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I wanted to start off today by telling you a brief story,

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and this was one that happened during my time in college.

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One of the times we were sitting there in the final class,

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this is a college ministry that I was a part of there at A&M.

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And when I was there, one of the things

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is that I was there an extra semester.

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Because during engineering, you end up

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doing different internships, and sometimes you

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take just a little bit extra time.

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At least that's my way of making myself feel better about it.

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So we did this, though, is that we were sitting down

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for a Bible study, and it was a Wednesday night.

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And we could tell that the pastor was a little extra quiet.

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And we weren't sure what was going on.

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Well, of course, whenever there's a little too much quiet,

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what does Jason do?

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He talks a bunch more, so they can

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try to fill in the silence.

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It's just what I do.

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Well, in the midst of the particular Bible study,

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something seemed to stand out about it.

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And so, of course, I opened my big mouth.

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And what I said was, you know, everyone,

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is that if for some reason, if Rev. K, Pastor Kruger was

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there at the time, were to not be here anymore,

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if everything here were to fall apart,

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then that would mean that all the work that he had done here

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had been for nothing.

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I mean, essentially, the only way that it's really going

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to matter is if it continues long before he's even here.

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And he turns, and he looks at me.

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And you know that moment where you're sitting there,

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wrapping your brain, trying to think, OK, what did I say?

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I said something wrong.

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I said, oh, no, what in the world did I say?

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And he said, I just received a call from St. Louis

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to work with the president of the denomination.

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And I thought I was going to need to tell them no.

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And now I think I may need to pause and rethink my decision.

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So from then on, it was basically,

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Jason, why did you open your big mouth?

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Because you took the call, and he left.

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And he went to say, who is?

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And so the joke from then on is like, oh, no, Jason,

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what are you going to say this time?

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With it, though, was realizing that at that moment,

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I was communicating something that I knew

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may need to be said at that moment.

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What I didn't realize was that God was saying something

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more than what I realized.

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And that's the thing is that oftentimes, we

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don't realize what God is saying if we don't pause to realize,

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are we even listening in the first place?

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See, that's the question that comes up

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when we hear the story about Simeon and Man.

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See, Simeon is there in the temple.

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And Jesus comes in with his mom and his dad.

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They're just carrying wealth with the Mary and Joseph.

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And they're carrying him in.

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And somehow Simeon knows this is the Messiah.

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How?

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How in the world did Simeon know?

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And it says in the scripture that there's a partner

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in it who revealed to him that he would not

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pass until he had seen the consolation official.

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He knew that he was going to see the Messiah.

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But at that moment, how did he know?

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How did he know that this was the Messiah?

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The thing is, oftentimes, God is speaking,

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but do we always know how to listen?

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Now, there are a lot of times whenever we ask how it is that

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God, excuse me, I'm sorry about that,

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how does it we know that God is speaking at a certain point

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in time?

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Now, we might pause and think about the idea

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of there being direct revelation that there are angels

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and prophets, or even Jesus himself coming to speak.

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Now, if for some reason the angels

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decided to rip open the ceiling of the sanctuary

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and come in and proclaim something to us, number one,

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I think that would definitely be some issues with our insurance

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claims for that coming here.

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But second, is that you have to pause and wonder,

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why would the angels need to come and speak with us

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directly when we've already had Jesus come to be our Messiah?

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So we're not really expecting to have

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some sort of direct revelation where the heavens open up

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and the light beams down and tells us something.

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But at last, what God ended up saying,

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well, God also speaks to us through His word.

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The thing is that all these different events,

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different proclamations, different stories of God

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working among His people were recorded in scripture.

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And we learn from those things.

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That's the reason why we tell our kids

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all these different stories in scripture.

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That's the reason why it is that we make sure we continue reading

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and learning because it continues to speak to us.

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But there's also more to it.

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It's realized that God has also oftentimes

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speaking at times through prayer, through the church,

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or even sometimes in circumstances

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that we're not even expecting.

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The thing is, is that we oftentimes take for granted,

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well, I have a relationship with God.

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That's true.

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But we're also meant to be learning

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in the context of one another.

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We're also meant to be encouraging and growing

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and seeing things through each other's perspective as well.

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And with that, it's sometimes we don't realize what another person

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is going through.

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And at that particular moment, that circumstance

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is somehow speaking more loudly than anything

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that we can imagine.

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Think about it.

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When was the last time whenever somebody said something to you

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and at that exact moment you knew exactly what you needed to hear?

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Something that was communicating to you

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that you could somehow not get all by yourself?

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Or even more than that, is to realize that God is saying something

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to you for some reason and has to come through somebody else.

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And that's the thing about where we see sitting in.

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There's any number of ways in which he would have

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realized this in the Messiah.

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But would it have been compared to what he already knew about God?

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Because that's the thing about when God is speaking,

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is that he doesn't end up contradicting himself.

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It's easy for us to get certain minds as an idea of thinking,

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we haven't figured out.

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We have some great idea of what we think is right.

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But then we don't pause to ask, is this how God has revealed himself before?

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See, that's one thing that we end up seeing about Jesus.

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Is that a lot of people at the time were trying to say that Jesus was contradicting

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what God had revealed in the past.

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But in reality, if you looked at everything that Jesus said it did,

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it actually was very much in keeping with what God had revealed throughout time.

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For example, they're walking through a field and they eat, so what do they do?

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They grab some stalks of grain from the field that they're at, they start munching.

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And what ends up being the accusation, you did, you did, you did.

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You did work on the Sabbath.

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And yet at the same time, what were they really just doing?

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They were just eating because they were hungry.

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Or further, Jesus sees a person in front of them that needs healing.

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And instead of looking to see, okay, what time is it?

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Ooh, it's the wrong day.

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This is an opportunity for me to do what my father has said me to do.

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See, the thing is that nothing that Jesus did was actually wrong in any way.

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But that people had an issue with how it was being done.

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And isn't that oftentimes what we end up seeing about ourselves as well?

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Is that oftentimes we're so caught up in the way that we want church to be done.

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We want things done in a certain way.

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We want things to make us comfortable with how they're done, that we don't stop to ask,

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yeah, but what are we doing?

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Are we actually listening to see if we are following what God has called us to do?

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Or have we spent so long making sure it's being done the way we want to see it done

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that we move sight of asking what God is actually calling us?

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See, that's the thing with this, is that we can oftentimes get so caught up

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in the way things happen that we miss out on what God is actually complaining about.

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Because what was Jesus' mission? Repent and turn to God because of his forgiveness and his salvation to you.

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But that's the thing about being prepared for the Word.

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If we are hearing what God has to say, would we even know it?

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But that's the thing, that's why it is that things are so important to be doing regularly.

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To regularly be in prayer, to regularly be reading the Scriptures,

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but also to regularly be in fellowship with one another.

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We take for granted this.

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We have so many things that are around us that are going to take up our time and our attention and our energy.

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And we take for granted one another.

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We take for granted the time that is actually meant to be spent praying together, sharing together,

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caring for one another, finding out what is happening in each other's lives

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so that we can actually see words of encouragement and comfort

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and maybe share something that they needed to hear at that moment in time.

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But what we are so busy with and everything else going on in our lives is somehow that false 7th, 8th on the list.

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But how often is God speaking and we are so distracting that we are not even ready to hear it when it is there?

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And that's the thing about this is that Simeon's story as well as the Anaheim

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is not meant to be confused because the person that is following after God

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is meant to be the one who can also hear when God is speaking.

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And that's the thing for us today because if God is actually revealing something to us, are we ready?

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If there is something that God is trying to convict you of in your life, would you even be willing to hear it?

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When we go back and look at the prophets, do they start off with just having something to tell everybody else?

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Not really, look at Isaiah, what's the first thing that God has to do?

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You are a person of unclean lips and you have to be prepared for it.

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If God is convicting you of something, would you even be ready to hear it today?

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Or more than that, would you be willing to repent and change? Are you?

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Because if we're not, then how is it that God is going to be utilizing us to speak what it is he has to say?

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But more than that, do you actually believe that God is even doing anything in the world around us today?

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Do you? To be honest, do you generally think that God is actually doing things in you, around you, through you, in the world around you today?

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Or do you think that that's just something that happened back in the Bible with us?

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Because if we want to truly hear what God is actually having to say, then we have to start by believing that he has something to say in the Bible.

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But finally, is being the hardest part, are you actually willing to follow?

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Because the thing about this is that God doesn't speak just to hear his own voice.

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God speaks because he's calling us to be called.

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Now, we have this new year in front of us. We've been through a lot of changes. There have been a lot of shifts.

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But frankly, there have been a lot of things that I think that we as Christ Memorial have to be honest about.

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We get caught up in a lot of things that don't matter. We do.

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But also, how many opportunities have there been for us as Christ Memorial to hear that God is calling us into something in our community, or to share with others, and we just sat by?

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I don't want to sit by and ask.

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I'm tired of hearing stories of other people, what they've done with their church, and what it is they've had an opportunity to not only hear what God has said,

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but also to follow. I want us to be that too, don't you?

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So this morning is, we are finishing up 2023, and all the craziness that we had to endure with it.

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My question to you is this, are you ready to hear what God has to say to us today?

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And are you willing to follow? I hope our answers to this. Thanks for your time.