are good.

00:33:27

If I don't talk to her,

00:33:29

if I've got to feed her with a spoon the rest of her life,

00:33:31

if we're not taking walks together.

00:33:33

God, you and I are good because You're good.

00:33:38

My opinion of You is not going to be negatively,

00:33:42

permanently affected because of whatever happens with my wife."

00:33:46

(music: You're never gonna let, You're never gonna let me down)

00:33:51

When you come to a place like that with your faith,

00:33:54

there's a power that comes into your life,

00:33:56

there's a there's a freedom,

00:33:58

there's a there's a lightness that comes into your life.

00:34:01

A core aspect of God, a core aspect of your faith

00:34:07

must be that God is good.

00:34:09

In the very beginning of the Bible Genesis 1:3 says:

00:34:20

God separated the light from the darkness.

00:34:23

We need to separate in our life the darkness

00:34:26

from the light of who God is and what He's doing.

00:34:30

Are you in a waiting room right now?

00:34:33

A waiting room,

00:34:34

maybe not a literal medical hospital waiting room,

00:34:37

but are you in a waiting mode waiting to see what happens?

00:34:44

Waiting to see if you're getting divorced,

00:34:50

waiting to see if you're getting a job

00:34:53

after having just graduated and the job market isn't what --

00:34:56

Are you in a waiting room wondering what's going to happen with your business?

00:35:03

All of us are going to come to waiting room moments.

00:35:06

We're going to have to wrestle with whether or not God is good.

00:35:10

And what happens in that situation may turn out well,

00:35:13

it may turn out poorly in the immediate sense of the thing,

00:35:19

but we've got to believe and see that God is good.

00:35:22

Now, my story here, it had a happy ending.

00:35:28

And I'm actually hesitant to tell you

00:35:31

about the happy ending

00:35:33

only because I've seen a few miracles in my life.

00:35:37

I've seen some.

00:35:38

Miracles are real and they happen.

00:35:41

Healings are real and they happen, as one kind of miracle.

00:35:44

miracles are very rare and they're very far between.

00:35:49

If they were common and if there was a formula

00:35:52

where you could follow and get one,

00:35:55

it wouldn't be called a miracle.

00:35:57

It'd be called a really awesome thing

00:35:59

that you can strong arm.

00:36:00

But miracles are rare and we can't predict them.

00:36:03

We can't strong arm them, but they do happen.

00:36:06

And I've had more than enough things that I've prayed for

00:36:08

and I thought that God should be saying yes to

00:36:10

and He didn't say yes to it and it didn't happen

00:36:13

and it didn't negatively affect my faith.

00:36:16

But then this one was a bit different.

00:36:20

The nurse comes out and says, "OK, she's out.

00:36:24

The doctor's ready to see you."

00:36:25

We go into the room, there's a doctor, there's my wife.

00:36:28

She's sitting up. She's looking around.

00:36:32

And she's talking and she has this stutter.

00:36:36

I can live with that.

00:36:38

I can live -- she's moving limbs like,

00:36:40

"OK, I can live with that."

00:36:42

I looked at Doc

00:36:43

and Doc is give me the rundown of what happened.

00:36:45

And I said, "So, so we're good then, huh?

00:36:47

We're good. It's all -- we're good, like a 100% recovery?"

00:36:53

He went, "Let's just wait.

00:36:56

This is going to be a very long and difficult process

00:37:03

to some sort of recovery."

00:37:05

I was like, OK, all I know is my wife is stuttering

00:37:10

and she can look around.

00:37:12

That's better than I thought.

00:37:13

That's a new one in the Rolodex.

00:37:18

She went to her room, a recovery room.

00:37:20

And we went in and I just started taking pictures

00:37:25

and taking videos because a miracle

00:37:29

was unfolding right before our very eyes.

00:37:32

- We're just going to take a couple of steps.

00:37:34

- She walked steps within hours

00:37:38

of not being able to move anything in her body.

00:37:41

- Woo-hoo, I said just a couple steps.

00:37:44

- The pictures in her brain of the blood shut down

00:37:48

on one entire side of her brain and how it was opened up

00:37:51

after they go into a groin with a little pincher

00:37:53

and they go up and they pinched the thing

00:37:56

and they squirt the medicine.

00:37:58

And how much is the Holy Spirit

00:38:01

and the very presence of God doing it?

00:38:03

And how much is medicine? I don't know.

00:38:05

I'm just saying it's all good and it's all God.

00:38:09

And all we do know is that none of

00:38:11

the medical professionals that were in that hospital

00:38:19

- Thank you.

00:38:20

- I came in 48 hours ago with a really serious stroke,

00:38:28

but here I am.

00:38:31

- Within days she was playing tennis.

00:38:35

She was playing tennis.

00:38:38

Now, I almost hesitate to tell that story because

00:38:41

this is a storybook ending and it has a bow on it.

00:38:46

I have other things that don't have cute bows on them,

00:38:50

and I know you do.

00:38:51

And I don't want you to sit back and say,

00:38:53

"Well, God didn't give me a miracle.

00:38:56

God didn't do that for me."

00:39:00

I almost don't like to tell miracle stories because

00:39:03

it hurts some of us because we get bitter

00:39:06

or we question whether or not I'm good enough.

00:39:09

Is it that I'm not good enough,

00:39:11

that God doesn't want to bless me with something?

00:39:15

If you don't know God is a good Father,

00:39:18

you're going to see Him as a slave driver

00:39:20

and you'll always try to work your way into His goodness.

00:39:23

If you don't see God as a good King,

00:39:25

you'll always try to actualize yourself

00:39:27

and come into your own authority,

00:39:29

which will never get you the power God wants for your life.

00:39:34

We want you to have the power that God wants for your life.

00:39:37

And we want you to feel His closeness.

00:39:41

We want you to feel His presence in your life.

00:39:43

We're all going to face suffering, every last one of us.

00:39:46

Jesus tells us that's going to happen.

00:39:48

But we want to be hopeful and we want

00:39:50

to be resilient people despite the circumstances.

00:39:53

We want to wrestle during this Journey with the question

00:39:56

of is God good?

00:39:58

And we're going to come to see, I believe, that He is good if--

00:40:02

if you do the work of this Journey,

00:40:05

if you show up every week,

00:40:07

if you get into a group because people are critical.

00:40:14

I got a text on my phone while I was in that waiting room.

00:40:17

My friend said, "Hey, we got some stuff for you

00:40:21

in the parking lot, we got some beers for you."

00:40:24

I was like in the midst of the difficulty, I was like,

00:40:29

"Beers in a parking lot. Sounds good to me."

00:40:34

I went down just dying in a pile

00:40:36

and these guys came up to me

00:40:38

and they open up their cooler.

00:40:40

And we sat on my tailgate of my truck.

00:40:42

And they just put their arms around me

00:40:45

and they tried to cheer me up and they prayed for me.

00:40:48

And it was it was the goodness of God that I was feeling.

00:40:53

I didn't know what's going to happen with Lib at that point,

00:40:56

but I knew God's goodness was coming

00:40:58

through these friends of mine that were here right now.

00:41:02

For you to go through this Journey

00:41:05

and to encounter the goodness of God,

00:41:06

you're going to have to be with people,

00:41:07

whether it's a Zoom group or people in a home,

00:41:10

you've got to do that, that's the journey.

00:41:12

You're going to have to do some work.

00:41:13

You're going to have to do some reflection.

00:41:15

You're going to have to open your mouth and taste things.

00:41:18

oh, taste and see that the Lord is good.

00:41:23

Blessed is the man and woman who takes refuge in him.

00:41:27

I want you to take refuge in Him

00:41:28

and I want you to taste Him.

00:41:30

He's a good Father. He's a good King.

00:41:33

And as His child, there's a new future waiting for you

00:41:37

if you can embrace that He's good, because He is good.

00:41:43

And that's what we're going to find out in this Journey.

00:41:45

God, I pray that Your goodness would just overcome us

00:41:49

and it would fill us

00:41:51

and it would take us to a new adventure.

00:41:54

It would take us to a place

00:41:56

that is fulfilling and life giving.

00:41:59

God, we want to see You the way You are,

00:42:01

not the way we just want to feel that You should be.

00:42:05

WE want to see the God who really is

00:42:07

and want to see You as good.

00:42:08

Would you do that this week in this Journey? Amen.

00:46:32

- I'm worshiping and I'm telling God, "You're good."

00:46:35

And when I was doing it I was reminding myself

00:46:37

that He is good, that He's the King of my heart.

00:46:39

And I was telling God, "God, no matter what happens here,

00:46:44

You and I are good."

00:51:21

- Man, as you can see, this Journey is going to be good

00:51:25

and we don't want you to miss a single week of it.

00:51:28

There is so much more in store.

00:51:30

- The Journey has 3 parts to it

00:51:32

and get the most out of the Journey, you have to do all 3.

00:51:35

You've already done part 1, which is watch the weekend.

00:51:37

Congratulations, you're a third of the way through.

00:51:39

Part 2 is to do your individual work,

00:51:41

challenges, thought provoking questions

00:51:43

inside the Crossroads Anywhere app.

00:51:45

Part 3 is to meet with the group

00:51:47

to process through what you're learning.

00:51:49

- Yeah, like Kyle said, that group is so critical, guys.

00:51:53

If you don't do it, you are missing out.

00:51:55

And we've made it so easy for you.

00:51:57

You can go to Crossroads.net/journey

00:52:00

and there will be all the information you need

00:52:02

to get into a group and some people who are way smarter

00:52:04

and a lot more organized than Kyle and I

00:52:06

are actually going to help you get into a group

00:52:08

if that's what you want to do.

00:52:10

- And getting that individual work,

00:52:11

the individual challenge is easy too,

00:52:13

just download the Crossroads Anywhere app.

00:52:14

It's inside the Google Play store, the Apple App Store.

00:52:17

Get it? It's free.

00:52:19

- It's fantastic.

00:52:20

Well, we've had such a great time with you guys

00:52:22

in week one of the Good God Journey,

00:52:24

and we cannot wait to see you till next time.

00:52:27

- I can't wait to just stay in this jersey here for me,

00:52:29

this, what does this called, a jumpsuit?

00:52:31

and I don't think Kyle is going to take his off.

00:52:34

Anyway, we're so excited that you guys joined us.

00:52:37

Thanks so much and see you next time.

	Welcome To The Good God Journey!	0:38
	Good God (So Brilliant)	3:28
	Brian Tome: Is God Good? Part 1	6:27
	Sean's Story	21:15
	Brian Tome: Is God Good? Part 2	26:53
	Worship: Lord You Are Good	42:14
	Worship: King Of My Heart	46:45

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