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God, we know that You are the one that we can always turn to.

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God, as much as we strive to be the people

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that You desire us to be,

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we can never be the foundation we are never meant to be.

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So God, help us to continue to point others

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to build themselves not on us,

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but with us on You,

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so that they can truly find what is true

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and the rock that gives us our true hope.

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In Christ Jesus, amen.

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Howdy.

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Well, I realize that I probably already gave away

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what we're gonna be starting today's sermon about,

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but I'm going to still try to paint

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a little bit of the picture for you.

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You see, the thing is, is that today,

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I need us to spend some time

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with something deep and philosophical, okay?

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There is a tome, there is a work

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that is a part of classic American literature,

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something that really digs deep into who we are as people,

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struggles that we have, you know, ups and downs

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and the flaws of humanity,

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but still being a part of the overall community,

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the overall picture, the landscape

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of what it is to be in this world.

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And I'm talking about the classic book,

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Monster at the End of This Book.

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The monster at the end of this book

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is the underrated American classic

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that I think we don't truly appreciate

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the way that we should.

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You see, for those who may not quite get this,

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is that this comes out of the 1970s,

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a land where the world was full of sepia tones

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and bell bottoms and disco balls

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and everything else in between.

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I tried my best to stay as far away from it as possible

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and waited for the 80s, so it was a lot safer.

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With that is that in the 70s,

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we came up with something amazing called Sesame Street,

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in which basically an opportunity to utilize monsters

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in order to help kids learn and grow

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and see all sorts of different lessons to learn in life.

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Now the thing with this is that

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one of those big characters was Grover.

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And Grover was the star of this particular book.

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Now, you may or may not know this book.

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I definitely suggest that you get one if you can.

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But you see in this, Grover hears at the beginning

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that there is a monster at the end of this book

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and he is frightened.

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He wants nothing to do with this monster at all.

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And so what he keeps doing is,

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as you're turning the pages, he's panicking.

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He's like, what are you doing?

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Oh my, and he tries to stop you all along the way

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and he builds a brick wall at one point that,

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oh man, that was really difficult to get past, Grover.

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Or he tries to glue the pages together

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and they get ripped apart.

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Or even at one point, he even has this vault door on there.

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But as you keep going, he even just stops

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and he's begging you, please,

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don't turn the pages of this book.

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And I remember as a little kid thinking,

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I'm destroying this poor little creature's life.

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What have I done?

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And then I'm like, do I?

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It's like a big ethical question for the four year olds.

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You know, what are you gonna do?

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I don't know.

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But of course, what do you do?

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You turn the page.

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And just like in good Bob Seeger fashion,

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and you end up getting to the end.

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And turns out, who is the monster at the end of this book?

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It's Grover.

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Grover is the monster at the end of this book.

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And he even tries to gaslight you a little bit.

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And so like, oh boy, I can't believe you were

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so scared, everybody.

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And then he's like, yeah, I'm so embarrassed.

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And the thing is, is that the discovery

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that Grover is the monster at the end of the book,

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it's this really big kind of metaphysical

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kind of like discovery.

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Cause he had been talking to you the whole time.

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He was breaking the fourth wall,

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way before Deadpool and anybody else, okay?

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And with that is you end up discovering though,

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a lot about yourself.

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See, the thing is, is that the monster

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at the end of the book, it's a couple different things.

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One is that you're realizing that Grover

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didn't see himself as the monster.

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And in many ways, oftentimes that's we ourselves.

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But also in a sense, the fact that we

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keep turning the pages, even as he's begging us not to,

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it's sort of like, man, what kind of a terrible person

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is this little child?

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I have no idea.

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But at the same time, it's also a chance

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to kind of pause and maybe self reflect.

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And I'll be honest, this last week was exhausting.

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This last week was absolutely exhausting.

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And I'm sure that a lot of you, for your own reasons,

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absolutely exhausted.

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Some people may have just been really, really tired

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because of the multiple allergens that were in the air.

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Mine was last weekend, other people are this weekend.

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Or some of you may have been struggling

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because of all of the dust, everything in the air

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from the sugar cane burning out in Central America

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that wafted its way up here.

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But I'd say also there were a lot of other things too inside.

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It felt like every single day this last week,

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it's like trying to handle things,

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trying to tackle things the best you can,

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but still feeling like no matter what you tried to do,

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you still felt like, oh man, I have butchered this as well.

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Because even in the midst of trying to be the protagonist

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of the story, you still end up feeling each day like

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you may also be the monster.

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And the thing is, is that as much as there are dumb mistakes

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that we make all the time, we're still learning,

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but it's also this sense of feeling, am I still accepted

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even though I know that my attempt at this

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was absolutely terrible.

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But you see, children of God, we don't purify ourselves

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by ever getting it all right.

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We are purified because of being in Christ.

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And that's the thing, is that we're not meant

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to try to prove something, but rather is letting God

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do his work in us.

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You see, Grover the whole time throughout this whole story,

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he is trying desperately to stop you

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from going through the book.

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But then at the end of the book,

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you have this really big revelation,

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and so does he, his best efforts the whole time

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turned out to be completely misguided.

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And in so many ways that's so revealing about ourselves,

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is that our best efforts, the things that we are trying

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so desperately to do, that we think are going

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to make everything better.

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And yet then from the outside looking in,

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realizing that we may actually be making everything worse.

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And that's a hard piece with this, is that we though

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are still welcome in the story.

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You see, Grover as much as we know that he ends up

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being the monster at the end of the book,

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but he's still in the book.

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He is still welcome in this book.

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And instead of trying to avoid all the issues,

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it turns out his very being, the monster in the book,

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is the very means by which we end up learning

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what the book is trying to teach us.

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See, the thing is is that as much as we think that somehow

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we're the ones who know the answers,

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and we're the ones who are going to fix everything

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because we're the children of God, gosh darn it,

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and we need to save the world from those children

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of the darkness, those children of the devil

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that are out there.

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And then we pause and realize that what we're trying to fix

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may very well be the issue all along.

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Had a friend of mine, the way he was talking to me,

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I'm gonna use the term loosely for today,

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but essentially decided that he was going to send me

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a message and correct me, and tell me all these reasons

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why I was so terrible, and I'm sitting there

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thinking to myself, great, thanks so much

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for being judgmental.

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And I wrote my full response that I was going to send

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through messenger, and I was going to make sure

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I was very clear to him, all these reasons why

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he was wrong and I was not.

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And then pause long enough to look at it and say,

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is any of this actually going to either help him

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or help me, and delete it all of it?

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And then pause and realize that it's not really up to me

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to fix him.

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It's not up to me to identify that he's the monster

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in the story, and he needs to go and get himself some help,

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but rather is to slow down and say, you know what,

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for whatever reason he's in this story.

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But everything that I say and do right now,

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would I become the monster in it, if I did so.

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But also at the same time, did I go back and spend

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all the time second guessing everything about myself,

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but instead pause and said, you know what,

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I'm sure I made some mistakes, but I'm not going to spend

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all the time trying to justify all of them,

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before I can actually feel forgiven and welcomed.

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But you see, we're oftentimes looking at these things,

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we're unwilling to admit to the issues that we have.

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We'd rather focus on the way that we feel,

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rather than admit to our actions,

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possibly making things worse.

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We would rather just focus on things that allow us

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to avoid that, and rather is to try to say,

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what sort of things can I use to avoid it?

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And then end up having somebody outside of my office

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saying, this is something that I'm willing to admit

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that maybe I need to step back from things.

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And knowing that if I had tried to be the one

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to make a point, that person may never

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have been willing to see it.

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And that's the thing is that oftentimes we allow ourselves

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to avoid certain things that we don't want to see.

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But the reality is that everyone who makes a practice

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of sinning also practices lawlessness,

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because sin is lawlessness.

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And when I read that verse, as I was preparing

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for the sermon, and I remember sitting there,

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looking up at God saying, seriously?

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I salute you, Captain Obvious.

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I mean, yeah, I mean, sinning is lawlessness.

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What am I supposed to do with that?

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How am I supposed to preach that part?

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And then pausing and realizing that that's also

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what we oftentimes do to avoid things.

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You see, we look for the loopholes to say,

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well, you see, because this isn't specified in a certain law,

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because this isn't a rule, then therefore you can't blame it.

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You can't say that I'm sinning in this regard.

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You can't blame guilt on me, because this is totally okay.

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But in reality, is that lawlessness is not just about

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what is specified as much as even asking, who are we?

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What is it that's happening inside of us?

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You see, with this is that we not only will look for loopholes,

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but oftentimes we're even saying, well, don't even make a law out of this

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because I have no interest in changing.

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How many times we're saying, I see this thing that I don't want to change on.

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So now none of the rest of you don't dare call it lawlessness,

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because then I would be convicted of it too.

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And I'm not okay with that.

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I'm just right, instead of asking if maybe we need to change.

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And that's the thing with what we end up seeing here,

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is that lawlessness is not just the things that we see specified.

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It's asking what's happening inside of us.

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And yet, what's happening inside of us may turn out to be the very means

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by which God is doing what He's meant to do.

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And so, you go back and look at that book,

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and it's a book filled with glue and bricks and a vault,

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and Grover making his desperate attempt to stop you from going through it.

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The whole book itself is a mess.

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It's just this character desperately trying to avoid things.

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And then it reminds me of a photo that I got sent to me.

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It was either my mom or my sister or my dad. It's one of those three culprits,

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because it's usually one of their fault, whatever it may be.

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But the photo, it shows a really little Jason in the middle of it.

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And I think I might have been four years old or something like that.

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Big old head, not so big body, okay?

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Because they always said that I started with the right-sized head,

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and my childhood was just trying to grow into it.

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But big old head of Jason sitting there in the middle of this messy floor,

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working on his Legos with everything else all surrounding him.

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And at the time, I could only imagine my parents coming by and saying,

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you need to clean this. Why is this never clean?

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What is going on here?

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We're going to step on that Lego and get a bone spur,

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and it's going to be whatever it may be.

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Do you know what they're saying when they send a picture?

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They're saying, here's Jason trying to process the world.

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Because that is what was happening, is that in the middle of that mess,

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I was trying to make sense of, in my mind, I have Ninja Turtles over here.

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I have Legos over here.

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I have Brickworks. I have superhero characters.

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I have Racetrack. I have all these things.

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And how do they all fit together?

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And truth be told is that that was the beginning of a process that's still today.

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I'm still trying to figure out.

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And that's the thing about it, is that while we make the mess, we're still God's kids.

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Making the mess doesn't mean that we're Satan's kids.

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And the truth is, is that whenever people look at us and they can see the mess,

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it doesn't mean that God isn't working that whole time.

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It just means that somehow God has to use that messiness to get us where we need to go.

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The thing is, is that sometimes we need to just slow down a little bit.

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Because God is working on fixing our flaws, but also helping others to see what they can't.

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We may be trying to figure out, how do I make sure that you get why you are this child of lawlessness that I see

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and realizing that from the outside we may see the monster.

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But the one who wrote that book sees his child.

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See, God's child keeps being brought back.

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Not that God's child never goes out and makes mistakes.

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We know from 1 John, whoever says that they are without sin is a liar.

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But we also know in 1 John that the child of righteousness is the child of God.

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And that's the piece with this, is that as we look through the story of what we're living through right now,

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and we see the times whenever we are butchering things,

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it doesn't mean that we need to either avoid it or pretend that, oh, well, you just didn't understand what I was doing.

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Or even other times to try to look at everybody else and say, this is why you're the monster and not me.

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But instead is to start seeing ourselves from God's eyes.

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Is that that righteousness is not us having it figured out?

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That righteousness is what God is doing in us all throughout.

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As we close, I want to point out something that I'm closing each of these sermons with,

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is what we're doing here at the church, because we're focusing on discipleship, care, and outreach.

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And the reason for that is because it is so easy, oftentimes, that as we're focusing maybe on one or another to the exclusion of the others,

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we end up with a very skewed outlook.

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And sometimes we're so focused on, did I get enough Bible reading without pausing to say,

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what was it supposed to be changing in my life with the world around me?

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Or I may be sitting next to a person who is desperate for the love of God and all I've done is say,

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okay, I'm glad I got that studying.

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Or we may have spent so much time being so busy getting things done without slowing down to say,

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what is God actually speaking to me today?

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Or even the times whenever we say, what I'm doing is to care for other people.

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And yet then at the same time, when we do so without coming back to God,

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when we do so without saying, how is what I'm doing outside of my own head but actually for the world around me,

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then is the way that we care for one another truly caring for one another?

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Or is it just something that we feel like doing at that point?

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Because oftentimes the way that we want to love others,

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we sometimes have to slow down enough to say, yes, but is this actually what they need in order to be loved?

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Am I so focused on doing something because that's what I want to do that I don't slow down enough to say,

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maybe God needs to show me what they need more than what I want?

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So wherever you may be, there's no issue with going to the end of the book.

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Feel free, open up the page. Take a look. See who's there.

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Because it's you and it's me. It's all of us.

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Loved by God and continue to be brought into a messy story through which God is doing His work.

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Thanks be to God that He uses the mess instead of waiting until we're somehow gone.

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Amen.