REFORMCON2016 | Live Stream | N. D. Wilson

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All right, how are the breakout sessions good right on so this is a

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Real treat before we have lunch today, we're gonna have on the main stage My favorite

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Christian author I've said that before and I mean it nd Wilson How many guys have read?

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One of nd Wilson's books and one in this room. Okay, they're all in the back. There you go. Okay, and he's like me

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Okay If you haven't done so yet encourage you guys to do so Again, he is my favorite

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Christian author. I think just author in general Fascinating books.

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He is really really skilled and gifted His series a hundred cupboards is a series that I've read to my kids

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And they demand that I read it in one of my character voices Mortimer So I can tell you how well

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I know that series now I had to be in character for it his newest work outlaws of time the legend of Sam miracle

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Is a must read and he actually wrote a book a children's book called. Hello ninja

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It was a book about me. So no, hello ninja and another great book death by living and I think probably my favorite is

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Notes from the Tilt -A -Whirl, which actually also had a film based upon the book itself notes from the

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Tilt -A -Whirl and apology at church when we first began Out of a drug and alcohol rehab facility and we finally got out of that Hospital building and moved into our first church

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We were renting from one of the first first Bible studies series We did in small groups was notes from the

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Tilt -A -Whirl It's just fantastic it will make you love God and the world a lot more it's one of those books that You'll read a page or two and have to stop and just think and meditate for a couple of hours

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It is really really really good. So nd Wilson is gonna take the stage now. Let's welcome him

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He's a little too kind And I really like I say this honestly, I really enjoy seeing not very many hands

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As far as people who've read my books not very many. That's great. It means

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I can sell some books today It's when everybody's got their hand up and I guess Yes, we've already yes,

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I can still make them seem exciting to you because you haven't read them yet. Let's open in prayer Father thank you for this day.

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Thank you for this warmth for this room for the opportunity to be here together Talking about you and your world and our roles in it.

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Please bless this time. I pray that we would leave this room Changed and improved from the time when we entered it.

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We ask this all in your son's name. Amen Okay, so I'm gonna talk to you about What does it mean?

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to mean what you say What does that mean mean it mean what you say?

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But what does that mean? I Find that an overwhelming number of Christians Do not even kind of mean what they say they do not even kind of mean what they say they believe and They even think they believe it if you believe in Exnihilo creation

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If you believe that God made this world from nothing Then you are already a

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Calvinist Done Sold it's over The whole conversation is finished.

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There was nothing other than God made everything If that's what you believe

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Then you're all you're already there as far as God's sovereignty goes as far as his lordship goes as far as how supreme he is

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And his infinite relationship to this finite world. You're done Now as soon as you say ex nihilo, it's over now.

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Why is this? Well, if we try to actually locate our roles in this world our roles in this story, you have to start with some perspective

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So let's go to the wide shot Like the nice wide shot

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Where are you right now? Well, I'm In a big picture.

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I think really big picture. Do you even know where you are right now wine? I mean, you're in a plastic chair.

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You're in the state of Arizona You know, it's continent you're on You know, which oceans surround you you might know which planets are adjacent to yours

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Maybe some of you But right now you are being sucked down by a ball of mostly lava

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It's going mach 86 around a star and there's other balls also traveling around this star

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At high rates of speed and Luckily God included this design feature of this ball of lava that it pulls you down You're not you're not holding yourself down through any choice of yours there's no free will involved as the planet sucks you towards its surface and Pins you down now we design nice little things to catch ourselves as the planet is pulling us down So we can kind of like pose nicely while it pulls us down as we go mach 86 around a star

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And other things go just as fast or faster along with us around the same star here you are

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Sitting in a desert being sucked down by a ball of lava onto a plastic chair going mach 86 around a star

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Now if you have any kind of perspective at all on where you exist right now in outer space if you know

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Generally, which quadrant you're in while traveling traveling around the star where the star is in relationship to the galaxy

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Or the galaxy is in relationship to the other galaxies if you're the kind of person who's really into that then you probably aren't a

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Christian For some reason those people who don't believe in God are far more fascinated with what's out there than those people who do

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Now that's a that's a big broad brush You know I know it's inaccurate for some people

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But overwhelmingly Christians who believe that this entire place is the created artistry of their infinite father

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Tend to yawn and check out Christians who believe that this entire place is their inheritance and belongs to them

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Check out and people who don't people who think that they're shrapnel flying through an accident are far more interested

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They're looking closely. What is going on? They're building bigger lenses for the telescopes to see more clearly out into space to see the glory

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That exists out there and we look at it like yeah, that's ours

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Anyway and we get into Star Trek or Star Wars that's as close as we come So they're their own

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Mythologizing falsely of this universe that belongs to us because after all we are the children of the father who made it so X me hello creation this right here.

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This is wood mostly so that means that the wood is made of cells and the cells are Made of molecules and the molecules are made of atoms and the atoms which are mostly nothingness

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Moving at a high rate of speed those atoms are made of other things which we like to call corks up corks down corks leptons elementary particles

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We name the tiny things But ultimately don't you already know

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What this is made of I mean at the beginning we talked about X knee.

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Hello So if I asked you what is this really fundamentally on a basic level?

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made out of What are you on a fundamental level made out of now?

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I happen to know what made this In the almost in the short -term level the starlight

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That star we're hurtling around with its starlight the starlight is what's creating the forests

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Its energy is creating the grass and the trees we cut this down We make a little podium and we don't ever think about it again

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Starlight grabbing air co2 my breath Starlight grabbing that carving off the carbon makes it into wood

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You live in a place where all of your food is ultimately made by starlight All of your lumber made by starlight

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That's the power That exists here. That's the engine of our little solar system and who made the starlight who spoke it

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Someone spoke it and they spoke it from nothing This is made from nothing

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Now we could laugh at the ancient world and they said, you know Some farcical Egyptian not a real

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Egyptian because they would never be this dumb Said the world is on the back of a turtle and it's on that turtles on the back of a turtle and that that turtles

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On the back of a turtle and what's that turtle standing on another turtle and how about a turtle?

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Yes. Okay turtle We do the same thing, but we do it getting smaller So what is this made of?

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What is it made of? What is it made of? We just named things smaller We know that the atom is mostly

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Emptiness, it's an electron moving very quickly and we can count how many sometimes and we put it, you know different categories

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How quickly is electron moving? You're sitting on a chair. That's mostly emptiness moving at a high rate of speed

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Just like if I had a propeller up here sideways, you know a plane engine a turboprop engine and I started to accelerate that propeller really really really quickly and it would take my arm off but Let's make it a little faster and faster and faster and pretty soon.

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I could set my drink on it. I Could sit on it and that's what you're sitting on now You're sitting on incredible speed

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Incredible velocity and it's set in motion by the speech of your father

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Your father spoke and his words are power and all of his words are made flesh

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The incarnation was not some great big shocking moment where he did something different the incarnation was a great big shocking moment when he did something profoundly more fundamentally different with The Word of God the second person of the

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Trinity became flesh. All of his spoken words had already become flesh He said light and there is light he is saying you and here you are

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And your plastic chair and your ball of lava and the star powering all of our forests

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Making our lawns green in other parts of the country not here. They can they can be green here.

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There are golf courses So, who are we? We are minuscule

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We are absolutely tiny pieces of artwork on this ball hurtling through outer space

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And then we say things And we say things that we believe Yeah, we believe in God Yeah, we believe he's sovereign.

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We believe that he made everything from nothing We believe that do we? Do we really act like it?

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We believe That we are his artwork and yet we we go through our lives thinking that he really doesn't care that much about every one of our decisions

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I Decide to do this I decide to do that and I'd make all these decisions based on not what

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I think honors and glorifies him not based on what I think Reflects him more honestly in this image that I am

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He's entrusted me with the image of God here. I am in his image and I go make decisions based on how

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I feel What's cool at the moment? What other people will think of me?

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I mean, I have an ant Hurdling through this massive galaxy at high rates of speed held into existence by his spoken word and I can make decisions based on what my neighbor will think or what the news said some flashing lights on a screen that we made and I don't actually factor in the thought of what will honor him more

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If I make this choice Will I be honoring my father more or less if I make this choice?

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If I choose this job or that job if I decide to be all -in on to you know Whatever lefty movement is is very hip of the day and I want to say, you know

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What's a great opportunity for Christians to join hands with people who hate God on a fundamental level and really?

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Care deeply about how our coffee beans are grown. It's a great opportunity

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Now should we care how our coffee is grown? Of course. Absolutely. We should be stewards, but that's not why

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I'm making the decision Like I can be swayed all sorts of places when I'm an actual heir to the universe my older brother sits at the right hand of God the

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Father and man will judge angels and I can be worried about like so what hashtag

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Will give me the most Views retweets the art of the hashtag is kind of important to me right now

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To grow my my platform and my ministry Do we really mean what we say

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When you say you believe in ex nihilo creation, do you mean it? Do you think that God is speaking around you at all times?

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Always when you step outside your front door Do you look at the world that he is speaking in the art? He's creating right then at that moment.

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And you say like oh What a shit day Okay, like I mean, that's just a form of blasphemy

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Like you step out into his art and you're unappreciative You step out into another scene, which he's crafted.

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He gives you another character You're sitting there in that character from church that one guy where you're like, oh gosh, I don't know

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I don't know about this or that one neighbor is coming down your sidewalk Or you see you just see that person that just causes you to sin immediately and you lose all perspective

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It's like well, of course, he's gonna keep sending that person and sending him and saying him and saying him until you get this, right

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When you step outside and you watch him talking the heat and the rock When you see him setting the stage for another scene for another day for another moment in your life

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What kind of gratitude do you have? What kind of awareness do you have? Do you ever even thank him or do you just do that at meals and bedtime?

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Now we're not infinite and so we can't do it constantly God is infinite, which means he's not bored by your most boring day

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You're finite. And so you have a very short attention span very short and You go through one day and one day and then a week and then a month and you're like man

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This is really been dragging. I'm not famous yet Where's all my money? Why am

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I not wealthy? He's not bored He's infinite. He's not bored telling stories with the termites who are chewing on the wood in your house

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He's not bored telling stories with mold in your bathroom He's not bored spinning electrons

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Countless electrons because he's infinite and he's doing at the same time the same thing with stars

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You're finite and so you become bored you're finite So your receptors your senses are not big enough or wide open enough to receive everything.

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He's given you at every moment What's the most important thing that God gave to you right now? well that heartbeat and That heartbeat and that heartbeat and another one and another one and another one and that's essential.

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It's life and death If God decides not to give you another one you fall out of your chair and you're done

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And You're sitting here receiving life and receiving life and receiving life and he could give you death at any second

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And he gives you life again and boom -boom life again Boom -boom and you don't even thank him like you don't even bother now part of this admittedly.

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He doesn't expect you to Because if you did you'd be paralyzed If you started trying to thank

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God for everything He's given you you would be totally paralyzed and you'd be out of time if I sat here saying like okay

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Thank you father, thank you father. Thank you for and the breathing too. Thank you. Thank you and for the gravity

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I haven't flown off yet. Thank you Thank you. Like just I would never get anything done.

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He expressed that he expects us to be ungrateful He doesn't need to be thanked

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Now we need to thank him And we need to do it on a regular basis and we need to thank him for our heartbeats and for everything else but we have to move on we have to stand up and go live lives and We can't do that with him without him spinning and crafting and shaping and molding everything around us at every second

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Like we can't But then the bizarre thing is the bizarre thing is not that we don't thank him for every heartbeat

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The bizarre thing is how long we can go with an ungrateful attitude How long we can go feeling entitled and also how we can come to all sorts of crossroads in our lives

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All sorts of crossroads in our lives and all sorts of small decisions and big decisions and we can make them as if he's an

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Uninterested party we think that there's little holy things we do and God cares about that and then there's you know the rest

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Does God care does he care about you does he care about the stupid decisions

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He feeds the ants. He's feeding the termites your house right now Yes, he cares

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He provides for the termites. He provides for the bacteria He provides for all the plankton in the sea and he provides the plankton to the whales

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He's providing all the time and he's making you functional He's crafting you as a functional character made in his image and he sends you out into the world and he says image me accurately

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Here Go Are you an accurate image of God?

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Can anybody say of you having seen you man? I've seen a little glimpse of the father

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Just a little through a rock Christ obviously said that instead of plainly if you'd seen

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Christ you'd seen the father Can anybody say that about you? There it is

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That's what holiness looks like that's what love looks like that's what sacrifice looks like that's what total selflessness

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Looks like can anybody say that now the hope is yes, there's all sorts of times when you've imaged

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God There's all sorts of times when you've given somebody who's thirsty that drink of water when you've given somebody that shirt when you've clothed

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The naked when you fed the hungry like that's what we're told Like that's it that's what we're meant to do that that's part of our fruit

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Hopefully there's all sorts of times when yes ding ding ding ding ding. Good job gold star

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How many times are you not imaging God? That's the real question

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So yes, great job But how many times are you not at all a picture of the cross?

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You're not at all a picture of holiness. You're not at all a picture of the father How many times if you have kids how many times do you snap on your children

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We all know those those lovely big verses judge not lest to be judged How many times are you imposing a standard of judgment on people around your feet?

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That you would never ever ever want God the father to apply to you You're looking at that three -year -old and you're saying the blood of Christ is not for you not for this

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Like no Not for the milk on the floor. That's that's a bridge too far That just covers my porn habit

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Not this I'll receive your grace and I won't pass it on I'll receive your eternal

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Patience like your phenomenal patience with my pettiness and my sin, but I won't show any patience at all towards that person

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I work with Or towards that customer Towards my spouse towards my children or I'll just hop from this church and go to a different one because this one annoys me now

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I'm gonna go be served elsewhere We should exit our doors we should exit our beds in the morning and we should lay down in our beds at night

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Praying that we will be accurate pictures that we will be beautiful and glorious pictures of the one who made us and We should be okay with the fact that he's obviously working in cartoon.

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I mean really It's like sweat glands We get overweight quite easily.

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We've got these fingers that are strange Nails keep growing out the end of the hair just doesn't stop

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It's like he's obviously working in cartoon God is so humble

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The father is so humble That he made us his image

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Attached to a placenta and a woman's belly Fighting out into the world

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Fighting, you know fighting is an exaggeration being sort of compressed and squeezed out into the world

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Here we are bleeding pink wrinkled and God says my image

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This is me when God paints a self -portrait, what does it look like? It's like us and that should tell you how humble he is.

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That's what infinite looks like. He doesn't find us insulting Until he does and that's what judgment is in Christ.

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We're not there's no stench in Christ. We're not insulting and We should be quite frankly.

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We really really should be so how humble is he we are his image.

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How humble is he? well his son the creative word

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The word made flesh the second person of the Trinity was born in a barn and placed in a food bowl for animals

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There you go the heir to the universe in a food bowl for livestock now in little children's picture books

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Those livestock all immediately like meal get super pious They don't look like they smell at all

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In the real world being placed in an animal food bowl With livestock around you know what they're gonna just continue on their regular rate of flatulence just Chewing Tails up filfing filfing the stable

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It's like that's the real world. That's the world the world that God entered. So how humble is he?

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Well when he was born, he sent the most fantastic choral performance in the history of man

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Okay, that makes sense, right? It's great Christ was born the

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King entered the world the heir to the father the true image not like us The true image of God enters the world is made flesh is born in the barn

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Barn, this is one of those reasons why you know, we didn't make this up. This is not a story made up by man Because when man makes up stories about gods man the gods kind of rock

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They don't enter the world born of a virgin placed in a food bowl in a barn That's not how it goes when when we tell our lies

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It's like that's too humble the creative word is born the bar and he's placed it there he is.

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Okay, fantastic Great Then he sends the angelic choir

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Okay, now we get it now we're getting some pomp and circumstance right now we're getting that that big score from that summer blockbuster

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That's what we're expecting Got Hans Zimmer on it now It's gonna sound like Batman It's like cuz the king has been born

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Where does he send the angelic choir? Rome No Does it send it to the

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Kings to the Emperors? No No, the greatest musical performance in the history of this planet

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Was performed for whom? Everybody says shepherds, right?

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Well, actually mostly just sheep couple shepherds

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Hundreds of dumb animals Sheep that filthy wool sheep stupid sheep standing out there in the hills looking up saying sheep

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God sends the angels and says go sing. My son is born go sing to some sheep

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Why well because he's always loved sheep Look at us

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We are his sheep We are the recipients of his humility

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We are his heirs and he's not ashamed of us How astonishing is that?

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That is absolutely astonishing. I might know what a pain I am. I can only assume what pains you are and Yet in the cross because his son was born in a barn and went to the cross for us

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We are here clean without blemish. We are sheep And we're joining that choir

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Do you mean what you say Do you mean what you say you mean? Do you have the truth?

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Yes, you know we use the word reform Reformed. Yeah, we're all about Calvinism.

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Yay. God's sovereignty. We've got our theology, right? We've got it Do you live the most beautiful life of anyone that you know?

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Yeah, hmm Okay, but do you have the most beautiful truth Yes, because that's what the truth is

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But do you then go live it out beautifully? Are you a picture of what you say you believe?

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Are you an accurate picture what you say you believe think about this if I if I tell someone that I have

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The foundation I have the fundamental essential piece that enables any beauty at all.

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I Have access to true beauty. I have access to true goodness I have access to ultimate joy, and I said you dumb

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Mormon. I've got all the joy Okay, like Right Fantastic, so you have ultimate beauty.

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Yes, where is it? Where you're not living beautifully you have the root of all joy where?

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Where your God talks to you all the time Literally creating your body your feet your senses and creating all the sensations to be received by them in every single moment of your life

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And you're not happy The infinite Creator is giving you another heartbeat and another heartbeat

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He just gave you another honey crisp apple, which he invented and he didn't have to He invented that flavor and he gave you all the little bumps on that weird wet muscle in the hole in your face

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To taste it He invented taste and then he invented things to be tasted

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You're standing up balancing on this planet moving around the star and the star is making fruit and it gives you the hole in your face and he

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Lines it with bones useful for crushing things with and it gives you taste buds And then he gives you the apple and you shove it in your face

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It's a little mushy anyway, I prefer oranges

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You peel the orange and you're like, oh I hate that when I happen to make cuticles

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I hate it when the peel, you know the peel I hate that like a ball of orange goodness dangling on a tree made by frickin starlight and You have the available hole to put it in You put it in and you're still ungrateful and then when it goes down into your center it makes more hair

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More fingernails gives you energy to go live your beautiful joy joyful amazing life imaging

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God the Father, right? He gives you the power. He fills the tank and you go out and you are an accurate image of God as You make choices you have to ask yourself

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What honors my father when I do this or I do that when

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I get really really into CrossFit? All the way Is this making me more like God the

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Father? My becoming more like God the Father when you get really really really not into CrossFit The opposite when you start to be shaped more and more like a love seat.

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Are you making yourself a better image of God? When you bark at people when you're impatient with somebody else when you're sitting in your little machine

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Riding on little explosions that have been just you know You have this fluid that's been distilled from the goop that got pinned under the crust of our planet by the flood

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When God just swept up forests and pressed them down under lava and turn them into black goop and then we suck it up and mix it with chemicals till It's explosive and we put it in a box and we turn a key and light it all on fire

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But we hate the noise so we muffle it We ride around silently And You get all angry at somebody else and their little magic box riding their explosion come on It's like clearly

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I was gonna park my magic box there It's like are you an accurate image of God are you the kind of laughter that God manifests?

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Do you have the kind of humor that your father has? Do you have the kind of forgiveness that your father has the kind of joy that your father has?

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You take pleasure in spiders and slugs the way your father does I'm sorry, but there's nothing that he made that you get to say like it's not for me

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Really? Like somebody says have you ever seen this weird animal in Borneo and they pull up a picture you should say no

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Yes, please show me immediately. Tell me more Like if you found another piece of art crafted by the greatest artist in the history of history

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Okay, not interested Don't really care at all about what my father made

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My father made I don't really care. Let's think about those words. I Don't really care about what my father made and I don't care about it

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Even though I'm going to inherit it Even though I am one of his heirs Even though I'm being given stewardship in Christ and my brothers and sisters over all of it.

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I don't really care About that Why not? Well, because I can't afford that coffee table

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I want Or because I really need a PlayStation 4 only had a

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PlayStation 4 Things to be better what things make you happy How often do you step outside and listen and look at creation?

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Knowing that where you're standing and what you're looking at is the spoken art of your father God speaks now

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Wait, but aren't we are we secessionists? Some of us are some of us aren't I?

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Don't care God's talking right now because I'm still here and You're still here and the

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Sun is still here and it's still making us fruit Like all these things exist now because they don't exist of themselves.

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They exist because God made them He made them and they don't then run off and exist by themselves

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He made them and he is making them in him we live and move and have our being

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That's who we are So I don't care what your occupation is.

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I Don't care how quote -unquote boring it is. I don't care how rich it might make you.

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I Don't care if I was gonna say you shovel snow for a living, but that's a different state. I don't care.

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It doesn't matter You could count gravel You could count gravel for a living somebody could say, you know what

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I'll pay you 20 bucks an hour Okay, fine 35 just to count gravel Go sit in that in that driveway and just count every rock, please.

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And if you'd label them would be fantastic. I Don't care that's not a boring job.

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You're just a boring person You're just finite you're stuck

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Like we all are we're stuck in our finitude now If God gave you that job counting rocks in a driveway, you should thank him for it

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Thank him for it and you should be able to sit there Imaging him in your work That's that's what you want to be able to do if you're trying to find a job

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But you can't if you have a boring job If you have a job, you don't like you want a better job If you have a job you think has nothing to do with God whatsoever because all you're doing is working as a bank teller

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You know a claims adjuster Just a just a mom It's my least favorite phrase in the

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English language Just a mom. Oh, I'm just I'm just a mom. I'm just I'm just raising immortal souls

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That's all I don't know. It's like I've got these, you know images of God here

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They have to put things in their face and keep expanding It's like I'm just I'm just a mom they're gonna go to hell forever or heaven one of those we'll see

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It's just up to me How I project the gospel to them how I teach it.

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I'm just a mom Gosh, and I can go off About just a mom.

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It's a whole different talk like Like we are like guys incidentally like we are like the blade on the

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I keep using snow imagery for you people I'm sorry. We are the blade on the snowplow like we're the blade of the axe.

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We're meant to get used up we're meant to just beat and beat and beat and go and Grind and grind to get dull and eventually just break down and die

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And do you know why we're meant to do this so that people can be just a mom behind us because the real job is raising the

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Imago Dei The real job is raising up faithful worshipers and followers of the

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Sun. That's the real job We are the outer bulwarks protecting that operation

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That's our job. They're just a mom job. That's the thing we live and die for That's the thing we protect and we have this whole culture that tries to insult women when they're actually doing

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Phenomenal work. Can you imagine Mary being like oh You know somebody asks her so what are you doing with your degree?

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Oh I'm just a mom. That's all

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Just a mom the mother of David just just a mom That's all That's all

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I'm doing. I'm just raising up, you know heroes That will live forever in the presence of God I'm just raising people that will be the salt and light.

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I'm actually just raising the thing that will destroy darkness forever Okay, great

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Well, I am using my business management degree Thank you very much. I work at US Bank I'm taking pills to stop myself from being just a mom

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Because I'm doing much more important work. I have a retirement plan as opposed to raising immortal souls

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That's the sidebar. I'm saying I don't care what you do You could be just a mom or you can be the guy

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County driveway rocks if that's what God gave you That's what God gave you and you can successfully image him his joy his humility

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His love his humor no matter what you're doing Think about every one of those driveway rocks you pick it up and like it's another one

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Spoken from nothing. Do you know how many electrons are just motoring around in here? This thing's like the entire

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Milky Way It's another one There's another rock like there it is.

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No, you know, that's what God's doing, right? Like Because he's infinite.

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He's not getting bored He's making another electron and another driveway rock because you're tiny it's see it's so overwhelming

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Like I can't I can't do this Do you realize that every one of these rocks has an entire complete history that goes back to the foundation of the earth?

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And even before the foundation of the earth God had a plot a plan for this little driveway rock a plan

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He knows where it's gonna end up he knows where this driveway rocks gonna be on the last day and he knew that before time and He spent his time and his energy and his power and his creative work speaking it

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Here it is driveway rock Pull it out of my shoe and toss it in the bushes

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Pick up another one. I think about this all the time with snowflakes There they are

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Fantastic another piece of intricate artistry salt it shovel it dog pee on it

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And God doesn't care he makes more and he makes more if you're just a mom Then you are just a picture of the gospel

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Then you are just a picture of God's creative grace Then you are just a picture of the cross

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Then you are just a picture of forgiveness and salvation if you're just a driveway rock counter.

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You're the same But yeah, it's not as important to the future of mankind as it is when a woman is raising a child

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But you can still be a faithful Imager of God you can still please him with what you're with what you're given on the last day

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You can still stand before the throne and have him say well done Good and faithful servant

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Well done. What did you do with the breaths? I gave you. What did you do with the days? I gave you What did you do with all those heartbeats?

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Because I knew before the foundation of the world how many there would be I gave you this many

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How did you spend them what was the return well

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Mostly sleeping And what else like what other fruit was there

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By your fruit by their fruit you shall know them You all have been given wealth beyond measure

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With every one of those heartbeats with every one of your days your two eyes

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Your mouth the English language the Spanish language language at all taste the ability to hear

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Unbelievable wealth that God has given you Here's all the seed.

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Here's all the opportunity to successfully faithfully image God the Father now going forward start investing

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Make your moves. What are you doing with those heartbeats? What are you doing with that food budget? Is anybody sitting at your table?

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Are you feeding people? Like what are you doing? Where's the return? Where's the return in souls?

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Where's the return and dominion? Have you made the world more beautiful? Have you imitated God the Father in trying to beautify everything you touch?

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We'll all give an account and all of us are gonna fall short and hallelujah for the cross

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Because we get the righteousness of Christ as well. Thank God, but we should all want

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That good and faithful server. That's what we should be aiming at. That's what we should desire so In your vocations and there are many of them

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Can you image God? There's obviously nothing too low for God if you just pump out septic tanks

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It's like well God is the one who invented the need for those He's the one that invented this whole process that we ends up, you know, we need septic tanks if you're the

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Roto -Rooter man God bless you Like don't think that you're outside of his work or outside of his design

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You can faithfully image him and your vocation no matter what unless your vocation is fundamentally at odds with him

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No, obviously, I don't need to even make those qualifiers. Well, I'm a hitman, but I'm a great one Like no, of course not we all know that there are just there are vocations that are set against him directly

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I'm not talking about that. I'm talking about our American boredom a long time ago.

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I Was in I was in junior high and this is probably one of the most important lessons. This is why the rock analogy comes up There's one of the important lessons of my life

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My dad decided to try to build a house My dad is the kind of guy who's not afraid of trying anything

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He starts things There are some of us who are scared of small beginnings the day of small beginnings that there are other people who are not and my dad is one of those people who is not scared to tuck an acorn into the ground pat it down and walk away and Firmly believing that's gonna turn into a towering oak tree

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Like that's what's gonna happen. So he was gonna build a house. They didn't have any money He bought a book called

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I believe how to build a house. He had no construction experience whatsoever

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Whenever we had a little bit of money, he would take me out there I was in junior high we got to their little three acres and we do some work

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And he would he worked as a pastor So there was times when he could go in the middle of the day in the summer time There's other times when he was just slammed

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There's nothing he could do because it was just marriage disasters for you know, as far as the eye could see So he's involved in counseling a lot and other things where he's writing but there's times we were out there on the land working and after we eventually

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Poured some concrete and did nothing else. We had a whole bunch of rocks a Gravel in that foundation gravel in the driveway

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We had rocks. We had no money But we had one rake and he and I would drive out there and we would rake the gravel

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That's it pack it down Break it Pack it down make it rough it up and rake it rake in those rocks

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And finally, I think about day three that's about as long as I could last The heat was similar to this

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It's what we get in August. You know that 105 range not the full 118 Arizona special but 105 ish and I asked him on day three of the why why

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Why the rocks they're raked like I have raked these rocks. We have raked them and he said well

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God gave me the rocks and God gave me a rake That's it

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As soon as he gives me something else, I'll be just as faithful with it And he told me he's like I'm out here praying the whole time.

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Look at this God. He gave me a rake. I'm raking I'm raking so give me something else

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Give me something else and I'll be faithful with it, too Give me something else and I'll grow and he did like we built the whole house the beautiful house

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My parents live in it still we eat dinner there every Saturday night where my mom feeds the entire extended family

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We have what we call our Sabbath dinner It's a feast that is now essential to our family culture where he preaches at the cousins

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He preaches at his grandchildren and we all break bread together in that house Like God has blessed the raking of the rocks

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Now, what's your rake and what are your rocks like man? I really wish I had a greater impact for the gospel

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You know, I don't have dozens of people coming to me. I don't have Hundreds of people I don't have a huge, you know influence

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Well, do you do you have a rock and do you have some you have a rake like who has God given to you?

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What do you have in front of you? And then think about what God wants think about what honors him

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Think about the miracle of your own existence And I was creating everything about the scene from your heartbeat to your senses to the person in front of you

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I don't know rake those rocks insurance adjuster rake those rocks just a mom

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Rake those diamonds you got diamonds and you got a rake right the time.

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It's like and good for you Like be faithful with whatever he gives you and then don't be surprised when it's more and it's more and it's more

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I mean we are being raised as the heirs of the universe So you can expect there to be some incremental graduation as you show faithfulness in any vocation

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We can honor him in every single day and every opportunity we can honor him We can be a picture of him, even if there's no audience, but him we don't need a you know

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A fellow humans to look at us He imposed in a situation all four of your tires can blow out by yourself 20 miles out in the desert and you still have

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An audience how you respond to that moment is witnessed by the triune audience

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The God who spoke all of that scene and is now saying show me faithfulness Show me

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Like all of it comes from him. Let's pray Father, thank you for all of the moments.

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You give us the countless breaths the heartbeats the heartbeats We don't even keep track of I Pray that we would be amazing faithful stewards with every one of them that at the end

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What we have done will show a great harvest that you will look at us and tell us that we have done

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Faithful work with what we've been given Father make us faithful images of your son make us images of your holiness

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Send us out into the world as light as salt as yeast and drive away the darkness using us

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Break us if you have to but make us faithful in your son's name. Amen Thank you,

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Nate So we were trying to put legs on Reform theology.

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Do you feel it? That was the goal so Lunchtime you guys hungry.