Are You Called to Greatness?

Fighting for the Faith

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Moving along. Are you called to greatness? Well, well, that's great news because I mean, isn't that great that you're called to greatness?

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Well, here's Joshua Hubble of the Patricia King gang explaining to us about, well, being called to greatness.

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Here we go. You are called to greatness. I am? Me? No.

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Sorry, you're talking to the wrong person. When we look at the life of Abraham in the scriptures,

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God called him out of a place. Yes, you're talking about Abraham, right? You know,

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I have the same faith as Abraham. I have a faith as equal standing of Abraham, but God promised to bless the entire world through the seed, singular, of Abraham, and that would be

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Jesus Christ. He's the one who was called to greatness, don't you think? God called him to not just be great, but his seed would be great.

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Yeah, that would be Jesus. Have you read the book of Galatians? Book of Galatians, the apostle Paul, writing under the inspiration of the

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Holy Spirit, goes into great detail of pointing out how the promised seed, singular, was

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Jesus. The Lord gave Abraham a prophetic vision or promise, and said,

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Abraham, if you will obey me, your seed will be as great as the stars in the sky or the sands on the sea.

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If you will obey me? Um, hmm, I don't seem to recall

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God saying that. Well, let's open up our Bibles. We'll begin at Genesis chapter 11, starting at verse 31, so we get a little bit of context here where Abraham was first called.

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Now, Genesis 11, 31, Terah took Abram, his son, and Lot, the son of Haran, his grandson, and Sarai, his daughter -in -law, and his son,

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Abram's wife, and they went forth together from Ur of the Chaldeans to go into the land of Canaan.

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But when they came to Haran, they settled there. The days of Terah were 205 years. Then Terah died in Haran.

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Now the Lord said to Abram, go from your country to your kindred and your father's house to the land that I will show you, and I will make of you a great nation, and I will bless you and make your name great, so that you will be a blessing.

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I will bless those who bless you, and him who dishonors you I will curse, and in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.

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Now notice it says that God's going to make his name great, and that in him all of the families of the earth would be blessed through Abraham, through his seed.

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That's referring to Jesus. And it doesn't say here that Abraham had to obey.

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That was not it at all. That's not even the point that's going on here. In fact, I would point you to Romans chapter 4.

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Romans chapter 4 is a great passage that talks about salvation by grace alone, through faith alone, by Christ's work alone, salvation apart from works of the law, salvation by grace through faith, and Paul, writing under the inspiration of the

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Holy Spirit, points us to none other than Abraham. Here's what it says, Romans chapter 4. So what shall we say then was gained by Abraham, our forefather according to the flesh?

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For if Abraham was justified, that means to be declared righteous, by works, well he has something to boast about, but not before God.

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For what does the scripture say? Abraham believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness.

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Now to the one who works, his wages are not counted as a gift, but as is due. And to the one who does not work, but believes in him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is counted as righteousness, just as David also speaks of the blessing of the one whom

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God counts righteous apart from works. Blessed are those whose lawless deeds are forgiven and whose sins are covered.

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Blessed is the man against whom the Lord will not count his sin. Is this blessing then only for the circumcised or also for the uncircumcised?

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For we say that faith was credited to Abraham as righteousness. How then was it credited to him?

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Was it before or after he had been circumcised? It was not after, but it was before he was circumcised.

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He received the sign of circumcision as a seal of the righteousness that he had by faith while he was still uncircumcised.

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Now going back to Genesis chapter 12, I think it's important to note here that God didn't say, oh, if you obey me,

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I'm going to make you great. God came to Abraham and literally just offered him this blessing, gave it to him.

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He had done nothing. He hadn't left at all. And God said, I'm going to make your name great. I'm going to bless you.

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And I'm going to bless all of the families of the earth through you, through your seed. Nothing about obedience.

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God just unilaterally acted, right? That's what the text shows. So, well, we got a problem here and that is, is that, well,

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Joshua Hubble doesn't seem to understand what's going on in scripture because he thinks this is all about you being called to greatness.

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And by the way, this promise given to Abraham, not given to me, not given to you, it was given to Abraham.

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By the way, all of the families of the earth will not be blessed by my seed or your seed.

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Just saying. A blueprint of the promise that God had for Abraham's life.

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But in the midst of the promise was the beginning of the process.

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Yeah. In the midst of the promise was the beginning of the process. All right. Did you create this alliteration yourself?

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And we know the story of how that God speaks to Abraham to take

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Isaac to the mountaintop. Yeah. You kind of skipped all the other details of Abraham's life.

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Okay. And sacrifice him. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Now, I would like to share a few key points with you concerning that right there.

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Okay. Go right ahead. You can try. For one, God speaks to Abraham. Yes. And Abraham being an obedient servant of the

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Lord. Yeah. But Paul pointed out that he, the reason he believed, he did all this by faith.

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And the one who loved God more than his son. Let me just hit on that right there because I feel that in the spirit.

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You felt that in the spirit. What did it feel like? Indigestion? I mean, what does it feel like when you, oh,

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I just felt that in the spirit. What happened? Did you get a gut check? I mean, what was it?

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You have to be careful. There's not something else in our life that we love more than the Lord. And I walk with him.

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Oh, yeah. It sounds so practical. Make sure we don't have other idols in our life. Yeah. Or any idols for that matter.

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Uh -huh. That the God is number one in our lives. And Abraham gathers everything he needs to.

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His son Isaac and his servants. And the scripture says that they headed for the mountain. But I love what the scripture also says at the base of that mountain.

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God looks at his, excuse me, Abraham looks at his servants and says, wait here while the boy and I go worship the

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Lord and sacrifice. Okay. Now friends,

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I want to share something with you right there. The Lord recently revealed to me. Really? Okay. Like direct inspirational hermeneutics.

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Got it. You see, if Abraham had taken his servants to the top of that mountain with his son

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Isaac. Yeah. Would they have stood by helplessly?

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And watched Abraham lay his son on that altar to sacrifice him. Abraham left his servants at the base of that mountain.

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Because as Abraham was going up to another level that God was calling him to, he was going up to another level.

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See, you know, you just descend and y 'all let that equals going up to another level. Really?

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He had to leave the unbelief at the base of the mountain. I see. So he left his unbelief down there with the servants.

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Got it. Yeah. So they were watching his unbelief for him while he went up to the other level. Got it. I mean, think about it.

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Oh, yeah. I'm thinking. Would his servants have stood by and done nothing? If he had said, well, I'm going to sacrifice my son,

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Isaac. No, they would have tried to stop him and said, Abraham, this doesn't make sense. The very promise that God gave you.

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Now you're going to lay it on the altar and sacrifice it. Or you're going to put your very son on the altar and sacrifice it.

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How can your seed become so great? If you're going to sacrifice your seed. That would preach in so many ways right there.

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Yeah, I don't think so. But I just want to encourage you. Abraham left the doubt of the servants at the base of that mountain.

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He left the doubt of the servants. Okay. See, because God hadn't spoken to the servants that Abraham was to do this.

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God had spoken this directly to Abraham. Yeah. I can read. I knew that part. Yeah. So Abraham didn't need anyone for outside of his vision.

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Trying to stop what God had told him to do in obedience. You have no clue what that story is about. Do you?

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We know the story. Abraham lays Isaac on the altar. But God also spoke one thing to his son.

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Let me just backtrack for a moment there if I may. Because the Holy Spirit just quickened me. Really? So you got another gut check.

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What did it feel like? An electrical shock? Acid reflux? What does it feel like when the spirit does that?

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Abraham told his son Isaac, when Isaac said, Father, we have everything, but where is the sacrifice? And Abraham looked at his son

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Isaac and he said, The Lord will provide. Yeah, that's right. That's kind of the major punchline of that particular story.

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And friends, we know the story. Abraham goes to the mountain and he puts his son Isaac on the altar to sacrifice him.

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And he prepares to do it. He holds the knife up to sacrifice his son.

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And the Lord stops him and says, Abraham, stop. I was testing you. That's not exactly what he said.

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But what does this, again, have to do with my being called to greatness? I'm very confused.

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And it goes on to say that they saw a ram in the thicket over at the distance. Yeah. They heard a ram in the thicket.

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And then Abraham took that ram out of that thicket that was caught. And he sacrificed that ram to the

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Lord. Yeah. But in the midst of Abraham going to that mountain with his son and his son saying,

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Father, where's the sacrifice? I believe, friends, Abraham was prophesying to his future.

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Really? You believe he was prophesying to his future? Really? Wow. Where did you get that idea from?

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Was it from one of those little acid reflux electrical shock things that you get from the Holy Spirit? He said, God will provide.

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Yes. I feel the anointing. No, you don't. No, you don't. God will provide in the midst of this.

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I don't know how it's going to happen. I know what I've been told to do. It doesn't make sense why God's told me to do this.

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But I'm willing to sacrifice my seed if that's what God's telling me to do.

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I will sacrifice. What, again, does this have to do with me being called to greatness? I'm, again, very confused.

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That's my seed. I'll lay it on the altar. I feel that prophetically. God is testing you to see if you will give your best and lay it on the altar.

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Oh, so you're talking about money. You want people to lay down their best and put it on the altar.

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I'll write you a check. Got it. Okay. So, really, the story there in Genesis about Abraham and Isaac is about us following the example so that we can achieve greatness by sacrificing our seed, air quotes there, that would be money on the altar.

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Got it. Yeah. I want to encourage you.

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Whatever God is telling you today to do, obey him and not. Yeah. He's telling me to avoid you like the plague.

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Okay. Let's take a look. Wow. Is that bad? Let's take a look, though, at that story because there is a very important thing going on in the story of the sacrifice of Isaac.

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Okay. This is a type and shadow that points us directly to Christ.

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In fact, there's many pieces of the story that you sit there and go, wow, there seems to be some very interesting parallels between this and the sacrifice of Jesus.

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Okay. And that's what the story is all about. Remember, it's through the seed singular that all of the families of the earth are going to be blessed.

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And that would be Jesus. Jesus is the singular seed of Abraham that was promised by God that the whole world will be blessed through.

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Okay. So here we go. Genesis chapter 22. We'll start at verse one.

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Here's what it says. After these things, God tested Abraham and said to him, Abraham. And he said, here

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I am. He said, take your son, your only son, Isaac, whom you love, and go to the land of Moriah and offer him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains of which

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I shall tell you. Okay. Now, point this out here along the way. Isaac is not

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Abraham's only son. And yet God makes a point several times of pointing out that Isaac is your son, your only son.

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Weird language being used here. And the reason why is because this story is almost like a living historical parable that points us to the sacrifice of Christ.

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By the way, do you know the name of the mountain on which the Temple Mount sits in Jerusalem?

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Mount Moriah. Do you know the name of the mountain on which Jesus was crucified?

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Answer, Mount Moriah. Same mountain as the Temple Mount just outside of the city gates at the time

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Jesus was sacrificed on the slopes of Mount Moriah. This is important stuff. Okay.

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So, offer him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains of which I shall tell you. So Abraham rose early in the morning, saddled his donkey, took two of his young men with him and his son

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Isaac, and he cut the wood for the burnt offering and arose and went to the place which God had told him.

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On the third day, listen, when there's third day stuff going on, pay attention, okay?

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On the third day, Abraham lifted up his eyes and saw the place from afar. Then Abraham said to his young men, stay here with the donkey.

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I and the boy will go over there and worship and come again to you. And Abraham took the wood of the burnt offering and laid it on Isaac, his son.

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So here we have young Isaac carrying the wood for the burnt offering, the wood, which will be the implement, basically the implement for the sacrifice.

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Okay. And you're thinking, man, there's, I can think of another person who carried the wood for his sacrifice on this exact same mountain.

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And that would be Jesus, right? Exactly. This is a type and shadow that points us right to the cross.

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So he took in his hand, the fire and the knife, and they went both of them together. And Isaac said to his father,

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Abraham, my father. And he said, here I am, my son. He said, behold, the fire and the wood.

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But where is the lamb for the burnt offering? Abraham said, God will provide for himself the lamb for a burnt offering, my son.

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So they went both of them together. Truer words could never have been spoken, by the way.

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God does end up providing for himself the lamb for the offering on that very mountain thousands of years later.

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Jesus Christ, the son, the only begotten son of God, right?

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Now, when they came to the place of which God had told him, Abraham built the altar there and laid the wood in order and bound

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Isaac, his son, and laid him on the altar on top of the wood.

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I can think of another person who was placed on top of the wood of his sacrifice on that same mountain.

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Can't you think of somebody? His name is Jesus, right? Remember, he was laid down and bound to the wood, but he wasn't bound with ropes.

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He was bound with nails to the wood of his sacrifice on that same mountain, by the way.

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Then Abraham reached out his hand, took the knife to slaughter his son, but the angel of the

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Lord called to him from heaven and said, Abraham, Abraham. He said, here I am. He said, do not lay your hand on the boy or do not do anything to him for now.

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I know that you fear God, seeing that you have not withheld your son, your only son from me.

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Abraham lifted up his eyes and looked and behold, behind him was a ram caught in the thicket by his horns.

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Hmm, stop for a second. Now, in this historical event, who was the one who was at that point the closest to the

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Messiah in the genetic line from Adam to Jesus? Answer, Isaac.

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So Jesus is literally in the loins of Isaac at this point.

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Christ is there on the field genetically, so to speak. That's what this is all about.

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This is a picture, just a little historical picture, foreshadowing of what

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God's going to do on that very mountain. And notice that there was a ram caught in the thicket.

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Notice even there's the thorns. The crown of thorns is right there for this ram in the thicket.

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Abraham went, took the ram and offered it up as a burnt offering instead of his son.

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So Abraham called the name of that place the Lord will provide. Now notice, substitutionary sacrifice now.

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So the ram dies as a substitute for Isaac. Jesus dies as our substitute on the cross.

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And Abraham called the name of that place. This Mount, Mount Moriah, he names it.

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The Lord will provide. And it is said to this day on the Mount of the

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Lord, it shall be provided. And you know what?

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It was. On that very Mount, the sacrifice, the sins of the world was made by none other than the

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Son, the only Son of God, Jesus Christ. This story has nothing to do with you offering up a seed offering or giving money to anybody.

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This has everything to do with what God gave for you. And that is His Son. So that every family on earth would be blessed with the seed of Abraham, Jesus Christ.

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Who turns out to be the Lamb whom the Lord provided on the

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Mount where it will be provided for your sins and for mine as well.

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So that we can be forgiven and pardoned by God. This story, Genesis 22, isn't about you and your greatness.

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This story is about Christ and His sacrifice for our sins. And because of that, it's all about His glory and His greatness.

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Alright, we're up on our second break. If you'd like to email me regarding anything you've heard on this edition or any previous editions of Fighting for the

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Faith, you can do so. My email address is TalkBackAtFightingfortheFaith .com Or you can subscribe on Facebook, Facebook .com

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forward slash PirateChristian. Or follow me on Twitter, my name there, at PirateChristian. We will be right back.

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Sermon review on the other side entitled, Renegade. Perseverance is the path to greatness. Noticing a theme here?

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You should be. We'll be right back. No itching ears are scratched here.

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Okay, we're back. Hour number two of Fighting for the Faith sermon review time. Heading back to Las Vegas to listen to a

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Vince Antonucci sermon, supposedly about your greatness.

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Here we go. Hey, ho.

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And the ugly, we review it all here at Fighting for the Faith. We're an equal opportunity sermon reviewing service. Today's sermon comes to us via The Verve in Las Vegas, Nevada.

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Vince Antonucci presiding. He'll be our mar -text for today. The name of said masleration is

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Renegade. Perseverance is the path to greatness.

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Already we got a problem here, and that is that going into a sermon with a name like that, you can start to talk about the assumptions of the sermon.

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Do you really think that the Bible is all about giving you advice, and tips, and strategies, and principles that you can apply on your path to greatness?

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Really? Yeah, no, see, it's not like that at all. Jesus is the one whom every knee will bow to and every tongue confess that he is

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Lord to the glory of God the Father. In fact, if I'm not mistaken, in the book of Revelation, even when we receive the crown of life, we end up taking our crowns off and throwing them before the feet of Jesus because he's the one who gets all the glory, because he's the one who saved us.

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We did nothing to contribute to our salvation except for our sin and getting lost in the first place.

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He's the one who found us. So, yeah, the Bible isn't about you being on a path to greatness, and that's the assumption of this sermon that has to be challenged up front, because if you don't challenge it up front, you can get really far into the sermon without realizing, whoa, wait a second, the whole premise behind this sermon is off.

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Right, the premise itself is skewed off and focused 180 degrees on the wrong person.

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The Bible is not a mirror that you hold up to look at yourself and go, oh, look how wonderful I am. Ooh, look at the progress

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I'm on on my path to greatness. No, Christian faith doesn't look at itself.

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It looks to Christ. Yeah, because Christianity is all about him, and the scriptures are all about him.

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So, without any further ado, here is Vince Antonucci and his Masoleration entitled

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Renegade. Perseverance is the path to greatness. Here we go.

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Might as well finish the song. Yeah, all right.

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Hey, how many of you have seen the show

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Mythbusters? Okay, a bunch of you, yeah. It's a show where these kind of scientist -y kind of guys will take a commonly believed myth and examine it to find out whether it's true or not.

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So, for instance, myth. If you drop a penny from a skyscraper, it would kill a person that it hit far below on the sidewalk.

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Turns out, eh, not so much. It wouldn't do that at all. Myth busted.

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Myth. You can curve a bullet shot from a gun like they do in the movies, you know, around things.

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Turns out, yeah, no, you can't. Myth busted. Myth. Let me bust another myth.

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The Bible is not about you on your path to greatness. Myth busted. If a baseball hit with a bat filled with cork will fly further than a baseball hit by a normal bat.

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Turns out, no, it doesn't. Not at all. Myth busted. Myth.

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If you microwave metal, the microwave will ultimately blow up. Turns out, no, it doesn't.

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You will get some sparks, but the microwave will not blow up. Myth busted. Today, I want to talk to you about a myth of greatness.

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A myth about greatness. Here it is. Myth, luck is the path to greatness.

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I think we all believe that, that luck is the path to greatness. There are some people who are just lucky that they were born with extraordinary talent, and it's that talent that was their path to greatness.

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There are some people who have the right connections in life, and it's those connections that has been their path to greatness.

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There are some people who are born extremely intelligent. They're just lucky enough to be that smart, and their intelligence has been the path to greatness.

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There are some people who just get the right opportunities in life, and it's those opportunities that has been their path to greatness.

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But that's not true. It's a myth. There may be a few rare occasions where that is what happens, but for the most part, that is just a myth.

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The truth is that perseverance is the path to greatness.

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Why would I need to know this at church? Because I'm not on a path to greatness. I've been called to deny myself, take up my cross, and follow

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Christ. I'm not on a path to greatness, nor am I experiencing burps and hiccups along the way that are keeping me from achieving my path to greatness.

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When I was buried with Christ in my baptism, greatness became something that I'm not interested in pursuing.

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I'm interested in pursuing the glory of Christ, which is the proclamation of what

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He's done for us. That doesn't make me great. As Luther said, we're all beggars.

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You get what I'm saying here? So notice the assumption here, that this is something we need to hear at church.

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We need to hear that perseverance is the path to greatness. Why? Well, apparently you're on a path to greatness, and Vince has got to make sure that he helps you get to where you're going.

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Right? We continue. Perseverance is the path to greatness. And by the way, this is really good news for you and me.

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It is. Really, it's good news for me that perseverance is the path to greatness. I'm not trying to be great.

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I care less about being great. It doesn't matter if you have incredible talent or the right connections or you're well -educated or you have the right opportunities.

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What matters is that you persevere. And that's cool because you can persevere and I can persevere.

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This is something that we can do. And it turns out that perseverance really is the path to greatness.

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We see this in every arena of life. For instance, Michael Jordan was cut from his high school basketball team because he wasn't good enough.

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Michael Jordan's story is not in the Bible. See, in music, U2 got off to such a poor start with their career that they had to put their third world tour on their manager's credit card, and the tour did so poorly they couldn't pay the payments on the credit card, and he lost his credit card.

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And U2, their story is not found in the Bible.

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Again, why is this good news to me at all? I thought the good news that pastors are to proclaim, or at least

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Christian pastors, is that Christ was crucified for our sins and raised again on the third day for our justification.

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That's the good news, not that, well, the secret to achieving greatness is perseverance.

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This isn't good news to me at all. I care less about this. Steve Jobs started

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Apple computers and then got fired from Apple computers. And all those people ended up doing pretty well for themselves, but it wasn't because they were lucky.

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It wasn't an easy path for any of them. It's because they didn't quit.

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Perseverance is the path to greatness. It's true in every arena of life, and it's also true, maybe especially true, with God.

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There are people, really, why would it be true with God? Because nowhere in Scripture does it say that I'm called to greatness.

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Who live great lives with God. There are people who have great intimacy with God, and they have great influence in the world for God.

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They just really do good with their lives. The kind of people you look at and you're like, man. And you think there's got to be something special about that person.

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There's nothing special about these people. They're sinners who have been called by God to do particular things.

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It's pretty straightforward. God is the one doing the work through them, but God's the one doing the work.

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God's the one who's great. Born different than the rest of us. That kind of person just has,

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I don't know, some incredible spiritual talent, or God has blessed them in ways he hasn't blessed the rest of us.

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But that is not true. Boy, this sounds like something that's feeding the sin of envy to me.

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When you look at the lives of people who live great spiritual lives, what you discover is that perseverance is the path to greatness.

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The difference between people who do extraordinary things and ordinary things is that the extraordinary people just didn't quit.

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Define extraordinary and ordinary because I see Christ calling us in his word to all of us to do ordinary things.

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The only extraordinary person that I'm aware of who's ever lived on this planet truly is Jesus Christ.

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Yeah. When everyone else did, perseverance is the path to greatness.

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People achieve greatness when they keep looking up, even when life is upside down.

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When they keep moving forward, even when the world is pushing them backwards. Did you read this on a

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Hallmark card? I'm curious, where'd you get this from? Finding opportunities when all they can see are obstacles.

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So let me show you what I mean with a few examples. There's a guy in the Bible. Now, watch what he does here.

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He's going to actually read several... Well, not really read. He's going to mention and kind of summarize several biblical stories.

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And he's not actually going to really preach any of them from the text in context. And so what we're going to get now is the mandatory, obligatory synopsis of a biblical story to create the impression that this is a biblical teaching.

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But notice what he hasn't done yet. Okay? We're five minutes, ten seconds into the sermon, and he has yet to produce a single passage that says that you and I and everybody else listening to him that we're called to greatness.

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And that the path to greatness, or the way you achieve it, is through perseverance.

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So we basically have an entire thesis, the entire thesis of this sermon, as not being anchored in any biblical text.

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So now he's searching through biblical stories that he thinks are going to buttress his thesis, but he's not at all proven that his thesis is actually sound and what

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God wants us to hear. The very first book of the Bible called Genesis named Joseph.

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And Joseph is this guy who's got lots of brothers, and he happens to be his father's favorite, which is nice.

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Like, when you're the favorite, it's kind of nice for you, right? And so you'd think, well, it probably wasn't hard, it wasn't difficult for Joseph to have faith in God and to live for God because he's the favorite.

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You know, life is easy when it's going easy. Yeah, these little details that he's thrown in here, they're not anywhere in the story of Joseph.

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Where'd you get these from? You know, life is easy when everything is good.

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You know, when your marriage is good, your kids are good, your job is good, it's not difficult, and it's easy to believe in God.

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No, it's not. Actually, if you're familiar with biblical passages, biblical passages talk about the deceitfulness of wealth, how wealth, if you have too much of it, causes you to not trust

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God. Yeah, see, yeah, yeah, huh, hmm. Live for God if that's something you want to do because look at my life, it's great.

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But here's what happens with Joseph. His brothers... I mean, Jesus himself said it's easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter heaven.

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Strange, yeah, weird. Finally just get fed up with the fact that Dad loves him more.

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And so they beat him up, throw him in a pit, sell him into slavery.

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You forgot about his dream. I'm surprised at you. And then go home and tell their father that he got killed by a wild animal.

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Now this, again, he's summarizing the text, he's not actually reading the story.

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And when you do that, you can embellish or chop away any pieces of the details that suit you and your agenda.

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Remember, he has not proven his thesis to be biblical, that God wants you to be great, and therefore you need to hear this encouraging message that the path to greatness is all about perseverance.

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You think your life is hard. It's like, okay, like that's pretty bad, you know? And so we'll pick up the story there.

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I want to show you some of this in the Bible. We'll put it on the screen for you. If you don't have a Bible, if you have a Bible, turn to Genesis 39.

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And if you need a Bible, like to own one, we give them out for free at the Velcro bar, which is our connecting place. It's a place for you to meet someone if you want to, to get connected, to sign up, just to ask questions.

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So Bibles are back there. So we're gonna pick up the story with Joseph just got sold into slavery, starting in verse one of Genesis 39.

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It says, now Joseph had been taken down to Egypt. Potiphar, an Egyptian, who was one of Pharaoh's, that's like the king,

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Pharaoh's officials, the captain of the guard, bought him from the Ishmaelites who had taken him there.

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The Lord was with Joseph so that he prospered and he lived in the house of his

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Egyptian master. When his master saw that the Lord was with him and that the Lord gave him success in everything he did,

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Joseph found favor in his eyes and became his attendant. Potiphar put him in charge of his household and he entrusted to his care everything he owned.

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From the time he put him in charge of his household and all that he owned, the Lord blessed the household to the Egyptian because of Joseph.

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The blessing of the Lord was on everything Potiphar had, both in the house and in the field. So Potiphar left everything he had in Joseph's care.

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With Joseph in charge, he did not concern himself with anything except the food he ate.

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Now, did you notice how a couple times in that passage it says the Lord was with Joseph, right?

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The Old Testament Bible was originally written in Hebrew and the Hebrew word that we have translated with literally means against, means against.

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So literally those verses should... No, that is absolutely incorrect, okay?

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Sorry, the Hebrew here for with is the particle or the preposition with, it's pronounced eth, okay?

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And it means with. Now it can mean against, but let's understand rightly what it means by against.

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For instance, okay, I could say that I'm against you and by saying that I'm saying

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I'm opposed to you, okay? I'm in opposition to you, I am against you.

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But that's not what eth means, okay? Instead, you can think of eth in this sense that against when it's being used in that sense it's kind of like standing alongside of, against something, like leaning against something.

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So it means to be with, in parallel with, that's the idea behind it. It never has as its concept of it in opposition.

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Plus, the rest of the context here shows that this has nothing to do with God being against Joseph because the word with is right there.

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It's eth, it's with. And here's what it says. Let me, I'll read just a couple of verses. The Lord was with Joseph and he became a successful man.

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If it meant that the Lord was opposed to or against Joseph, he wouldn't have been successful.

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Go to verse five, same passage. For the time that he, from that time he, he made him overseer in his house, that's

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Potiphar, and over all of that he had, the Lord blessed the Egyptian's house for Joseph's sake.

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Blessed, it says blessed Potiphar's house for Joseph's sake. The blessing of the

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Lord was on all that he had in the house and the field. You get it?

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Okay, so there's no reason whatsoever, I mean this, basically what Vince is showing here, he has no concept or clue how to read

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Hebrew. I mean, anybody who knows Hebrew would never make such a stupid claim. Let me back it up so that you can hear it again though, as he makes this ridiculous point.

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Literally means against, means against. So literally, those verses should say, the

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Lord was against Joseph. And that's how it feels sometimes, doesn't it? What are you talking about?

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The story of Joseph isn't about me and no, I know Hebrew and that's not what that means there, it means with, in the context.

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Otherwise, if God's against you, he ain't blessing you and Joseph is being blessed and so is Potiphar.

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So what are you talking about? It doesn't, when life gets hard, when life gets turned up,

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I'm not Joseph. Upside down, it's easy to feel like God is against us.

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We would understand if Joseph, when he's in the pit, when he's being beaten, when he's sold into slavery, now he's in prison, he's become a slave.

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If he feels like God was against him, but that's not what it means.

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It's not that kind of against. The word is against, but it's in the sense of leaned up against.

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Like I took my ladder and leaned it against the wall. So not against, but like leaned up against.

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And so what it's saying in these verses is that God was with Joseph. He was with Joseph in the pit.

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He was with Joseph. You are so convoluted and contradicting yourself, it's not even funny.

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As he's living his life as a slave, he was with him in the sense, in a way, that it was like he was propping him up.

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Right. That's what eth means. Like Joseph would have just fallen over.

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Why did you go down that whole bunny trail about you feel like God is against you? Unbelievable.

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From all that happened, but God was with him in a way that he held him up through it all. Now, things are going bad for Joseph in this story.

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But he's on his path to greatness just like you. So take heart. Learn about his perseverance so that you can persevere on your path to greatness just like Joseph did.

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Good things happening in this story, just not for Joseph. Like Joseph is a slave, but God is with him, so he gets promoted to head slave.

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Yay! That's not what you want. I know I'm head slaving. You want to be freed from slavery.

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He's head slave. And because God is with him, Potiphar gets rich. Like everything in his life, everything he does is like turning to gold, which is great for Potiphar, right?

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Not for Joseph. Nothing's going good for Joseph. I have a pastor friend named Jim Bergen. I heard him talk about this story, and he said, man, if we -

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Nothing's going good for Joseph at this point in the story, really. He was just made the head of the slaves.

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Potiphar has basically put him in charge of everything. Sounds like everything's going very well for Joseph. Things don't go well eventually, but we continue.

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We wrote the Bible. This is not the way the story would go. We don't like this, right? This is not the movie that you would want to go see.

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He said we would want the story to be the Lord was with Joseph, and so there was an earthquake, and the prison cells opened up, and a white horse came running in, and Joseph jumped on the horse, and he pulled a sword out of a stone and painted half of his face blue and yelled, freedom!

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And it was all because God was with him. And then all of Joseph's brothers who beat him up and sold him to slavery, they all died of a plague.

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And Joseph met this really nice woman, and they retired in Florida. That's the story we would write, right?

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And the moral of the story is? We didn't write the Bible, so we need to deal with the text as we've received it, but you're not doing that.

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If God is with you, everything will go great in your life as well, because that's what we want, right?

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That's the story we want. We want, the doctor said there might be a tumor, but then we prayed, and it was gone.

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Yay, God! That's the story we want. This young girl at work started flirting with my husband, but then she got hit by a bus.

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Yay, God, right? That's the story we want, right? It's like, this is a good story. There may be some bad things that happen in my life, but they all get resolved by lunch.

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It's no big deal, really. God takes care of it, because God is with me. That's the story we want.

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The problem is, that's not often the story that God authors. With God, and we see this with Joseph often, even though God is with you, life gets turned upside down.

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Let's check out some more of the story. Back in verse six, it says,

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Kind of like me. And after a while, his master's wife took notice of Joseph and said, come to bed with me.

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Potiphar's wife, who you have to think was hot, right? Potiphar is this powerful guy, powerful guys.

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Even if you look like Donald Trump, you get the hot wife. She's probably like this hot woman.

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She comes to Joseph and says, come to bed with me. And reading the story, it's like, finally

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God is giving Joseph a break. It's like, yes, he may be in prison, but he's going to pay back on his boss, because he's going to sleep with his hot cougar of a wife.

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It's like this. What? So this turns out to be a good thing, that he's getting hit on by the boss's wife.

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This is the story we want. This is Bible meets Jersey Shore. It's like, yes, this is what we want right here.

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But that's actually not what happens. Let's pick the story back up, verse 8. But he refused.

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With me in charge, he told her, my master does not concern himself with anything in the house.

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Everything he owns, he has entrusted to my care. No one is greater in this house than I am.

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My master has withheld nothing from me except you, because you're his wife.

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How then could I do such a wicked thing and sin against God? And though she spoke to Joseph day after day, he refused to go to bed with her.

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Did you catch the part about sinning against God? Yeah, you might want to pick up on a theme there.

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With her, or even be with her. So here is lonely Joseph. He has nothing going right for him in his life.

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It seems like God is not with him at all. What? What version of the story?

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Oh, yeah, your own made -up version with certain details left out. Got it, okay. And day after day, he has this hot, temptress woman saying, come to bed with me.

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And day after day, he says, no. Why? Because despite everything that's happened, despite the fact that his life has been turned upside down, he kept looking up.

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He doesn't say, how could I do this and sin against my boss, your husband. He says,

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I couldn't do something like that because I can't sin against my God. His eyes were fixed on God and he did not want to sin against his

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God. And so he says, no. And Mrs. Potiphar does not take kindly to that. Check this out. Verse 11.

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One day, he went into the house to attend to his duties and none of the household servants were inside.

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She caught him by his cloak and said, come to bed with me. She's kind of stuck in this one line. But he left his cloak in her hand and ran out of the house.

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When she saw that he had left his cloak in her hand and run out of the house, she called their household servants.

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Look, she said to them, this Hebrew has been brought to us to make sport of us. He came in here to sleep with me, but I screamed.

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When he heard me. Now remember all of this, he's not really interested in teaching what the story is about. By the way, this story really is about Christ.

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Surprise there. But he's not going to show you Jesus from this text. No. See, look at Joseph persevered on his path to greatness.

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So be like Joseph and persevere on your path to greatness. That's really what's going on here.

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He screamed for help. He left his cloak beside me and ran out of the house. She kept his cloak beside her until his master came home.

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Then she told him this story, that Hebrew slave you brought us came to me to make sport of me.

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But as soon as I screamed for help, he left his cloak beside me and ran out of the house. When his master heard the story, his wife told him saying, this is how your slave treated me.

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He burned with anger. Joseph's master took him and put him in prison, the place where the king's prisoners were confined.

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Again, and this is not the story we want. I mean, if I'm Joseph, I'm thinking, what's the deal,

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God? Like, are you serious, God? I mean, I'm trying to live for you.

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I get sold into slavery. I say no to this woman because I'm trying to be true to you and I get thrown into prison.

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Seriously, God? Like, what is going on? I've done my part.

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Why won't you do yours? That would have been my attitude. But it's not

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Joseph's attitude. Look at the next verse. In verse 20, it says, but while Joseph was there in the prison, the

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Lord was with him. He showed him kindness and granted him favor in the eyes of the prison warden.

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And no matter what happened, no matter how much his life turned upside down, Joseph just kept looking up and he kept his focus on God.

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He persevered. And guess what? Perseverance was the path to greatness.

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Yeah, so you want to achieve greatness just like Joseph? Well, you got to persevere just like he did.

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Folks, yes, Christians are called to persevere. Persevere in suffering and prayer and other things.

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Yes, we are called to persevere in our faith and trust in Christ despite all of our circumstances.

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But it's not because we're on our way to greatness. It's because we're on our way to the grave and our lives are eventually going to wind down.

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Our bodies are going to fall apart and then we're going to crumple and die. So we're called to persevere in the faith and not look at our circumstances as indicative of God's love and favor towards us.

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Instead, we look to the cross as proof of what God feels towards us and our reconciled state towards him.

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And we persevere in the faith even in the face of, well, persecution and suffering and other things, right?

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And this whole story about Joseph is about the thing that God was doing. Let me take you to a passage that's not often cited that has to do with Joseph but kind of gives you the bigger picture of what's going on because God gives it in the

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Psalms, Psalm 105. Let me read from verse 1. Oh, give thanks to the Lord.

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Call upon his name. Make known his deeds among the peoples. Sing to him, sing praises to him.

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Tell of all of his wondrous works. Glory in his holy name. Let the hearts of those who seek the

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Lord rejoice. Seek the Lord and his strength. Seek his presence continually.

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Remember the wondrous works that he has done, his miracles and the judgments he uttered.

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Of O offspring of Abraham, his servant, children of Jacob, his chosen ones, he is the

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Lord our God. His judgments are in all the earth. He remembers his covenant forever, the word that he commanded for a thousand generations, the covenant that he made with Abraham, his sworn promise to Isaac, which he confirmed to Jacob as a statute to Israel as an everlasting covenant, saying,

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To you I will give the land of Canaan as your portion for an inheritance. When they were few in number, of little account and sojourners in the wandering from nation to nation, from one kingdom to another, he allowed no one to oppress them.

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He rebuked kings on their account, saying, Touch not my anointed ones. Do my prophets no harm.

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When he summoned a famine on the land and broke all supply of bread, he, the Lord God, sent a man ahead of them,

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Joseph, who was sold as a slave. His feet were hurt with fetters.

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His neck was put in a collar of iron. Until what he had said came to pass, the word of the

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Lord tested him. The king sent and released him. The ruler of the people set him free.

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He made him lord of his house and ruler of all of his possessions to bind his princes at his pleasure and to teach his elders wisdom.

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God is the one who sent Joseph into slavery. God is the one who did it.

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He did it in order to save the children of Israel, save them through the famine that he was sending on Egypt.

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God had his purposes in all of it. And even though, according to this passage, Joseph was literally, he had a collar of iron on his neck and was hurt with fetters when he was thrown into prison.

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God was with him and God was working his purposes. This isn't about the greatness of Joseph. This is about the greatness of God.

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That's what this passage is all about. And Joseph is a picture of Christ. When you look at the details, you can see that he's a type and shadow that points us again to Jesus.

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All of these texts are about Christ. They're not about you or me, your greatness, my greatness.

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Pah! Forget that nonsense and stop being so narcissistic in your love for yourself.

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It's not about your greatness. It's about his greatness and his glory, his kingdom and his ends, not you and your greatness.

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We continue. If you keep reading this story, you see that Joseph ends up getting elevated through his time in prison to second in command of the entire nation.

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And through that position, he is able through his wisdom given to him by God to save two different nations of people from a famine.

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He becomes a hero of God's people. In fact, here we are still talking about him today like he is a hero.

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And he was. He led this incredible life, a great life, but it wasn't luck.

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It wasn't because his life was easy. I realize some of you have gone through some really difficult things.

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I've gone through some difficult things. Some of you right now are going through... You and I aren't Joseph. Some difficult things, but I mean this dude was sold into slavery by his brothers.

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Because of his moral ethical decisions, he was thrown in prison. He had it hard.

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The only difference is that he didn't quit. He didn't quit.

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He didn't quit on life. He didn't quit on faith. He didn't quit on God. He endured.

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And perseverance was the path to greatness.

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Perseverance was the path to greatness. And we need to do the same thing. When life goes upside down, just like Joseph, we need to keep looking up.

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Another thing we need to do is we need to keep moving forward when life just keeps pushing us backwards.

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In this series, Renegade, which we're ending today, we've been telling you about a real renegade, someone who lived an amazing life for God since the

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Bible. I mean there are amazing people like Joseph in the Bible. And if you go to church long enough, you hear their stories.

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But you don't always hear about the people after the Bible. And the reality is God didn't stop taking ordinary people and helping them to live extraordinary lives.

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Really? So we're going to get an extra biblical story to boot. I can hardly wait. The Bible ended.

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He keeps doing that today. So we've been looking at some people since the Bible. And today I want to introduce you to someone named

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Adoniram Judson. Adoniram Judson. In the early 1800s...

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His story is nowhere in the Bible. Your job is to preach the word. Adoniram Judson was a 22 -year -old guy.

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And he was someone who loved God. And he felt like God was leading him to become a missionary to India.

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He was going to move to India and be a missionary there. Now, there was a complication. He was also in love with a girl.

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And he wanted to marry this girl and to go with her to India to be missionaries together. And so Adoniram Judson wrote a letter to her father asking for her hand in marriage.

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Her name was Mary Ann. She was a year younger than him, 21 years old. We actually still have the letter that he wrote to her father.

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I want to show it to you. Check this out. This is really what he wrote. He says, I have now to ask whether you can consent to part with your daughter early next spring to see her no more in this world.

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Whether you can consent to her departure and her subjugation to the hardships and sufferings of missionary life.

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Whether you can consent to her exposure to the dangers of the ocean, to the fatal influence of the southern climate of India, to every kind of want and distress, to degradation, insult, persecution, and perhaps a violent death.

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He goes on. Can you consent to all this for the sake of him who left his heavenly home and died for her and for you, for the sake of perishing immortal souls, for the sake of Zion and the glory of God?

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Can you consent to all this and hope of soon meeting your daughter in the world of glory with the crown of righteousness?

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It's not the letter that every father hopes to get for his daughter.

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But the father said she needs to make her own decision. If she wants to do that, she can. And she said yes.

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She wrote a letter after receiving that to her friend Lydia She wrote, I feel willing and expect, if nothing in providence prevents, to spend my days in this world in heathen lands.

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Yes, Lydia, I have about come to the determination to give up all my comforts and enjoyments here, sacrifice my affection to relatives and friends, and go where God in his providence shall see fit to place me.

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And so they got married. And just a couple years later, after preparing themselves, they arrived in India in the

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Bay of Bengal in this boat. Marianne is about to pop.

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She's pregnant. And finally, they get to the port that they've been dreaming about for years in Calcutta, India.

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And so when they land, they discover there's one problem. The government, because they are

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Americans, will not let them into the country. And so all they're preparing, they can't become missionaries in India.

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They get back in the boat, and they decide, God has called us to be missionaries. We're not going home.

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And so what we're gonna do is we're gonna go to every port that this boat stops at, and whichever government will allow us in, that's where we'll be missionaries.

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So they get in the boat. They go back out into the Bay of Bengal. And just then, this terrible monsoon hits.

01:00:01

And for three weeks, they're out in the water. They're unable to get back to land. And Anand's wife has her baby out on the boat in the storm.

01:00:12

And the baby dies out on the boat in the storm. Finally, three weeks later, they're able to continue their journey.

01:00:20

And they start making stops at ports. And finally, they arrive at a port that will let them into the country.

01:00:25

They arrive in the little poverty -stricken, really disgusting, revolting town in Burma.

01:00:34

And so they're going to be missionaries in Burma. Difficulties is,

01:00:42

Burma's never had a Christian missionary in the history of their nation. And it was just an incredibly hostile environment to Christians, to missionaries, to the

01:00:50

Christian message. But that's where God has allowed us to get in. And so that's where we're going to be missionaries.

01:00:56

And so they're in Rangoon, Burma. And Adoniram Judson starts being a missionary.

01:01:01

He starts sharing Jesus. These people had never heard of Jesus. And so he starts telling them who Jesus is. For six and a half years,

01:01:08

Adoniram Judson shares Jesus with people and not one single person says yes.

01:01:15

No one becomes a Christian. His church goes from the two of them to the two of them for six and a half years.

01:01:22

Doesn't grow a single person. His supporters start writing him letters saying, you're wasting your time.

01:01:30

You're wasting your energy. Nothing is happening there. You're wasting our money and we're going to stop sending it.

01:01:37

And so now he's a missionary with no financial support, no means to live there.

01:01:43

He sends back letters and says, fine, I don't want money. I want people. This job is too great for me.

01:01:50

Can you send people? Will anyone come and engage in this missionary life, this ministry with me?

01:01:57

No one comes. And so it's still just him and his wife. And he just continues to preach about people's need for Jesus.

01:02:03

Well, eventually Aaron Judson becomes a enemy of the government because they just don't like the message that he's preaching.

01:02:12

And so they put him in jail over and over. When he was in jail, we're talking about 110 degrees, mosquitoes eating you alive and just horrible conditions.

01:02:25

At one point, he was chained in jail with his feet and legs chained to a wall and his shoulders and head on the floor, if you can imagine that position.

01:02:36

He was chained in that position and left there for two and a half years. He never left that position.

01:02:44

He sat in that position. He slept in that position. He ate in that position. He went to the bathroom in that spot, in that position.

01:02:52

And the whole two and a half years, he was secretly translating the Bible into Burmese in that position.

01:02:59

And he would hide the Bible in his pillow at night or whenever the guards came in so they wouldn't know what he was doing.

01:03:07

And so while he's in prison, his wife, Marianne, is pregnant. And every single day, she would walk two miles to the prison to beg them to release her husband, but they wouldn't.

01:03:19

And Judson's wasting away in jail. He's just become this hollow person. He's living in rags.

01:03:26

And his wife really isn't doing any better. Problem is, she's pregnant. And she has a baby.

01:03:32

Her milk dries up. Finally, they release Judson from prison. And it's gay, but no.

01:03:39

He gets out in time to watch his wife die. Six months later, the daughter that she had while he was in prison dies.

01:03:48

Judson would get married two more times while he was in Burma. Both of those wives died.

01:03:55

Between those three wives, they had 13 kids. Of those 13 kids, seven of them died as children in Burma because of the hardships of life on that mission field.

01:04:09

But despite all that, Adoniram Judson just kept pushing forward.

01:04:15

He kept moving forward. Yeah, this is, I'm sure, an inspirational message. Yeah, it sounds like a great missionary.

01:04:23

The job of the pastor is to preach the word. Can you get to that? Because you haven't technically done it yet.

01:04:30

Then when the world was pushing him backwards, and guess what? It turned out.

01:04:36

You know, being that he was a missionary, I think if he were at your church, he would tell everybody about Jesus.

01:04:44

Why don't you preach the message that he would have preached? That perseverance was the path to greatness.

01:04:53

Here we go again. Because Adoniram Judson lived there for 35 years before dying there in Burma. In his time in Burma, he ended up starting by himself 63 churches.

01:05:06

He led, individually led, over 6 ,000 Burmese people to Christ, to faith in Jesus.

01:05:14

Those 6 ,000 people, you're going to meet them in heaven someday. They're in heaven because he didn't quit. Today, there are over 370 churches in Burma who all trace their lineage back to Adoniram Judson's ministry.

01:05:28

There is a tribe in the mountains of Burma called the... Yeah, which means that he didn't preach himself or his greatness.

01:05:36

He preached Christ and him crucified for our sins. Why don't you do what he did?

01:05:42

Karen tribe, there are over 180 ,000 believers who live on that mountain.

01:05:49

They have established over 100 Christian schools on that mountain. They send missionaries.

01:05:55

That tribe sends missionaries all over Southeast Asia. So they're starting churches all over Southeast Asia in different countries.

01:06:02

And if you ask them, how did that all happen? The Karen tribe would tell you, it was Adoniram Judson.

01:06:09

You don't think they would give God the glory? Weird. He began all of this.

01:06:19

It obviously wasn't easy for him. It wasn't like, well, he, you know, lock, you know, some people are born more talented, it's easier.

01:06:26

It wasn't easy. In fact, when I hear that story, the question I wonder is, at what point would

01:06:32

I have quit? At what point would we have quit and said, this isn't working, this isn't worth it.

01:06:40

But he never quit. He didn't quit on missionary life. He didn't quit on life. He didn't quit on God.

01:06:45

He never quit. He just kept moving forward when life just kept pushing him backwards. And it turned out that perseverance was the path to greatness.

01:06:56

And if we want to experience greatness, if we want to live great lives, great lives for God, then we need to do the same.

01:07:03

But it's not just that. I think there's one other element to this. And it's that we need to keep finding opportunities when all we can see are obstacles.

01:07:12

There's another guy, a true renegade. This guy's in the Bible. His name is Paul. Oh, good. Another Bible story.

01:07:18

All right. Back to the Bible. Paul, the renegade. Okay. Paul was one of the early Christians, and he just really tried to live this renegade life for God.

01:07:27

He wasn't just going to settle for normal. You know, it's like, I'm going to go... Really? He wasn't going to settle for normal? Yeah.

01:07:34

Oh, man. Against the norm. Beyond normal. I'm just going to do everything I can for God.

01:07:40

And so he would travel from town to town because back then no one had heard of Jesus yet. It's like a new thing.

01:07:45

And so he would go from town to town trying to share Jesus with people so they know that God came for us.

01:07:50

Yeah. Why don't you do what Paul did? Paul, we have a lot of his writings.

01:07:56

Like he said to the church in Corinth, I chose to know nothing among you except Christ and Him crucified.

01:08:04

The fact that you're somehow turning Paul's story into something about Paul trying to not settle for a normal life is to miss the whole point.

01:08:19

Paul believed in and trusted in Christ for the forgiveness of his sins. He was an eyewitness of the resurrection because Jesus appeared to him on the road to Damascus.

01:08:27

He, when he would go places, he didn't proclaim Paul. He preached Christ. Why don't you do that?

01:08:35

There's a God who loves you and came for you and you can have a relationship with Him that will change your life and you can go to heaven with Him and Paul never said any words like that at all.

01:08:44

So he would go, but everywhere he went, obstacles, everywhere.

01:08:50

It was never easy. Obstacles after obstacles. So for instance, in Acts chapter 19, there's a book in the

01:08:56

Bible in the New Testament called Acts, A -C -T -S, not A -X. There's no book Acts.

01:09:02

I wish there was a book Acts because that'd be like a cool book, but there's no book Acts. But it's A -C -T -S, Acts. In the book of Acts chapter 19,

01:09:09

Paul goes to this town called Ephesus and he's going because he wants to let them know that Jesus came for them.

01:09:15

Well, Ephesus is a difficult town to share Jesus in for a variety of reasons. One is that Ephesus was a pretty wealthy town at the time.

01:09:24

In fact, there were a considerable amount of people in Ephesus at that time who had indoor plumbing, which was like basically unheard of back then, but it was heard of in Ephesus because they were wealthy.

01:09:37

Not only were they wealthy, but it was a town known for sexual immorality.

01:09:44

So like the first known ad in history, the first known advertisement that we have today happens to be from Ephesus.

01:09:53

And it's from around the time of Paul and Jesus. And this ad was a picture, like a drawing of a woman and a heart and a foot.

01:10:04

It was an ad for a brothel. And the idea was, if you want this, if this is what your heart is looking for, walk this way.

01:10:11

And so it was a town of great sexual immorality. But not only that, it was a town of the worship of many gods.

01:10:20

There were all kinds of kind of false gods, made up gods that people believed in back then. And basically all those gods were worshiped in Ephesus.

01:10:27

It was like this, you know, spiritual place where we worship all the gods. And foremost in Ephesus was the

01:10:34

God called Artemis. Artemis was just this God that their city was really proud of. In fact,

01:10:39

Artemis worship had become the big business of Ephesus. If you went there, it was where you could get your

01:10:45

Artemis worship stuff. You know, you could get your statues and your this and your that. And so it was kind of like their main economy was based on Artemis worship.

01:10:56

So... Yeah, that's because one of the great seven wonders of the ancient world, the temple of Artemis, was there in Ephesus.

01:11:02

Yes. Here comes Paul into town to tell them that Jesus is the only true

01:11:10

God. Not all these other gods you worship, not Artemis. You're right. Who did

01:11:16

Paul obsess about when he preached? Paul. In fact, Paul didn't come into Ephesus to tell them that everybody there is on their path to greatness and just persevere like he has and they'll achieve greatness.

01:11:28

Paul preached Christ and him crucified for our sins.

01:11:36

That you should not trust in your wealth, but in God alone.

01:11:41

And you need to turn away from your sexual immorality and really live for Jesus, who you've never heard of.

01:11:49

It's not an easy place to share that. You know, the book of Acts has several places where we know what

01:11:55

Paul preached. Why don't you just open it up and let Paul preach to us about Jesus. Yeah, I think that would probably mess up your sermon if you let him do that.

01:12:05

Message, but Paul does. And it doesn't go well at all.

01:12:11

Let me read to you a little bit. We'll put it on the screen for you from Acts 19. So here's what happens, starting in verse 8.

01:12:19

It says, Paul entered the synagogue, this is in Ephesus, and spoke boldly there for three months, arguing persuasively about the kingdom of God.

01:12:27

But some of them became obstinate. They refused to believe and publicly maligned the way.

01:12:34

So from the beginning, people are just against his message and kind of going out and saying, this guy's nuts, and he's wrong, and making up lies about him.

01:12:41

But then it gets worse, because what happens, and I'll just tell you this, you can look it up if you want to. You left the part out about that once he got kicked out of the synagogue, he basically went to the

01:12:51

Hall of Tyrannus, and he spoke daily at the Hall of Tyrannus. Things kept going really well for him.

01:12:59

If you're like, I don't even have a Bible, grab one. But what happens is some businessmen start to realize, wait a second, if people believe what he's telling them, they're not going to worship

01:13:11

Artemis, and that's how we make our money. Well, actually, it's not that they just kind of connected the dots and said, oh no, if he keeps preaching about Jesus, we're going to lose money.

01:13:24

It's that God was bringing so many people into the church through the preaching of Christ in the mouth of Paul that it actually cut into their revenues.

01:13:35

Acts 19, verse 23, About that time there arose no little disturbance concerning the way.

01:13:42

For a man named Demetrius, a silversmith who made silver shrines of Artemis, who brought in no little business to the craftsmen, and these he gathered together with the workmen in similar trade and said,

01:13:54

Men, you know from this business that we have our wealth, and you see and hear that not only in Ephesus, but in almost all of Asia, this

01:14:01

Paul has persuaded and turned away a great many people, saying that gods made with hands are not gods at all.

01:14:09

And there is danger not only that this trade of ours may come into disrepute, but that the temple of the great goddess of Artes may be counted as nothing, and that she may even be deposed from her magnificence, she whom all of Asia and the world worship.

01:14:24

Yeah, see, he was already cutting into business. Yeah, see, the gospel has a really bad habit of cutting into the business of false teachers and false gods.

01:14:34

Just saying. And so we need to stop this guy. And so what happens is that there is this massive riot.

01:14:44

Like this riot breaks up in the city, kind of spurred on by these businessmen who are like, we need to get Paul dead or out of town.

01:14:50

And so like people are flipping cars and burnt. They weren't flipping cars. There were no cars back then. But there really was this massive riot, and there's a humorous element to it as you read the story, because for literally hour upon hour for hours.

01:15:04

Why don't you read the story? Have you got anything better that you should be doing on a

01:15:11

Sunday morning, pastor? You said there's some really funny elements here.

01:15:17

Why don't you read us those funny elements from the story in context? Hours on end, all these people who are rioting are chanting, great is

01:15:28

Artemis of the Ephesians. Great is Artemis of the

01:15:33

Ephesians. And so they're like rioting and burning things and throwing things and fighting, all chanting together, great is

01:15:39

Artemis of the Ephesians. Because these businessmen have kind of spurred them on like, hey, this guy is, you know, if we listen to him, what happens to Artemis?

01:15:45

And so it's this crazy scene. People think Paul's going to get killed. And so like it's like, ah, we need to save this guy.

01:15:51

So the whole situation seems awful, right? If you're Paul, you're like, went to the wrong city, right?

01:15:57

Need to get out of town. This is not the place to be. Nowhere does it say that about Paul's thoughts or feelings regarding his decision to be in Ephesus.

01:16:07

I want to show you something. Actually, God called him there. There's a book in the New Testament called 1

01:16:14

Corinthians. 1 Corinthians is actually a letter that we call a book. But it was a letter that Paul wrote to people who lived in a town called

01:16:22

Corinth. And so they were Corinthians. This was the first letter that we have that he wrote to them. And so it's called 1

01:16:28

Corinthians. And it just so happens that Paul wrote 1 Corinthians from Ephesus, from Acts 19, that time in his life, from Ephesus.

01:16:37

And look what he says in verses 8 and 9. Pay attention to this. He says, but I will stay on at Ephesus until Pentecost, which is a holiday.

01:16:47

He says, because, here's why, a great door for effective work has opened to me, and there are many who oppose me.

01:16:58

Huh? Did you get that? He says, there's a great door for effective work. We just saw the situation, right?

01:17:04

We know what he's talking about. And he says, and there are many who oppose. Isn't that like a contradiction?

01:17:10

Doesn't it seem like he's contradicting himself? And you might say, well, maybe that was just like this one weird instant. No, it's not.

01:17:15

It's not just here. So like in Acts, A -C -T -S, not A -X, 14, Paul's in a city called

01:17:21

Iconium. And the Bible says in Acts 14, verses 2 and 3, the Jews who refused to believe stirred up the

01:17:30

Gentiles and poisoned their minds against the brothers. So Paul and Barnabas spent considerable time there speaking boldly for the

01:17:42

Lord. Huh? Shouldn't it say, so Paul and Barnabas got out of town as quickly as they could?

01:17:52

Right? And when it says people are poisoning their minds and stirring up trouble, you leave. But he was like, oh, this, my friends, this is where we're going to say.

01:18:05

See, the deal with Paul. Yeah, let me make a point from the apostle Paul, 1 Corinthians 1, verse 10.

01:18:13

I'll start there, okay? And here's the point. I'll make it ahead of time and demonstrate it from the text.

01:18:19

And that is that Paul didn't preach himself. He preached Christ. 1

01:18:25

Corinthians 1, verse 10. Paul writes, he says, I appeal to you, brothers, by the name of our

01:18:30

Lord Jesus Christ, that all of you agree and that there be no divisions among you, but that you be united in the same mind and same judgment.

01:18:37

For it has been reported to me by Chloe's people, there is quarreling among you, my brothers.

01:18:43

What I mean is that each one of you says, I follow Paul. Or I follow

01:18:49

Apollos. Or I follow Cephas. Or I follow Christ. Is Christ divided?

01:18:56

Was Paul crucified for you? I thank God that I baptized none of you except for Crispus and Gaius, so that no one may say that you were baptized into my name.

01:19:09

Yeah, right. See, that's the point. Paul didn't preach Paul. Paul preached

01:19:15

Christ. In fact, just go down to verse 18, and I'll keep reading. For the word of the cross is folly to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.

01:19:27

For it is written, I will destroy the wisdom of the wise and the discernment of the discerning, I will thwart. Where is the one who is wise?

01:19:34

Where is the scribe? Where is the debater of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world?

01:19:40

For since in the wisdom of God the world did not know God through wisdom, it pleased God through the folly of what we preach to save those who believe.

01:19:49

Jews demand signs, Greeks seek wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and folly to Gentiles.

01:19:58

But to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ is the power of God and the wisdom of God.

01:20:04

For the foolishness of God is stronger than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men. For consider your calling, brothers.

01:20:11

Not many of you were wise according to worldly standards. Not many were powerful. Not many were of noble birth.

01:20:17

But God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise. God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong.

01:20:24

God chose what is low and despised in the world, even things that are not, to bring to nothing the things that are.

01:20:30

So that no human being might boast in the presence of God. And because of Him you are in Christ Jesus, who became to us wisdom from God, righteousness and sanctification and redemption, so that as it is written, let the one who boasts boast in the

01:20:47

Lord. And when I came to you, brothers, I did not come proclaiming to you the testimony of God with lofty speech or wisdom, for I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ and Him crucified.

01:21:08

Uh -huh. I decided to know nothing among you except for Christ and Him crucified. And I was with you in weakness and in fear and much trembling, and my speech and my message were not in plausible words of wisdom, but in demonstration of the

01:21:21

Spirit and power, so that your faith might not rest on the wisdom of men, but in the power of God.

01:21:28

Right. So I find it weird that here you're telling us a story about the

01:21:34

Apostle Paul in the context of, well, the path to greatness is all about perseverance, as if somehow we are all on the path to greatness.

01:21:47

That's not what we're called to. And the Apostle Paul, the reason why he was great is because he didn't preach himself.

01:21:55

He preached Christ. If you want to be great like Paul, then shut up about telling us about you and your greatness or being on a path to greatness and tell us about our great

01:22:05

God and Savior, Jesus Christ, the way Paul did. Is that where others would have seen obstacles, he saw opportunities.

01:22:16

He saw opportunities. And Paul ends up living one of the most amazing lives for God ever. I mean, he's kind of like the action -adventure hero of the

01:22:24

Bible, like crazy, adventurous, amazing life. I mean, you could easily make the case that outside of Jesus, Paul was the biggest difference maker for God this world has ever known.

01:22:35

Yeah, Jesus, a big difference maker for God. Oh, my. I cannot believe you even said that.

01:22:43

And it's obviously not that it was easy for him. It's not like, well, he was lucky.

01:22:48

He had talent and intelligence and opportunities. No. What he had was trouble and problems and just obstacle after obstacle.

01:23:00

But he didn't quit. He saw opportunities. And he persevered.

01:23:06

And it turned out perseverance was the path to greatness.

01:23:13

Perseverance was the path to greatness. And if you and I keep in mind,

01:23:18

Vince has not yet, and he won't do it either because he's not capable of doing it, prove to you that the

01:23:26

Bible says that you are on a path to greatness. We're not. He never made this point biblically, yet he's telling all of these stories as if that's what these stories are all about.

01:23:38

Showing us the key to greatness is to persevere just like these folks did.

01:23:44

Uh -huh. Are going to live great lives. If we're going to live great lives for God, we need to do the same.

01:23:51

Because there's going to be obstacles everywhere. No matter what you try to do in life, and maybe especially whatever you try to do for life in God, there's going to be obstacles.

01:24:00

Or even for our church, you know, trying to start a church in the middle of Sin City, like we have a culture that's much like Ephesus.

01:24:06

And so there's going to be obstacles to success. And so we need to see opportunities where other people might only see obstacles.

01:24:18

Because perseverance is the path to greatness. It's not luck. It's not talent. It's not connections.

01:24:24

It's not intelligence. It's not opportunities. It's not that some people are just born more spiritual.

01:24:29

Some people are just more blessed by God than me. No. It's not.

01:24:35

Perseverance is the path to greatness. And so I'll ask you this. In what area of your life do you need to persevere?

01:24:45

Here comes the big application close. So what area of your life do you need to persevere so that you can make it on your path to greatness?

01:24:55

Wow. Right now. Maybe for you it's with volunteering.

01:25:04

Maybe recently you started volunteering at the Verve because that's the thing. You need to persevere and on your path to greatness.

01:25:11

Volunteering here at Verve or out in the community. And you were kind of like jumped into it like this is going to be fun. This is going to be cool.

01:25:16

And then you quickly realize this is actually a little bit difficult. And it's not as fun as I thought. And the rewards of it aren't coming very quickly.

01:25:25

And maybe this wasn't a good idea in the first place. Will you persevere or will you quit?

01:25:34

Maybe for you it's inviting a friend. Maybe you have some friends who you know need what you've experienced.

01:25:42

Yeah, because, you know, inviting a friend to the Verve is the thing that you need to persevere in on your path to greatness.

01:25:50

It doesn't even make any sense. Life has been changed in this place. And you have these friends who are like they need to experience what

01:25:57

I'm experiencing. It's not that I'm better than them. It's just like my life has been changed. They need their lives changed. And so you've invited them, and they've just shown no interest.

01:26:05

And so will you stop inviting them? Or will you keep creatively, lovingly telling them, no, you need to come and experience this?

01:26:16

Because perseverance is a path to greatness. Maybe for you it's with a friendship, a relationship.

01:26:22

Maybe there's someone that you've been friends with for a long time, but maybe that friendship is starting to stray a little bit.

01:26:27

Maybe it's starting to experience some difficulties. And it might just be the easiest thing, just walk away from that friendship.

01:26:36

But if you do, you'll never experience great friendships. Yeah, yeah.

01:26:41

If you do that, you'll never experience great friendships. Because, you know, great friendships and volunteering at the

01:26:49

Verve and things like that, I mean, they're just like, you know, the Apostle Paul and Joseph and that missionary.

01:27:01

So will you quit? Perhaps right now your faith is just really being tried.

01:27:08

There are some things you've been praying for, and they don't seem to be happening. You're questioning, is God listening to me?

01:27:14

Is he in my life? And so will, like Joseph, you continue to see

01:27:20

God even when your life is upside down and know that God is with you, propping you up in the difficulties?

01:27:25

It's not that he's walked away from you in your challenges? Or will you quit?

01:27:34

For a few of you, it might be your marriage. Maybe your marriage has gotten to a place where it's lost its vitality.

01:27:40

It just seems like a chore to continue in this. And you don't feel like it's going to change.

01:27:48

But that is not true. It can change. And God can give you the great marriage that you've longed for and hoped for.

01:27:58

So notice how he's defining greatness now. It doesn't even remotely connect to any of the biblical stories that he summarized at all.

01:28:08

Only if you don't quit. Because perseverance is the path to greatness. I don't know what it is for you.

01:28:16

It may be something else. It might be with your kids. It might be with your job. It might be with your health.

01:28:21

It might be this dream that you've held on to for so long but you're about to give up on. But whatever it is, it just feels like it isn't.

01:28:31

Right? It feels like it isn't going to happen. It isn't going to change. It isn't.

01:28:38

But that's not true because all you've got to do is persevere on your path to greatness.

01:28:44

Just like Joseph and the Apostle Paul and that missionary. God is bigger.

01:28:54

He is. He's bigger than isn't. He's bigger. God's bigger than isn't.

01:29:01

What does that even mean? How big is he then? Is he bigger than a barn door? Is he bigger than a barn?

01:29:07

Maybe he's bigger than a mountain or a hill. I mean, if he's bigger than isn't, is he bigger than supercalifragilisticexpialidocious?

01:29:14

How big is he? Bigger than whatever it is that's turned your life upside down.

01:29:20

He's bigger than the world that's been pushing you backwards. He's bigger than the obstacles that you see in front of you.

01:29:27

Yes, obstacles on your path to greatness. And people who get through it all and have great lives that we admire and that we wish we had, it wasn't easy for them.

01:29:39

They just didn't quit. And it's good news for you and me because we cannot quit.

01:29:46

Yeah, see, that's great news. Yeah, see, because they didn't quit on their path to greatness. See, now you can quit.

01:29:51

You don't have to quit too. See, that's great news, right? See, that's not the good news. The good news is Christ died on the cross for our sins and was raised again on the third day for our justification.

01:30:02

That's the good news. You and God together, you can endure.

01:30:09

And you can experience something really amazing with him. Wow, yeah, I can experience something really amazing.

01:30:15

What does that even mean? What is the cash value of that sentence? I can experience something really amazing with him.

01:30:24

What does that mean? Because perseverance is the path to greatness.

01:30:30

Yeah, you keep saying it, but you never actually demonstrate it. The greatness is the thing that I'm called to from a biblical text in context.

01:30:40

Myth busted. Yeah, your idea is busted. You busted it because you never showed it from Scripture.

01:30:49

And I want to give you some time to think about that and pray about that. So we're going to, this is what we do every week if you're new here, trying to figure out how does this work.

01:30:57

Just about every week, we'll give you three minutes or something just to sit with what you heard today because I don't know about you.

01:31:03

I have ADD. It's really easy for me to go, that was really good. I need to hear that and then walk out, and it never has anything to do with my life again.

01:31:11

You know, it's like, oh, yeah, I did hear that once, but I didn't apply it to my life. And so I just think taking a couple minutes and going, okay, what am

01:31:17

I going to do with this? How does this apply to my life, to my relationships, to my job, to my faith?

01:31:23

What do I need to do with this? So we're going to give you a couple minutes just to wrestle with that. Bam's going to play a song.

01:31:30

During this time, we also make communion available. You don't have to do that, but if you'd like to make that part of your experience today, there's tables with bread and juice on each side of the room, and the bread and juice represent the body and blood of Jesus given for us in a cross.

01:31:42

You know, Jesus' path was an extremely difficult one to the cross, and he never quit.

01:31:49

And he did that. Yeah, see, Jesus, he never quit on his path to greatness. So you need to be like Jesus. Here, have a cracker and some grape juice to remember that.

01:31:58

Because of his love for you. And so in communion, we just remember that the only reason we can experience the greatness of life with God is because Jesus persevered.

01:32:08

What? The only way we could experience the greatness with whatever with God is because Jesus persevered?

01:32:16

That's not even remotely close to the gospel, nor what it says regarding communion in the

01:32:22

Lord's Supper. Good gravy. And so we're going to give you just a couple minutes to do that.

01:32:27

I'm going to pray for you. No, done, done, done. You see, when you make the

01:32:34

Bible about you learning tips and strategies and principles that you need to apply in your path to greatness, you miss the whole point of Scripture, and you end up believing a false good news, just like the false good news that Vince just preached.

01:32:51

As a result of it, I hate to be the bearer of bad news. You're still dead in trespasses and sins if you believe this nonsense.

01:33:00

But the good news is that Christ died for your sins, even for believing this nonsense, which is a sin.

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It is the sin of idolatry. Believing this nonsense will send you to hell. But Christ died even for that sin.

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Repent, then, and believe the good news. Believe that your crucified and risen Savior died for you, that you may have life eternal.

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So what did you think? I'd love to get your feedback. If you'd like to email me regarding anything you've heard on this edition or any previous editions of Fighting for the

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Faith, you can do so. My email address is talkbackatfightingforthefaith .com, or you can subscribe on Facebook, facebook .com

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forward slash pirate Christian. Click on the subscribe button or follow me on Twitter, my name there, at pirate Christian. Till tomorrow, may

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God richly bless you in the grace and mercy won by Jesus Christ and His vicarious death on the cross for all of your sins.