Episode Transcript
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And here God's word. Then from
John Chapter One. I understand the pastor
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this morning that preached preached from the
same text, John Chapter One, versus
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one through eighteen. I'm going to
go a little bit beyond verse eighteen.
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I'm going to go to verse twenty
three, and then at the end of
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the service you get to vote on
the best sermon from this passage. After
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I leave John Chapter One, beginning
at verse one. In the beginning was
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the word, and the word was
with God, and the word was God.
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He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through him
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and without him was not anything made. That was made in him was life,
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and that life was the light of
men. The light shines in the
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darkness and the darkness has not overcome
it. There was a man sent from
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God whose name was John. He
came as a witness, to bear witness
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about the light that all might believe
through him. He was not the light,
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but came to bear witness about the
light, the true light which enlightens
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everyone, was coming into the world. He was in the world and the
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world was made through him. Yet
the world did not know him. He
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came to his own and his own
peace. People did not receive him,
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but to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he
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gave the right to become children of
God, who were born not of blood,
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nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man,
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but of God. And the word
became flesh and dwelt among us,
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and we have seen his glory,
glory as of the only son from the
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father full of grace and truth.
John bore witness about him and cried out.
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This was he of whom I said, he who comes after me ranks
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before me, because he was before
me and from his fullness we have all
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received grace upon grace, for the
law was given through Moses. Grace and
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truth came through Jesus Christ. No
one has ever seen God, the only
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God, who is at the father's
side. He has made him known,
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and this is the testimony of John. When the Jews sent priests and Levites
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from Jerusalem to ask him, who
are you, he confessed and did not
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deny, but confessed I am not
the Christ, and they asked him what
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then, are you Elijah? He
said, I am not. Are you
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the Prophet? And he answered no. So they said to him, who
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are you? We need to give
an answer to those who sent us.
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What do you say about yourself?
He said, I am the voice of
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one crying in the Wilderness. Make
straight the way of the Lord, as
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the Prophet Isaiah said, the word
of the Lord, you may be seated.
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Some time ago, I believe back
in the S, there was a
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world series, baseball series going on
between the Milwaukee Braves, which gives you
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a little bit of an idea of
how old this story is. Back to
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the S, the Milwaukee Braves and
the New York Yankees, and during the
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time that this took place, that
this world series was going on, the
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The New York Yankees had a player
on their teamed named Yogi Bearra and Yogie
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bear is a hall of Famer,
but he is most famous for his constant
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chatter. He was just a he
was a chatterbox, both on the field
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and off the field. He's famous
for several sayings, but he he he
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would chatter the whole time and he
played catcher, so he his job,
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he thought, was to encourage the
players on his team but, more importantly,
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to distract the batters when they came
up to bat. Now the other
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team that was play a the Milwaukee
Braves, had a player on their team
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named Hank Aaron. Now, Hank
Karon was for many years the home run
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leader for the for baseball in the
United States, and so when Hank Aaron
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came up to bat, yogie bear
I just kept up his chatter. He
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kept chattering to his fellow teammates,
but then he started chattering at at Hank
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Aaron, trying to distract him and
he said to him, Hey, hey,
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you're holding the bat wrong. You
need to you need to rotate it
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so that you can read the trademark. Well, well, Hank Aaron,
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being the consummate batter that he was, didn't pay any attention to Yogi Bearra
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and just just waited, waited for
the pitch and he got the the pitch
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about three pitches later that he sent
out over the left field wall, trotted
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around the bases and as he came
back to home he said he looked at
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yogie baron. He said to him, I didn't come up here to read.
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He showed him what he came up
there to do. He came up
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there to hit the ball out of
the park. Well, Yogie Barrett,
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the consummate distractor, Hank Aaron not
distracted totally focused. Wouldn't it be wonderful
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if we had that kind of focus, particularly when it comes to Jesus?
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We started with that call to worship
this evening. Let us fix our eyes
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on Jesus, the author and perfector
of our faith. Fixing our eyes on
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Jesus. So we just ask you, what did you what distractions did you
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come in with tonight? What distractions
do you are you dealing with right now,
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as the sermon is being preached,
as the service is going on,
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or what? What distractions are at
are tugging at your heart right now?
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There may be a number of things
going on in your lives. Even with
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a small group like this, we
could we could have that prayer time and
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have a number of things that we
would offer up to each other and to
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the Lord that we would want to
pray for. There's a number of things
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that are are plaguing us. That's
the nature of the world in which we
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live right the world in which we
live this this life. Suffering is not
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an interruption. Suffering is life.
And so when we come to thinking about
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the distractions of life and what keeps
our focus off of Christ or takes our
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focus of Christ, it can be
a number of things that are going on
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in our lives. Or perhaps well, or perhaps for some of us they
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are. They are distractions of our
own making. Sometimes, sometimes the the
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trials that were walking through, the
hardships that we're dealing with, are so,
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so heavy upon us, carry so
much weight that we will do most
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anything to be free of them.
So we create our own distractions. Some
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might call it escapism, escaping life
for a time. And perhaps perhaps it's
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perhaps it's alcohol, or perhaps it's
it's illicit drugs, or maybe it's their
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prescription drugs, but but taking more
than what's prescribed, keeping old medication,
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using extra medication, seeking medication in
order to medicate, in order to Numb,
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in order to keep from feeling the
pain. We create those kinds of
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distractions, those kinds of ways of
escape. It doesn't have to be something
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like that. It could be something
as simple as binge television watching right so,
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what's your favorite show on Netflix right
now? What do you bend watching
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on prime how do you how do
you escape? How do you escape life?
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What do you what do you create
as a distraction? What I what
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I'm hoping we will find as we
look through this passage tonight. We're going
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to we're going to focus. I
Know Dan Smith, Pastor Dan Smith,
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this morning focused more on on the
light and the darkness and how Christ comes
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and he he he is the light
of the world and he pushes back the
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darkness. But I want to focus
a bit tonight on John the Baptist and
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his purpose and being sent and how
John the Baptist came as one to prepare
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the way for the Lord, to
get the distractions out of the way,
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to remove the obstacles, to prepare
the way in the desert for the Lord,
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for the coming of the Lord.
He came as one to prepare the
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way and how he did that was
in his witness. He did that through
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his witness to Christ, keeping Christ
as the the center point, the focus
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point. Then that happens most and
best as we witness to Christ. Then
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there's a there's a couple of ways
that we understand witness. So there's the
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actual witness seeing of an event.
Right. So perhaps this last fall you
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witnessed Arizona football and shed a few
tears that every game except for their one
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win. Or perhaps you've witnessed,
you've gotten to witness some of Arizona Basketball
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and you've cheered at every single win
that they've had. Eleven wins in a
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row, never done before by a
first time coach in the PAC twelve.
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That's witnessing something right. Or you
witness an accident, you see something take
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place. Now we we keep our
eyes on Jesus as that kind of witness,
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as we as we witness what Jesus
has done and and we don't.
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We do have the advantage of God's
word and the spirit who who takes us
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back to what Christ did when he
walked this earth, as he came as
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as and took on flesh. Write. The word became flesh and dwelt among
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us, and we have seen his
glory, glory as of the only son
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who came from the father full of
grace and truth. We can, we
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can witness to that, but we
weren't eyewitnesses. We know of John's other
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let, his letter, his first
letter to the church, where he gives
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that witness right from the beginning.
He starts out as letter, that which
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was from the beginning, which we
have heard, which we have seen with
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our eyes, which we looked upon
and have touched with our hands, concerning
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the word of life, the life
was made manifest, and we've seen it
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and testify to it and proclaim to
you the eternal life which was with the
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father and was made manifest to us. That which we have seen and heard,
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we proclaim also to you, so
that you two may have fellowship with
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us. So John, John was
one of those witnesses. We weren't witnesses.
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None of us were there. And
yet aren't we? Aren't we the
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those who bear witness, who have
seen, who have actually witnessed the work
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of Christ in our own lives and
the lives of people around us? If
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you, if you think back.
So my testimony is not it's not what
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what some might call super exciting,
the testimony of me coming to faith in
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Christ. I think it's I think
it's really, really super exciting personally because
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it's my testimony and but it's kind
of just you know, I grew up
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in the church and my parents,
my dad, was a missionary to the
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Novajo Indians up on the novel reservation. I grew up hearing my dad preach
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all the time, time and and
hearing him witness two people all the time.
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He He loved the Gospel, he
loved the novel people. He'd pick
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up hitchhikers just so he had a
captive audience and he could witness to them.
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You can share the Gospel with them. And that's the setting I grew
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up in and I was I was, I was taught the Gospel. We
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were catechized in the Heidelberg Catechism from
from our youth and and so in late
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high school, I made a public
profession of my faith as one who now
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what my parents had taught me and
what my church had taught me was my
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faith. It became mine. I
trusted in Christ, I understood the Gospel,
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I believed the Gospel and that Christ
died to save me. Some would
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say that's not so exciting. You
Right. You want to hear the the
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testimony about the gutter, the gutter
to the gutter most, to the uttermost
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is how some people say. At
the gutter, you know, the person
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whose life was amazingly transformed. Well, my life didn't change a whole lot,
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and yet God, a Christ,
took hold of my heart. And
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so perhaps perhaps the same as true
for you. Perhaps you've been you've been
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in the church, you've grown up
in the church, you've grown up in
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a Christian home and you've heard the
Gospel and you have seen even as maybe
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as milk toast or you can't really
call it boring because it's totally exciting.
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But you, you might say it's
just not that great of a story.
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And yet it is the story of
Christ taking hold of your heart and transform
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your heart. No matter how it
happens, is always exciting. It's always
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exciting, and so you can bear
Whitney. You have witnessed, you have
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seen what Christ has done, how
he's changed the affections in your heart,
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how he's changed your your desires.
Your desires are are maybe not all gone,
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certainly not all gone for toward fleshly
things. That's not that's not ever
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going to end right. Our struggle
with the flesh will not ever end in
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this life. It will end when
we go home, when we get home,
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when we get to be with the
Lord. Then there will be no
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more sin, there will be no
more struggle. But now we will struggle.
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We tend to struggle. We have
different desires that that come at US
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and tempt us. But but we're
better equip now, we're better able because
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the spirit lives in us. The
spirit is always after us to say no.
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He gives us the word, he
gives us that way out right.
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That's what Paul says. There's always
a way out whenever those temptations come.
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And I've I've witnessed that. I've
seen my desires for fleshly things diminish.
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Not Complete victory, not complete absence
of those desires. Some some desires,
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yes, some desires totally gone,
but others that are diminishing and in an
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increasing work of holiness in my heart
by the spirit. And and if you're
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a follower of Jesus, if you're
a one who you would say Jesus is
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my Lord, Jesus is is my
savior, then you you have seen it.
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You have seen it in your own
life and you've probably seen it if
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you have any deep friendships, relationships, if you're married, you get to
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watch it in your spouse. You
get to see God chip off the edges,
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you get to see the Holy Spirit
sand down those little rough spots.
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You get to see that happen.
You get wow, isn't she? Isn't
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she more beautiful today than she was
on our wedding day? Yes, she
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is. She is season because I
get to see it. I get to
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watch, I get to I get
to see what God's doing. So there's
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that kind of witness right. You
see it in your own heart, you
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see it in the lives of people
around you, in the body of Christ.
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So one of my great privileges.
I find it hard to believe sometimes,
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but I've been able to to be
the pastor at Rincon Mountain now for
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twenty one years, and so there
are people that I've that I've gotten to
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see their lives change over time.
You know, change doesn't happen just like
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that. Sometimes it does some areas
of our lives, but it's generally gradual
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and you see the spirit work and
to be able to look at people and
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say, man, she's really grown
or he's really changed. I have witnessed
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that. I and I I have
seen that, and so have you.
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If you, if you've been in
the church at all, if you've been
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in the church for a while,
or maybe you're new, maybe you're new
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to Christianity and you're still exploring it, watch for that. Look for that,
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because you will see it. When
Jesus has your heart, your heart
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will change. And that's what John
the Baptist came to do, to be
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a witness of what Jesus is doing
and so there's that kind of witness.
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The other kind of witness is actually, like saying it, when you bear
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witness, when you proclaimed what you've
seen. So you witness. You might
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witness an accident and then you're called
into court to witness to the accident,
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to be a witness, to say
what it is that you saw, to
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describe it. And we have that
kind of experience, don't we? Also,
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as as believers, as those who
follow Jesus, not only do we
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see what Jesus is doing in our
hearts and in our lives and how he's
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changing us, but we have opportunity
then to proclaim that. We have opportunity
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to give testimony to that, to
testify to it, like in a court
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of law or the Court of public
opinion or the Court of my neighbor's opinion,
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right, and you have an opportunity
to testify. And isn't isn't that
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where where our witness has the most
effect, is in the lives of the
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people that that get to see us, get to know us in and then
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we and then we can enter into
their lives and talk with them about the
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changes we've seen Jesus making our lives
and how he can do that in their
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lives. Isn't that probably the most
effective kind of evangelism we can do,
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the best witnessinging we can do,
being involved in other lives, sharing life
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together? And that's again, that's
what that's what John came to do.
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He came to be a witness,
not not to himself but to Jesus,
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but to the light. So verse
seven it says he came as a witness,
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to bear witness about the light that
all might believe through him. So
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he's a he's a witness to another, he's a witness to the to Jesus.
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He's pointing to Jesus. He was
sent from God right he verse six
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says there was a man sent from
God whose name was John. And if
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you haven't had a sermon on it
recently, oftentimes it's an advent sermon.
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But it's the birth of John The
baptist. or how that how that pregnancy
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came about, and the Angel Gabriel
going to Zachariah and the temple and Zachariah
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loses his voice because he he won't, he, he won't say John's name
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and when he does finally say his
name will be John. His voice comes
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back, but that whole miraculous thing, right. They're both they're both old
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and she's bearn and God still gives
them this child. It's a it's an
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amazing account told for us in Luke
Chapter One. He was this man,
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was sent from God. He was
sent to be a witness, sent to
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be one who would point to Jesus. So in that respect, John is
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like us, John Is, John
is one of us. John, John
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is just like you or I,
who's born and then he's a toddler and
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he's a teenager and he's an adult
and he just goes through the life cycle
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and and his whole purpose is to
point to Jesus, to point to his
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his his younger cousin or relative,
we're not sure exactly the relationship, but
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to point to Jesus, the one
who is not, is not like us,
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and yet became like us, right, the one who is the eternal
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God, the one who is has
always been, and then he takes on
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flesh. He's born in that little
that little manger in in Bethlehem, just
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outside of Jerusalem. So John Comes
to bear witness to him, to this
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one who took on flesh, the
one who is God. And John is
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really clear about who he is.
And so a few years ago I found
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a book in my sister in Law's
House that had the title and it was
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by a guy named, I think
it was, Louis Giglio, more popular
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evangelical author, but the title of
the book. I didn't read the book
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other than the title, but the
title caught my attention. The title was
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this. It was I am not
but I know I am. I am
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not, but I know I am. And what he was saying in the
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book as I perused it is that
that he was saying. I know that
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I'm not God and I know he
is God and I I need to get
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out of being the God being God. I need to get out of the
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business of being God. I need
to stop trying to run my own life,
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stop trying to think I'm sovereign,
stop trying to think I know what's
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best for me, stop trying to
think about what's next for me in my
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life and submit to God and know
that God is the one who is sovereign
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over all things and he's the one
that makes things possible for us. So
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John the Baptist is really clear.
I'm not the Christ. In fact,
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that last section we read down at
Verse Twenty, verse Nineteen, and this
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is the testimony of John. When
the Jews sent priests and Levites from Jerusalem
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ask him, who are you,
and he says I'm not the Christ,
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and they asked him, well,
what then? Are You Elijah? And
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he says no, I'm not.
Are you the Prophet? And he answered
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no. They said to him,
who are you? We need to give
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an answer. What do you say
about yourself? I am the voice of
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one crying in the desert. Make
straight the way of the Lord, as
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the Prophet Isaiah said. So I'm
not. I know I'm not the Christ.
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In fact, you guys won't believe
this, but but he's he's so
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great I can't even untie his shoes
right. That was the lowest form of
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servanthood was to touch someone's feet.
I'm not even I'm not even good enough
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to touch his feet. I'm not
even good enough to untie his shoes.
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The one who's coming is greater than
I am. I must decrease, he
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must increase. That was John's whole
point. His whole purpose was to keep
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pointing to Jesus and to say no, I'm not, I'm not the Christ.
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I'm the one who comes to prepare
the way and and the way I
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think about that is there's three little
three little images I get about John Preparing
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the way for Christ. One is
he's the bulldozer. He's like a bulldozer.
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He's clearing the big rocks, the
boulders, he's clearing the ways,
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clearing the road, removing the obstacles. The second is like is like a
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lead tackle, a tailback or maybe
a fullback. That's probably the better position.
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The the full back on a football
team. He doesn't get the ball
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to run through the gap. He
runs through the gap ahead of the guy
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that's got the football. So he
runs through and he takes out. So
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he just comes through that whole looking
for someone to hit, someone to take
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and clear out of the way,
so the so that the tailback can actually
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run and get some yardage. So
John the Baptist is the lead tackle.
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He's running ahead of Christ, he's
ahead of them remove moving the obstacles.
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Or there's this image. John the
Baptist is the pre release trailer for the
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for the full for the full show
that will come right. So I don't
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know if you've been back to theaters
yet since the pandemic. It's one of
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the things I love about the pandemic
being over ish. But I love going
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to movies and I love getting there
in time for the trailers, for the
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previews. I want to see the
previews. Let's not get let's not be
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late. I want to be there
for the previews. So I want to
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see what's coming. And that's what
John the Baptist was. He was there
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to tell about the one who is
coming. He was the pre released trailer.
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He was to tell everybody. And
don't you hate it when the previews
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give away the whole movie? But
that was his job, was to give
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away the whole movie. This guy
is going to come and he's going to
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be so great I can't even touch
his feet, I can't even carry his
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shoes. I he's just he's so
perfect, so beautiful. In fact,
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when John the Baptist saw him a
little bit later on in this chapter,
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behold, what does he say?
Behold, look, look, everybody,
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behold the lamb of God who takes
away the sins of the world. He
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bears witness. That was his whole
us and that was that was how.
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That was how John, in the
midst of the world in which he lived,
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in the midst of so much,
so much political, so much religious
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intrigue, kept his focus on Christ, kept his focus on Jesus, I
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mentioned earlier. We have these we
have distractions in our world, the pain
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we're dealing with, the hardships were
walking through, or perhaps the distractions we've
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created ourselves to deal with that pain
so that pain is numbed. But now,
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right now, in this season where
we have additional distractions, don't we
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all kinds of distractions around us during
Christmas time, and I like to believe
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that that God providentially uses these things
in our lives to point us back to
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him. So like, so like, when we see Christmas trees, we
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look at we look at the fact
that they're evergreen. We're reminded that God's
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love for us is is eternal,
it never dies, it never ends.
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His love has no beginning and no
end. For us, or the lights
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that we see right you'll drive around
with your families, perhaps this week or
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next, or you'll go to winter
haven this week, which we're planning on
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doing Wednesday, so you'll go and
look at all the lights. Well,
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the lights are beautiful, the lights
are amazing, but but they're nothing the
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best thing at winter haven, all
of winter haven put together, is nothing
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compared to the light of the world, the light that shines in the darkness,
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the light that pushes away the darkness. And so when we when we
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when we get around the the different
symbols of the year or the symbols of
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the season, the the things that
might be a distraction to us, you
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use them to point, to point
your heart back to Christ, to get
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your focus back on Christ, not
to not to be distracted, not not
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that you can enjoy those things,
but there's a purpose behind them. They
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are temporary. Their temporal. They
will they will die. Right every year
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you get out the lights, you
got to replace the bulbs. That burned
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out. Word get a whole new
strand if the whole thing's burnt out.
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Jesus Christ never burns out. His
light, his light is eternal. Is
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Light goes on and on and on. So witness a witness, John The
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baptist, witnesses to another buddy also, he's also sent. He's sent by
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God, and it's the same word
that we have. We get the Word
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Apostle from. It's he's actually these
post it right, he's is like it's
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like Jerusalem or a Bethleem or that
whole area, that the Jordan, is
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his post. That's where he's sent
to serve. Right. He's posted there.
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Now, if you're a if you're
a witness to a crime and and
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the police have your information, it's
likely they will summon you. They'll ask
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you to come and to be a
witness to the crime. Right, at
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some point they want your statement,
or maybe you'll even have to give testimony
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in a trial. But when it
comes to spiritual matters, witnesses are sent,
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witnesses are posted, witnesses are are
called to be the ones who proclaim.
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You know, at the end of
Matthew, Jesus did not tell his
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disciples. All Authority and Heaven and
earth has been given to me. So
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just sit tight, just sit tight, and and everybody will come to you,
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Christ our centers, from all around, from all the nations, they're
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going to come to you and all
you have to do is tell them everything
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I've taught you and then baptize them, and that's good, we're good to
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go. Just sit tight, they're
going to come to you, right.
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That's not that's not what Matthew says. It's not what Jesus says. He
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says go. He says go,
and there's a lot made of the fact
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that that's not the imperative, that's
not the command in that passage, and
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that's true. The command is make
disciples, but you do that as you're
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going. It's a participle. It's
as you're going make disciples and as you're
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going you're witnessing, you're telling your
testifying to others. So you're sent by
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God and if you're a if you're
a witness, it may be it may
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be a life or death calling the
the actual word in the Greek is Marturion,
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from which we get the word martyr. So if you're a witness,
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wait. Basically what you're doing is
what basically what this says in verse seven
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is he came as a martyr to
Martio about the light that all might believe
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through him. He came as a
martyr, and I I don't think it's
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I don't think it's soon that this
will happen in the United States, that
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we as Christians will be persecuted.
I think it's getting closer. I think
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things are showing us that perhaps that
kind of thing might, might happen for
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the Christians in America, but we
know we have brothers and sisters around the
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world who, for their faith,
for their witness, for their testimony,
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are facing death daily. And that
is that is the call, that is
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the calling of us. And and
so while we may not face that kind
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of persecution here in the states,
we will and we already are called to
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die, to die to ourselves,
to deny ourselves, to take up our
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cross and to follow Jesus, to
follow the one that we proclaim to follow,
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the one of whom we bear witness. It's a life and death commitment.
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This is what Jesus says. Crawling
calling the crowd to him with his
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disciples, he said to them,
if anyone would come after me, let
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him deny himself and take up his
cross and follow me, for whoever would
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save his life will lose it,
but whoever loses his life for my sake
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and the gospels will save it.
For what is it profit a man to
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gain the whole world and forfeit his
soul? We know that martyrs were common
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after Christ ascended, those first couple
of centuries. A lot of persecution against
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the Christians, a lot of martyrs
for their witness. We've known, we
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know of Martyrs Throughout Church history,
some of the the men who were burned
395
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at the stake or executed because of
their faith, men like Yan Yan who's
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or John Huss the the check reformer, the missionaries that went to the alka
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Indians in the S. you've probably
heard those stories of Elliott and his friends
398
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and how they they were martyred.
They died because of their witness, their
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desire to tell people about Jesus.
But for us it is that ongoing daily
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self denial, dying to self.
Am I going to go out today,
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and is filled going to be first, or is Jesus going to be first?
402
00:35:43.940 --> 00:35:47.739
That's the question that who am I
going to whose needs, whose desires
403
00:35:47.820 --> 00:35:51.889
are I'm am I going to fulfill
today? Is it all about me or
404
00:35:52.010 --> 00:35:57.250
is it about Jesus? And if
I fulfill Jesus is calling on my life.
405
00:35:57.690 --> 00:36:01.530
Everything else works out just fine,
even though there may be trials,
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even though there will be trials,
we're called to this life of self denial
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and to take up our cross and
to follow Jesus. I just want to
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close with this. This evening,
as we think about what it means to
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be a witness and to witness for
Christ, to keep our focus on Christ.
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Here's what it really comes down to, and that is this, that
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is that Jesus, Christ took the
focus on himself so that the focus would
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be taken off of us. So
when we when we talk about the the
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deep, using some big theological words
like propitiation or atonement, those are just
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they're they're wonderful words. They have
such depth to them and they tell us
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about the fact that Christ paid for
our sin, he had toned for our
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sin by taking it on himself.
All of our sin, all of our
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are missing the mark, in our
purposefully missing the mark, missing it by
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accident, trying to hit the mark
right. That's that's the Hebrew word for
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sin is missing the mark. I
can try to hit the mark, I
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can try to be as good as
I can and I'll miss. There's other
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times I'm just not even going to
try. I just want to do my
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own thing. and Jesus took all
of that, all of my rebellion,
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all of my wanting to be my
own ruler, my own God. Jesus
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took all of that so that the
focus of God's wrath would not no longer
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be on me because of my sin, which is what I deserve. It's
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what you deserve because of your sin. You deserve of God's full attention,
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his full focus on you with his
wrath. But Jesus provides for us by
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taking the sin upon himself. He
provides for us a freedom from that.
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He averts God's wrath by his covering
us with his righteousness. So what he
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earned by being perfect, we get, and our utter lack of perfection he
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gets. And the focus of God's
wrath comes on him on the cross,
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so that you and I are set
free from our sin. We're set free
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from that burden of our sin.
We're set free from the taint of our
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sin, the damage of our sin, the habit of our sin, the
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guilt of our sin, all taken
away by Christ by taking upon himself our
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sin. He does this for us. He takes the focus so that we
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can give him our focus. He
is our he is our focus. He's
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the one to whom we owe all
everything and and he's the one that we
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proclaim. He is the one that
we we tell others about what a joy
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it is to know Jesus. Joy
to the world, right, joy to
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the world, the Lord has come. We saying it every Christmas season but
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it's true joy, it's it's it's
for Real, because he changes us.
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Witness Jesus. Jesus is the focus
of our hearts as we bear witnessed him,
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as we keep our eyes on him. Keep your eyes on him during
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this Christmas season, the people that
you encounter. After we leave here this
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evening, Shelly and I get to
go to a gathering of our neighbors and
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not one of them are believers,
and I can't wait. It just can't
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wait. We've developed a relationship and, praise God, in many ways because
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of Covid we've grown to love each
other, rely on each other. When
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lockdowns were taken place, one would
shop for all of it was just it
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was an amazing thing that God did
to allow us entry into their lives and
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they into our lives. And I
can't wait to go celebrate the birth of
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Christ with my pagan neighbors because I
get to tell him, I get to
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tell him about Jesus. So keep
keep Jesus the focus, make him the
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focus of your heart. He took
the focus off you when it when,
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when when it would be really bad, so that you could have the focus
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on him. Let's pray. Father
