WEBVTT

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I will sing the mercies of the Lord with my mouth, I think of.

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I think of this, I think of this.

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With my mouth, I think of.

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I think of this to all generations.

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I will sing the mercies of the Lord forever.

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I will sing, I will sing, I will sing the mercies of the Lord forever.

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I will sing of the mercies of the Lord.

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It's time to behold him, speak often when not.

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I rest in him always, and feed on his word.

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Make when just God's children help us to our need.

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Forgetting if nothing is blessing to see.

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Take time to behold me, the world rushes on.

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Much time spent in secret with Jesus alone.

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Thy living to Jesus, thy name thou shall be.

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Thy friends in thy conduct, his life we shall see.

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Take time to behold me, let him be thy guide.

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And run not before him, whatever be time.

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In joy or in sorrow, still follow thy Lord.

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And looking to Jesus, still trust in his word.

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Sing the wondrous love of Jesus. Sing his mercy and his grace.

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In the benches bright and glassing, we'll bring their drops of praise.

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We all get to thank him, for the day of his rising up again.

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And we all see Jesus, we'll sing and shout and we'll weep.

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While we walk the path and path without him alone,

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we'll spread the sky, the blood-red, drowning waves are over.

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Now a shadow of sun, we'll be all in the altar to heaven.

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For the day of his rising up again.

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And we all see Jesus, we'll sing and shout and we'll weep.

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So let us stand, be true and wait, for trust we serve him every day.

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For the strong place of him in glory, we'll not trust a lonely man.

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And we all get to thank him, for the day of his rising up again.

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And we all see Jesus, we'll sing and shout and we'll weep.

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We all bless now, onward to the prize before us, soon his wings will be held.

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Sing the worthy hymn, we shall treasure his throne.

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And we all get to thank him, for the day of his rising up again.

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And we all see Jesus, we'll sing and shout and we'll weep.

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Marvelous race of our lovelying Lord,

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Grace that exceeds our sin and our guilt,

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Yonder on Calvary's mount at war,

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There where the blood of the Lamb was spilled.

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Grace, grace, God's grace,

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Grace that will pardon and cleanse within.

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Grace, grace, God's grace,

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Grace that is greater than all our sin,

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And is fair like the sea waves' board,

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Present the soul with infinite loss.

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Grace that is greater than grace untold,

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Point to the Matthew's mighty cause.

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Grace, grace, God's grace,

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Grace that will pardon and cleanse within.

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Grace, grace, God's grace,

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Grace that is greater than all our sin,

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Dark is the saint that we cannot hide,

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But can avail to wash it away.

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Look, there is the lead of Prince and Ty,

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Brighter than skull you may be today.

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Grace, grace, God's grace,

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Grace that will pardon and cleanse within.

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Grace, grace, God's grace,

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Grace that is greater than all our sin.

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Oh, how he loves you and me!

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Oh, how he loves you and me!

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He gave his life, what more could he give?

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Oh, how he loves you!

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Oh, how he loves me!

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Oh, how we love to and be!

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Jesus, to Calvary did know,

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Is the form that thine to show.

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God created there from hope, from despair.

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Oh, how he loves you!

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Oh, how he loves me!

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Oh, how we love to and be!

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There is coming a day, when no heartache shall come,

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No more clouds in the sky, no more tears in the eye,

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All is peace forevermore, on that happy golden shore.

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What a day, glorious day, that will be!

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What a day, that will be, when my Jesus I shall see,

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When I look upon his face, the one who saved me by his grace,

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When he takes me by the hand, and leads me through the promised land,

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What a day, glorious day, that will be!

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There'll be no sorrow there, no more burdens to bear,

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No more sickness, no pain, no more party over him,

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And forever I will be, with the one who died for me.

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What a day, glorious day, that will be!

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What a day, that will be, when my Jesus I shall see,

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When I look upon his face, the one who saved me by his grace,

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When he takes me by the hand, and leads me through the promised land,

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What a day, glorious day, that will be!

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Since I started for the kingdom, since my life he controls,

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Since I made my heart to Jesus, the longer I serve him, the sweeter he grows,

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The longer I serve him, the sweeter he grows,

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The more that I love him, more love he bestows,

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Each day is like heaven, my heart overflows,

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The longer I serve him, the sweeter he grows,

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Every need he is supplying, let us raise he be strong,

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Every day my name gets brighter, the longer I serve him, the sweeter he grows,

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The longer I serve him, the sweeter he grows,

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The more that I love him, more love he bestows,

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Each day is like heaven, my heart overflows,

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We'll go to song number 43 together, song number 43.

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Song number 43, we're marching to Zion.

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Song number 43.

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Let's all sing that out real loud this morning.

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Come we that love the Lord, song number 43.

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Come we that love the Lord, and let our joys be known,

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Join in a song with sweet accord, join in a song with sweet accord,

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And thus surround the throne, and thus surround the throne,

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We're marching to Zion, beautiful, beautiful Zion,

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We're marching upward to Zion, the beautiful city of God,

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Let those refuse to sing who never knew our God,

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But children of the heavenly King, but children of the heavenly King,

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May speak their joys abroad, may speak their joys abroad,

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We're marching to Zion, beautiful, beautiful Zion,

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We're marching upward to Zion, the beautiful city of God,

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The hills of Zion yield a thousand sacred streets,

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Before we reach the heavenly fields, before we reach the heavenly fields,

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Or walk the golden streets, or walk the golden streets,

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We're marching to Zion, beautiful, beautiful Zion,

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We're marching upward to Zion, the beautiful city of God,

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Then let our songs abound, and every tear we stride,

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We're marching through Emmanuel's crown,

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We're marching through Emmanuel's crown,

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To bear earth's world's unkind, to bear earth's world's unkind,

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We're marching to Zion, beautiful, beautiful Zion,

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We're marching upward to Zion, the beautiful city of God.

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Great singing everybody, let's open up the service now with a word of prayer.

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Lord, we thank you so much for this great morning and this great opportunity to attend a great church, Lord.

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We just ask now that you fill us all with your spirit and help us be edified this morning

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and help us to sing out unto you, and it's in Jesus' name we pray, Amen.

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Alright, for our next song, let's go to song number one.

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Shouldn't be hard to find, song number one.

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Jesus, I, my cross, have taken, song number one.

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Jesus, I, my cross, have taken, song number one.

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So I'll sing that out this morning, song number one.

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Jesus, I, my cross, have taken,

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All to leave and follow thee,

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Destitute, despised, forsaken,

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Thou from hence my all shall be,

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Perished, every fun and mission,

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All I've sought and hoped and known,

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Let our riches thy conviction,

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God and heaven are still my own,

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Let the world despise and leave me,

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They have left my Savior too,

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Human hearts and looks to see me,

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Thou art not like men untrue,

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And while thou shalt smile upon me,

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God of wisdom, love and might,

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Those may hate and friends may shun me,

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Show thy face when all is bright,

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Man may trouble and distress me,

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Flail but drive me to thy breast,

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My good trials are beckrest me,

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While they'll bring me sweeter rest,

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O, tis not in free to harm me,

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While thy love is plan to me,

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O, were not in joy to harm me,

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Were that joy unmixed with thee,

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Ace thee come from grace to glory,

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On by faith and winged by prayer,

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Empty turtle days before me,

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God's own hand shall guide me there,

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Soon shall pours my earthly mission,

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Swift shall pass thy pilgrim days,

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And hope shall take to my fruition,

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Faith to side and prayer to grace.

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If you didn't get a bulletin,

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lift your hand nice and high,

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and Steadfast Baptist Church

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will like to get you a bulletin here.

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We have our Bible memory passage

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on the front, Romans chapter 10.

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We are doing a verse of the week

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for kids 18 and under.

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They can get an ice cream treat

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at our midweek service,

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and then if you can memorize

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the entire passage, Romans 10,

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quote it word perfect

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to a non-family member.

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We usually give out prizes

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to those who can complete

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the entire chapter

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that we're studying and memorizing.

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On the inside we have our service times,

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our soul winning times.

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We also have church stats down below.

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On the right is a list

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of several expecting ladies.

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We ended up having

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a Barbados scouting trip this week,

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and it went fantastic.

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We had about eight people

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from our church going out there,

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and they had 352 salvations,

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so praise the Lord for that.

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I'm going to just get through

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the rest of my announcements,

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and I'm going to have

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a couple people come up here

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and give us just a brief sample

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of what they experienced.

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Upcoming events, we still have

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our children's choir

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after the evening service

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that is practicing.

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They're going to be performing

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for us on Easter,

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so I'm really looking forward

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to hearing them.

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They've always done such a great job.

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And then also we have a conference

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that's coming up May 12th,

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so we're going to have

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a little bit of a little bit

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of a conference that's coming up

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May 20th through the 24th.

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If you are interested in

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the Barbados trip,

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it's on our website.

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I believe it's September 7th

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through the 11th, somewhere in that range,

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so like September 7th

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through around 12th of this year,

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if you're planning on going.

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Tickets vary.

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I think at one point I saw them

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around $850 round trip.

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They might be now anywhere

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from that range to a thousand,

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somewhere in that kind of range,

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maybe for a ticket.

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The church is going to try

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and provide housing for the people

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that sign up early and go ahead

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and want to get there as much as we can.

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Of course you can always get

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your own accommodations

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if you would like,

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and I guess the food kind of ranges.

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We'll hear some testimonies from people.

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There's really, really nice,

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expensive restaurants on the beach,

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and then I think there's some

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more reasonable food too,

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food options, and so I think

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for, I think conservatively,

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especially if you are using

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the church lodging,

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you could probably go on this trip

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for about $1,250, maybe $1,500

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if you wanted to go on a trip like this,

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but honestly it's a great, great opportunity

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to go on missions trips,

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and so if you can consider that,

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we do highly recommend it.

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I'm sure we'll have a pretty good size group

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going this year as well,

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but I wanted to ask Brother Brandon first

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if he'd come up here

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and give us a quick testimonial

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of their trip.

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Him and his wife were able to go out there,

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and so I just want him to give us

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just kind of a quick idea

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of what his experience was.

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First of all, I'd just like to thank

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Pastor Shelley for allowing me

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and my wife the opportunity

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to go on this trip.

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The trip was just absolutely amazing.

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I want to also thank the guys

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for being hardworking

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and upbeat about soul winning.

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They were definitely an encouragement

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and fun to be around,

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but when we first got down

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to the island,

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we just hit the ground soul winning.

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We showed up at a school,

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and you just started preaching

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to groups of kids.

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Right off the bat,

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you could just tell that the people

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were hungry to hear the gospel.

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A lot of people,

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there are a few people

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that don't want to listen,

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but when you start preaching to groups,

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they're very attentive,

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and they want to listen to the gospel.

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But one thing I really want to hit hard on

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is that you have to give

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a thorough gospel presentation.

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You have to, it's necessary,

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because when you're giving them the gospel,

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they understand they're a sinner.

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They understand that they're going to hell.

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They definitely believe in heaven and hell,

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but you really have to hit hard

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that Jesus lived a perfect life,

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that Jesus is God,

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and that you have to hit,

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once they've always said,

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very thoroughly.

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They understand the Bible.

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They are well versed,

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but they just need the puzzle pieces

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to be put together

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by someone preaching the gospel to them,

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and they will call upon the name of the Lord.

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They're very receptive.

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We went to the schools.

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The schools are definitely

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the most receptive areas,

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but then we went to the college campus.

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The college campus can vary in receptivity.

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A lot of people will actually combat

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some of the arguments

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that you're making about faith alone.

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They believe in works of salvation very heavily.

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There is also, it's kind of,

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the college campuses are kind of a melting pot

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of different islands,

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so I met some students from Trinidad and Tobago.

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There were some students

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from the island of Dominica.

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I also met someone from Belize

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who was there at college in Barbados,

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so you're getting a lot of different countries

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and islanders on the college campuses,

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so it's a pretty cool experience

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to talk to people from other countries

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in just one area.

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I want to hit on some of the carnal things

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about the island.

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When I first got down there,

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it blew my mind that you're driving

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on the opposite side of the road.

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It was just insane.

24:46.000 --> 24:48.000
I had to drive from the airport

24:48.000 --> 24:50.000
to the school that we first preached at,

24:50.000 --> 24:53.000
and I was using the windshield wipers

24:53.000 --> 24:55.000
as my turn signal,

24:55.000 --> 24:58.000
and I'm on the side of the road.

24:58.000 --> 25:01.000
My brain was using the opposite side of itself.

25:01.000 --> 25:04.000
There were a lot of chickens

25:04.000 --> 25:06.000
free-ranging around the island.

25:06.000 --> 25:09.000
We saw a cow in someone's front yard.

25:09.000 --> 25:11.000
There's just goats roaming around

25:11.000 --> 25:12.000
in certain areas.

25:12.000 --> 25:15.000
We also saw some monkeys jumping around in the trees.

25:15.000 --> 25:16.000
Those are really cool to see.

25:16.000 --> 25:18.000
You don't see monkeys every day.

25:19.000 --> 25:23.000
But also, the people there don't really care much

25:23.000 --> 25:25.000
for tourists or the Americans,

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because they kind of see them all the time.

25:27.000 --> 25:30.000
So they're not super excited to see you

25:30.000 --> 25:32.000
when you come and talk to them at first,

25:32.000 --> 25:35.000
because they kind of see the tourists all the time.

25:35.000 --> 25:37.000
So you're not going to be like a celebrity in Barbados.

25:37.000 --> 25:39.000
So sorry if you wanted to be a celebrity.

25:39.000 --> 25:40.000
Just don't go to Barbados.

25:40.000 --> 25:42.000
Go to the Philippines.

25:42.000 --> 25:46.000
But overall, they're just very polite.

25:46.000 --> 25:48.000
They are very nice to you.

25:48.000 --> 25:51.000
It's very funny, because if you ask them any question,

25:51.000 --> 25:52.000
because they're so polite,

25:52.000 --> 25:54.000
if you ask them, like, hey, the sky is blue,

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they'll say, yes, please.

25:56.000 --> 25:58.000
They just say, yes, please, all the time.

25:58.000 --> 26:02.000
And if you ask, hey, I'm sorry that your dog died,

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they'll say, yes, please, just to be super polite.

26:06.000 --> 26:07.000
It's just funny.

26:08.000 --> 26:10.000
But you're not going to be a celebrity there,

26:10.000 --> 26:12.000
but they will be super polite to you.

26:12.000 --> 26:14.000
But overall, it was just such a fun trip.

26:14.000 --> 26:16.000
The beach is there.

26:16.000 --> 26:19.000
The water is so clear, and it's like a baby blue water.

26:19.000 --> 26:22.000
It's absolutely stunning and beautiful there.

26:22.000 --> 26:24.000
The island, there's a lot of poor areas,

26:24.000 --> 26:27.000
but also people are living in homes.

26:27.000 --> 26:29.000
The economy there is hardworking.

26:29.000 --> 26:32.000
People are trying to provide for their families.

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And while the kids are at school,

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their parents are out working.

26:36.000 --> 26:40.000
Overall, the economy is a very hardworking economy.

26:40.000 --> 26:43.000
But if you're kind of in the balance of soul winning

26:43.000 --> 26:44.000
right now in your life,

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and you want to get a chance to preach the gospel a lot,

26:46.000 --> 26:48.000
definitely go to Barbados in September.

26:48.000 --> 26:50.000
It's an amazing opportunity.

26:50.000 --> 26:52.000
If you want to get on fire for God, just get out there.

26:52.000 --> 26:54.000
You're going to start preaching to groups of kids.

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They're going to listen.

26:55.000 --> 26:58.000
They're very receptive, so I encourage you to make the trip.

26:58.000 --> 26:59.000
Thank you, Pastor.

26:59.000 --> 27:01.000
Tanner, do you want to also?

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Yeah, let's give a round of applause.

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Praise the Lord for that testimony.

27:05.000 --> 27:07.000
I want to ask Brother Fur also to give us

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a quick testimonial about that.

27:09.000 --> 27:12.000
And it's a life changing experience to go and visit

27:12.000 --> 27:13.000
just other parts of the world.

27:13.000 --> 27:15.000
If you've never been outside of the United States,

27:15.000 --> 27:18.000
and you do need to put a little bit of work in,

27:18.000 --> 27:20.000
try and get that passport in time,

27:20.000 --> 27:23.000
but it's definitely fun.

27:23.000 --> 27:26.000
Yeah, everything that Brother Brandon just said,

27:26.000 --> 27:29.000
100% spot on, definitely.

27:29.000 --> 27:31.000
I first just want to say how thankful I am

27:31.000 --> 27:33.000
for the group that went with us.

27:33.000 --> 27:36.000
They never complained, and I worked them to death.

27:36.000 --> 27:39.000
I mean, we were, as soon as we got there,

27:39.000 --> 27:40.000
we hit the ground running.

27:40.000 --> 27:43.000
We did soul winning pretty much the entire time,

27:43.000 --> 27:44.000
from sunup to sundown,

27:44.000 --> 27:46.000
trying to try a lot of different things.

27:46.000 --> 27:49.000
And that's something that I think is important to point out,

27:49.000 --> 27:51.000
is we had 352 salvations,

27:51.000 --> 27:53.000
and we were trying all sorts of different things

27:53.000 --> 27:54.000
to see what worked.

27:54.000 --> 27:56.000
And I think that's something that we've been working on

27:56.000 --> 27:58.000
and we're trying all sorts of different things

27:58.000 --> 27:59.000
to see what works.

27:59.000 --> 28:01.000
So when we go back in September,

28:01.000 --> 28:04.000
we're going to be a lot more dialed into

28:04.000 --> 28:06.000
where we're going to send people,

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and you won't have as many time where you're wasting,

28:09.000 --> 28:11.000
or it feels like maybe you're wasting driving

28:11.000 --> 28:12.000
or things like that.

28:12.000 --> 28:14.000
We're going to try to send you to places

28:14.000 --> 28:16.000
that we know is already success

28:16.000 --> 28:19.000
and that we had success there, right?

28:19.000 --> 28:22.000
So the other thing I would say, too,

28:22.000 --> 28:25.000
is there was something really cool that happened.

28:25.000 --> 28:27.000
So when we got there on Tuesday,

28:27.000 --> 28:29.000
or I'm sorry, we got there on Monday,

28:29.000 --> 28:31.000
but on Tuesday, we kind of hit the ground running

28:31.000 --> 28:32.000
with the schools.

28:32.000 --> 28:34.000
So that was kind of the first thing that we did,

28:34.000 --> 28:37.000
is we had a lineup of schools that we wanted to go visit.

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And we broke up into two teams,

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and the very first school that we went to,

28:42.000 --> 28:45.000
we went in, I had these little cards made up,

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SBC, missions, ministries.

28:48.000 --> 28:50.000
Of course, we weren't going to tell them we're from Steadfast,

28:50.000 --> 28:52.000
because we didn't want to get kicked out right away.

28:53.000 --> 28:55.000
But we kind of went incognito, right?

28:55.000 --> 28:58.000
And just like, hey, we're just Baptist missionaries from America.

28:58.000 --> 29:00.000
So we talked to the principal, and she's like,

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come back tomorrow,

29:02.000 --> 29:05.000
and I'm going to give you an opportunity for your team.

29:05.000 --> 29:07.000
So we didn't really know what that meant,

29:07.000 --> 29:09.000
because we had talked a lot about different,

29:09.000 --> 29:11.000
how we've done this in the past,

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like preaching in school rooms or classrooms.

29:13.000 --> 29:17.000
And it was kind of vague as to what this was going to be like.

29:17.000 --> 29:19.000
So then on Wednesday, we come back,

29:19.000 --> 29:21.000
and we show up at 10 a.m.

29:21.000 --> 29:23.000
And it's like they threw us right to the fire,

29:23.000 --> 29:25.000
because they had this assembly going on.

29:25.000 --> 29:27.000
It's like basically she hands me the mic,

29:27.000 --> 29:30.000
and then I'm preaching the gospel to this huge assembly.

29:30.000 --> 29:32.000
And then after that, they dismiss,

29:32.000 --> 29:35.000
and they let us go into their playground area or play yard,

29:35.000 --> 29:39.000
and they dismissed pretty much all the students to be out there.

29:39.000 --> 29:43.000
And then we had just an hour and a half of just one-on-one,

29:43.000 --> 29:46.000
group soul winning, with all the students in the schoolyard.

29:46.000 --> 29:48.000
And it was to the point where we had talked to pretty much everybody,

29:48.000 --> 29:49.000
or everybody that was interested,

29:49.000 --> 29:51.000
and we were like, where's the teachers at?

29:51.000 --> 29:53.000
They're just letting these kids just hang out here.

29:53.000 --> 29:55.000
They needed a break, apparently.

29:55.000 --> 29:57.000
But that was really cool.

29:57.000 --> 29:59.000
That was definitely a God thing.

29:59.000 --> 30:03.000
There was nothing that I said that was special that got us that opportunity.

30:03.000 --> 30:06.000
God just really blessed the trip and opened that door.

30:06.000 --> 30:09.000
And I included on our prayer list for Wednesdays

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to be in prayer from here until September

30:11.000 --> 30:13.000
that God would open doors for the schools,

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because that's where the majority of the fruit is going to come from.

30:17.000 --> 30:20.000
That's where we had the biggest numbers, was at the schools.

30:20.000 --> 30:23.000
And so we're praying for that.

30:23.000 --> 30:26.000
The college was great, just like Brother Brandon had mentioned.

30:26.000 --> 30:28.000
There's a variety of people to talk to there.

30:28.000 --> 30:31.000
I think whether you're a new soul winner or you're a seasoned soul winner,

30:31.000 --> 30:33.000
it'll be a great experience for you,

30:33.000 --> 30:37.000
because you're going to be challenged from talking to people

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and having all different sorts of backgrounds.

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I had somebody get saved two times where their only hangup was eternal security.

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They had everything else right, but I just had to preach to them on that part.

30:51.000 --> 30:56.000
Then I had others that didn't even know that Jesus was God, that Jesus never sinned.

30:56.000 --> 31:00.000
I had one lady that was an atheist, knew nothing about the gospel,

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never even heard of Jesus resurrecting from the dead.

31:03.000 --> 31:05.000
Now that particular lady didn't get saved,

31:05.000 --> 31:10.000
but that was probably the very first time she heard the gospel from A to Z.

31:10.000 --> 31:12.000
And, you know, hey, Lord willing, we'll go back in September,

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and somebody will run into that same girl,

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and she'll hear it for the second time, and maybe she'll get saved then.

31:17.000 --> 31:22.000
And so I think no matter where you're at on the spectrum of your soul winning,

31:22.000 --> 31:25.000
you're going to be challenged to be a better soul winner.

31:25.000 --> 31:27.000
I really encourage you to go on that.

31:27.000 --> 31:29.000
The food was great.

31:29.000 --> 31:34.000
Like Pastor said, when you eat on the coastline where the tourists are,

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it's a little bit more expensive.

31:36.000 --> 31:40.000
If you find places that are a little bit more inland, it's definitely more reasonable.

31:40.000 --> 31:42.000
We ate at a place called Smash Burger and Fries.

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It was excellent. Everybody loved it, right?

31:45.000 --> 31:48.000
It is a food truck, so I don't know if it accommodates 60 people,

31:48.000 --> 31:53.000
but you have to kind of pick that out throughout the week when you're there.

31:53.000 --> 31:55.000
There's lots of different options.

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We didn't eat anywhere where the food was terrible.

31:58.000 --> 32:04.000
Also, one other thing is we had found a church there in the Barbados.

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It was American. His name is Pastor Robert Smith.

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He's a great guy. I'll just say that.

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I think all of us really enjoyed the fellowship with him.

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We went to church.

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Based on his sermon and things that he said, I believe the guy is saved.

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Obviously, I don't think any of us grilled him 100% on that,

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but he is from the Hiles camp.

32:27.000 --> 32:31.000
He was sent out of First Baptist Church in Hammond, Indiana.

32:31.000 --> 32:35.000
From our perspective, it was definitely a kindred spirit with him.

32:35.000 --> 32:37.000
The fellowship was great.

32:37.000 --> 32:41.000
He invited us, the whole group, over to his house on Thursday evening.

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We went over there and ate hamburgers and fries, baked beans and coleslaw,

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and all kinds of good stuff.

32:48.000 --> 32:52.000
Then just fellowshiped with him for about three hours,

32:52.000 --> 32:54.000
just sitting out on the back porch talking about the Bible,

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talking about all kinds of great things.

32:57.000 --> 32:59.000
If you could even be in prayer for his church

32:59.000 --> 33:05.000
and also that you would pray that he would still want to be our friend in September.

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He wants us to send our information to him and stuff to hopefully help with getting in the schools.

33:10.000 --> 33:13.000
Here's one thing that I did take away from this.

33:13.000 --> 33:18.000
When we told them that we got into the schools on Wednesday, they were just blown away.

33:18.000 --> 33:23.000
We've been trying for years to get into these schools.

33:23.000 --> 33:26.000
They make us go through the Ministry of Education.

33:26.000 --> 33:32.000
I think, honestly, it's not that he has a bad heart or that he has a heart to win souls.

33:32.000 --> 33:38.000
We've been doing more of outdated practices and just not really coming up to speed with the 21st century.

33:38.000 --> 33:43.000
We just walked in there bold as we have the Lord on our side.

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We just walked in as bold as can be, said, hey, this is what we want to do,

33:47.000 --> 33:49.000
and then God blessed us for that.

33:49.000 --> 33:51.000
I think there's something to be said for that.

33:51.000 --> 33:54.000
I was thinking about the differences in soul winning.

33:54.000 --> 33:57.000
Bahamas, it's super easy.

33:57.000 --> 34:00.000
You can get people saved in six minutes, seven minutes.

34:00.000 --> 34:03.000
I liken that to the manna that came down from heaven.

34:03.000 --> 34:07.000
God provided just this really easy food for them to partake in.

34:07.000 --> 34:10.000
They're able to just pick it up off the ground.

34:10.000 --> 34:14.000
When you go into Barbados, it's kind of more like entering into the promised land.

34:14.000 --> 34:17.000
There are people strong and mighty.

34:17.000 --> 34:19.000
They've got fenced cities.

34:19.000 --> 34:22.000
I was thinking about this verse in Numbers 14.

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It says in verse 7, and they spake unto all the company of the children of Israel,

34:27.000 --> 34:28.000
saying,

34:28.000 --> 34:41.000
So even though we went and spied out the land,

34:41.000 --> 34:44.000
and it might look like a challenge, it's definitely going to be a challenge.

34:44.000 --> 34:48.000
I think we can have more souls saved in September than we did in the Bahamas

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because it's so unreached.

34:51.000 --> 34:54.000
There's just not very many people there preaching the gospel,

34:54.000 --> 34:57.000
and I think we have an opportunity to do a great work.

34:57.000 --> 34:59.000
Thanks.

34:59.000 --> 35:04.000
Yeah, thanks.

35:04.000 --> 35:08.000
Honestly, I would love to hear from all of our crew

35:08.000 --> 35:10.000
because it was an all-star crew that went down there.

35:10.000 --> 35:13.000
Thank you to everybody who participated and helped.

35:13.000 --> 35:17.000
It was a great effort, and they were able to do a lot of the legwork

35:17.000 --> 35:21.000
to try and make this trip very successful in September.

35:21.000 --> 35:25.000
Definitely continue to pray that the Lord will open doors.

35:25.000 --> 35:29.000
We have opportunities to do a lot of schools and go to the college

35:29.000 --> 35:33.000
and just go to the poor areas and just see a lot of people saved.

35:33.000 --> 35:39.000
Even if you go to one of these places and those opportunities didn't open up

35:39.000 --> 35:43.000
or didn't work out, you're still going to have a more receptive mission field.

35:43.000 --> 35:45.000
It's still going to be a great opportunity.

35:45.000 --> 35:47.000
It's something that I would highly, highly encourage,

35:47.000 --> 35:50.000
but of course we want to pray that the Lord would give us the opportunity

35:50.000 --> 35:51.000
to get many people saved.

35:51.000 --> 35:53.000
God wants people to get saved more than we do.

35:53.000 --> 35:55.000
I don't know if you realize this.

35:55.000 --> 35:58.000
In many cases, he just wants someone that's willing to go.

35:58.000 --> 36:02.000
I think if we step out in faith, God can perform miracles and open doors

36:02.000 --> 36:05.000
and help us to accomplish great works.

36:05.000 --> 36:08.000
I'm very excited about this opportunity.

36:08.000 --> 36:11.000
We'll keep promoting it and putting it out there.

36:11.000 --> 36:13.000
Thanks to our crew and the people that went out there.

36:13.000 --> 36:15.000
Thanks to everyone who prayed for that.

36:15.000 --> 36:19.000
It's exciting to be part of a church that wants to sponsor trips like this

36:19.000 --> 36:24.000
and wants to reach these people and try to get a lot of people saved

36:24.000 --> 36:27.000
that many of us will probably never see or never meet.

36:27.000 --> 36:30.000
But hey, in heaven, we will meet them.

36:30.000 --> 36:34.000
That's what really matters to be a soul-winning church

36:34.000 --> 36:37.000
and really trying to get the gospel to the lost.

36:37.000 --> 36:39.000
I appreciate those testimonials.

36:39.000 --> 36:44.000
We're going to go ahead and sing our Psalm of the Week, Psalm 148.

36:44.000 --> 36:47.000
Psalm 148 in our special binder there.

36:47.000 --> 36:49.000
Psalm 148.

36:59.000 --> 37:02.000
All right, that was Psalm 148.

37:02.000 --> 37:04.000
Sing it out if you know it.

37:04.000 --> 37:05.000
If not, follow along.

37:05.000 --> 37:07.000
It's a great way to learn a chapter of the Bible.

37:07.000 --> 37:10.000
Psalm 148.

37:11.000 --> 37:21.000
Praise ye the Lord, praise ye the Lord, from the heavens, praise him in the heights.

37:21.000 --> 37:30.000
Praise him, all his angels, praise him on his coast.

37:30.000 --> 37:39.000
Praise him, sun and moon, praise him, all he stars of light.

37:39.000 --> 37:49.000
Praise him, the heavens of heaven, and he waters that be above the heavens.

37:49.000 --> 37:55.000
Let them praise the name of the Lord.

37:55.000 --> 38:07.000
For he commanded and they were created, he hath also established them.

38:07.000 --> 38:19.000
Forever and ever he hath made a decree, which shall not pass.

38:19.000 --> 38:24.000
Praise the Lord from the earth.

38:24.000 --> 38:33.000
Ye dragons and all jeeps, fire and hail, snow and vapor.

38:33.000 --> 38:49.000
Stormy winds, fulfilling his word, mountains, and all hills, fruitful trees, and all seers, beasts.

38:49.000 --> 39:01.000
And all cattle, green fields, things, and flying crowd, kings of the earth, and all people,

39:01.000 --> 39:14.000
judges and all judges of the earth, both young men and made of gold, men and children.

39:14.000 --> 39:21.000
Let them praise the name of the Lord.

39:21.000 --> 39:42.000
For his name alone is excellent, his glory is above the earth, and in heaven he also exalted the Lord.

39:42.000 --> 40:05.000
Of his people the praise of all his saints, even of the children of his ground, of people near unto him, praise he the Lord.

40:05.000 --> 40:13.000
Praise singing everybody. Now as the offering plates are being passed around, go ahead and open your Bibles to the book of Proverbs, Chapter number 28.

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That is Proverbs Chapter number 28.

41:05.000 --> 41:34.000
Proverbs Chapter 28.

41:34.000 --> 41:36.000
Let's read the chapter.

41:36.000 --> 41:42.000
The Bible says the wicked flee when no man pursueth, but the righteous are bold as a lion.

41:42.000 --> 41:51.000
For the transgression of a land many are the princes thereof, but by a man of understanding and knowledge the state thereof shall be prolonged.

41:51.000 --> 41:57.000
A poor man that oppressed at the poor is like a sweeping rain which leaveeth no food.

41:57.000 --> 42:03.000
They that forsake the law praise the wicked, but such as keep the law contend with them.

42:03.000 --> 42:09.000
Evil men understand not judgment, but they that seek the Lord understand all things.

42:09.000 --> 42:16.000
Better is the poor that walketh in his uprightness than he that is perverse in his ways, though he be rich.

42:16.000 --> 42:23.000
Whoso keepeth the law is a wise son, but he that is a companion of riotous men shameth his father.

42:23.000 --> 42:31.000
He that by usury and unjust gain increaseeth his substance, he shall gather it for him that will pity the poor.

42:31.000 --> 42:37.000
He that turneth away his ear from hearing the law, even his prayer shall be abomination.

42:37.000 --> 42:48.000
Whoso causeth the righteous to go astray in an evil way, he shall fall himself into his own pit, but the upright shall have good things in possession.

42:48.000 --> 42:55.000
The rich man is wise in his own conceit, but the poor man that hath understanding searcheth him out.

42:56.000 --> 43:03.000
When righteous men do rejoice there is great glory, but when the wicked rise a man is hidden.

43:03.000 --> 43:10.000
He that covereth his sins shall not prosper, but whoso confesseth and forsaketh them shall have mercy.

43:10.000 --> 43:16.000
Happy is the man that feareth all way, but he that hardeneth his heart shall fall into mischief.

43:16.000 --> 43:23.000
As a roaring lion and a raging bear, so is a wicked ruler over the poor people.

43:23.000 --> 43:31.000
The prince that wanteth understanding is also a great oppressor, but he that hateth covetousness shall prolong his days.

43:31.000 --> 43:37.000
A man that doeth violence to the blood of any person shall flee to the pit, let no man stay him.

43:37.000 --> 43:44.000
Whoso walketh uprightly shall be saved, but he that is perverse in his ways shall fall at once.

43:44.000 --> 43:51.000
He that tilleth his land shall have plenty of bread, but he that followeth after vain persons shall have poverty enough.

43:52.000 --> 43:58.000
A faithful man shall abound with blessings, but he that maketh haste to be rich shall not be innocent.

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To have respect of persons is not good, for for a piece of bread that man will transgress.

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He that hasteth to be rich hath an evil eye, and considereth not that poverty shall come upon him.

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He that rebuke of the man afterwards shall find more favor than he that flattereth with the tongue.

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Whoso robeth his father or his mother and sayeth it is no transgression, the same is the companion of a destroyer.

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He that is of a proud heart stireth up strife, but he that putteth his trust in the Lord shall be made fat.

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He that trusteth in his own heart is a fool, but whoso walketh wisely he shall be delivered.

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He that giveth unto the poor shall not lack, but he that hideeth his eyes shall have many a curse.

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When the wicked rise men hide themselves, but when they perish the righteous increase.

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The past few months of just me understanding what kind of happened, went down with the Verity Baptist Church,

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kind of inspired me to preach a sermon this morning and kind of talk about the importance of taking ownership.

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Taking ownership, and I've really seen a failure in this particular area in a lot of public ways,

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and it's really frustrating to see people not taking ownership.

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And while that's not necessarily a phrase in the Bible, I believe that the concept is very clearly taught here in Scripture.

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We're going to be looking at a lot of verses, but look at verse number 13.

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The Bible says, He that covereth his sins shall not prosper, but whoso confesseth and forsaketh them shall have mercy.

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So here in this verse we have someone taking ownership of what they have done that is wrong.

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They are confessing their sin, which is taking ownership, admitting that they did something wrong.

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And then not only are they doing that, they're forsaking it, they're making a change.

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Whereas the opposite is someone that's covering this up.

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And really to me, I just wrap this whole idea up in the idea of taking ownership.

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Someone covering is not really taking ownership for their sin.

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Someone that is confessing and forsaking is taking ownership.

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You really see a problem in the Bible, people blame shifting.

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Adam blame shifts Eve, Eve blame shifts the serpent.

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And we just kind of have a continual progression throughout the Bible, where often the leadership or pastors or priests or the king, they're blame shifting.

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Saul says, Oh, well, I feared the people or Aaron's like, Oh, but the people wanted me to make this particular molten image.

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And you kind of just see a lot of people blame shifting and not taking ownership for their particular actions.

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And I think point number one is that any time we're causing a problem or there's an issue, there's a conflict, we need to be willing to confess our sin.

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And that's what it's clearly saying here in verse 13, who so confesseth and forsake them shall have mercy.

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You know, we should always be willing to take ownership and confession of our own sin, what we have done wrong, how we could have done things better.

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Go to Leviticus, Chapter five, go to Leviticus, Chapter number five.

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And I want to look at another couple of verses on this particular point, but we should be willing to confess our sin.

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Now, we're not Catholic, so we're not going to go and confess all of our sins to the priest and and have this little confessional booth.

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Obviously, most of our confession should be to the Lord.

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Most of our confession should be simply in a private context, just praying to God, admitting to him that we've done wrong and essentially trying to get right with God.

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So, you know, on a regular basis, I think everybody should be in the habit of confessing their sins and prayer to God.

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When we sin against God, we do something wrong, we made a mistake, we should simply go to the Lord in prayer and we should say, Lord, I did this.

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It was wrong. I'm sorry. Please forgive me.

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And of course, you know, another layer to this is actually doing it, the forsaking part.

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But the first step is just the admission.

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The first step is just taking ownership, confessing the sin to the Lord and saying, I have sinned, I've done this, and it was wrong.

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The biggest five look at verse five, and it shall be when he shall be guilty in one of these things that he shall confess that he hath sinned in that thing.

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And he shall bring his trespass offering unto the Lord for his sin, which he hath sinned a female from the flock, a lamb or a kid of the goats for a sin offering.

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And the priest shall make an atonement for him concerning his sin.

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Notice that the Old Testament sacrificial system. Step one was what?

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Confession of your sin. Verse five is very clearly that when you're guilty, you're supposed to confess the sin and the sin that you sin, then they offer the sacrifice.

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And so that's an important principle that's laid out throughout the text. Go to the Second Chronicles, Chapter six, go to Second Chronicles, Chapter six.

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This is something we're going to see all over the Bible, but I just want to drill in this point and we'll make some applications here in a minute.

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But point number one, we need to be willing to confess sin.

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I think too often people are unwilling to confess their sin.

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Think about Donald Trump himself when asked if he'd ever sinned.

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And he basically just said, like, yeah, I guess I would say sorry to God if I ever sinned.

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It's like how how to I'm supposed to believe that Donald Trump has never sinned in his entire life.

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I mean, the Bible is pretty clear that there's not a just man upon the earth that do good and sin is not, especially the guy that's been divorced and remarried multiple times, owns casinos.

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Yeah, Donald Trump isn't even just an average sinner.

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I would say he's he's exceeding sinful.

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He's not just an average sinner. He's exceeding sinful.

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I guarantee that guy has lots of skeletons in his closet.

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And to say that he's never asked for forgiveness or or said sorry to the Lord is just wicked as hell.

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It's shameful that our nation or our country would get to such a place where the leader of our country, I mean, on our money, it's printed in God we trust.

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And this guy's never sin.

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I mean, are we talking about Jesus coming back?

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I mean, some of this never sinned.

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You know, someone that claims that they have no sin, they're only deceiving themselves is what the Bible says.

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No one else believes that no one else is going to be tricked and deceived into thinking that because we've all sinned.

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In fact, when I go so winning, one of the questions I ask at the very beginning is I say, hey, if I told you I've never lied before, would you believe me?

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And again, it's kind of an easy icebreaker because they usually kind of laugh and feel uncomfortable because they're about to call you a liar.

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And but it's just the reality.

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Occasionally, some people are so nice.

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They're just like, well, I mean, I guess if you told me that, but I'm like, I know you don't believe that you're just trying to be nice because we all know everybody's a liar.

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Everybody sends everybody does things that are wrong.

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And we need to take ownership when we do something wrong.

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Right.

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Second Chronicles, Chapter six, look at verse 26.

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When the heaven is shut up and there is no rain because they have sinned against thee.

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Yet if they pray toward this place and confess my name and turn from their sin, when thou dost afflict them, then hear thou from heaven and forgive the sin of thy servants and of thy people Israel.

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When thou has taught them the good way, wherein they should walk and send rain upon my land, which thou has given unto thy people for an inheritance.

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This is a essentially kind of a prophecy in the sense that is being proclaimed that, hey, at some point, the children of Israel are going to just turn away from the Lord and you're going to plague them with no rain.

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The economy is going to dry up.

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They're going to even possibly drug off onto some foreign land.

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But if they confess, if they get right with God, if they confess and turn and they pray and they ask you to forgive them, then I want you to forgive them.

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Now this actually happens.

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Go to Daniel, chapter number nine.

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This statement actually becomes fulfilled later in scripture when the children of Israel actually go into captivity and they go into captivity for 70 years.

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And the captivity is not turned until Daniel makes this prayer.

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Daniel kind of fulfills this particular scripture.

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And so for 70 years, they're basically afflicted of God being punished by God.

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But then Daniel intercedes for them.

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Hear Daniel, chapter nine, verse 20.

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And while I was speaking and praying and confessing my sin and the sin of my people, Israel, and presenting my supplication before the Lord my God for the holy mountain of God.

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Now, again, I'm just I'm just taking this particular verse out because of what it's saying.

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But he confesses the sins for the children of Israel.

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He understands by books and he understands that they are going to be there for 70 years and that he prays and asks God to forgive him.

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Notice what he said of my sin and the sin of my people, Israel.

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You know, Daniel is is considered in the Bible as one of the greatest men to ever live, one of the most righteous men to ever live.

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And then the Bible records him admitting, hey, I even have sin here.

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Even Daniel, the eunuch, has sin.

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Even Daniel, who's arguably one of the greatest men ever live, had sin and he had to confess sin.

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And it's just a public known thing.

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Hey, Daniel had to even confess his sin to the Lord.

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He had problems.

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The apostle Paul, arguably the greatest Christian, he has to admit I'm carnal.

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He has to admit I'm constantly doing things that I would not allow.

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He has to constantly admit that he is causing sin.

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Why does the Bible record people like Daniel and like Paul and others having sin so that no one would ever think someone is not sinning,

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so that no one would ever think there's this Paulist guy that doesn't make mistakes,

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that anybody could get to such a level of sanctification and holiness that they now no longer sin anymore.

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And they're always right with God.

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Look, we all are going to be sinful.

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We're all going to struggle.

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We're going to all have low spots.

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We're all going to have bad times.

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We're all possibly going to get off track.

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And we have to regularly confess our sin and get right with God and take ownership for our sins.

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You know, it's frustrating to me.

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It's frustrating to me that Daniel can have in the Word of God for everybody to see publicly that he had to confess his sin and get right with God.

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And then there's pastors today that will never ever admit they've done anything wrong.

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I mean, we're talking about Daniel.

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If Daniel has to admit, hey, I have to get right with God sometimes, if the apostle Paul has to admit that he has to get right with God sometimes,

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how much less of the men today that are just these little rinky dink pastors?

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Yeah, sometimes you're wrong.

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Sometimes you have to confess your sin.

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And look, you know, it's just crazy how some people just can never take ownership, can never admit fault, can just never say they've done something wrong.

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It's an infuriating experience.

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OK, and especially when pastors, especially when leaders, especially someone like Donald Trump, are getting up and making these proclamations, you know,

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leadership should set the example that sometimes they have to apologize.

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Leadership has to sometimes set the example and admit fault and say they've done wrong and just take, you know, get knocked down a notch or whatever.

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But honestly, usually people have more respect for leaders when they take ownership than if they don't.

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Because we can all kind of just see it and you're kind of just sitting there like, well, I just hope the guy takes ownership.

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And then by just doubling down, you end up having less respect for that person usually than if they would just admit that they have some faults.

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It's like somehow they actually by admitting their fault, you kind of esteem them higher.

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And if they don't take it, you kind of knock them down.

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And that's just how the world works.

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That's just how God's economy works.

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You know, you can't can't sit here and think that you're going to be elevated by praising yourself and pretending like you've never made a mistake, never had a problem.

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You know, as parents, sometimes, you know, you have to admit to your children you make mistakes.

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And I get it that maybe some people are afraid of the power dynamic changing or shifting.

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You know what? Let's just be honest.

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It's not going to shift.

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You know, husbands could get to a point where they're just afraid or embarrassed to ever admit to their wife they've done something wrong.

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But just because you're in a position of leadership above someone doesn't mean you can't be wrong.

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Doesn't mean you can't take ownership.

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Doesn't mean you can't apologize.

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You know, it would do some good to some people if the husband would apologize every once in a while.

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And hey, vice versa, that the wife would apologize every once in a while.

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I know you have to do something wrong first to be able to do that.

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But yeah, contrary to popular belief, sometimes the wife makes mistakes, right?

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Sometimes we all make mistakes and we have to get right with God and with each other.

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Go through it to First John, Chapter one, Mark, Chapter one says, And there went out unto him all the land of Judea and they had Jerusalem and were all baptized of him in the River of Jordan, confessing their sins.

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When the people went out to John the Baptist, it wasn't just for the show.

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It just wasn't for the entertainment.

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It certainly wasn't for the locusts and wild honey.

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Let me tell you what it was for.

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It was for them to confess their sins.

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And, you know, at the end of the day, people need to be able to take ownership for their actions and confess their sin.

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Now, look, sometimes it's going to be public.

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The vast majority of it should be a private thing.

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You know, you're just you're just praying to God, confessing your sins.

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And I think that the more that you're willing to just get right with God and confess your sin and do things in private, the less he's probably going to have to drag you out in public.

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And have to, you know, deal with things in a more public setting, right?

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The more you're willing to just deal with it immediately or get it done with, the less God's going to have to necessarily make a spectacle of you like Pharaoh.

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Pharaoh unwilling to take any ownership, unwilling to admit he's doing anything wrong.

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And so, of course, God's going to make a spectacle of Pharaoh for his sin and for his wickedness and his obstinance towards the things of God.

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First, John, chapter one, look at verse nine.

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You know, we just have to realize that God, for the most part, I mean, if you just read the Bible, you confess and forsake.

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God just forgives.

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Isn't it nice?

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I mean, it would be kind of nerve wracking if it's like, hey, I'm sorry.

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And he's just like, don't care.

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Hell, anyways.

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I mean, isn't it nice that if you get right with God, he's pretty much just always willing to accept you and always willing to extend, you know, mercy and grace towards you.

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Again, we get that in some contexts, there's sins that are under death.

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We understand we're not trying to escape legal consequences for serious crimes and serious issues.

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But in general, God is a very compassionate, long suffering, merciful God.

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And in most cases, you come and confess and repent of your sins.

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God is willing to forgive you of that on a daily, regular basis.

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Now, when it comes to getting saved, you don't have to actually repent of your sins to be saved.

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Salvation is a free gift.

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But isn't it a good idea that after you got saved, you repent of your sins anyways?

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It's like I'm not telling people not to repent of their sins when I go out and try to give them the gospel.

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But what I am trying to tell them is no matter how much you try to do that, that isn't going to save you.

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And if you're trusting in your repenting of your sins to get you saved, you're not actually going to get saved because you have to accept a free gift to get saved.

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But you know what?

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As soon as you're saved, please repent of all your sins.

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Please try to get right with God.

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Get into church.

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Get baptized.

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Confess your sins.

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Forsake your sins.

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Try to get right with the Lord.

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Look, I'm not against repenting of your sins, but it will never save anyone.

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Now, here's the thing.

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It can save you from carnal destruction.

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It can save you from the consequences of sin.

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It can save you from God being mad at you.

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But at the end of the day, you know, we have to have a distinguishing point here when we go out and preach the gospel because so many liars and false prophets.

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But, you know, I'm not against repenting of sin.

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I'm not against turning from sin.

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I'm not against forsaking sin.

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What to God we all would get right with God on a regular basis.

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You know what?

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That is not for salvation.

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But let me tell you something.

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It is for the pleasure of God.

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If you want God to be pleased with you, if you want God to be happy with you, you want God to bless you.

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Yeah, we need to regularly confess our sins and forsake our sins and ask God to be merciful unto us.

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And notice he'll cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

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Eventually, we'll all be made perfect and we'll all be cleansed from all of our sin.

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Go over to Proverbs, Chapter 12.

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So point one is real simple.

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In taking ownership, we need to take the ownership of our sin and be willing to confess our sin to God and to man when we are in conflict.

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Now, here's the problem for a lot of people.

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Let me let me say this differently.

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Here's the problem for all people.

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OK, here's the problem for every single person with this issue.

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Proverbs, Chapter 12, Verse 15.

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The way of a fool is right in his own eyes.

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OK, here's the problem.

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We all automatically think everything we do and say is right.

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Like everything you ever do and you ever say, you just internally justify and just think is right.

01:01:53.000 --> 01:02:03.000
But sometimes we have to consider other people's opinion, other sources, other information and recognize, hey, maybe I'm actually wrong here.

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Says, but he that hearkeneth unto counsel is wise.

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So the person that thinks everything I do is right is a fool.

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The person that occasionally, at least sometimes, will recognize, hey, the Bible saying that I'm wrong.

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A pastor saying that I'm wrong.

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A preacher saying I'm wrong.

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My brother in Christ is saying I'm wrong.

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My mom is saying I'm wrong.

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My dad saying I'm wrong.

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My boss is saying that I'm wrong.

01:02:26.000 --> 01:02:28.000
The law is saying that I'm wrong.

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In chat, GPT is telling me that I'm wrong.

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OK, then sometimes you have to just be like, OK, I guess maybe I'm not right and change your mind.

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I mean, Proverbs, Chapter three, Verse five and six tells us to not trust in ourselves completely.

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But we're supposed to lean upon God's word.

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We're supposed to allow that to change our minds and our attitudes.

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So we're not always right.

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We have to allow other sources and other information to come and challenge us on our worldview and help us recognize sometimes we're wrong.

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Proverbs 21.

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Now, this is a big proverb.

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This is mentioned multiple times.

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Proverbs, Chapter 21, look at verse number two.

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This is going to emphasize this point even further.

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Every way of a man is right in his own eyes.

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You know, the Bible just said you think you're always right.

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You think that everything you think is right.

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You your favorite color is the right color.

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Your food preferences are right.

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Now, I happen to know that I am right.

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OK, but I'm just saying, doesn't the Bible just say every way of man is right in his own eyes?

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We just all think like our favorite car is the best car to have and our favorite color and our favorite food and our like we just all think that we're all right.

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Well, this is my interpretation of this passage.

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Well, this is what I think.

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This is my favorite sport.

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This is my favorite team.

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This is who I think is the greatest player of all time.

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You know, I kind of learned this a while back.

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But when I was looking up movies, this is years ago, I was looking up movies and I was reading revisions.

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And I think it was on like Rotten Tomatoes or was one of these sites is pretty popular and every movie had hundreds and hundreds of views.

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And I kind of started noticing this pattern.

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So then I just research as hard as I could.

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I noticed that on every single movie in the reviews, there was at least one review that said greatest movie of all time.

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And I kept thinking like some of the movies I was looking up were like awesome movies.

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And I'm just thinking like, OK, that makes sense.

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And then I saw one of them just like greatest movie of all time.

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So then I thought, you know what?

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I'm going to try and find some really terrible movies, like really trashy, just like just BD rated movies.

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I'm like, I want to see if there's a comment that says this.

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And it was like without fail, just like every movie, there was at least one person that was just like greatest movie of all time.

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Now, you know what I know?

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Not every single movie can literally be the greatest movie of all time.

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But for some reason, you know, this person is saying this.

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Now, again, most of them probably flattering.

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But even if that was true, it's just there's going to be a variance of opinions, isn't there?

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People are going to think my church is the greatest church in the world and, you know, my everything I do, I'm the greatest or I'm the best or everything I think is right.

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I mean, this is just the human nature.

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Why do you think that there's all this conflict and people are always arguing and fighting, competing?

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And there's just there's all of this strife because everybody always thinks they're right and they're trying to prove themselves right and they're trying to prove others wrong.

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And they're just all this like controversy.

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But what does the Bible say?

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But the Lord upon earth, the hearts.

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Hey, everybody thinks they're right.

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But you know who's right?

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God's right.

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Look at Proverbs 18.

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Go back.

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Go to Proverbs 18 and look at verse 17.

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The Bible says he that is first and his own cause seemeth just meaning anytime there's a conflict or there's an issue and you only hear one side of the equation, it'll always sound good.

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It'll always sound like they're right.

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But the Bible says, but his neighbor cometh in search of them.

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So it's like, well, but whenever we actually consider all the opinions, we kind of realize maybe not everybody's always right.

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Proverbs 11.

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Go to Proverbs chapter 11.

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So I'm trying to use these verses to get to my second point, which is what?

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In taking ownership, we need to be willing to harken to counsel because you're going to always just think that you're right.

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You just you already thought you were right.

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So it's important in taking ownership to often consider other opinions and other counsel to make sure you're actually right, because you will always think you're right.

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You have to at least consider other opinions to make sure you're actually right, because if you only consult with yourself, you can dangerously think you're right when you're wrong.

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What does the Bible say in Proverbs 11, verse 14, where no counsel is, the people fall.

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But in the multitude of counselors, there is safety.

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You know, it's very important to double check.

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Go over to Proverbs 15.

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You even in mathematics, you know, our children are doing a lot of homeschooling and they do a lot of math and a lot of the math forces you to even double, triple check your work.

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It's like you solve the math equation in one way.

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Then you have to reverse engineer and solve it in another way.

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And you're just trying to make sure that you got the math question correct.

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Often in the business world and other places, people are double and triple checking their work.

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They're double checking the books.

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They're using calculators.

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They're using formulas.

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They're using different spreadsheets.

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They're having multiple people look at the work.

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Why?

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Because they want to make sure it's accurate.

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They want to make sure it's right.

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Often, almost any time I write something, I'll ask my wife to just proofread it, because I for sure am missing a comma.

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Like, it's not even a question.

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My wife is always just like, well, you didn't get a comma here and there and this.

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And just frankly speaking, my wife is just much better at grammar than I ever will probably be.

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Not only that, today there's all kinds of tools and things you can use when you are writing stuff or, you know, creating and crafting things to proofread and help.

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Everybody's phone has autocorrect.

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And look, I'll admit I kind of hate it, because, you know, you're using a lot of slang, things like new IFB or things like that.

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And it's like trying to change it to words or you're using a harsh word and it tries to change to something else.

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So sometimes it makes mistakes.

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But doesn't it also a lot of times help us to?

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Doesn't it sometimes actually like really fix the thing or improve or help you a little bit?

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And just think about how many bad texts would exist without autocorrect.

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Just think how many fat fingers and how many mistakes and how many issues.

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You know, there's nothing wrong with having tools and aids and things helping you.

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And, you know, the multitude of counselors, their safety.

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If you got the problem right, if you solve the mathematical equation right, it doesn't matter how many people check it and how many various ways that you check it.

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You're going to keep coming to the same answer.

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So that's what the Bible is basically emphasizing that sometimes it's good to have, you know, multiple checks, multiple sounding boards to the decisions that you're making.

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Proverbs 15 verse 22, without counsel purposes are disappointed, but in the multitude of counselors, they are established.

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Saying if you just are making all these decisions without harkening to counsel, you never consider other opinions first.

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You never think about it before you go.

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You're going to often just fail.

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Whereas if you really think about it, you play devil's advocate, you get some sounding boards in there, then often you can go forward with a plan that will not fail because you've considered it.

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You thought about this, you know, when someone's constructing a bridge, they want to think about, OK, let's think about, you know, can this withstand a hurricane?

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This is an area where hurricanes often are coming or this is an area where it rains a lot.

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Is the is the soil going to shift or is it going to change if we have a flood, a flash flood come through?

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You know, if someone just starts building a bridge without thinking about anything, well, then they could have a major weather event or perhaps they didn't consider that in the Dallas for the area.

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Traffic's exploding and they might get more traffic than they were anticipating.

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You know, when you're building a bridge, don't you want to kind of consider all the negative things could possibly happen before you start constructing?

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Or do you just want to be like, let's build a bridge.

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Let's just start building right now.

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No, it's important to think about the materials.

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It's important to think about the environment.

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It's important to think about the soils, important to think about the natural weather events.

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Think about the future and just have multiple people coming in, engineers and contractors and scientists and environmentalists and just all the different people involved.

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Before you start building that bridge so that you can have a successful bridge.

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And look, this is just how life is that it's important sometimes to really consider your work.

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And really think about what you're building so that when you build something, it can be successful.

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Without any council, you just are just going to run out and try this thing.

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I didn't even talk to anybody about it.

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Well, often that could be a disaster.

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Having multiple counselors, then you could have a more successful plan, vision.

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Proverbs 24, go to Proverbs 24 and look at verse number six.

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Honestly, this verse rings in my head a lot of just the idea of multiple counselors, but it's actually mentioned more times in the book of Proverbs than I realized.

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Look at Proverbs 24 verse six.

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For by wise counsel thou shalt make thy war and in the multitude of counselors there is safety.

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You know, when you're going to war, that's not a time to make mistakes.

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A lot of people could die.

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You can lose the war.

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You can lose the battle.

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And this is very costly.

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So you want to make sure that your plan, you want to make sure that your attack strategy, you want to make sure that your supply lines and all the things you've thought of and you have people on board and people are in agreement and that we're going to have a good strategy.

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And you're going to work together.

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But I think there's a little bit of just pride in man that doesn't want other people to help because you put out an idea and they're just like, well, have you thought about this?

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And like, no, I didn't think about that.

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And then that takes a little bit of humility.

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It takes humility to admit, hey, maybe I need some help.

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But, you know, I guess I could be prideful and be like, I don't need my wife to proofread anything.

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You know, it's just like, yeah, but then I'm going to make all these grammar mistakes.

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You know, there's some people, they print books and they're just filled with grammar mistakes and typos.

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And I'm just thinking like, that's kind of a fail.

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I mean, all the effort and energy to make a book and you didn't have someone proofread it.

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Look, you're going to make a few mistakes.

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No matter what you print, it's very possible you're going to make a few mistakes.

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But when it's just on every page, just littered through, you can tell this person was just too hasty, too prideful to just simply ask a few people to come alongside and just kind of proofread and check and pay attention for you so that you can have a more successful product.

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And at the end of the day, you know, it takes humility to admit we need other people.

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But let's just be honest.

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Let's just be honest.

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We need other people.

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Go over to second Samuel chapter number 12, go to second Samuel chapter number 12.

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So point one is this.

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We need to confess our sins.

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But number two, we need to harken to counsel.

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If you're not constantly harkening to counsel, you will not be taking ownership often because you always think you're right.

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But let me explain something.

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You're not always right.

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No one is always right.

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No one always has the best opinion.

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No one has the best vision.

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No one has every idea correct.

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We have to constantly, you know, get counsel from other people and other areas.

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And of course, what's our number one counselor?

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Number one counselor should be this.

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Every idea, every vision, every strategy should be consulted here first and be like, well, what is God's opinion, though?

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What is the Lord Jesus Christ think about this?

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What does Paul think about this?

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What is the disciples think about this?

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What is the New Testament?

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What is the Old Testament?

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What is the law?

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You know, when you kind of think about how the New Testament is even written, often it's saying like, hey, did you consider what the law says?

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That's a counselor.

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Hey, did you consider what Peter said?

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That's that's a counselor.

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Do you think about what Paul said?

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That's a counselor.

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Hey, you remember what Jesus said?

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That's a counselor.

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Hey, do you remember what God the Father said when he showed up in the cloud?

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It's like that's that's another counselor.

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And so you have this multitude of counselors right here.

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And look, anytime you have an opinion and a doctrine, an idea you want to have.

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Hey, Romans agrees with me.

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Jeremiah agrees with me.

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Genesis agrees with me.

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Revelation agrees with me.

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When you just have one verse taken out of context, that's scary.

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You can start running with that and having bad ideas.

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You want to have a multitude of counselors that agree with your doctrine, with your ideas, with your beliefs, with your church so that you're on solid ground and your doctrine can be established.

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What you're saying can be right.

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Now, hopefully, God willing, in many cases, when you are wrong, you will seek the council.

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You will be the one procuring the council.

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You'll be asking for the council.

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But in some cases, council just drops into your lap.

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Sometimes you have unsolicited advice.

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And of course, a lot of people get really offended by unsolicited advice.

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But instead of getting offended about unsolicited advice, why don't you just consider it as what they said true?

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Now, here's some unsolicited advice.

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Look at 2 Samuel chapter 12, verse 1.

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This may be a thing like a cartoon show about a goat or something or about a sheep or something.

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It's kind of funny.

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But it's like this guy just loves this little lamb.

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Verse 4.

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Now, when it comes to parables in the Bible, these could just be completely made up stories.

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I kind of tend to personally believe that God sees these things happening and uses them.

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And it was probably a real story.

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There's probably a real story where this kind of did happen and then God uses them.

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But even if it is completely made up, the point is, is he's trying to use this analogy to help David come up with the right judgment.

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And often when we insert ourselves into a story, we don't make the right judgment because we're biased towards ourselves.

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And so what Nathan is doing through this experiment, this thought experiment, God's giving Nathan this thought experiment to give to David is like, here's a situation.

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And of course, when you're not in the situation, it's like it's so much easier to judge righteously, to judge correctly.

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Now, I would admit that David kind of goes a little over the top.

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You know, maybe if this guy stole his you lamb, maybe he has to give him some money or a couple you lambs to replace it or something.

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I don't know if death for a sheep is necessarily the right judgment, but notice how over the top he is for this guy.

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And then it's like, actually, it's about you.

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And I would argue that David is way more egregiously in sin than the story, even because in the story he took his you lamb.

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And the reality, he took someone's wife, which is way worse.

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It's not even on the same level.

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But I think he used this extremity because if you were willing to kill someone for taking the you lamb, wouldn't you have to then say, like, I guess the wife is also the death penalty, which is technically the law.

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The death penalty is applied for adultery.

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Now, God ends up sparing David, is merciful to him and allows him to not have to necessarily face this.

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But this is the point that I'm trying to make in the story is that often it's easy to judge correctly when you're not personally biased.

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When you're personally biased, though, you struggle to see this.

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That's why it's important often to harken to counsel because they can see more clearly.

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They can judge objectively.

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They can help you recognize.

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Look, bro, I like you and all, but you're wrong.

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I'm I'm on your team here, but you're wrong.

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Thou art the man.

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You've made the mistake.

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You caused the problem.

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You need to get right with God.

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And hopefully they could be like David when they're confronted this sharply.

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They could be like, you're right.

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Nathan says, thou art the man.

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Thus saith the Lord God of Israel, I anointed the king over Israel and I delivered thee out of the hand of Saul and I gave thee the master's house and the master's wives and thy bosom and gave you the house of Israel and of Judah.

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And if that had been too little, I would moreover given unto thee such and such things.

01:19:56.000 --> 01:20:09.000
Wherefore, as thou despised the commandment of the Lord to do evil in his sight, thou has killed Uriah the Hittite with the sword and has taken his wife to be thy wife and has slain him with the sword of the children of Ammon.

01:20:09.000 --> 01:20:16.000
Now, therefore, the sword shall never depart from thine house because thou has despised me and has taken the wife of Uriah the Hittite to be thy wife.

01:20:16.000 --> 01:20:28.000
Thus saith the Lord, behold, I will raise up evil against thee out of thine own house and I will take thy wives before thine eyes and give them unto thy neighbor and he shall lie with thy wives in the sight of the son.

01:20:28.000 --> 01:20:34.000
For thou didst secretly, but I will do this thing before all Israel and before the son.

01:20:34.000 --> 01:20:37.000
And David said unto Nathan, I have sinned against the Lord.

01:20:37.000 --> 01:20:39.000
Now, a couple things I want to point out.

01:20:39.000 --> 01:20:49.000
Notice David, and again for the sake of the story, maybe you don't know the story that well, but in the story, David seemingly got away with his sin.

01:20:49.000 --> 01:21:01.000
In the story, David commits adultery, gets this woman pregnant, which is going to cause him to be discovered, tries to sneak the husband back to try and cover up the pregnancy.

01:21:01.000 --> 01:21:03.000
The plan fails.

01:21:03.000 --> 01:21:05.000
So then he's in a pickle.

01:21:05.000 --> 01:21:07.000
So now he has to kill Uriah.

01:21:07.000 --> 01:21:14.000
He sends Uriah into the hottest part of the battle, tells the generals to retreat from him, and Uriah is slain in the battle.

01:21:14.000 --> 01:21:25.000
In a sense, it kind of seems like maybe it was a successful cover up because then he takes the wife unto him immediately and it kind of looks like it was just an early pregnancy.

01:21:25.000 --> 01:21:27.000
It seems like he got away with it.

01:21:27.000 --> 01:21:31.000
But then the prophet shows up and just tells the whole plan like, hey, this all happened.

01:21:31.000 --> 01:21:33.000
He's like, dang.

01:21:33.000 --> 01:21:39.000
What does the Bible say though, that if you try to cover your sins, you shall not prosper.

01:21:39.000 --> 01:21:43.000
But whoso confesseth and forsaketh them shall have mercy.

01:21:43.000 --> 01:21:44.000
What should have David done?

01:21:44.000 --> 01:21:46.000
David should have confessed his sin and got right with God.

01:21:46.000 --> 01:21:50.000
By refusing to do this, God's now going to have to publicly shame him.

01:21:50.000 --> 01:22:00.000
And what he tried to cover up, God is going to publicly shame and embarrass David way worse than he would have if he had just taken ownership.

01:22:00.000 --> 01:22:10.000
You know, isn't that just kind of it's like people don't have faith in God or they don't have the right fear of God to think that you can just quote cover things up.

01:22:10.000 --> 01:22:11.000
Oh, we got away with it.

01:22:11.000 --> 01:22:12.000
No one knows.

01:22:12.000 --> 01:22:14.000
Well, God knows.

01:22:14.000 --> 01:22:21.000
And God could just cause it to be even more embarrassing than if you had just taken ownership in the first place.

01:22:21.000 --> 01:22:26.000
If you had just dealt with it correctly or done the right thing in the first place.

01:22:26.000 --> 01:22:31.000
But finally being confronted, at least David does take the ownership and say, I have sinned against the Lord.

01:22:31.000 --> 01:22:35.000
How many people when confronted like this, they still say, I've done nothing wrong.

01:22:35.000 --> 01:22:37.000
I do not apologize.

01:22:37.000 --> 01:22:41.000
You know, there's a lot of people that dig in even when they've been clearly confronted.

01:22:41.000 --> 01:22:45.000
They have a good counselor coming to them, someone trying to help them.

01:22:45.000 --> 01:22:47.000
And yet they refuse.

01:22:47.000 --> 01:22:50.000
Go to Luke 23, go to Luke 23.

01:22:50.000 --> 01:23:03.000
We need to be willing when confronted by counselors, by Nathan the prophet, by the word of God to listen to that and accept that counsel, not only hear the counsel but hearken to the counsel.

01:23:03.000 --> 01:23:05.000
I have sinned.

01:23:05.000 --> 01:23:06.000
I have sinned.

01:23:06.000 --> 01:23:07.000
He confessed his sin.

01:23:07.000 --> 01:23:08.000
He forsook his sin.

01:23:08.000 --> 01:23:10.000
He got right with God.

01:23:10.000 --> 01:23:11.000
Now, was he still punished?

01:23:11.000 --> 01:23:12.000
Yes.

01:23:12.000 --> 01:23:14.000
But he wasn't punished as much as he deserved.

01:23:14.000 --> 01:23:15.000
He deserved death.

01:23:15.000 --> 01:23:17.000
So he got a lesser punishment.

01:23:17.000 --> 01:23:23.000
And I think that's how God often works that, you know, you often will get a lesser punishment than you probably deserve.

01:23:23.000 --> 01:23:25.000
But there can still be consequences for sin.

01:23:25.000 --> 01:23:36.000
But in order to escape the maximum amount of consequences, you should as early and often confess your sin, forsake your sin and seek mercy.

01:23:36.000 --> 01:23:37.000
Seek mercy.

01:23:37.000 --> 01:23:38.000
That's the third point I have.

01:23:38.000 --> 01:23:41.000
Point one in taking ownership is you need to confess your sin.

01:23:41.000 --> 01:23:43.000
Point two is you need to hearken to counsel.

01:23:43.000 --> 01:23:46.000
And point number three is you should seek mercy after you follow the steps one and two.

01:23:46.000 --> 01:23:48.000
Luke 23, look at verse 39.

01:23:48.000 --> 01:23:54.000
And one of the malefactors which were hanged railed on him saying, If thou be Christ, save thyself and us.

01:23:54.000 --> 01:23:59.000
But the other answering rebuked him saying, Does not thou fear God?

01:23:59.000 --> 01:24:02.000
Seeing thou art in the same condemnation?

01:24:02.000 --> 01:24:08.000
And we indeed justly, for we receive the due reward of our deeds.

01:24:08.000 --> 01:24:11.000
But this man had done nothing amiss.

01:24:11.000 --> 01:24:12.000
You know what I like about the theme on the cross?

01:24:12.000 --> 01:24:14.000
He took ownership.

01:24:14.000 --> 01:24:15.000
He said, You know what?

01:24:15.000 --> 01:24:17.000
Yeah, he is in the same spot.

01:24:17.000 --> 01:24:18.000
He's on the cross with us.

01:24:18.000 --> 01:24:21.000
There's no difference between us on the cross.

01:24:21.000 --> 01:24:22.000
But here's the difference.

01:24:22.000 --> 01:24:24.000
We deserve it.

01:24:24.000 --> 01:24:25.000
And he doesn't deserve it.

01:24:25.000 --> 01:24:27.000
We're in the same place.

01:24:27.000 --> 01:24:28.000
We're in the same situation.

01:24:28.000 --> 01:24:32.000
But his is because he's innocent, because he's the son of God.

01:24:32.000 --> 01:24:33.000
Us because we justly.

01:24:33.000 --> 01:24:34.000
Notice how he worded it.

01:24:34.000 --> 01:24:36.000
We indeed justly.

01:24:36.000 --> 01:24:41.000
He is saying like, I fully deserve being crucified.

01:24:41.000 --> 01:24:43.000
That's a pretty bold statement.

01:24:43.000 --> 01:24:49.000
That's a pretty big ownership to take upon himself to say, Hey, I really do deserve this.

01:24:49.000 --> 01:24:52.000
For what I've done.

01:24:52.000 --> 01:24:54.000
But this guy hasn't done anything wrong.

01:24:54.000 --> 01:24:56.000
Now, he took the ownership.

01:24:56.000 --> 01:25:00.000
And then, of course, if there was counsel involved, he would have.

01:25:00.000 --> 01:25:03.000
But he moves to step three, seeking mercy.

01:25:03.000 --> 01:25:08.000
He says in verse 42, And he said unto Jesus, Lord, remember me when thou comest into thy kingdom.

01:25:09.000 --> 01:25:15.000
And Jesus said unto them, Verily I say unto thee, Today shalt thou be with me in paradise.

01:25:15.000 --> 01:25:19.000
One thief unwilling to take ownership doesn't get saved.

01:25:19.000 --> 01:25:22.000
The other thief is willing to take ownership, get saved.

01:25:22.000 --> 01:25:26.000
And, of course, that is the main reason why most people will not get saved.

01:25:26.000 --> 01:25:30.000
It's just simply taking the ownership of saying, Hey, I'm a sinner deserving of hell.

01:25:30.000 --> 01:25:32.000
And without Jesus, I'm not going to be saved.

01:25:32.000 --> 01:25:37.000
You know, when you're at the door and you run into these type of people occasionally, you really can't get anywhere with them.

01:25:37.000 --> 01:25:41.000
You know, if someone cannot take ownership for them being a sinner and deserving hell,

01:25:41.000 --> 01:25:44.000
I usually have to move on because there's not really much more I can do for you.

01:25:44.000 --> 01:25:48.000
If you can't admit that you need salvation, then why would you ask for a savior?

01:25:48.000 --> 01:25:52.000
They have to first take the ownership that I'm a sinner and I deserve hell.

01:25:52.000 --> 01:25:56.000
And without Christ, I would go to hell for my sins.

01:25:56.000 --> 01:26:00.000
Therefore, I need a savior and to accept the Lord Jesus Christ.

01:26:00.000 --> 01:26:02.000
And praise God, in salvation, that's what happens.

01:26:02.000 --> 01:26:06.000
Go to Luke chapter 15, go to Luke chapter 15, go back just a hair.

01:26:06.000 --> 01:26:09.000
And look at verse number 17.

01:26:09.000 --> 01:26:13.000
Some great stories in the Bible, people who took some ownership for their actions.

01:26:13.000 --> 01:26:14.000
And you know what?

01:26:14.000 --> 01:26:19.000
I guarantee that that one thief is real glad he took ownership.

01:26:19.000 --> 01:26:21.000
Luke 15, look at verse 17.

01:26:21.000 --> 01:26:28.000
This is talking about the prodigal son who took his father's inheritance and wasted on harlots and riotous living.

01:26:28.000 --> 01:26:32.000
Says in verse, and then he gets poor, lose all his money, he's in a pigsty.

01:26:32.000 --> 01:26:33.000
Verse 17.

01:27:02.000 --> 01:27:06.000
And in thy sight and am no more worthy to be called thy son.

01:27:06.000 --> 01:27:13.000
But the father said to his servants, bring forth the best robe and put it on him and put a ring on his hand and shoes on his feet.

01:27:13.000 --> 01:27:17.000
And bring hither the fatted calf and kill it and let us eat and be merry.

01:27:17.000 --> 01:27:27.000
So the son comes to himself, takes ownership for his actions, confesses his sin to heaven and to his father.

01:27:27.000 --> 01:27:30.000
But notice he gets the mercy.

01:27:30.000 --> 01:27:34.000
In fact, not only just mercy, the father treats him awesome.

01:27:34.000 --> 01:27:36.000
He puts the best robe on him.

01:27:36.000 --> 01:27:38.000
He kills from the fatted calf.

01:27:38.000 --> 01:27:40.000
And you know, that's how God is with us.

01:27:40.000 --> 01:27:44.000
That we are these wretched sinners that Jesus Christ died for.

01:27:44.000 --> 01:27:47.000
The slaughtering of the fatted calf for us.

01:27:47.000 --> 01:27:53.000
And then we're going to get to enjoy the marriage supper of the lamb and feast with the Lord in heaven.

01:27:53.000 --> 01:27:55.000
The great redemption that had for us.

01:27:55.000 --> 01:27:59.000
But step one, you had to take ownership and confess your sin.

01:27:59.000 --> 01:28:00.000
He confessed his sin.

01:28:00.000 --> 01:28:06.000
And, you know, again, if need be, sometimes even have to harken to counsel to get to that point.

01:28:06.000 --> 01:28:10.000
But when you seek mercy, often God will grant you that mercy.

01:28:10.000 --> 01:28:14.000
Now, I want to bring up a specific example of this.

01:28:14.000 --> 01:28:17.000
And this is the reason why I even wrote this sermon in the first place.

01:28:17.000 --> 01:28:23.000
But there was a major fraud issue that was exposed at Parity Baptist Church with Pastor Matthew Stuckey.

01:28:23.000 --> 01:28:33.000
And the recent pastor that had taken over, Pastor Jared Buzarnsky, really handled the situation awful.

01:28:33.000 --> 01:28:41.000
And he made some public statements pretty much like blaming Pastor Matthew Stuckey for this whole fraud situation, which is insane.

01:28:41.000 --> 01:28:46.000
I can't imagine someone getting robbed and you blaming them for being robbed and stolen from.

01:28:46.000 --> 01:28:47.000
But he did it.

01:28:47.000 --> 01:28:51.000
And so, you know, isn't it nice to can to harken to counsel, though?

01:28:51.000 --> 01:28:54.000
Even if I'm thinking like this doesn't make sense, this isn't fair.

01:28:54.000 --> 01:29:02.000
You know, so I just asked Grock, AI, just said like, hey, here's the situation or whatever.

01:29:02.000 --> 01:29:03.000
Who's at fault?

01:29:03.000 --> 01:29:08.000
And, you know, sometimes, you know, you should consider, you know, even AI.

01:29:08.000 --> 01:29:12.000
Look, obviously, I already consulted with the Bible and it already told me who was right and wrong.

01:29:12.000 --> 01:29:15.000
I obviously consult with other pastors and other godly people.

01:29:15.000 --> 01:29:18.000
But I'm saying I even use these third party sources.

01:29:18.000 --> 01:29:20.000
And look, do you think Grock even cares?

01:29:20.000 --> 01:29:24.000
You think Grock's trying to side with one new pastor over another or something?

01:29:24.000 --> 01:29:25.000
It's like, come on.

01:29:25.000 --> 01:29:26.000
It's not that biased.

01:29:26.000 --> 01:29:27.000
OK.

01:29:27.000 --> 01:29:33.000
But what's crazy is AI now at this point just has so much information and data like you don't even have to tell it that much and knows all about us.

01:29:33.000 --> 01:29:34.000
OK.

01:29:34.000 --> 01:29:37.000
And I just said, brutal, be brutal.

01:29:37.000 --> 01:29:39.000
So this is what AI's response was.

01:29:39.000 --> 01:29:46.000
Brutally speaking, in this Verity Baptist Manila funds mess, the bulk of the blame falls on the Sacramento Church's leadership over the years.

01:29:47.000 --> 01:29:52.000
With Pizarnsky inheriting a dumpster fire and then pouring gasoline on it.

01:29:52.000 --> 01:29:53.000
OK.

01:29:53.000 --> 01:29:58.000
I was just like, you know, maybe you should just read that and be like, hey, maybe that's real.

01:29:58.000 --> 01:30:08.000
Now, I asked to give me a percentage of blame and it just said primary blame is Roger Jimenez, who takes 70 to 80 percent of the blame in the situation.

01:30:09.000 --> 01:30:20.000
And it says that they collected designated missionary donations but were allegedly forwarding little to nothing for extended periods, then negotiated a 50-50 percentage split with over one hundred and fifteen thousand withheld.

01:30:20.000 --> 01:30:27.000
He said this is classic designated funds mishandling, ethically shady at best, potentially fraud at worst.

01:30:27.000 --> 01:30:31.000
I'm not going to read the whole thing, but it just it's pretty fair analysis.

01:30:31.000 --> 01:30:35.000
Then it said secondary, which is the most common one.

01:30:35.000 --> 01:30:36.000
Pretty fair analysis.

01:30:36.000 --> 01:30:41.000
Then it said, secondly, Pizarnsky share of the blame is 20 to 30 percent.

01:30:41.000 --> 01:30:50.000
So if you follow me on the numbers, if Pastor Mena is 70 to 80 and Pizarnsky is 20 to 30, that equals a hundred.

01:30:50.000 --> 01:30:52.000
OK.

01:30:55.000 --> 01:30:57.000
Now, this is what it says.

01:30:57.000 --> 01:31:01.000
Yes, Pizarnsky bears real fault here and it's not minor.

01:31:01.000 --> 01:31:06.000
Number one, it says changing and fixing the donation structure from his own public statements.

01:31:06.000 --> 01:31:12.000
He admits discovering the percentage arrangement and it was problematic.

01:31:12.000 --> 01:31:14.000
He says, quote, it's a problem.

01:31:14.000 --> 01:31:16.000
He says they're now, quote, fixing it.

01:31:16.000 --> 01:31:19.000
I like how AI even puts that in quotes.

01:31:19.000 --> 01:31:22.000
They fixed it.

01:31:22.000 --> 01:31:29.000
He said, but if the structure was broken for years under the prior pastor, why did it take a new guy stepping in to even acknowledge address it?

01:31:30.000 --> 01:31:33.000
I mean, that's a good question that it's asking.

01:31:33.000 --> 01:31:40.000
He says, sorry, Grock just says, instead of actually or says he inherited it.

01:31:40.000 --> 01:31:47.000
Sure. But transparency demands he should have dug in immediately upon taking over, especially since he was already connected very circles.

01:31:47.000 --> 01:31:51.000
Instead, it looks like business as usual until the exposure hit.

01:31:51.000 --> 01:31:58.000
It's basically just saying like, hey, he discovered this problem and even admits he discovered this problem, but didn't try to figure it out.

01:31:58.000 --> 01:32:01.000
Just simply just pretends like nothing's happened.

01:32:01.000 --> 01:32:03.000
You know, I tried to use this analogy.

01:32:03.000 --> 01:32:14.000
It's like if you bought a house or you took over someone's house, you take over this possession, this property, and there's there's like a dead body arm sticking out of the ground.

01:32:14.000 --> 01:32:22.000
And the land you go to the landscaper and you're like, all right, from now on, we're not going to bury any more bodies in the backyard.

01:32:22.000 --> 01:32:25.000
And then you just move on.

01:32:25.000 --> 01:32:30.000
And then later, the guy and then you fire him to say, hey, you're fired.

01:32:30.000 --> 01:32:33.000
From now on, we're just not going to bury more bodies in the backyard.

01:32:33.000 --> 01:32:38.000
Then the landscaper goes out and says, there's actually one hundred and fifteen bodies in the yard.

01:32:38.000 --> 01:32:41.000
And you're like, why wasn't I told about this?

01:32:41.000 --> 01:32:51.000
Bro, you saw the arm sticking out of the ground and you decided to not investigate and figure out, well, I wonder how many bodies are actually down there.

01:32:51.000 --> 01:33:00.000
And then you pretend like, oh, it's the landscaper's fault for not trying to tell me how many bodies are buried when you fired him and didn't even ask any questions anyways.

01:33:00.000 --> 01:33:04.000
OK, what we change we change from now on, no more bodies in the backyard.

01:33:04.000 --> 01:33:07.000
That doesn't that doesn't solve the problem.

01:33:08.000 --> 01:33:12.000
That's just ignoring the problem and trying to cover it up.

01:33:12.000 --> 01:33:15.000
It's like, OK, dig a little bit deeper, throw those arms down.

01:33:15.000 --> 01:33:17.000
No more bodies down there anymore.

01:33:17.000 --> 01:33:20.000
Right. Says this is Grock.

01:33:20.000 --> 01:33:22.000
Bottom line, no sugar coating.

01:33:22.000 --> 01:33:24.000
Stucky minimal blame.

01:33:24.000 --> 01:33:27.000
He was the victim of shortfall compromised out of necessity.

01:33:27.000 --> 01:33:30.000
Stayed quiet until fired.

01:33:30.000 --> 01:33:33.000
Yeah, clear.

01:33:33.000 --> 01:33:45.000
Zarnsky, yes, it fought for botching the transition, failing to investigate rectified properly before acting, firing hastily without creating a quote safe environment for facts or resolution and then playing defense.

01:33:45.000 --> 01:33:51.000
He didn't create the problem, but he escalated it badly and owns how exploded publicly.

01:33:51.000 --> 01:33:55.000
It also says he immediately firing Stucky without safe fact finding process.

01:33:55.000 --> 01:33:58.000
This is the brutal part where he looks worse.

01:33:58.000 --> 01:34:02.000
Says Stucky describes being fired abruptly right after Breszinski's first sermon.

01:34:02.000 --> 01:34:07.000
Excitedly saying he was quote so happy to work with Pastor Stucky again.

01:34:07.000 --> 01:34:08.000
I didn't tell this.

01:34:08.000 --> 01:34:12.000
This is just brought bringing all these wonderful quotes up.

01:34:12.000 --> 01:34:15.000
Then cutting them a week or so later.

01:34:15.000 --> 01:34:16.000
No apparent grace period.

01:34:16.000 --> 01:34:19.000
No joint audit investigation was Stucky to verify records.

01:34:19.000 --> 01:34:22.000
No mediated discussion resolve the short for transparency.

01:34:22.000 --> 01:34:26.000
It was payroll termination and quote you're off payroll.

01:34:26.000 --> 01:34:27.000
But don't worry.

01:34:27.000 --> 01:34:31.000
You're going to have so much free time.

01:34:31.000 --> 01:34:38.000
What says Puzarnsky side is pushed back by blaming Stucky for awareness, proposing options and claiming mutual knowledge.

01:34:38.000 --> 01:34:40.000
But the optics are terrible.

01:34:40.000 --> 01:34:46.000
New pastor inherit scandal shoots the messenger instead of handling it pastorally or transparently first.

01:34:46.000 --> 01:34:50.000
That rushed firing for Stucky's hand to go public with evidence.

01:34:50.000 --> 01:34:55.000
Even Grock is saying you forced him to do this to you.

01:34:55.000 --> 01:35:01.000
Puzarnsky at fault for botching the transition, failing to investigate says overall the system failed.

01:35:01.000 --> 01:35:05.000
Poor oversight on designated giving in these independent steps.

01:35:05.000 --> 01:35:12.000
Puzarnsky snap decisions turned into a fixable stewardship failure and to a credibility crisis for everyone involved.

01:35:12.000 --> 01:35:18.000
Says if we're being truly brutal, new pastors who inherit scandals need to lead with wisdom, not a quick trigger finger.

01:35:18.000 --> 01:35:22.000
Puzarnsky swung hard and missed the mark on pastoral care transparency here.

01:35:22.000 --> 01:35:25.000
The donors and Manila work suffered most.

01:35:25.000 --> 01:35:28.000
Again, all I did is just have like a really simple statement.

01:35:28.000 --> 01:35:30.000
I just said like, hey, Grock, just be brutally honest.

01:35:30.000 --> 01:35:33.000
Who's at fault in this Verity Manila fraud issue?

01:35:33.000 --> 01:35:35.000
It's like all I said and it just gave me all the stuff.

01:35:35.000 --> 01:35:38.000
Again, I think that AI a lot of times get things wrong.

01:35:38.000 --> 01:35:40.000
They get some facts off.

01:35:40.000 --> 01:35:42.000
There can be a little bit disjointed.

01:35:42.000 --> 01:35:45.000
But in general, it's a pretty unbiased opinion.

01:35:45.000 --> 01:35:51.000
And look, if everybody's calling you out and you have to delete you have to delete every comment and hide all the comments.

01:35:51.000 --> 01:36:00.000
If everybody has the same opinion, if your own church members are frustrated with you, if Grock is calling you out, you need to just take some ownership.

01:36:00.000 --> 01:36:09.000
But instead, he makes public statements just blaming Stuckey and then just saying brazenly, I do not apologize.

01:36:09.000 --> 01:36:13.000
He's like, when it comes to firing Stuckey, I do not apologize.

01:36:13.000 --> 01:36:20.000
But that is the opposite of taking any kind of ownership is getting up and just and look, I just see this attitude and just it just makes me crazy.

01:36:20.000 --> 01:36:22.000
It just makes me cringe so hard for people.

01:36:22.000 --> 01:36:24.000
And I'm like, look, this is a bad example.

01:36:24.000 --> 01:36:33.000
Do not learn from this example and think that if you screw up, you should not publicly admit your fault and take ownership.

01:36:33.000 --> 01:36:35.000
The guy hasn't taken ownership for anything.

01:36:35.000 --> 01:36:37.000
He hasn't apologized for anything.

01:36:37.000 --> 01:36:39.000
Everything he's done is right.

01:36:39.000 --> 01:36:43.000
I know a verse, the way of a fool.

01:36:43.000 --> 01:36:47.000
Everything is right in his own eyes.

01:36:47.000 --> 01:36:52.000
Like only a fool would think that everything they've done over there is right.

01:36:52.000 --> 01:36:53.000
You know what they should do?

01:36:53.000 --> 01:36:57.000
They should take ownership, provide transparency.

01:36:57.000 --> 01:37:00.000
They should harken to multiple counselors.

01:37:00.000 --> 01:37:01.000
They should seek mercy.

01:37:01.000 --> 01:37:02.000
And you know what?

01:37:02.000 --> 01:37:05.000
Many times people get it and people get mad at being called out.

01:37:05.000 --> 01:37:07.000
Oh, how dare you call these people out and do these kind of things.

01:37:07.000 --> 01:37:10.000
But at the end of the day, you know, you're trying to love them by calling them out in a sense.

01:37:10.000 --> 01:37:12.000
You're trying to help them get right with God.

01:37:12.000 --> 01:37:14.000
Don't you fear God?

01:37:14.000 --> 01:37:16.000
I mean, oh, Nathan, the prophet said to David, thou art the man.

01:37:16.000 --> 01:37:19.000
No one's allowed to ever correct a pastor again.

01:37:19.000 --> 01:37:28.000
No one's ever allowed to call out a pastor again when they're trying to cover up things and make things shady and make the new IFB or IFB churches look bad.

01:37:28.000 --> 01:37:35.000
Because let me tell you something, Verity made a bunch of churches look bad by how they handled the situation worse than they should have.

01:37:35.000 --> 01:37:36.000
Look, is it going to be bad?

01:37:36.000 --> 01:37:37.000
Yes.

01:37:37.000 --> 01:37:43.000
But we might as well just confess it and get it open and just deal with it instead of just trying to cover it up more and pretend like something didn't happen.

01:37:43.000 --> 01:37:49.000
And just hiding stuff and being shady and being weird and just it's embarrassing.

01:37:49.000 --> 01:37:52.000
It's more embarrassing than just dealing with the issue.

01:37:52.000 --> 01:37:59.000
You know, when I think about the ex-new IFB, just people that used to be our friends or like our doctrines or movements and stuff,

01:37:59.000 --> 01:38:04.000
and they've separated and pastors that have made all these public statements separating and going against us and whatever,

01:38:04.000 --> 01:38:10.000
going against friends of ours and doing things like that, you know, why can't they just take some ownership?

01:38:11.000 --> 01:38:17.000
Just why don't they just realize, you know what, maybe I said some things, maybe I did some things that were wrong.

01:38:17.000 --> 01:38:25.000
Because I guarantee any of those guys, anybody that's a good guy that just took ownership and said, you know what, I did sin here.

01:38:25.000 --> 01:38:27.000
I did have some problems.

01:38:27.000 --> 01:38:31.000
I did make some mistakes and apologize and sought mercy.

01:38:31.000 --> 01:38:34.000
They'd probably find it, but they just keep digging in.

01:38:35.000 --> 01:38:41.000
And you know, I don't, if I actually hated these people, I would just be like, keep digging in.

01:38:41.000 --> 01:38:45.000
Because you know what, God's going to punish them severely.

01:38:45.000 --> 01:38:51.000
You're trying to help people say, take ownership, fix your issue, don't slander.

01:38:51.000 --> 01:38:56.000
You can't just call people monstrous child abusing lunatics with no recourse.

01:38:56.000 --> 01:39:00.000
You can't just say whatever you want and think you're going to go away with it.

01:39:00.000 --> 01:39:02.000
You can't just be slandering and lying.

01:39:02.000 --> 01:39:08.000
You can't just let all the women of your church go and just run their mouths online all day long and think there's going to be no consequences.

01:39:08.000 --> 01:39:12.000
You know, sometimes people need to be called out, called on the carpet.

01:39:12.000 --> 01:39:14.000
And you know what, that's not trying to destroy them.

01:39:14.000 --> 01:39:16.000
That's trying to help them.

01:39:16.000 --> 01:39:18.000
Nathan the prophet did not destroy David.

01:39:18.000 --> 01:39:20.000
He was trying to help David.

01:39:20.000 --> 01:39:22.000
Thou art the man.

01:39:22.000 --> 01:39:23.000
Apologize.

01:39:23.000 --> 01:39:24.000
Take ownership.

01:39:24.000 --> 01:39:30.000
And you know what I've noticed, and this is what I hear from so many people and it just makes me mad, is to say, oh, you know what?

01:39:30.000 --> 01:39:33.000
All apologize when they apologize first.

01:39:33.000 --> 01:39:36.000
I'm just like, this is stupid.

01:39:36.000 --> 01:39:42.000
Like you're just showing to me that you're not actually repentant in any ways because it's a pride thing.

01:39:42.000 --> 01:39:45.000
Yeah, I'll get right when you get right.

01:39:45.000 --> 01:39:46.000
No, no, no.

01:39:46.000 --> 01:39:48.000
The right thing to do is just confess or send period.

01:39:48.000 --> 01:39:52.000
It doesn't matter who's first or second or third or whatever.

01:39:52.000 --> 01:39:56.000
You know, we should all just be willing to just take ownership and confess or send when we're wrong.

01:39:56.000 --> 01:40:00.000
Even if you're in the right, do you just take ownership for whatever you did that was wrong?

01:40:00.000 --> 01:40:03.000
I, you know, I'll give it.

01:40:03.000 --> 01:40:04.000
I'll give an example.

01:40:04.000 --> 01:40:08.000
When I was at Faith Forward Baptist Church, I got an opportunity to preach.

01:40:08.000 --> 01:40:12.000
I preached a sermon called the seven sins of social media.

01:40:12.000 --> 01:40:17.000
Upon after preaching the sermon, it was nuked immediately from YouTube.

01:40:17.000 --> 01:40:24.000
OK, and look, just to give you some context, at this time when I was at Faith Forward Baptist Church, I mean, there was probably about 350 people on the

01:40:25.000 --> 01:40:29.000
Sunday morning, maybe somewhere between 300, 350 people on an average Sunday morning.

01:40:29.000 --> 01:40:31.000
It's a huge crowd.

01:40:31.000 --> 01:40:36.000
I had never even seen pastors and nuke a sermon right after it was preached.

01:40:36.000 --> 01:40:44.000
And at that time, he had such a big following online that when you would put a sermon out there, you would get five, ten thousand views in the first 24 hours.

01:40:44.000 --> 01:40:48.000
Let alone what I mean, it would just be thousands and thousands of you.

01:40:48.000 --> 01:40:50.000
It's kind of embarrassing.

01:40:50.000 --> 01:40:55.000
It's kind of embarrassing to preach a sermon and then, you know, having all I had all these people like text me.

01:40:55.000 --> 01:40:56.000
Hey, where's your sermon?

01:40:56.000 --> 01:40:58.000
Hey, what happened to your sermon, bro?

01:40:58.000 --> 01:41:00.000
Hey, what's going on with your sermon?

01:41:00.000 --> 01:41:03.000
Let alone just some of the other blowback that was happening.

01:41:03.000 --> 01:41:04.000
Look, it was embarrassing.

01:41:04.000 --> 01:41:06.000
I was really embarrassed.

01:41:06.000 --> 01:41:13.000
And I had people telling me all kinds of crazy, wild things like I'm going to be thrown out of church and I'm going to be like publicly screamed out from the pulpit and all this.

01:41:13.000 --> 01:41:17.000
And I was just like, dang, this is rough.

01:41:17.000 --> 01:41:23.000
But, you know, I could have just sat there and said, well, you know, I think everything I said in that sermon was right.

01:41:23.000 --> 01:41:25.000
I think everything I did was right.

01:41:25.000 --> 01:41:30.000
You know, instead, what I did is I went to my pastor and I said, hey, I'm sorry.

01:41:30.000 --> 01:41:34.000
You know, please help me understand what I even did wrong.

01:41:34.000 --> 01:41:38.000
Just just just like, hey, I just want to know, like, I want to understand.

01:41:38.000 --> 01:41:42.000
And yeah, he took me in his office and he rebuted me and it was rough.

01:41:42.000 --> 01:41:46.000
And I'm not even going to say like, honestly, when it came to the sermon is a lot of content.

01:41:46.000 --> 01:41:49.000
It wasn't even necessarily that like I was saying things that are wrong.

01:41:49.000 --> 01:41:52.000
It was just kind of like it wasn't my place.

01:41:52.000 --> 01:41:53.000
It was out of line.

01:41:53.000 --> 01:41:56.000
It was crossing some boundaries that probably I shouldn't have done.

01:41:56.000 --> 01:41:59.000
But I could have sat there and been like, yeah, but did I lie?

01:41:59.000 --> 01:42:00.000
Yeah, but I say anything wrong.

01:42:00.000 --> 01:42:02.000
But instead, I'm just like, yes, you're right.

01:42:02.000 --> 01:42:03.000
I'm sorry.

01:42:03.000 --> 01:42:04.000
Should have done that.

01:42:04.000 --> 01:42:05.000
Shouldn't have said that.

01:42:05.000 --> 01:42:06.000
I totally I apologize.

01:42:06.000 --> 01:42:07.000
Whatever.

01:42:07.000 --> 01:42:12.000
And because I was just very taking ownership, you know, I wasn't like, well, I'm sorry.

01:42:12.000 --> 01:42:14.000
You're offended by what I said.

01:42:14.000 --> 01:42:17.000
I'm sorry that you don't like the truth as much as I like it.

01:42:17.000 --> 01:42:19.000
You know, this is not a real apology.

01:42:19.000 --> 01:42:24.000
I just took ownership, took my Lickens, took my whatever.

01:42:24.000 --> 01:42:26.000
There was no power cords involved.

01:42:30.000 --> 01:42:34.000
OK, I just took it on the chin, took the correction and moved on.

01:42:34.000 --> 01:42:36.000
And look, has that really harmed me?

01:42:36.000 --> 01:42:37.000
No.

01:42:37.000 --> 01:42:39.000
Did that really set me back?

01:42:39.000 --> 01:42:41.000
Did that stop me from accomplishing great works for God?

01:42:41.000 --> 01:42:43.000
Did that stop me from accomplishing great works for God?

01:42:43.000 --> 01:42:45.000
Did that stop me from doing good things for the Lord?

01:42:45.000 --> 01:42:46.000
No, it's fine.

01:42:46.000 --> 01:42:48.000
But, you know, I see people, they preach stupid things.

01:42:48.000 --> 01:42:50.000
They say stupid things in their sermons.

01:42:50.000 --> 01:42:51.000
And you know what?

01:42:51.000 --> 01:42:55.000
They were unwilling to take ownership and say, you know, I taught something stupid.

01:42:55.000 --> 01:43:00.000
Or I preach this thing or I attack this person or I did whatever and they can't take ownership.

01:43:00.000 --> 01:43:01.000
They can't say sorry.

01:43:01.000 --> 01:43:03.000
They can't remove their sermon if necessary.

01:43:03.000 --> 01:43:04.000
And you know what?

01:43:04.000 --> 01:43:06.000
It's a prideful, jerky attitude.

01:43:06.000 --> 01:43:10.000
You know, why can't you just take some ownership, apologize, get things right?

01:43:10.000 --> 01:43:12.000
No one preaches everything right all the time.

01:43:12.000 --> 01:43:17.000
There's been sermons after being a pastor that I had to recognize and realize, hey, you know what?

01:43:17.000 --> 01:43:19.000
I don't agree with the sermon anymore or I made a mistake here.

01:43:19.000 --> 01:43:21.000
I said this wrong and I've had to self-censor even.

01:43:21.000 --> 01:43:27.000
I've had things that I've said that I don't necessarily agree with or gone over the board.

01:43:27.000 --> 01:43:30.000
I've had members come up to me and say, hey, I don't like what you said in the sermon.

01:43:30.000 --> 01:43:32.000
And I was like, hey, you know, you're right.

01:43:32.000 --> 01:43:33.000
I'm sorry.

01:43:33.000 --> 01:43:34.000
I shouldn't have said that.

01:43:34.000 --> 01:43:38.000
Many times where I'm listening to my sermon, I'm like, well, that was dumb or that was weird or whatever.

01:43:39.000 --> 01:43:42.000
You know, nobody gets it right all the time.

01:43:42.000 --> 01:43:44.000
But you know what makes me really mad?

01:43:44.000 --> 01:43:47.000
It's not people that screw up because that's everyone.

01:43:47.000 --> 01:43:49.000
You know what makes me really mad?

01:43:49.000 --> 01:43:52.000
People that just won't take ownership when they screw up.

01:43:52.000 --> 01:43:54.000
It makes God really mad.

01:43:54.000 --> 01:43:56.000
We need to be people that take ownership.

01:43:56.000 --> 01:43:59.000
Hey, in your marriage, you need to take ownership.

01:43:59.000 --> 01:44:07.000
And look, the next time you're in a fight with your wife or with your husband, let's even say, hey,

01:44:07.000 --> 01:44:13.000
let's even say you're mostly in the right, but you did something wrong.

01:44:13.000 --> 01:44:16.000
Just go ahead and take ownership for it and just confess it.

01:44:16.000 --> 01:44:20.000
Well, I'll do that as soon as they do it first because I was most right.

01:44:20.000 --> 01:44:21.000
Pride.

01:44:21.000 --> 01:44:23.000
No, no, no, no.

01:44:23.000 --> 01:44:25.000
Just take the ownership.

01:44:25.000 --> 01:44:26.000
Just say, you know what?

01:44:26.000 --> 01:44:27.000
You're right.

01:44:27.000 --> 01:44:28.000
I shouldn't have yelled at you.

01:44:28.000 --> 01:44:29.000
Or you know what?

01:44:29.000 --> 01:44:31.000
I shouldn't have thrown something or whatever.

01:44:31.000 --> 01:44:33.000
You know?

01:44:33.000 --> 01:44:34.000
OK.

01:44:34.000 --> 01:44:37.000
Whatever the issue is, just just take the ownership.

01:44:37.000 --> 01:44:39.000
Just say, hey, I shouldn't have said this.

01:44:39.000 --> 01:44:40.000
I shouldn't have done this.

01:44:40.000 --> 01:44:41.000
Hey, you're right.

01:44:41.000 --> 01:44:42.000
I should have come home on time.

01:44:42.000 --> 01:44:43.000
Hey, you're right.

01:44:43.000 --> 01:44:44.000
I should have called you.

01:44:44.000 --> 01:44:46.000
Hey, yeah, I did burn the biscuits.

01:44:46.000 --> 01:44:47.000
You know, whatever.

01:44:47.000 --> 01:44:50.000
Whatever it is, just take the ownership.

01:44:50.000 --> 01:44:52.000
Confess your sin.

01:44:52.000 --> 01:44:54.000
And sometimes you need to hark at God.

01:44:54.000 --> 01:44:59.000
Sometimes you need to listen to what your spouse is actually saying because sometimes you're wrong.

01:44:59.000 --> 01:45:02.000
Instead of just sitting there thinking like, I'm right.

01:45:02.000 --> 01:45:03.000
I'm right.

01:45:03.000 --> 01:45:07.000
It's like, no, just listen to what they're actually saying and think about it and be like, you know what?

01:45:07.000 --> 01:45:09.000
They made a good point here.

01:45:09.000 --> 01:45:15.000
How many people hear their spouse make a good point and instead of admitting it, they just double down?

01:45:15.000 --> 01:45:17.000
They just keep digging in.

01:45:17.000 --> 01:45:18.000
They just keep fighting.

01:45:18.000 --> 01:45:20.000
They just they just feel wrong.

01:45:20.000 --> 01:45:22.000
We don't not every emotion is right.

01:45:22.000 --> 01:45:23.000
Sorry.

01:45:23.000 --> 01:45:25.000
Not all of your feelings are valid.

01:45:25.000 --> 01:45:27.000
Sometimes you have wrong feelings.

01:45:27.000 --> 01:45:29.000
Sometimes you have to be challenged.

01:45:29.000 --> 01:45:30.000
Sometimes you have to harken to counsel.

01:45:30.000 --> 01:45:31.000
Sometimes they have to look things up.

01:45:31.000 --> 01:45:37.000
I mean, would God what if you actually took your your fight or conflict and you put it in Grok and asked how you did?

01:45:37.000 --> 01:45:44.000
I mean, would God people would actually seek some more counsel in this world today?

01:45:44.000 --> 01:45:48.000
You know, and look, why don't you just be the first person to apologize anyways?

01:45:48.000 --> 01:45:50.000
Isn't that the right thing to do?

01:45:50.000 --> 01:45:52.000
I'll apologize.

01:45:52.000 --> 01:45:53.000
They apologize.

01:45:53.000 --> 01:45:54.000
Show me that in the Bible.

01:45:54.000 --> 01:45:56.000
Show me that verse.

01:45:56.000 --> 01:45:58.000
You know, just take ownership.

01:45:58.000 --> 01:45:59.000
Take your confession to them.

01:45:59.000 --> 01:46:02.000
And look, if they don't apologize, that's their problem.

01:46:02.000 --> 01:46:04.000
You take ownership for what you did wrong.

01:46:04.000 --> 01:46:10.000
And we need pastors and we need leaders and we need preachers that are willing to take ownership to confess their sins, even if they're mostly right.

01:46:10.000 --> 01:46:13.000
You know, it just it just really, really, really frustrates me.

01:46:13.000 --> 01:46:15.000
Hey, you're in a conflict with someone at work.

01:46:15.000 --> 01:46:17.000
You do something at work.

01:46:17.000 --> 01:46:24.000
You know, there's been times where I had to take ownership for things that work that I'm sitting here thinking like, oh, I'm going to take ownership for things that work.

01:46:24.000 --> 01:46:32.000
There's been times where I had to take ownership for things that work that I'm sitting here thinking like it's like point zero zero one percent my fault.

01:46:32.000 --> 01:46:33.000
But I just take ownership.

01:46:33.000 --> 01:46:40.000
I remember my boss one time wanted me to do some assignment and I took it home and I did it and it was working and it was really good.

01:46:40.000 --> 01:46:44.000
But there was like this one tiny little thing that I didn't do that he wanted.

01:46:44.000 --> 01:46:50.000
And when I showed up, he literally trashed all of my work and publicly trashed me in front of the entire team.

01:46:51.000 --> 01:46:57.000
And I mean, that was a tough moment for me because I'm sitting here thinking like, wow, you know, you get it.

01:46:57.000 --> 01:47:03.000
Ninety nine percent dialed in and you said this one little thing that I can totally fix and you just trashed it.

01:47:03.000 --> 01:47:07.000
I mean, imagine it's just like, you know, you asked your wife to put a little bit of salt on the meal.

01:47:07.000 --> 01:47:13.000
She doesn't. She hands you the plate of food and you just throw it in the trash.

01:47:13.000 --> 01:47:16.000
How do you think the wife would respond?

01:47:16.000 --> 01:47:20.000
And sometimes women, they just they think like I'm so submit to my husband.

01:47:20.000 --> 01:47:24.000
Look at work. We're supposed to submit to our bosses even when they're a complete jerk.

01:47:24.000 --> 01:47:26.000
I mean, the guy's a Mormon atheist.

01:47:26.000 --> 01:47:29.000
That's a freak and a weirdo.

01:47:29.000 --> 01:47:31.000
And he just trashes my work for no reason.

01:47:31.000 --> 01:47:32.000
It was totally over the top.

01:47:32.000 --> 01:47:36.000
But I did do something wrong.

01:47:36.000 --> 01:47:37.000
You know, I decided to do.

01:47:37.000 --> 01:47:38.000
I said, you're right.

01:47:38.000 --> 01:47:39.000
I'm sorry.

01:47:39.000 --> 01:47:41.000
Let me redo it.

01:47:41.000 --> 01:47:44.000
And I had to do all from scratch.

01:47:44.000 --> 01:47:45.000
But you know what?

01:47:45.000 --> 01:47:50.000
Sometimes you just need those lessons in life to just accept the ownership and just say you're right.

01:47:50.000 --> 01:47:53.000
You know, at the end of the day, he kept firing people and dropping them like a bad habit.

01:47:53.000 --> 01:47:55.000
And he never fired me and only want to promote me.

01:47:55.000 --> 01:47:56.000
And I completely succeeded.

01:47:56.000 --> 01:47:58.000
And I got even better jobs in the future.

01:47:58.000 --> 01:47:59.000
You know why?

01:47:59.000 --> 01:48:03.000
Because when you just take ownership, you're just gonna be a better person.

01:48:03.000 --> 01:48:10.000
People that will not take ownership and always blame shifting and just won't hark another council are going to destroy themselves.

01:48:10.000 --> 01:48:13.000
And you're going to look like a fool.

01:48:13.000 --> 01:48:16.000
Don't be this kind of person that can't admit you're wrong.

01:48:16.000 --> 01:48:18.000
Realize you're going to be wrong sometimes.

01:48:18.000 --> 01:48:21.000
But let me tell you, your carnal nature will not agree with you.

01:48:21.000 --> 01:48:22.000
You will always think you're right.

01:48:22.000 --> 01:48:25.000
Every way of man is right in his own eyes.

01:48:25.000 --> 01:48:27.000
But we need to make sure we're trusting the Lord.

01:48:27.000 --> 01:48:29.000
We're trusting our friends, our counselors, our pastors.

01:48:29.000 --> 01:48:34.000
Hey, sometimes the pastor's right and you're wrong.

01:48:34.000 --> 01:48:36.000
Sometimes y'all are wrong.

01:48:36.000 --> 01:48:39.000
OK, sometimes I'm wrong.

01:48:39.000 --> 01:48:42.000
But let us be willing to harken the council.

01:48:42.000 --> 01:48:48.000
Let us be willing to harken to the Bible and think about things and let us be willing to confess our sins and then seek mercy.

01:48:48.000 --> 01:48:52.000
All right. Let's go in prayer. Thank you, Heavenly Father, so much for your word.

01:48:52.000 --> 01:48:55.000
Thank you for giving us such a great pattern in the Bible of people taking ownership.

01:48:55.000 --> 01:49:11.000
I pray that we would have the humility that when we're wrong to be able to confess our sin, that we not only be able to confess our sin, but that we'd be willing to harken different viewpoints, different sounding boards, different counselors, that we'd use the tools around us, that we'd be willing to use the people around us.

01:49:11.000 --> 01:49:15.000
That we'd use our pastor and our churches and we'd use our friends.

01:49:15.000 --> 01:49:19.000
That no one would get so puffed up to think that they can't be corrected.

01:49:19.000 --> 01:49:28.000
I pray that you would help marriages, that you would help friendships and different people, that they would be willing to take ownership when they do something wrong, when they make a mistake.

01:49:28.000 --> 01:49:39.000
I pray that you would help us to have a humble attitude and not fight and cause more strife and contention, but just be willing to take ownership immediately.

01:49:39.000 --> 01:49:48.000
Not be petty. And I pray that you would just help us to resolve conflicts and issues and be a good example of people that are willing to take ownership when we have to. In Jesus' name we pray, Amen.

01:49:48.000 --> 01:49:52.000
Amen.

01:49:52.000 --> 01:49:58.000
All right, for our last song, let's go to song number 52.

01:49:58.000 --> 01:50:04.000
Song number 52.

01:50:05.000 --> 01:50:14.000
Zion's Hill, song number 52.

01:50:14.000 --> 01:50:18.000
Let's all sing that out real loud together.

01:50:18.000 --> 01:50:24.000
There waits for me a glad tomorrow

01:50:24.000 --> 01:50:29.000
Where gates of pearls ring open wide

01:50:29.000 --> 01:50:34.000
And when I pass this veil of sorrow

01:50:34.000 --> 01:50:39.000
I'll dwell upon the other side

01:50:39.000 --> 01:50:45.000
Someday beyond the reach of mortal men

01:50:45.000 --> 01:50:50.000
Someday God only knows just where and when

01:50:50.000 --> 01:50:56.000
From the wheels of mortal life shall all stand still

01:50:56.000 --> 01:51:02.000
And I shall learn to bow once I until

01:51:02.000 --> 01:51:08.000
Someday I'll hear the angels singing

01:51:08.000 --> 01:51:13.000
Beyond the shadows of the tomb

01:51:13.000 --> 01:51:18.000
And all the bells of heaven ringing

01:51:18.000 --> 01:51:23.000
While saints are singing, oh, sweet home

01:51:23.000 --> 01:51:28.000
Someday beyond the reach of mortal men

01:51:28.000 --> 01:51:34.000
Someday God only knows just where and when

01:51:34.000 --> 01:51:40.000
From the wheels of mortal life shall all stand still

01:51:40.000 --> 01:51:46.000
And I shall go to dwell on Zion's hill

01:51:46.000 --> 01:51:51.000
Someday my labors will be ended

01:51:51.000 --> 01:51:56.000
And all my wanderings will be o'er

01:51:56.000 --> 01:52:01.000
And all earth's broken ties be mended

01:52:01.000 --> 01:52:07.000
And I shall side with no more

01:52:07.000 --> 01:52:12.000
Someday beyond the reach of mortal men

01:52:12.000 --> 01:52:18.000
Someday God only knows just where and when

01:52:18.000 --> 01:52:24.000
From the wheels of mortal life shall all stand still

01:52:24.000 --> 01:52:30.000
And I shall go to dwell on Zion's hill

01:52:30.000 --> 01:52:36.000
Someday the dark clouds will be ripped in

01:52:36.000 --> 01:52:41.000
And all the night of gloomy past

01:52:41.000 --> 01:52:46.000
And all life's burdens will be lifted

01:52:47.000 --> 01:52:52.000
A day of rest shall dawn at last

01:52:52.000 --> 01:52:57.000
Someday beyond the reach of mortal men

01:52:57.000 --> 01:53:03.000
Someday God only knows just where and when

01:53:03.000 --> 01:53:09.000
From the wheels of mortal life shall all stand still

01:53:09.000 --> 01:53:15.000
And I shall go to dwell on Zion's hill

01:53:15.000 --> 01:53:18.000
Great singing, everybody. We're all dismissed.

01:53:45.000 --> 01:53:50.000
Thank you for watching!

01:54:15.000 --> 01:54:17.000
Thank you for watching!

01:54:45.000 --> 01:54:47.000
Thank you for watching!