Agents of Change

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This message is interesting.

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Um, this is a message that, that, that comes out of a time in, in Paul's life when he's writing to a church and a group of people who are very different than he is, and they come from an area in Corinth that is very different from anything that Paul's context made sense for and, and we're gonna see today.

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Uh, h- he wrote a message to them that, that's life-changing.

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Let's read it together, verse 11.

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"Therefore knowing the fear of the Lord, we persuade others, but what we are is known to God, and I hope it is known also to your conscience.

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We are not commending ourselves to you again, but giving you cause to boast about us so that you may be able to answer those who boast about outward appearance and not what is in the heart.

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And for if we are beside ourselves, it is for God.

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If we are in our right mind, it is for you.

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For the love of Christ controls us because we have concluded this, that one has died for all, and therefore all have died.

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And he died for all that those who live might no longer live for themselves but for him who for their sake died and was raised.

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From now on, therefore we regard no one according to the flesh even though we once regarded Christ according to the flesh, we regard him thus no longer.

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Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation.

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The old has passed away and behold, the new has come.

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All this is from God who through Christ reconciled us to himself and gave us the ministry of reconciliation.

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That is, in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting to us the message of reconciliation.

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Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ, God making his appeal through us, and we implore you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God.

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For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin so that in him we might become the righteousness of God."

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May God bless the reading of His word.

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Let's pray.

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Heavenly Father, we just come to you today and we, we ask, God, as we are shown this mission, God, you, that you placed on my heart to share with my friends here, that, that you would help us to deal with and be able to understand this message, the truth of the Gospel, the power of the Gospel to ch- not only change lives in our world, but also in others as well.

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Father, I pray that you would get me out of the way of this message, that you would use my words, but that you wouldn't let me to insert myself into them, that you would allow me to be able to share this message with others.

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Father, we love you.

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Thanks for loving us.

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Amen.

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In the first service, I mentioned that, you know, a friend of mine, Tom Oden, some of you may know him, he's always coming up to me.

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He's asking me to share, like, the latest history s- nugget that I've learned.

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Um, I love history.

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I read a lot of historical things.

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My wife says that I'm a nerd, which is true.

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And so, you know, when I'm preaching, I, I'm usually relating in my mind as I'm coming up with a message and studying, I'm usually trying to think of stories that could help relate to whatever it is that I'm talking about, right?

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I do this too with, with kids downstairs.

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They're like, "Mr.

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Todd, we did not need to know all about the Revolutionary War today."

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And they're, and I'm like, "No, but you did.

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Like, you actually did."

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And they,

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But I was thinking about it and as I was thinking, I have a story I think that perfectly captures the message that I wanted to share with you today.

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I'm gonna read it to you, parts of it at least.

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Corrie ten Boom was born in Haarlem, Netheran- the, Haarlem, Netherlands in 1892.

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She was the youngest of 4 children in a devout Christian family.

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Her father, Casper ten Boom, was a kind and deeply faithful watchmaker who taught his children to love and trust God above all else.

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The ten Booms were members of the Dutch Reformed Church, and their faith was not just words.

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It was lived out in daily acts of hospitality and charity.

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They had a deep love for the Jewish people and considered them God's family as well.

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When the Nazis invaded the Netherlands in 1940, the ten Boom family joined the Dutch Resistance.

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They hid the Jews and Resistance members in their home, creating a secret room behind Corrie's bedroom wall.

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The room could hold about 6 people at a time, and they also provided false papers and ration cards to the Resistance members and the Jews in their home that were hiding there.

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Corrie actually became the first licensed female watchmaker in the Netherlands, but her greatest legacy would not be in craftsmanship, but in courageous compassion.

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See, in February 1944, the Gestapo raided the ten Boom home after a Dutch informant betrayed them.

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Corrie, her sister Betsie, and her father, and her other family members were all arrested, though the Jews in hiding escaped and the ten Boom family actually were the ones that paid the price.

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Corrie and Betsie were eventually sent to Ravensbruck, a notorious women's concentration camp in Germany.

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The conditions were horrifying, crowded, unsanitary, and cruel, but Corrie and Betsie turned their barracks into a place of light.

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They held secret worship services.

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They read the Bible that Corrie had smuggled in under her dress when they, uh, first arrived and they ministered to all of the fellow prisoners.

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Betsie's faith, Corrie's sister, was radiant.

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Even in suffering she would say things like, "There is no pit so deep that God's love is not deeper still."

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Betsie died in that camp in December of 1944.

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Shortly after, Corrie was miraculously released due to a clerical error.

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A week later, all of the women that were Corrie's age were sent to the gas chambers.I'm gonna share the end of that story at the end of our message today.

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But you see, Corrie was set up in this moment with an incredible mission, and she's gonna- you're gonna see here in a minute, she's gonna spend the rest of her life living this out, bearing out this incredible testimony that came from unspeakable things.

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And for many of us, we don't view ourselves when we become Christians as being on mission, right?

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We become Christians, we come here on Sunday mornings and then you don't think about it again till Wednesday, and then you don't think about it until Sunday.

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And that's if you think about it at all.

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But for Corrie, we're gonna see that this became all-encompassing.

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She was all in on this mission, this incredible mission the Apostle Paul is gonna lay out for us today.

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We'll start in verse 11.

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"Therefore, knowing the fear of the Lord, we persuade others, but what we are is known to God, and I hope it is known also to your conscience."

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You see, our motive is this in our mission.

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We have a mission and that mission is the fear of the Lord.

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That's our driving motive.

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"Therefore, knowing the fear of the Lord, we persuade others."

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Friends, when I was studying this message, I, I realized that the fear of the Lord is actually a misnomer, right?

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Um, it's actually this holy reverence.

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It's a holy reverence that compels us to this faithful witness, that for us, it's not that we're afraid of God, it's actually that God's reverence comes through us and begins to, to instill in us this reverence for Him, this holy thing that, that we can't do anything else but obey Him, obey His Word.

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It's, it's this compulsion, this overwhelming sense of who God is, that He is good, that He's holy, that He's pure.

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The fear of the Lord is not us being afraid of God.

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It's us wanting to do nothing more than to submit to Him, because He is good.

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You see, this ministry that Corrie was undertaking, it's a ministry not about pleasing man, but about serving Christ with godly fear, this reverence, this holy

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And quite frankly, right, she wasn't interested in pleasing man.

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Now, there was Paul.

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You see, as a matter of fact, that he goes on in verse 12, "We are not commending ourselves to you again, but giving you cause to boast about us so that you may be able to answer those who boast about outward appearance and not about what is in

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For if we are beside ourselves, it is for God.

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If we are in our right mind, it is for you."

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You see, it's interesting, the accusation that Paul was dealing with in the City of Corinth at the time was this.

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It was a pretty corrupt area.

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It was a city that was overtaken by sin and they had major gambling things going on in the city, both horse races, but also gladiator tournaments, feats of strength.

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These were things that were gambled upon.

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It was also the ancient city that was the site of the worship to the goddess Aphrodite, who was the goddess of love, but ultimately also of sex.

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Temple prostitution was rampant.

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It was a very holy, corrupt city, and the people there would take opportunities to be able to turn anything against people who they didn't like.

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And in this case, Paul had offended them.

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You see, Paul had written in his first letter, 1 Corinthians, he had written to them and actually had, had exhorted them against behavior that they were allowing to happen within their own church.

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Matter of fact, it was so crazy that he was yelling at them bec- literally because there was a man who was sleeping with his stepmom.

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That's really in the Bible, by the way.

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And he was like, "Hey, what are you doing?

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This is wrong."

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And after that time, there had been a group of people who had begun to challenge Paul, and they had spread rumors and vile gossip about him, all trying to discredit him, and it was malicious.

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It was evil.

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Well, Paul, as he was defending himself, he began to show them that his integrity, he didn't care about, he, well, he didn't care about it.

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He, he, he cared about nothing else but serving God.

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His integrity, the only thing he wanted to defend was his sincerity.

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And they were saying things like, you know, "He's been jailed.

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You know, why would you listen to him?

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He's been put in jail.

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He goes places and they beat him up.

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Like, if, if this guy is being accused of these things, why would you believe him?

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It's also believed, actually this is kind of interesting, uh, that some of the people in the Corinthian church had seen him speaking in tongues and so they began to tell others that he was crazy and that he was a drunk.

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Right?

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Now, I think the Corinthians knew a little something about drinking, and it was the perfect excuse to be able to turn this back on Paul.

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There's another accusation that one of the commentators was talking about, that when he says that they're in their right mind, that he was so w- when the, he says that weird thing, uh, that, that, If we're in our right mind, it's for Christ.

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It's because he was defending against the claim that Paul was crazy because he was so zealous for the Gospel and for what God had given to him.

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These people had turned even that against him, and were trying to use it to defame him.

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And see what Paul says is, It's not about self-promotion.

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I don't care about defending myself.

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I wanna be open.

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I want people to understand that I'm on this mission and the only thing that truly matters is that I'm open in allowing everybody to see my integrity, not for my own sake, but so that others know that God is good.

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This mission is incredible because even when misunderstood, what Paul teaches us is that our lives must be lived for the glory of God.

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Verse 14.

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For the love of Christ controls us because we have concluded this, that one has died for all, therefore all have died.

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And he died for all that those who live might no longer live for themselves, but for him who for their sake died and was raised.

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Paul speaks to this, this compulsion, this control, that there's no choice.

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He didn't have a choice in the matter.

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That for him, the most important thing was the love that Christ showed for him when he died on that cross for him, and that when he rose from the dead, everything changed and Paul now knew what his mission was.

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And Paul was so taken by that idea.

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He was so controlled by it, he couldn't do anything else other than act

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He was completely, completely and totally driven to do nothing else but to make much of the name of Jesus.

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You see Christ's death, the death that he died for me and the death that he died for you, was substitutionary.

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See, we didn't earn this.

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God didn't one day say, Well, they've done good enough.

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They, you know, they deserve for me to, like, send Jesus down to die now.

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They've, they've done what they needed to do.

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It was substitutionary in that we didn't deserve it, and that Jesus came and that he died, he took our place.

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Essentially, he took the bullet for us so that those who live should no longer live for themselves but for Christ.

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You see, he paid a price for you and for me.

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That death was substitutionary, swapping us out and putting Jesus in that place.

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Verse 16.

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From now on, therefore, we regard no one according to the flesh, even though we once regarded Christ according to the flesh.

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We regard him thus no longer.

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You see, what Paul is saying is when this message infects us, and that's really what it is, it's almost like an infection.

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It gets inside of us and it changes everything, including how we view people.

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I shared this with first service, I'll share it with you now.

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Uh, as I was studying, it's interesting, there's a couple of places in history that we have recorded a little bit about what Paul actually looks like.

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Have you ever thought about that?

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Like, what do these people look like?

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We have a couple of descriptions of Paul and they're not exactly favorable, um, is how we'll say it.

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I- i- he's about 5", or he's about 4'8", 4'9 literally, and this was my favorite account, um, Pope Clement, who was the first pope who actually we see his name appear in a couple places in, in the gos- in the, not in the Gospels, in the, uh, Paul's letters, described him as not attractive, is how I'll say it.

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And the other description that we have of something with Paul is that Paul apparently was incredibly boring when he preached.

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Isn't that interesting?

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He was boring.

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Like, the guy who wrote half the New Testament was boring.

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It's okay, you can believe that about him now whenever people preach from his letters.

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It's like, Well, they thought he was boring.

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Apparently he would preach for, like, 2 to 3 hours at a time.

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Can you imagine that?

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People would fall asleep.

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Actually, we have a, uh, a recording of this in one of the, in one of the stories in the Book of Acts where somebody, he was preaching for so long, somebody fell asleep and fell out a window.

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That's really in the Bible.

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It's really there.

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You should read it.

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Hey, if you didn't know, I know.

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And it's funny because, because we have these descriptions of, of Paul, and what Paul's really here saying is those people were actually using this against him.

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Right?

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They were saying, Well, he's boring and he, he doesn't really know what he's talking about.

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He's crazy.

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And Paul's like, Hey, hey, I don't care that you stink, so you don't care that I stink.

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Who cares?

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The thing that's important is that we're all treating each other the way that Christ has treated us and he died for you.

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That's what Paul's saying.

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See, the Gospel lens shapes how we see others.

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It's not our status.It's not our past.

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It's not our appearance.

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And this is an important verse because this is where things hinge.

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You see, Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation.

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The old has passed away.

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Behold, the new has come.

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This is the power of the Gospel.

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It says this, uh, Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he's a new creation.

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Like, I think it's pretty cool that Jesus died for me.

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And it's funny though.

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You know, we have now a very pagan society.

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It's not even post-Christian anymore.

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I would actually, the word I would use to describe it is pagan.

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Um, and you all probably have a picture of what that means when you pop, when that pops up in your head and somebody says that in front of you.

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But let me tell you what it actually looks like on the front lines.

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It used to be 10, 15 years ago when I started into ministry, you'd be talking to somebody, a person who didn't really know Jesus, and you'd start sharing the Gospel with them.

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And it was interesting because they would have all these presuppositions and things that they knew, kinda knew about Jesus.

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And so, you'd spend your time, like, kind of point by point helping them work through some of these things.

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Right?

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That was pretty typical, and that still is typical sometimes.

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But more and more now, here's what ends up happening.

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I'll say something like, You know, Jesus died for you.

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And he's like, No, He didn't.

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He died 2,000 years ago.

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He didn't even know me.

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That's interesting, right?

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Or you'll keep sharing and, and you'll say something like, you know, Uh, He died for you and, and like, but He didn't stay dead.

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He came back to life.

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And they're like, You know, that's anatomically impossible.

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That's the point.

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But they truly have no idea, and they're, they're astonished by this.

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And it's really a Corinthian experience where Paul is writing these things because it's, I get so excited about this, because they really don't know.

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And it's like, oh, I get to, like, not have to fight with you about weird things in the Book of Leviticus right now.

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This is gonna be awesome.

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Like, I get to just share the Gospel with you.

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Are you kidding me?

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Whoa.

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How revolutionary is that?

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Like, I don't have to defend things in the Old Testament, and I don't have to, like, have you tell me half things that you believe about the New Testament.

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I mean, this is exciting.

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And then you get to share the Gospel with them, and you get to see the lights come on and, and you share things, like this verse actually, verse 17.

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And you see them understand.

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Oh, like, like, He died for me and I'm now a new thing.

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Yeah.

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That's it.

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Oh man, this is, this is so cool.

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And then you start sharing with them things like, you know, Now let's get to the virgin birth.

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It's great.

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It's gonna be great.

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You're allowed to laugh.

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Mike's not here.

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There you go.

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And, and, like, we, we get to have these conversations, and, and I think we forget sometimes.

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You see, we are so in it.

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I was raised in the church.

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My mother brought me into the nursery, and then I went from the nursery to the toddler room, and I went from the toddler room to the preschool room.

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And I went from the preschool room to the elementary rooms, and then went from the elementary rooms to the middle school rooms, and the middle school rooms to the youth group room, and then to the big room.

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I didn't know that you didn't go to church.

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I didn't know.

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I just thought everybody did.

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Like, that's what you did on Sunday.

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That's what you did on Wednesday nights.

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This is what you ha- This is what it is.

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It's a good reminder for me that I am a new creation, that I wasn't just born into this, that I had to choose, and that in, in me accepting Christ, in Him calling me and, and bringing me into His love, I am a new creation now.

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It's a profound truth, and it's one that in Christianity many times we attend church and we read our Bibles and we go to Bible studies, but we can miss it.

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And as I was studying with it, I was so convicted over this.

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I get

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I mean, I had a pastor I worked under years ago and, and he used to say, You know, when you work in ministry, sometimes you, you get calloused to holy things.

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Right?

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You serve communion or you baptize somebody and you can get calloused to that.

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It's normal.

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We do this.

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If you're a healthy church, you do this all the time.

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I think that as Christians, you can also get calloused to the incredible truth of the Gospel, that Christ really did die, that He did it because He knew that you were a sinful person.

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There's nothing that was inside of you that was gonna be able to save you.

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You had sin in your life, that I had sin in my life.

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I am chief among sinners, my friends.

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That's a profound truth.

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You see, the old truly has passed away, the new has come.

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We're a new thing.

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Pastor Mike has brought this up a few times in the last few years.

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Um, but it, uh, the more I've studied it, the more really I see that he's right, 'cause he's usually, about Bible things, he's usually right, just secret time.

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It's a thing.

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Um, but one of the things I- I- I read or that he was telling me, uh, and that he's preached about before is that actually in Heaven, we're gonna have new names.

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Weird, right?

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Like, I'm Todd now, but like I'm not actually Todd anymore, I'm somebody else.

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I just don't, don't know what my name is yet.

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And God has called me into this new thing.

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The old has truly passed away.

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Conversion brings total transformation.

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Your identity, your purpose, your destiny, they're all different now.

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Many of you are business owners or have worked in corporations.

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Some of you are- are employees that work for these places,

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If you're a business owner or if you're in charge of a corporation, your whole job is, "How am I gonna make this company as profitable as it possibly can be,"

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If you're working for a corporation that, you know, has shareholders, it's, "I need to make sure the stocks are- are- are as high as they can possibly be."

265

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If you're a business owner, "My kids need to eat," right?

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So, "I need to make money so that my kids can eat."

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If you're an employee, your job is, "Hey, I wanna do the best that I can so that my bosses and the people that I work for can be as successful as possible.

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Hopefully, that means that I get a promotion.

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Hopefully, it means that I can earn more money for my family," right?

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These are our purposes, identity, things like that.

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What Paul is saying is that all of that changes.

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Now, the business owner that's just trying to feed their family, they're not only trying to feed their family, but they're donating for people to go on trips like Aliquippa, to be able to help feed other families.

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The guy who works and who's, uh, high up in the corporation, all of a sudden, all those shareholders that you're trying to please, you're trying to please them, but you're also trying to use the platform to be able to lift up ministries and to be able to minister to the people around them.

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The hairstylist, the person who works in a salon, that person who works for a company begins now sharing the Gospel in the chair.

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Your purpose changes.

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Everything changes.

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Now, up to this point most people listening to this would go, you know, if you attend church, they'd go, "Yeah, Todd, like I agree with all that.

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Like, it's great.

279

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Like preach to me it's, you know, 27th of July, preach to me about how I need Jesus.

280

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Mike's not here, you know, kinda expected that from you.

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You're kinda that guy."

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Great.

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Here's where you're gonna get mad at me because here's where I'm gonna start reading your mail a little bit, because all of that's true.

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All of that leads to us being transformed, but a lot of people become very comfortable.

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I become very comfortable being transformed and not having to do anything about it.

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'Cause up to this point all you had to do is acknowledge your need to Christ, and He came in and said, "Hey, I'm gonna make you a new thing."

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Sounds like a win to me.

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Like, pretty easy to do that, right?

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It's just faith.

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This is where it gets hard.

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You see, Paul's gonna call us to something completely different, something totally radical, and this is something that Corey, we're gonna hear at the end of this story, had to deal with.

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All this is from God, who through Christ reconciled us to Himself and gave us the ministry of reconciliation.

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That is, in Christ God was re- reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting to us the message of reconciliation.

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In my family, there's a sin that our family have identified through studying this that we have, and that sin is this: That there's a tendency when we come into conflict with people

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This is my tendency.

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That when I come into conflict with people, my natural reaction is to run away from the problem.

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I wanna cut 'em off, cut 'em out, not deal with them.

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I- I- I shut 'em down.

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I don't wanna speak anymore.

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Um, I- I don't wanna deal with the conflict.

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Uh, and- and you know what?

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They hurt me, and because they hurt me, I don't wanna deal with it, and I let my pain drive decisions in my life.

303

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And that's something that's not just me, that s- my family has dealt with this for generations now.

304

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And that's a real thing that our family deals with.

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And you see, as I was studying for this message, I- I- I read this and I- I couldn't do anything else with it but look at it and understand what it was telling me.

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You see, we like to think that God reconciles us to Himself and then He sends people like me to go out and help our friends and family to be able to know Jesus.

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The problem is, is that when we do that, they come back and they see you as their example, and you haven't spoken to them in 20 years.

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And now what's happening is you are asking for them to pay a higher price than Christ Himself has asked you to pay.

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And that's what happens.

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You see, for us when we become a new creation, that means my mind is different, that means my feelings are different, that means everything about me is now different, including the fact that I don't get the opportunity to just go around hating on people and holding grudges.

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I don't get the opportunity to do that because Christ bought me at a price.

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And the fact of the matter is, I am now compelled-That's me.

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I'm compelled to have to go and reconcile myself to people who I don't want to.

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And I think the same is true for you.

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You see, this reck- this message of reconciliation, the truth behind it is that we can't expect others to pay a price that's higher than the price that Christ paid for us.

316

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And that same Gospel message that saves me saves you, saves others.

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And yet, we want people to pay more than that because they hurt me and they did hurt you.

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They cheated me, and they did cheat you.

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But I know my thoughts.

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I know my thoughts.

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I know how evil I am, and I know apart from Christ, how evil I could be.

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And I know that there's nothing, except for the grace of Jesus Christ, that changes that.

323

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This message of reconciliation becomes a ministry, not just in guys like my life, but in all of our lives.

324

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You see, all of us are called to this.

325

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This isn't exclusive to the people who are pastors.

326

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Th- this is, th- this is not counting sin against people.

327

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This is on display for all to see.

328

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God's grace in those moments is what's on display.

329

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See, as I was studying, then I came to this verse.

330

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And honestly, I was sitting in a coffee shop when I was reading this and really working on this part of the message, and I literally looked at my buddy who was sitting next to me, sometimes we work together in coffee shops, and I looked at him and I said, "I am so irritated at God right now."

331

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By the way, you're allowed to say that.

332

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And I'm like, "Listen, I just worked through this whole thing with reconciliation, and like-" Yeah.

333

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"yeah, I got it.

334

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I know."

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But then he goes and puts this in here, and here's what it says.

336

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"Therefore we are ambassadors for Christ, God making his appeal through

337

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We implore you on behalf of Christ to be reconciled to God."

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Do you know what an ambassador is?

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And this is the part that really irritated

340

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I gotta share it with you though, I can't help it.

341

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An ambassador is somebody who represents either an organization or a person, who not only speaks on their behalf, but also has all of the authority that that person could give to make decisions on their behalf.

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Do you understand what I just said?

343

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So now, if I'm an ambassador for Christ, what that actually means is I'm representing Jesus to the world, literally representing Him.

344

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Which means that if I'm withholding grace from people, if I'm holding onto these nasty things, this corrosive acid that's inside of my body, 'cause I'm not willing to reconcile myself to other people, that means that I'm representing Christ to that person that way.

345

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That was convicting.

346

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I had real problems sitting in Starbucks that day.

347

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These baristas sometimes see things that are probably wild out of me.

348

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They're like, "What is, why is he slamming his cup up and down?"

349

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"Wild guy, man."

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But I'm reading this, and I'm like, "I can't not see it."

351

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That if I'm withholding grace from a person, if I'm not reconciling myself to them, I'm representing that Christ to that person in that way, and that's not who Jesus is.

352

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Because I know that Jesus died for me, because I have sin in my life.

353

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How else can I see it other than I have to represent myself to the world?

354

00:29:40,715.0000000002328 --> 00:29:44,606

Yeah, they sinned against you, and yeah, they hurt you, and yes, it hurt.

355

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And there's pain in the world we all experience.

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That's true.

357

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And I hate that.

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As I'm reading this, I go, "God is making this appeal not to me, but through me.

359

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Be reconciled to God.

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Not just me, but others.

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Be reconciled to God."

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How can I tell them that message if I'm not reconciled with them?

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There's an urgency to this.

364

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There's a real urgency to this.

365

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As I was studying it, I began to think of people in my life who, you know, I've cut off, people who I've not spoken to.

366

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And there's phone calls, and literally this is real, there are phone calls I have to make this week

367

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People I have to call.

368

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People who I have to call and say, "Hey, I've been sinning against you and you don't even know it.

369

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I haven't spoken to you in years, but I just need you to know that I've got sin in my life and I'm dealing with it right now 'cause I'm calling you.

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And it doesn't matter what happened, I just need you to know that I'm wrong."

371

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And I care more about the Gospel message shining out in my life than I care about my feelings and my hurts.

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And I know for some of you, the hurts that you feel are real hurts.

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We're about to hear what Corrie did with her hurts.

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We're about to hear 'em.

375

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I'm gonna read the end of this story.

376

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That's a tough one.

377

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And as I was studying, I thought, oh, as a pastor, this is so difficult because I love the flock.

378

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I love people so much.

379

00:31:19,979 --> 00:31:26,519

And calling you to do something that's gonna hurt, it's difficult for me, but I can't not see it.

380

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There's an urgency to this.

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There's an urgency for our church that we need to begin to reconcile, not just with God, but to others.

382

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And then again, these baristas are seeing some wild things, 'cause I'm still sitting in this coffee shop at this point.

383

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It's like 3 hours later, okay?

384

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It's, I've been processing this now for like 3 hours.

385

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And then Paul writes this verse.

386

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And by the way, if you ever wanted just to know, you know, people will talk all the time, John 3:16 is like the essence of the Gospel.

387

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It, yeah, it's what happened, but this is, this is the how and the why.

388

00:32:02,819 --> 00:32:09,374

You see, it says, "For our sake, He made Him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in Him we might become the righteousness

389

00:32:10,939 --> 00:32:13,328

And it's the heart of what the Gospel message is.

390

00:32:13,819 --> 00:32:17,619

And I'm sitting there and I'm, I'm thinking about this, and I'm thinking about the, the substitution.

391

00:32:17,619 --> 00:32:28,976

You know, Christ took the bullet for me and I'm thinking of all of that, and I'm thinking about how, how now He's given me this ministry and now it's my call that I have to go out and I need to reconcile myself, not just with God but with other people.

392

00:32:35,459 --> 00:32:41,982

And, and the compulsion comes back into play, because I have no choice.

393

00:32:42,539 --> 00:32:43,759

Jesus became sin.

394

00:32:43,759 --> 00:32:46,039

He had sin put on Him.

395

00:32:46,039 --> 00:32:55,920

He took it off of me onto Him and He gave me His righteousness, and He did it so that I could spend forever with Him, and He's given this to me as a free gift.

396

00:32:57,839 --> 00:32:58,879

bought with a price.

397

00:32:58,879 --> 00:33:00,848

You're bought with a price.

398

00:33:01,602 --> 00:33:06,469

You see, Christ bore our sin so that we might become the righteousness of God.

399

00:33:07,010 --> 00:33:08,099

I'll teach you this concept.

400

00:33:08,099 --> 00:33:12,219

There's a fancy theological term, it's called the imputation of righteousness.

401

00:33:12,219 --> 00:33:13,296

Forget that I just said that.

402

00:33:14,339 --> 00:33:15,359

Here's what it means.

403

00:33:15,359 --> 00:33:18,459

Um, when Jesus died, here's what He did.

404

00:33:18,459 --> 00:33:21,599

He, He took off His coat of righteousness.

405

00:33:21,599 --> 00:33:22,779

Pretend like it's a coat.

406

00:33:22,779 --> 00:33:25,319

He took it off, all of His righteousness.

407

00:33:25,319 --> 00:33:27,454

And by the way, His righteousness is like infinity,

408

00:33:28,859 --> 00:33:33,840

He took it off, and then He comes to me and He comes to you and He takes our rag.

409

00:33:34,799 --> 00:33:37,279

And that's what the Bible, by the way, says we have.

410

00:33:37,279 --> 00:33:43,199

The Bible literally says that, that all of our righteousness, all of our deeds are as filthy rags before God.

411

00:33:43,199 --> 00:33:46,608

He took our rag and He puts it on Himself.

412

00:33:49,026 --> 00:33:55,120

So now He has my sin, and then He puts His coat of righteousness on me.

413

00:33:55,919 --> 00:33:58,579

So He didn't leave me a ledger that said 0.

414

00:33:58,579 --> 00:34:01,182

He left me with a ledger that said infinity.

415

00:34:01,959 --> 00:34:04,679

And now when God sees me, He doesn't see my sin.

416

00:34:04,679 --> 00:34:07,792

He sees the righteousness of Christ that's now in my life.

417

00:34:08,339 --> 00:34:15,199

So now I've got on this coat of righteousness, and then Jesus says, "Hey, you know what?"

418

00:34:15,199 --> 00:34:16,59.00000000023283

This is what Paul's telling us.

419

00:34:16,59.00000000023283 --> 00:34:20,720.0000000002328

"Now I want you to go out and show other people that coat and call them to follow Me too."

420

00:34:22,259 --> 00:34:26,543.9999999997672

Now, friends, how am I supposed to now not go out and share this with other people?

421

00:34:28,839 --> 00:34:31,504

This price that we've been bought for is precious.

422

00:34:32,899 --> 00:34:33,819

It's incredible.

423

00:34:33,819 --> 00:34:34,918.9999999997672

It's all-encompassing.

424

00:34:34,918.9999999997672 --> 00:34:36,912.0000000002328

There's a compulsion behind it.

425

00:34:40,737.9999999997672 --> 00:34:41,938.9999999997672

It's a great exchange.

426

00:34:41,938.9999999997672 --> 00:34:45,219

It's our righteous- or our sin for His righteousness.

427

00:34:45,219 --> 00:34:51,855.9999999997672

The fact of the matter is, is that there's an exchange that's taken place, and it's, it is incredible.

428

00:34:52,898.0000000002328 --> 00:34:57,639

As I was praying about it, to finish, I, I wanted to share this scripture with you.

429

00:34:57,639 --> 00:34:58,538.9999999995343

It's from the Book of Luke.

430

00:34:58,538.9999999995343 --> 00:35:03,216

It's Jesus teaching and He's teaching a, a parable, and in it he, he talks about wineskins.

431

00:35:04,538.9999999995343 --> 00:35:05,279

And here's what it says.

432

00:35:05,279 --> 00:35:08,199

It says, "And no one puts new wine into old wineskins.

433

00:35:08,199 --> 00:35:13,519

If he does, the new wine will burst the skins and it will be spilled, and the skins will be destroyed.

434

00:35:13,519 --> 00:35:16,944

But new wine must be put into fresh wineskins."

435

00:35:18,599 --> 00:35:19,152

What does that mean?

436

00:35:20,322 --> 00:35:28,016

What it means is this, that when there's a new wineskin, you can't put anything else into it that's old.

437

00:35:28,599 --> 00:35:40,848

The old life, everything that you used to do, the ways that you thought, the ways that you did things, the grudges that you held, the people you didn't speak to, all of that, it's inconsistent now with this new wineskin that you've been given.

438

00:35:42,999 --> 00:35:48,304

And if you try to force the new wine into the old wineskins, it just breaks it.

439

00:35:49,079 --> 00:35:49,859

It doesn't work.

440

00:35:49,859 --> 00:35:50,832

It's incompatible.

441

00:35:52,002 --> 00:35:57,872

And so what Christ is teaching in that is that, no, you, you put on this new wineskin.

442

00:35:58,659 --> 00:35:59,959

ways are now different.

443

00:35:59,959 --> 00:36:02,640

The way that you interact with people is now different.

444

00:36:04,034 --> 00:36:08,446

and forgiveness, reconciliation, helping others to see the Gospel.

445

00:36:09,007 --> 00:36:11,486

Those are now the rhythms in the heartbeat of your life.

446

00:36:12,346.99999999953434 --> 00:36:13,552

That's a powerful message.

447

00:36:14,850 --> 00:36:19,006

Let me read you now the end of the story with Corrie ten Boom and what happened in her life.

448

00:36:23,907 --> 00:36:36,387

Years later, while speaking to, in a church in Munich, Corrie shared the message of God's forgiveness, that through Christ our sins can be washed away, that anyone can become a new creation.

449

00:36:36,387 --> 00:36:38,544

After the service, people came forward to thank her.

450

00:36:39,828 --> 00:36:40,656

Then she saw him.

451

00:36:42,788 --> 00:36:44,752

A man was making his way through the crowd toward her.

452

00:36:45,427 --> 00:36:46,608

She knew his face instantly.

453

00:36:47,288 --> 00:36:53,214

He had been a guard at Ravensbruck Prison, one of the cruel ones.

454

00:36:53,867 --> 00:37:07,120

She remembered the leather whip at his side, the leering laughter, the suffering he had caused, not just to her but to her sister Betsie, to her family, and to so many others that she knew.

455

00:37:09,570 --> 00:37:19,536

He came up to her and said, "Fraulein, how wonderful it is to know that all of our sins are at the bottom of the sea.

456

00:37:22,082 --> 00:37:34,192

I was a guard at Ravensbruck Prison, but since then I've become a Christian and I know that God has forgiven me, but I wanna hear it from your lips as well.

457

00:37:35,938 --> 00:37:38,448

Will you forgive me for what I did?"

458

00:37:41,122 --> 00:37:54,704

And then she extended a hand, or then he extended his hand to her, and Corrie froze and she wrote later, "I, who had preached so often the need for forgiveness kept my hand at my side.

459

00:37:56,427 --> 00:38:03,198

Even as the angry, vengeful thoughts boiled within me, I saw the sin in my own thoughts and how I was thinking.

460

00:38:04,707 --> 00:38:06,887

Jesus Christ had died for this man.

461

00:38:06,887 --> 00:38:09,648

Was I going to ask for more?

462

00:38:10,850 --> 00:38:12,720.0000000004657

Was I gonna ask for more?"

463

00:38:14,626 --> 00:38:19,663.9999999995343

She knew she had no strength to forgive him in herself, so she silently prayed, "Jesus, help me.

464

00:38:20,167 --> 00:38:21,200

I can lift my hand.

465

00:38:21,967 --> 00:38:22,814

I can do that

466

00:38:24,834 --> 00:38:26,320

But You're gonna have to supply the feeling.

467

00:38:27,467 --> 00:38:29,872

You're gonna have to supply the want."

468

00:38:31,367 --> 00:38:44,656

She raised her hand and she took his, and as she did, she later wrote, "From my shoulder along my arm and through my hand, a current seemed to pass from him to me, while into my heart sprang a love for this stranger that almost overwhelmed me."

469

00:38:45,507 --> 00:38:57,008

It was one of the most powerful moments of her life, and she forgave him, not because she felt like it, not because it was fun for her, but because Christ had reconciled her to God.

470

00:38:58,507 --> 00:39:01,776

He had given her the ministry of reconciliation.

471

00:39:04,767 --> 00:39:09,047

That, that is what Jesus is talking about.

472

00:39:09,047 --> 00:39:10,224

That's what Paul is writing about.

473

00:39:11,682 --> 00:39:17,232

Who had more right than her to be angry and to withhold forgiveness from somebody?

474

00:39:18,667 --> 00:39:23,152

Everything, her entire life, had been changed, destroyed.

475

00:39:24,610 --> 00:39:29,648

Then, through the grace of God she began to preach, but then this was asked of her.

476

00:39:31,138 --> 00:39:32,336

How could she withhold that?

477

00:39:35,970.0000000004657 --> 00:39:36,528

So what?

478

00:39:37,953.9999999995343 --> 00:39:38,736

So what are you gonna do about it?

479

00:39:39,487 --> 00:39:40,667

What am I gonna do about it?

480

00:39:40,667 --> 00:39:44,944

How am I gonna respond to this, this ministry of reconciliation?

481

00:39:45,447 --> 00:39:48,144

And the first thing that I would ask is, are you reconciled to God?

482

00:39:48,927 --> 00:39:50,147

Have you become a new creation?

483

00:39:50,147 --> 00:40:02,886.9999999995343

This is all a moot point unless in your own life you have accepted Jesus' sacrifice and you've become a new thing and you've prayed and you said, "God, I know that I've messed up, I know I'm a sinner, and I know that I'm in need of your radical grace.

484

00:40:02,886.9999999995343 --> 00:40:04,307

Please come into my life.

485

00:40:04,307 --> 00:40:05,487

Forgive me of my sins."

486

00:40:05,487 --> 00:40:08,272

Unless you've done that, unless you've become this new creation, this is a moot point.

487

00:40:09,687 --> 00:40:12,107

And so that's my first ask is have you done that?

488

00:40:12,107 --> 00:40:13,264

If not, I'd love to talk to you.

489

00:40:14,407 --> 00:40:15,056

I'd love to talk to you.

490

00:40:15,970.0000000004657 --> 00:40:20,272

It's one of my favorite parts of my job is getting to talk to people and being able to share the Gospel with them.

491

00:40:21,698 --> 00:40:27,600

The second thing is this, if you are living out your role as an ambassador, do you understand what I taught you today?

492

00:40:29,500 --> 00:40:30,640

That's a tough road.

493

00:40:31,959 --> 00:40:32,784

That's a tough one.

494

00:40:34,680 --> 00:40:51,824

Not only having the, the role, but also the authority given by God to, to be able to go out and, and to share this message with people, to be able to forgive them, to be able to get this acid out of my soul, out of my body, to forgive, to be reconciled, so that then I can help others to be reconciled to God.

495

00:40:52,930 --> 00:40:55,419

For some of you, you have some phone calls to make.

496

00:40:55,419 --> 00:40:56,496

I have some phone calls to make.

497

00:40:57,219 --> 00:40:57,904

I know I do.

498

00:40:59,379 --> 00:41:00,176

Who are you calling?

499

00:41:02,039 --> 00:41:04,739

And then, who are you sharing this message with?

500

00:41:04,739 --> 00:41:06,032

Who are you sharing the Gospel

501

00:41:07,379 --> 00:41:14,128

Let the fear of the Lord, the love of Christ, and the message of reconciliation shape your life and your witness.

502

00:41:16,322 --> 00:41:20,144

If you forget and don't remember anything else, remember this.

503

00:41:21,099 --> 00:41:26,576

You've been made new to carry the mission of making others new.

504

00:41:27,938 --> 00:41:39,472

And in your life, remember that He bought you for a price, that when you follow Him, there's a compulsion to do this, to make not only yourself new, that's what He did.

505

00:41:40,119 --> 00:41:43,550

Now you need to tell others and bring them into the fold and be reconciled to them as well.