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Howdy

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Well apparently I felt like I almost died this lot my word. I don't know what I'm doing wrong with this today

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I will figure it out anyway. Oh my goodness. So I came in and we did

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Two worship services. We had class we had youth group and I'm thinking to myself. Oh, you know what?

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I'm still tired after that cough that I had the previous week. Let me go home and just sleep

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Done. Yeah, I just went home and I'm just like alright

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I got to cancel everything for the next three days. Oh my goodness had people subbing in

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What can I give as reports? It was rough. Oh my goodness

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It's just one of those things where I had somebody have to come in and do devotion for Eagles trace

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I thought I was getting better. I thought I was getting better and then boom

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I don't know how many how many of you managed to get hit by whatever this nastiness was. Okay

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We got at least one Brian over there for sure. All right good one two three few over there for sure

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So although y'all also got one before too. I don't know y'all just getting sick a lot

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I don't know you need to work on that. Okay, but you know a lot of it is

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We end up seeing all these different things and we have no idea from week to week month to month

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What's gonna end up being the issue by the way? How many of you are teachers out there?

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Okay, yeah, we got a few of you in that oh my word. It's like a whole room of Petri dish over there

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It's ridiculous. So but you know I have to though tell you that after being sick this last week, okay? I

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I have to confess something

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Pastor forgot to get his flu shot. I

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I know I am so so sorry. I I'm normally better at it than this

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Okay, I am normally on top of it every year because like back when I was teaching and I would get sick like every other

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Month and it was rough and everything and I started getting my flu shot and I would go years without getting sick and I know better and

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I just put it off. I just kept putting it off and I like I've got too much to do

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I've got this stuff going on

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Whatever it's not a big deal and then I come back from

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Cosamel and then apparently I became

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Typhoid Mary over there. So apparently I

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Did not

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Realize what I needed because here's the thing about this is that not every virus is the same

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This isn't something where it's kind of like whenever you had those shots when you were a little kid and all and like you know

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Like you know get them in this shot when your butt whenever you're a little baby and everything and then you're done for the rest of your life

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Man the flu it mutates it changes all the time

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Okay, all those different respiratory ones. All right every year

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There's like four new strains that you've got to try to like get immunized against everything else and everything

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The thing is is that it keeps changing so we never stop being vulnerable

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to it and

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That's the image that was in my head as I was hacking

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You know my lungs out over there the other day and trying to process Romans chapter

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Six is the idea that the things that we may be trying to finish and be done with

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We don't ever stop being susceptible to them

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The thing is is that when we hear this idea of dying to the old life dying to the old self

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That does not mean that we are now not susceptible

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To the struggles and the sins of this world

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It just means that things continue to shift and to change

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Isn't it amazing some of the things that we may look back on history and wonder how could anybody?

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Possibly have done this this this how could we have been in a world that had slavery?

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How could we have been in a world that had prejudice and redlining and all sorts of different segregation?

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How could we have been in a world where people were thrown into jail just for being poor?

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How could we have been in a world where people were constantly serving some king and hoping that they were allowed to stay on the land?

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But the thing about the sinful world we're in is that sin doesn't ever get conquered

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just changes and

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The thing is is that as much as we may be thinking we have gotten past the sins that were there before

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That doesn't mean that there are no longer new things that we need to face in our world

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But have we gotten to a point?

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Where we've just accepted those things now

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How much is it about this broken world that we accept?

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that we don't really need to and

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That's an idea that we want to have in our mind when we think about what it is to be dead to sin

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We are meant to die

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To sin and this idea about what it is to be dead to that old self that old idea

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see

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In my mind is that I think of it a lot of ways when I started trying to understand

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Polio vaccines, so they're putting this like dead virus

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Inside of you now the thing is is that I was like why in the world would you want to put a virus inside of a person?

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How does that make any sense? You know I was a kid. I don't know stuff so

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You're over there, but your body is able to see what it is

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When it can't hurt you

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So there it is inside of your body

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it can't do any damage, but your body is able to see it and understand it and

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and fight any future occurrences and

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That's the thing about it is that the idea of being dead to it

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That that's what ends up making a person immune and

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That's so much of what we end up seeing Paul trying to get across is the idea of that old way of life

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is not something for you to react to and

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He takes it in this way of

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Sort of like if a person is dead if a person is dead are they going to get sick?

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Well, no, they're dead if a person is dead

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Can you explain things to them or convince them to do what you want them to do? No

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They're dead if someone is dead. They cannot respond or react or have any sort of

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of response to

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What it is it's happening around them and that's the same thing that we're supposed to be doing in regard to the old way

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Of life is to die to the old and rise to the new

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So thinking about all the ways in which the world wants to control us and lead us and manipulate us and do all sorts of things

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But that because of Jesus it no longer

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Impacts us and we don't have to suffer and struggle with that

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But let's be honest

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How many of you here are no longer dealing with sins at all from now on how many how many of you you're just like

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Hey, you know what I'm good. I don't have to deal with sin anymore. Everything's fine

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If anybody raises your hand just please just don't yeah, no

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The thing with it is that we still keep struggling with different issues around us

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So why is that if we've been baptized in Christ? God has called us to be his own and

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We're supposed to be dead to all that

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Then why are we still struggling and so I was trying to understand

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How could we see this as maybe a different kind of a metaphor?

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And so I was trying to think what kind of vaccine would we compare

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baptism to we're thinking of baptism

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How would we consider this in regard to how we deal with other issues and I started thinking about

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Polio vaccine now the thing is is that I have never had to deal with the threat of polio nor with people around me

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contracting it I

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Don't know if there might be anybody here who remembers the world when it existed when polio was still a big issue or struggle around us

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The thing is is that you get the shot when you're young and

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Then your body is able to push forward from then on but more than that is that because the human body is able to fight it off in

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mass

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Like the general population is like this then people aren't spreading the virus to each other

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So even if there might be a few people that are more likely to be susceptible to it

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You're not going to get it because nobody around you is

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Giving it to you and that's a big part that we oftentimes might think about

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In regard to our life in Christ is that not only this idea that we're dead to the old

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But that also the people around us are encouraging us and helping us to stay focused on

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What truly matters and who we are in Christ?

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But here's the problem

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We can actually reject our baptism

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We can be baptized

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But we can actually decide we don't we don't want this

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We can decide you know what yeah, somebody else did that to me

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But you know what I really have no interest in anything to do with that

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Maybe I never learned more about who Christ was or maybe I decided to let everything else pull me away

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So the idea of a one and done

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Doesn't quite fit

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Because the thing is is that we're still meant to continue to learn and grow and wrestle with our faith

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To continue to push and struggle because it's not just we're finished and now the rest of our life is good

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But rather is that we have to continually push and persevere. So maybe that's not the right metaphor

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Maybe it's like a COVID vaccine and maybe people just think it's dumb

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I mean, they are one of the things with it is like there are many times where people might think that hey being baptized

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It's really not an important thing. It really doesn't matter. It's not a huge deal

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It's just you know what you get the person's head wet and you have to wipe it off. What was even the point?

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It's just some ritual people have gone through

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But the thing is is that we oftentimes take for granted

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What God is doing in our life?

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And I mean I say that as a guy who's had five COVID vaccines, you know

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I say that knowing that 80% of people in the US now have had COVID vaccines and that

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About two-thirds to three-fourths of people are fully vaccinated

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So the reason why we're actually better off now than we were five years ago

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Is because of everything that had to happen along the way

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But the thing is is that most people who follow after Christ actually even baptized when they were infants or

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Young in some way where they were still learning and growing in their faith, but you see we take it for granted. Why?

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The thing is is that in many ways we're supposed to take it for granted

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We're supposed to be able to wake up each and every day and not wonder

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Whether God has called us to be his own

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Because it's something where we don't look back wondering did I want God enough that day?

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Did I wrestle with it enough? Did I think it through well enough? Did I say the right prayer?

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Did I hope for the best? Did I somehow give up the old life well enough?

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That's the whole thing is that when we look back on being a baptized child of God is not to constantly be wondering

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Did I do enough for it? That's not the point the point is that it's never about whether we've done enough

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Is that God's grace?

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It's just yours

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We receive it openly freely and we benefit from it even at the times when we're not even grasping it

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And we're not even truly understanding what God is actually doing in our life

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But maybe there's more to it than even that

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Maybe in some ways it's almost like the flu vaccine

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Do we need to continually have it updated?

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And that's one of the things that we oftentimes

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mistake in regard to

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Christianity and

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Honestly, I think we as Lutherans do it more often than a lot of other churches not all of them. We're not the worst

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We're not the best

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We've got our issues

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Because what ends up happening is is that Lutherans oftentimes worry that if we spend too much time

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Thinking about how to live the Christian life that we're gonna somehow get distracted on the grace of God being free

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We somehow get confused that we think that if we spend too much time

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Thinking how should we then live?

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We're gonna somehow think that we weren't really saved in the first place

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Doesn't really make a lot of sense does it?

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But that's one of the struggles that we have is that sometimes we're afraid of

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Sitting down and listening to what we're genuinely struggling with

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We're sometimes afraid of giving enough space for people to share that

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Sometimes we don't take enough time to be there in each other's life to also caution

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one another

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To be able to sit there and to know I see something that you're saying in your life

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You don't want to hear this right now

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But if somebody doesn't talk to you, it's going to destroy you or somebody else

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That's also a part of the Christian life

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Is to be willing not just to have that time to hear what's happening with one another

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But are we willing to share that ourselves?

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Are we willing to be vulnerable enough that people can hear and see the things that we struggle with and to speak into that?

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Because that's the thing about the Christian life is that it's not this one-time thing

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We're now everything's finished and now we never struggle ever again

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It's supposed to continually be supported and

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cautioned

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Because the thing about Christ's death is that Christ's death. It's the victory, but it's not the end

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Christ death is the victory over sin death and the devil, but it's not the end of the struggle and in my mind

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It was sort of like how you still need to wash your hands and

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cover your mouth when you cough

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even when you've been

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Vaccinated and immunized because here's the thing I I remember what it was like where you're sitting there and especially

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Sixth graders. I don't know what it was about six graders even more than eighth graders

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But oh my gosh

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It was like you know

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They're just sniffling on their sleeve and everything and they're just over there like you know

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Scratching their nose and everything and they're touching everybody else and you realize that they just sneezed all over the exam

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that you now have to take back home and

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grade and I'm like could y'all just maybe switch with your partner and grade it yourself that would be great

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Oh, that's not school policy. Okay, and

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With it is to realize

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could you imagine

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That someone were to end up coughing in your face and then we're to say yeah, but you're immunized against the flu, right?

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Everything should be fine

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Isn't that though what we oftentimes do in the Christian life?

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Is that because we know that we've been saved by grace that we almost go headfirst

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Toward the very things that we know

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Are not good for us

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Is that we go back and we use the world's reasoning in life?

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That we justify the things that we're doing that sometimes either we number one

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We think well, you know what everything's taken care of so I can just do whatever there is and not worry about it

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Or everything's taken care of so since I'm a Christian

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Then therefore the idea that I want to pursue must be okay. I

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Know it's a little bit

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a little different

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The time is where we know what we want to do is wrong, but we do it anyway because hey, I'm forgiven

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But then also the times whenever we should know it's wrong

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But we've justified it because we're the ones doing it

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The thing about this world's reasoning though is that we keep allowing it to come back in and

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We still go back to the dumb practices and the poor behaviors

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That caused the issues in the first place

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And that's the thing about this is are we as Christians willing to admit we don't have it

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figured out

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Are we willing to be vulnerable enough to be honest and say yes, I'm forgiven by God and what I'm doing is

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really dumb

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What it might be

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To admit that we need to be different

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The thing is is that that old life we still have to fight it

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As much as we might want to think about being immunized against sin and death and everything that might be there

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Is that it still grabs us and the temptations still pull us down?

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They don't have to

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Because of what Christ has done, but we still let them and we still go back to all those old practices

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That ended up causing us the struggles in the first place

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The thing is

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When we think about changing that life though

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Do we really just spend all of our time checking off all the bad things that we're supposed to give up?

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See that's the thing is that that's part of what we're oftentimes afraid of this becoming

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Is life just about vaccinations and washing your hands and being afraid and always wondering what's going to happen next?

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No

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That is not what this life is for

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But that's the thing about life in Christ is that it's not just about being dead to the old

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It's about moving into the new life

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And that's one of the things that we're meant to be able to see is that this isn't just about trying to push you to stop sinning

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It's about showing you that there is a new life to pursue

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There is something of joy and hope and beauty and meaning and purpose

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Direction hope and joy that is meant to be yours not because of all the things you avoided

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But because of all the things you get to pursue

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Because now we know that there is a life worth living of

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forgiveness and mercy of

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compassion and empathy of

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Being able to help people that we know cannot help themselves because we can

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And to be able to say that if we're spending so much time

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Fulfilled with what God has called us to

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Then it's much easier to let go of the life that we know we don't want

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Because it's more than just did you avoid all the bad things?

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Sleeping well eating better getting exercise making sure you take care of yourself in the life that's around you the things that we take for granted

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But when we're living those out it is so much easier to walk away from the bad things we're supposed to let go of

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But it's also the same thing about who we are in Christ is that being baptized into his death

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We are now raised into his resurrection

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But the only way that we can be able to live into that newness and that hope and that freedom

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Is by letting go of the old

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So this morning I don't know what it is that may be plaguing you where time and time again you keep thinking you know what I've overcome it

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I'm done with this. I'm past this and then it comes up and grabs you and knocks you on your butt again

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But I do know that there is a new life for you in Christ

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And that you're not meant to try to tackle that by yourself

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You can only move forward because of who Christ is

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May we instead of overlooking and ignoring the struggles we need to move past

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instead

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Move forward toward the life that God has intended

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As a community

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as a community to encourage

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support and

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Love one another

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In Christ Jesus Amen