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We've all been hurt.

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We all carry scars.

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We can all overcome these things and be healed through a relationship with Jesus Christ.

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Let's build that relationship together right here.

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Welcome to Healing Scars with Pastor Burton.

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Hey everybody, welcome back to The Sanctuary.

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It is so good to have you with us as always.

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And for those of you who are joining us for the first time, let me say welcome.

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Now we're going to start taking a look at the life application of Paul's writing as

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we dive into Ephesians 4.

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Now we'll see how we're doing for time as we go through this.

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We're most likely going to end up breaking this into two parts though as we go through

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just for time's sake.

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Because there really is just so much that we need to unravel and go through here.

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Now to remind you, Ephesians, this is considered one of the most upbeat books, if not the most

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upbeat in the Bible.

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And it's because it's not looking to bash anyone over the head.

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It's not looking to take corrective action.

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It's not calling anybody out or calling anyone to action or anything.

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Instead, it's been written to lift up and empower the church by explaining what the

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church is supposed to be.

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Now those are big words, right?

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So far, we've been reminded of the changes we see as Christians that come from the grace

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of God.

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We were dead in our sins, but now we are alive in Christ.

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We were and we are deserving of God's wrath, yet He has shown us mercy and given us the

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gift of salvation.

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We were followers of the world, the world that the devil is the prince of.

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And now we follow Christ and we follow the truth, which is Him.

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We've been allowed to switch sides, basically.

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We've gone from being the enemy of God, having turned our back on and walked away from Him

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to being adopted as His children.

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We went from team anti-God to team God, right?

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And in addition to that, we've been freed from slavery.

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Free to sin, slavery to the devil, and made free in Christ to love, serve others, and

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to live with Him in heaven.

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And as Billy Mays would have said, but wait, there's more.

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And you know what?

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There truly is.

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So let's get to our reading.

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Ephesians chapter four, we're going to start here with the first couple of verses.

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The Bible says, as a prisoner for the Lord then, I urge you to live a life worthy of

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the calling you have received, but completely humble and gentle.

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Be patient, bearing with one another in love.

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First off, as Christians, we are God's ambassadors.

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You know, we're all that many people are ever going to see of Him.

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You're all that many people are ever going to see of Him.

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And people are already watching you.

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Once they know you're a Christian, they're watching even more intently to see how you

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live, to see how you respond to things, and to see how you treat others.

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They're looking for you to take a misstep.

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And this is where we all need to stop daily and ask ourselves the simple question.

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If you were arrested and tried for being Christian, would there be enough evidence to convict you?

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And that should be enough to tell you all that you need to work on.

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Now, this isn't asking if you're perfect.

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You're not.

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I'm not.

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None of us are.

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The only person who ever lived a perfect life on this earth is Jesus.

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And none of us are Him.

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Yet it's how we accept and treat others that speak for who we are and who He is.

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You know, many of us as veterans have been asked, how can I thank you?

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How can I thank a vet without them taking offense?

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Right?

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Well, it's actually quite simple because the answer to that is the same as the question

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of how should we live for Christ?

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And the answer is to live a life worth the sacrifice that has been made for you.

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Let me say that again.

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The answer is to live a life worth the sacrifice that has been made for you.

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So picking back up Ephesians 4 verse 3, the Bible says, make every effort to keep the

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unity of the spirit through the bond of peace, unity and peace.

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This is one of the Holy Spirit's biggest missions.

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And let there be no doubt about it.

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He is ready and willing to lead us in how we accomplish this.

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The problem is the vast majority of the time is that we don't want to follow Him.

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You know, we've seen time and time again that part of the human condition is that we're

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selfish.

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We're more concerned about vengeance and looking good to others, you know, being in that limelight

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than we are about peace.

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Sure, we'll offer a little chunk of peace, you know, a piece of a knuckle sandwich, maybe

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a piece of a hand upside the old forward assist, you know, a piece of boot in someone's backside,

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you know, maybe even that piece you have tucked in your belt.

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But peace is what we really should be looking for.

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Matthew chapter 5 verse 9, the Bible says, blessed are the peacemakers because they will

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be called sons of God.

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When you truly and fully give yourself over to the Holy Spirit, you'll find that not only

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are you willing to follow His lead, but you're more than happy to pull your weight to get

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the mission done.

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Not only that, you're more than willing to pull whatever weight needs to be pulled in

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order to get the mission done because your focus is on God at that point, not yourself.

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You know, as another pastor and good friend put it, you'll find your joy.

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J-O-Y, joy.

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J, Jesus, O, others, Y, yourself.

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That's basically saying Jesus first, others next, yourself last.

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You'll find Jesus, you serve others, and then you deal with yourself.

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In military leadership, we see this same principle because in the military, leadership over others

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always eats last.

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Your leaders always eat last.

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We tend to think, oh, they have rank or whatever.

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They pull their weight, kind of like in the civilian role, like, oh, look at them.

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They're a fancy CEO or whatever.

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They get that precedence.

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They're pushed to the front of the line.

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They get that VIP experience where they're treated like royalty.

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However, in the military, it's quite the opposite.

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The lower your rank, the faster you get pushed up to the front of that line because real

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leaders want to take care of their people, just as God wants to take care of us.

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Jesus wants us to be taken care of.

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That's why we come first.

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Funny when you think of it that way, isn't it?

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Jesus first in your life, serving others, and then serving yourself.

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We come to Jesus, we put others first, we see ourselves, and it's very much the opposite

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of the world we live in, isn't it?

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It truly is.

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The world emphasizes taking care of yourself first and then others if you have time.

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It's no wonder the world is so selfish, isn't it?

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You're no longer part of the world.

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You're a new creature in Christ.

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Walk that path instead.

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Picking back up in Ephesians 4, verses 4 through 6, I should say, the Bible says, there is

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one body and one spirit, just as you were called to one hope when you were called, one

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word, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is over all and through

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all and in all.

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Simply put, all Christians belong to the one Body of Christ, with Christ at the head.

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And each of us has been given different abilities from God that strengthen the body when used

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to serve it.

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Now, this isn't a selfish act, and we shouldn't be using these gifts just for ourselves.

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That's what makes it selfish.

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Instead, we should be taking those gifts and using them to serve others.

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That's where you find your joy.

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This is the essence of it's better to give than to receive, right?

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Now in these six verses that we read so far, the Bible makes it clear that we as believers

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are of one body.

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We are all different.

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We're all serving different purposes, just like the organs in the various parts of our

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physical bodies.

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And just like our physical bodies, it's not something that we should focus on.

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After all, we don't go around thinking to ourselves, gee, it sure would be nice if I

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could play the piano with my feet.

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Or it sure would be cool if I could breathe through my armpits.

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No, it's silly.

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We know that's silly.

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We don't think about things like that.

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We just go and we expect our hands to work as hands, our feet to work as feet, our backs

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to work as backs, and so on.

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Yet the differences are the same things that we get hung up on when we come together as

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a church.

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Instead, what we should be focused on is how we're united and get to know one another.

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You see, that's how we learn what part of the body does what and how we can best come

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together to accomplish the work God's given to all of us.

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Now looking at verses seven and eight, the Bible says, but to each one of us grace has

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been given as Christ apportioned it.

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That is why it, or God, says, when he ascended on high, he took many captives and gave great

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gifts to his people.

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Notice Paul's quoting Psalm 68 verse 18 here, which describes God as a conqueror marching

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and taking tribute.

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He's dispersing that tribute to his people.

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After all, why wouldn't he?

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The victory's already been won.

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The victory over Satan and his army, it's already done.

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It's won.

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We're just waiting for the time to see it.

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In Ephesians four verses nine through 10, the Bible says, what does he ascended mean

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except that he also descended to the lower earthly regions or the depths of the earth?

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He who descended is the very one who ascended higher than all the heavens in order to fill

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the whole universe.

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The lower regions can be referring to a few things here.

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Scholars like to debate it.

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No one agrees on it.

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This could be the earth itself, which is definitely lowly when compared to heaven.

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It could be the grave, or it could be Hades or hell itself.

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The point of the passage, however, is of more importance.

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What's being said is that Jesus transcends all of it.

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He beat death.

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He conquered it and was resurrected so that all could come to know him and be rescued.

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Amen?

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Moving along back into Ephesians four verses 11 through 13 here, the Bible says, Christ

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himself gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the pastors and teachers to equip

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his people for works of service so that the body of Christ may be built up until we all

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reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the son of God and become mature.

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Meaning to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ.

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Remember, God doesn't call the equipped.

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He equips the called.

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When we became followers of Christ, we were born a new creature.

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I said this earlier.

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This doesn't mean that our individuality was erased.

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We're the opposite.

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God doesn't want machines.

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Our individuality is still very much there.

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Remember what I said earlier about we all have a different role to play as the body

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of Christ?

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We all have differences because we're meant to do different things.

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We can't do that if we're all alike.

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We can't do that if we all come from the exact same mold.

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I said we all have different God given abilities.

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We saw it right here.

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Again, it is part of that individuality.

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We must harness those gifts to better serve Christ, to better serve the kingdom.

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We all have them.

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The problem is using them.

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A lot of people, they have gifts.

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They know they have gifts, but they don't want to use them for a myriad of reasons.

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Maybe you're shy.

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Maybe you don't know how to use your gifts to serve.

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Okay, that's fine.

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Maybe you don't see how your gift would benefit the church.

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Okay, cool.

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What you need to do is pray, have that conversation with God, and ask that he teaches you how

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to apply your gifts to serve others.

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Now, I know I'm not the first to say this.

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Preachers have said the same thing for decades.

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So why is it so important?

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Because it is important.

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It wouldn't have been repeated so many times if it wasn't.

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Well, the answer to find that, all we need to do is look to Matthew 28 verses 16 through

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20, when Jesus gave us a tremendous mission in the Great Commission.

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The Bible says, then the eleven disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain where Jesus

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had told them to go.

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When they saw him, they worshiped him, but some doubted.

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Then Jesus came to them and said, All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.

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Therefore, go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and

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of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you.

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And surely I am with you always to the very end of age.

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Entirely too many people give up and quit when it comes to answering this call.

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However, I'd like to point out to those who are wondering what they should be doing in

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life, what's the mission in life?

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This is it right here.

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As a believer of Christ, this is a mission that's been handed down from generation to

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generation.

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It's to share the good news and introduce the world to Christ.

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Now, you don't need to be a preacher to do it.

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You just need to open your mouth and speak to people.

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Share what he's done in your life.

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It's that simple.

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A lot of people, oh, I don't know what I'd say, or I don't like talking to people.

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You know what?

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Again, pray.

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The Holy Spirit is going to lead you.

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He'll guide you in using your talents to accomplish God's goals.

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All right?

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I'll give you an example from my own life.

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There's a period of time there where I really, I had shut down.

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I had shut down completely.

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I'd started going to a church.

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I was dealing with my PTSD at the time, and I sat up in the raptors.

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I saw these stairs going up.

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I saw the seats and everything.

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Nobody was ever sitting up there.

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The lights were always turned off.

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I went and I asked, hey, is there any chance I could sit up there?

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They said, yes, sure, absolutely.

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We could do that.

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The doors are locked.

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Go talk to this person or this person.

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I'll let them know, and they'll unlock the doors for you.

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Okay, no problem.

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I sat up there by myself for years before I came down.

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At the time, those of you who know, I'm a musician.

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At that time, I just barely was starting to look at the bass guitar.

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The music director, he was trying to recruit people.

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I had no intention of talking to him whatsoever.

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I went, I sat in the raptors.

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I left.

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That was my thing.

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That's what I wanted to do.

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Well, I come down and my kid, of course, he's at the kid's service, and his pastor in passing

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found out that I was a musician from my mom.

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He goes and he introduces me.

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He says, hey, I got someone I want you to meet.

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He introduces me to the music director and says, hey, I found you a new bassist and walks

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away.

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I'm like, what just happened?

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What in the world?

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The music director, he was cool because I told him, it's like, hey, I'm learning.

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I'm new.

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I don't think I'm who you're looking for.

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This really isn't my thing.

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He says, you know what?

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That's okay.

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Come to rehearsal.

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Just come to rehearsal.

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Hang out with us and we'll see how it goes.

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We'll see how it feels.

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I went to rehearsal for about two weeks.

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Plugged in, had a good time.

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It was the first time I had any fun playing with people in years because years and years

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before that, I had a band director that... He was not a good band director.

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Not going to say he wasn't a good person, but he was not a good band director.

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Because of him, I refused to play in front of people for over a decade.

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Whereas here, I prayed and next thing I know, after going to two rehearsals, the music director

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is saying, hey, why don't you come out on Wednesday and play?

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I was like, okay, I'll give it a try.

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We'll see.

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I show up that Wednesday, we play.

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Next thing I know, I'm playing on Wednesdays, I'm playing on Fridays, I'm playing twice

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on Sundays.

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Did that for years, absolute years for that church before I moved on and plugged back

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into ministry.

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That's what needed to happen is I needed to start using those talents again and I needed

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the Lord, I needed the Holy Spirit to show me how and how to plug back in and to get

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over myself because I was my own worst enemy for the longest time.

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We like to say the devil made me do it.

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No, devil didn't make you do it.

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You made yourself do it.

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You have a choice.

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Your choice is to look to the world or to look to the Lord.

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Those are your two choices.

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You have to pick.

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All right, enough with that rabbit trail.

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I could talk more on that at a later time.

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Let's get back into our reading in Ephesians 4 verses 14 through 16.

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The Bible says, then we will no longer be infants tossed back and forth by the waves

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and blown here and there by every wind of teaching and by the cunning and craftiness

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of people and their deceitful scheming.

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Instead, speaking the truth in love, we will grow to become in every respect the mature

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body of Him who is the head, that is Christ.

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From Him the whole body, joined and held together by every supporting ligament, grows and builds

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itself up in love as each part does its work.

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In the book, excuse me a second.

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I had to hit the mute button.

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I felt that sneeze coming.

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Sorry about that.

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All right.

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So in the book of Acts, Timothy, really I should say 1 Timothy and in Revelations, Paul

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had warned so many times about false teachers and how they can corrupt the church.

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Something that we still see, something that we need to be on the watch for even today

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regularly.

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In fact, if anything hasn't gotten better, it's gotten worse.

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Now the flip side of that coin is that we need to be childlike in faith.

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You look at children and as a parent, as an adult, you tell a kid something and they believe

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you.

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However, we also need to test what we're hearing, test the spirits is what the Bible says, like

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the Bereans did.

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The Bereans, they're hearing it, but they kept going back to the scripture to verify.

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And that's what we need to do.

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Yes, we need to have that childlike faith, but we need to test what we're hearing.

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Fun fact, the Bible is the number one selling book of all time.

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More Bibles are sold each year and are stolen around the world than any other book.

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So much so that it's no longer included on bestseller's lists anywhere.

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And here's the thing though, almost everybody has a Bible, a physical Bible, almost.

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If not, then they have an app for it these days.

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The problem is, while most people have it and have access to it, they don't open it

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aside for following a little bit of scripture during a service.

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And even fewer actually go back and read it for themselves to ensure that what they're

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being told is legit.

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Here's something my fellow Gen Xers are going to remember.

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Let me give you this little acronym here, this word.

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G-I-G-O, GIGO, garbage in, garbage out.

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If all you're hearing is weak, poor theology or outlight rights and you never go back to

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see for yourself that what you're being given is the truth, well, all I can say is the road

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to hell is paved with good intentions.

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So don't ever take anyone's word.

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Don't even take mine.

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Open that book up and read it for yourself.

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Look at the context.

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Look who it's speaking to.

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Look what it's saying.

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Look at how it can be applied.

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There's so much there.

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And these days, more and more people, they go and they pull little pieces out and they

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put it together to make it say what they want it to say.

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So the context is actually lost.

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What's worse is even more, just go to the internet and pull up different sermons and

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stuff like that.

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You can't find a sermon for anything these days.

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Fewer and fewer actually preach from the Bible anymore.

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How sad is that?

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They grew up.

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Some of these, I hate to say it because it's going to put a bad light and there's so many

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good out there, but it only takes a couple to paint that bad light and I don't want it

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to sound that way.

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But there are those who grew up as preacher's kids and their dads and their grandfathers

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had all these books put together over the years of all these sermons that they had written

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and everything.

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And what do they do?

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They don't even bother to write their own.

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They go back and they pull theirs and they might change one or two things to make it

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a little bit more modern.

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Like where a joke was inserted or a life story as opposed to being, hey, my dad, my mom or

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whatever.

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It's like, you know what?

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What can I insert from my life to kind of fill this little void here and make it sound

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a little bit more original?

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It really is sad.

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I hate to bash anybody, but that is the truth that we face today in today's world.

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Looking at that last verse there builds itself up in love.

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This is something that we should all take note of.

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It's not a slogan or a catchphrase.

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It's a reminder.

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You see, as Christians, we should always strive to speak the truth in everything we say, no

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matter how easy or how hard it may be.

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Let's face it, sometimes it's pretty darn hard.

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Especially when what we're trying to put out there and what we're trying to tell people

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is not popular opinion.

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The world is going to put stuff out there.

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The devil is going to put stuff out there and it's going to tickle people's ears as

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the Bible tells us.

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It's going to give them that, oh, okay, cool, I can do this.

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Good.

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Unfortunately, the Bible says otherwise.

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Now when it comes to telling people the truth and sharing the truth, some of us are really

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good at sharing the truth.

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Unfortunately, some of us forget about the loving part.

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We do.

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It builds itself up in love.

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There's no need to sugarcoat anything.

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It's not a peppermint mocha where you're mixing cocoa into the coffee with a candy cane, maybe

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some whipped cream or some marshmallows.

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No.

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The truth will speak volumes in and of itself.

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We need to remember, sometimes the truth hurts though, so we need to be sympathetic to the

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person that we're speaking to.

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We need to remember how we've felt, where we've been in our lives, when we've been called

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out in the past for our errors.

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We need to keep in mind the best practices and the best examples of how it was accomplished.

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After all, love is one of the greatest commandments, right?

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One of the greatest things about going to a military school and then later serving in

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the military was the fact that it took away so much of the pettiness in my own life.

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The Lord used it to show me what true unity was about, not race, not gender, not politics

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or any other nonsense that the media likes to shove down our throats every day.

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Instead, different people with different backgrounds and different skill sets and different thoughts

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on life are all brought together to serve as one body.

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Really, that's what the Church is on such a larger scale.

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It's not focusing on the differences like I said earlier.

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It's focusing on how we can best work with others to accomplish everything they set forth

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for us.

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That's such a great thing.

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That's what the Church should be focused on.

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One of the many things that the Church should be focused on is we're going to learn.

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That's what love is.

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That's what family is.

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That's what it is to be a Christian.

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That's where we are for time this week.

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We'll pick up from where we're leaving off next week.

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Remember you are loved.

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00:27:50,380 --> 00:27:51,380
You are blessed.

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Now go and be the Church.

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Love you guys.

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00:27:55,440 --> 00:28:01,200
Thank you all for joining us here today at Healing Scars with Pastor Burton.

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00:28:01,200 --> 00:28:06,880
Please like, subscribe, and share our podcast on any platform it is that you tune into us

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00:28:06,880 --> 00:28:08,020
on.

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00:28:08,020 --> 00:28:15,360
If you do have any questions, any prayer requests, or would like to know more about our ministry,

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00:28:15,360 --> 00:28:25,400
you can find us on our website at BeTheLightSanctuary.org or on Facebook at BeTheLightSanctuary.

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00:28:25,400 --> 00:28:30,600
You can also find how to contact us there, whether it's direct message or email.

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We look forward to hearing from you all.

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God bless.