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Howdy. Well, I had to let y'all know a little bit about part of my childhood. Now I have to let you know I was able to miss the 70s by this much.

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Alright, 1980, 1980. I know, I really, I dodged a bullet there. So, bell bottoms, I was spared.

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So, but with it is as a child, I enjoyed plenty of good movies and one of them being Transformers, the original movie. 1986.

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Cartoon movie had Orson Welles, Leonard Nimoy, Robert Stack, lots of them. And for me, that was a childhood memory that I cherished.

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Well, as I got older and I discovered that if you wanted to get that movie on VHS, that was a type of tape, these, playing things on it,

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is that it was really hard to get a hold of. But I was like, you know, I hear that you can actually get it on this thing called a DVD.

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So, I went and made sure I told my sister, for Christmas, I'd really like this DVD. And I saw that you could find some of it online for maybe 35, 40 bucks.

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I thought, that's not too bad. But when I got it for Christmas, and it was in the original wrapping, and I realized she'd bought it new.

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And buying it new is about 100 bucks. And I'm like, Stephanie, you didn't have to buy it. You could have gotten it, you know, used.

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And that would have been great. She was like, I am not buying my brother something used for Christmas. Okay, all right, I got it.

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Well, fast forward, is that then I said to her, I'd really like a nice shirt for Christmas because I'm a single guy and I have no idea how to dress myself.

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So, she went and found me, though, a Lululemon polo. I did not realize how expensive that clothing is. I saw it to the side.

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I'm like, wow, thank you. I didn't realize. And then I was like, I like this shirt. And then I found two more very similar to it for 20 bucks each online.

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Now, I was a little bit worried and I did tell my sister, but fortunately she has not disowned me. She's just glad I'm dressing better now.

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But that idea that we may have a stigma in our minds about certain things, some preexisting idea of what we think about something or someone.

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And so as we are going into our discussion for today is to realize that as we start, the beginning shows us how many stigmas we have to overcome.

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How is it that we are overcoming the stigmas that we come across in life?

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Because I want you to notice a few things about what's happening in our gospel is that Mary and Joseph were coming in to the temple 40 days after Mary had given birth to Jesus.

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And that's a very specific number. And the reason for that was that in those days, it was a time whenever cleaning things and purifying them, it was a lot harder than it is today.

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You couldn't just easily sanitize stuff or try to pop it in the washing machine and clean it immediately.

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But rather is that because things might be messy or unclean is that you wanted to make sure to keep things separate.

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And so whenever someone had given birth is that there were two things.

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One is that they would wait seven days when they were apart from other people and then after that another 33 days before they could go into the temple.

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And so this was just mainly because of a focus on cleanliness.

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But the reason why we also ask the question about a stigma is because it was twice as long if she gave birth to a daughter.

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Now, giving birth to a son, giving birth to a daughter, they are just as difficult and just as complicated as one another.

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So why the difference? Because as God was giving the law to the people, he was speaking it to a community that saw women as the ones who had eaten the apple first in the garden.

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As a community where if a mother had a daughter, they felt that they had to purify for both of them at the same time.

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Is that in a community that didn't realize certain things would be the same as one another.

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Is that they were dealing with getting over certain stigmas that they had in their own mind, which we know was not something universal.

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Because it was not something that was continued after Jesus came onto the scene.

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But more than that was the stigma about Mary and Joseph themselves.

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Is to realize that they came from Nazareth.

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Nazareth was sort of like this off the beaten path, out in the boonies kind of a place.

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It's like if somebody from a big city were to say, oh, can anything good come out of Lubbock or Nakadotius or something along those lines.

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Or for some people on the right side of the sanctuary, can anything good come out of Texas A&M.

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I know and I'd like to say yes, something good can come out of Texas A&M.

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I'd like to think at least a few, but only a few.

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But with it is to realize that it was just a stigma, this idea that you're off to the side, can anything good come from there.

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Realizing they were giving turtle doves as a sacrifice because they didn't have enough money to go to buy a sheep, to buy a lamb.

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But more than this is even the people that were there to proclaim who Jesus was.

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That there is Simeon.

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This man already knew that his time was come.

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He is an older gentleman.

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And how often is it that in society we oftentimes take for granted those who are older in our world.

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And that he's over there saying, I'm going to see the Messiah before I go.

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I'm going to see the Messiah before I go.

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Could you imagine how dismissive people were?

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And just like, oh, old man Simeon, whatever.

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Okay, fine, fine.

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But even more than just Simeon was also Anna.

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Is that she wasn't able to be in a family for very long before that was lost to her.

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That she wasn't for whatever reason able to move on to being married again.

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Whether because of a choice of hers or the situation she found herself.

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To be there at the temple all alone for so long.

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Is that here are the people that had to face stigmas about who they were and whether they were worth anyone's time.

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But you see, God sees what we don't see what God sees that we don't is so much that we may take for granted.

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And even the fact that Jesus was there as a baby.

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Because when someone is a baby, it is not obvious who they're going to become later on in life.

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Now I'm going to be honest with y'all.

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I still have no idea how mothers can tell the difference between babies.

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They're babies. They're small. They have a head.

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You know, hopefully two arms and two legs.

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I don't know how y'all can tell the difference.

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The most I can figure out is if it's a chubby baby or a less chubby baby.

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So I'm God bless you all that y'all can tell the difference.

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I have no idea. But little baby there and you're like,

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okay, what are you going to become other than somebody who spits up on my arm?

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You have no idea. You don't know if they're going to want to be an actress, an artist, an engineer, a teacher, a nurse.

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You don't know if they're going to want to be somebody who is quiet or somebody who is boisterous.

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You don't know if they're going to be somebody that loves to pick at you or somebody who's always mild-mannered.

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I don't know who those mild-mannered people. I only make friends with the ones who like to poke fun at me.

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But with it is to realize that you don't know what the future is because the future, it feels unknown.

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So as they come in and they are holding this baby, how could Simeon know what future there was for Jesus?

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Is because God reveals more than what we see. God has in mind more than what we may realize.

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See, that's the thing is that what God is going to do, it's going to take time.

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Because the plans that God has for us, they don't always happen just like that.

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Most often they're going to take time and it is going to be hard for us.

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Because we wonder what God is doing and we have to wait over time as he is working in our own lives.

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Because even God himself there in human form, did he immediately get a chance to start his ministry right away?

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I hope not because he was kind of short.

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But to realize that he's going to need to spend the next three decades growing, living, experiencing life as a human being before it is time for him to start his ministry.

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As he is anointed in the Jordan, that was after 30 years of scraping his knees, dealing with other kids,

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learning to read and write, having the opportunity to discover a career, having to walk among everybody else,

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before getting to live into what he was truly meant to do.

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But here's the thing, it didn't determine when he was truly the Messiah.

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See, Jesus was always the Christ. It didn't just start in the river.

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He had always been and he will always be.

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But that's the thing is that the same thing is true with us as well.

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Is that even though we may not know what the plans are in front of us,

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is that our worth and our place in God's kingdom is already there.

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We have already been given our identity in Christ.

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We are already loved. We're forgiven. We are already cherished.

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So even though we may not be doing what our future may be yet, we may not see it.

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That doesn't mean that God doesn't already have it there.

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And it doesn't mean that we're not already a vital part of it already.

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Because see, there are a lot of times where we struggle because we feel like we haven't arrived.

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We feel like we haven't achieved or gotten where we wanted to go.

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But how many people have not arrived by a certain time in their lives?

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I'll give you a few examples.

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Colonel Harland Sanders was at the age of 40 running a small gas station

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in a little restaurant in an apartment next door and did not start the first KFC until he was 62.

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Julia Child didn't even know how to cook when she got out of college

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and did not write her first cookbook until she was 50.

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Laura Ingalls Wilder didn't start the Little House series till her 60s.

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Ray Kroc was a traveling salesman with paper cups and milkshake machines

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and did not team up with the McDonald Brothers until his 50s when they started the first fast food restaurant.

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Leo Goodwin Sr. thought in his 50s, you know what, I think we could come up with some cheaper insurance

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and began the government employee insurance company, aka Geico.

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I'm pretty sure that Geico came along later.

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Duncan Hines did not actually become important to culinary until the age of 55.

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Sam Walton didn't start his first Walmart until 44.

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Stan Lee didn't come up with a fantastic four until his 40s,

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and only after that, Spider-Man, Black Panther, X-Men, and others.

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The inventor of ramen, 50, and a cup of noodles, 61.

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Even realizing so many others, but Gladys Burl, you may wonder, Gladys Burl,

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Polio as a child did not run her first marathon until the age of 86

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and even continued till she was 96 with running.

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So, none of you have an excuse. There you go.

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Joseph A. Campbell started soups at the age of 52,

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and then realizing that J.R. Tolkien wrote and published The Hobbit at 45,

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Lord of the Rings at 56, and even later on realizing John Pemberton,

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who had a saber wound and was dealing with addiction to heroin.

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In his effort to find a pain reliever that was not addictive,

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he stumbled upon the formula for Coca-Cola at the age of 55.

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Destiny does not reveal itself in our timing.

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We do not know what it is that we are meant to be doing throughout the rest of our lives.

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The thing is, is that many people need time to discover their calling.

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We spend so much time trying to see how many people made it by the age of 30.

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If somebody's made it by the age of 30, it wasn't because of their own efforts by themselves.

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Circumstances may be helpful to some, but for the rest of us,

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it oftentimes just means more perseverance.

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We may need to grow. We may need to do a bunch of things that don't succeed.

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Even as we may go through so many trials and have to try things that did not work

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when we first tried them out, how often do we feel like we may have wasted our time and efforts?

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The times whenever we know we've failed, whenever we're thinking,

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I should have known better, I should have done better, I wish I could go back and fix those things,

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I should have fixed it on the past because we wish for a different future.

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But when we ask this question and we look at is anything wasted,

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then we also look to understand a bit more about God.

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Because when we look at this question of do we waste our potential,

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what we realize is how many people already proved that that is not the case.

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Think about those who were Jesus' disciples.

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The ones who were there when it was time for him to be arrested

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and how many of them, as much as they said, we will die with him, ran away.

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The ones who wouldn't even admit to knowing him.

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The times whenever they were even wondering what was going to happen

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and not even knowing for sure about this resurrection.

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Or even looking at Jesus' own family.

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That even his own family being there and wishing he would just stop with whatever he's saying and doing

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would just cut out this rabbi thing.

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And then to know later on what happens with all of these people.

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Because that's the thing, sometimes our family and our friends are the very ones

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who struggle to see what we could become the most.

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And then we realize that we do that with them too.

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Is that sometimes we assume that this is all they could really be.

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And it's almost as if we've kind of given up on them, even as we wish they wouldn't give up on us.

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But then those very disciples end up being the ones to take the gospel to the ends of the earth

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and give their lives for Christ.

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And the family of Jesus not only writing parts of scripture themselves

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but leading the Church of Jerusalem into being a beacon of Christ's resurrection.

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What we discover is that as much as we may see the fall of many

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we also see the rising because of forgiveness.

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Because God sees the times when we have not lived out who we were meant to be.

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God sees the times and he knew this.

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And his plans take us and our brokenness into consideration.

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Because as lovely as it would have been if people would have just trusted in Jesus.

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God also took for consideration that they were going to crucify him

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and he would need to raise him back up again.

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And that's the thing about it is that we are always welcome back.

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Is that as much as we worry, did I mess up what God was going to do?

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We're not that big.

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We're not that important.

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Because at each step God keeps bringing us back

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and saying I am still in front of you.

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The thing is is that whatever we may be able to see right now

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is that God sees us differently.

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Because grace sees us as God's heirs.

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Because that's the thing about someone who is an heir to a legacy

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is that they may struggle all along the way

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but they are still going to inherit what has been given to them.

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And that's the thing about this is that even as Simeon saw what others couldn't

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God reveals what even we can't see in ourselves.

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You may have given up on things.

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You may have decided this is all I can be.

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This is all I can do. This is all there is in front of me.

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That doesn't mean that God has stopped seeing what he plans to do for you.

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In you. Through you.

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But knowing that God is the one continuing to do this

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is that it also doesn't stop when we discover we didn't do everything right.

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Because when we realize our sins, that's not about dwelling on all the things in the past

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and giving up on our future.

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But rather is to say God, I'm going to give you my present.

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Plun intended.

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Because we realize is that God's grace takes the worst

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and turns it into something beautiful.

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Wherever you may be

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and even at the ways in which you may be thinking that you have failed what God's plans are

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God has not failed you.

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And that because of his grace, you are a part of his kingdom

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and his purposes and the future that he has for you.

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So may his grace be the thing that builds you up

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and encourages you to keep going.

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And when you realize what it is he's doing in your life,

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may you bring that same encouragement to those around you

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who need to remember that God's grace is sufficient for them as well.

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Thanks be to God.