Episode 3

The Real Jesus - World Changer (North OC)

What if a stranger interrupted your dinner party? How would you feel and respond? Jesus reveals to us that he's a world changer with his reaction. Listen to part three of our series "The Real Jesus."

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OC Church of Christ

Transcript
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well, good morning everybody.

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How we doing?

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Good morning.

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I'm actually gonna use this table because it's one of the few tables that, uh,

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is tall enough for me, so that helps.

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Well, it's great to be with you all this morning.

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For those who don't know who I am, my name is Kyle Lsk, like I

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mentioned earlier, and I help lead the campus ministry, make some noise.

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Campus ministry.

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Come on.

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All right.

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That was okay.

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That was all right.

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. I'm, uh, I'm gonna judge you guys on that one.

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Let's try it one more time.

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How about that?

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All right.

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Can we, can we get loud for them?

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Let's wake the church up a little bit.

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All right.

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Make some noise.

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Campus ministry.

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Yeah.

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Yeah.

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All right.

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There you go.

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Amen.

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Amen.

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Well, you know, it's, uh, great to be with you all.

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I'm very encouraged and excited to be able to preach the word today.

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Um, you know, like Marcel mentioned, we are going through our series here called

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The Real Jesus, and we've been talking about how Orange County doesn't need just

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another church and needs the real Jesus.

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Amen.

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Amen.

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And so, as we've been studying out the Book of Luke together, it's been so

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impactful and so convicting personally to me, Um, to see the interactions Jesus

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has been having with certain individuals.

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Right.

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And obviously last week, uh, Marcel preached a, a fire lesson about

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how Jesus was not religious, but he was righteous and it was very

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convicting to see how Jesus may call.

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Uh, he does things that are countercultural, right.

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He calls the outcasts to follow him.

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Right.

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The fishermen, he touches the unclean leper and he makes 'em clean.

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Yeah.

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And he calls Matthew the tax collector, who in that society was not looked well

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upon to follow him and be his disciple.

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And so today we're gonna look at another, uh, interaction that Jesus has with

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someone that hopefully, uh, will be convicting to you and inspiring to you.

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Amen.

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Amen.

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With that, I'm gonna go ahead and say we're a prayer, that we're

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gonna jump right into the passage.

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Let's bow our heads.

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Lord, thank you so much for this morning and this time to worship.

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You we're so grateful to be able to experience to see.

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To, to be able to, uh, live with and walk with the real Jesus God.

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We're so grateful that you sent your son Jesus down to this earth to give us an

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opportunity of salvation, an opportunity to live our lives as new creations.

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And we're so grateful that Jesus saved us from so much God.

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And so I pray today that as we dig into your word, remove me from this

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stage that it's you speaking today, God, that it's not me or my thoughts,

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but it's you and your spirit.

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Lord, we love you.

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We thank you and pray this in Jesus name.

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Amen.

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Amen.

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Let's turn our Bibles to Luke chapter seven, verse 36, and the

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title today of my lesson here.

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This thing works.

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There you go.

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The real Jesus is a world changer.

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Okay.

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All right.

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The world changer, Luke 7 36 there reads, and we're gonna read just verse 36.

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To start says, when one of the Pharisees invited Jesus to have dinner with him.

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He went to the Pharisees house and reclined at the table.

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So we're gonna stop for a moment.

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I want to paint the picture of what's going on here.

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Can I do that?

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Yeah.

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I think it's important for us to understand what's really happening

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in this culture and this time in this context of the story.

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Because for us reading it in 2023 with the westernized view of

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society, we may not fully understand what's really happening here.

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Okay?

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So what's happening here is that it says that Jesus was

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invited to have dinner With who?

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Pharisees.

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Pharisees, right.

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Last week Marcel mentioned a little bit about who the Pharisees

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were, and these were sort of the religious teachers of the law, right?

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They were sort of the, the highest of the highest religious

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respected officials in that time.

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And as we see the scripture, as we've been studying out, for those who have

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been studying it with us, we're seeing, okay, Jesus keeps to an extent opposing

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Pharisees a little bit here, right?

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Some of the things he says are sometimes like little digs at at the

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Pharisees, and so it's interesting.

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At least in my opinion, to see that the Pharisees invited Jesus to have dinner.

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All right.

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And then it goes on to say that he reclined at the table.

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Right?

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So Jesus was ready to have a great meal.

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But what I wanna make mention of, and I appreciate Eric Enes mentioning this to

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me, cuz he actually lived in the Middle East for some time, is that they didn't

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have the classic kitchen table like we do.

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Yeah.

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They were sitting on the ground, right.

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That, that's, that's a common way of eating dinner in the

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Middle East or eating a meal.

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As you sit, as you can see in this picture, sort of on the ground,

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there's a, a spread laid out.

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You got some cushions on the ground.

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This was customary.

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And so he's almost, instead of reclining like we think in like a lazyboy

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recliner, no, he's actually sort of laying down on his side, eating this

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meal, talking with the Pharisees.

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And so I think that's another important piece to, to recognize it.

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It shows that he felt a comfortability, a normalcy.

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Right that he was in this space of, man, I'm just gonna enjoy this

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meal and have this conversation.

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I'm gonna have this interaction with the Pharisees.

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You know, some scholars say that meals like this, when there were the Pharisees

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were together, that they would actually leave the door open to the dinner.

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And the reason for that was so that uninvited guests could enter

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and sit around by the walls to be able to witness and listen to the

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conversations that were being had.

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Cuz they may have been very insightful conversations.

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So this is a very unique setting, right?

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Typically we wouldn't say, you know, Hey, come over for dinner,

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I'm gonna leave the door open for whoever wants to just roll in there.

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Right?

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Yeah.

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It's a little different.

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So I think that's important to also understand.

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So we see here that the scenery has been set.

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Jesus is enjoying a nice meal.

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He's reclining at the table and he's teaching and talking

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with the Pharisees here.

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Amen.

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Amen.

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So hopefully that helps give you a little picture here.

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Let's continue reading in the story.

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Verse 37 there reads a woman in that town.

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Who lived a sinful life learned that Jesus was eating at the Pharisees house.

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So she came there with an alabaster jar of perfume.

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As she stood behind him at his feet weeping, she began to

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wet his feet with her tears.

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Then she wiped them with her hair, kissed them, and poured perfume on them.

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So during this time, it was customary if you invited guests over into your home, it

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was a customary thing to wash their feet.

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And so interesting enough, we see here that for some reason, this

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tradition, this honor, was not completed for Jesus by the Pharisees.

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There was something that was missed.

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You know how he's laying down there?

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He's, he's eating, he's kind of having this conversation.

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His feet are filthy cuz the roads are dirty.

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They didn't have paved robes like we do today.

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And so it's almost as if this woman.

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Has very easy access to the feet cuz he is laying down in a position where his feet

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are away from the table and he's sort of eating there, talking with the Pharisees.

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You know, some, some may say that this woman was attempting

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to get as close as she could to Jesus without being too close.

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That the feet aren't necessarily the most intimate thing on someone's body, right?

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The feet are, are a dirty thing, especially in this time

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with the dirt all over them.

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Yet she gets close and wants to, to wash his feet for him.

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And then it goes on to des.

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Describe how she did that, that she used her hair, right?

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That the, that her hair was being used as sort of a towel to clean his feet.

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You know, in this time hair was considered almost seductive.

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They covered their hair in the Middle East, they don't show their hair.

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So for a woman to come in there, And use her hair to wash his feet.

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It was saying something.

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And so we see there's a clear tension in the room at this moment.

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All the attention now has been focused on this interaction

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between Jesus and this woman.

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Yeah.

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And an intimacy is being had with Jesus and the woman that is being welcomed.

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Great.

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You know, this isn't an inappropriate intimacy or an unholy moment.

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This is actually an act of worship from this woman.

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Yeah.

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Yeah.

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And some may interpret this, I'm sure the Pharisees interpreted

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this in a completely different way.

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They're like, what is this woman doing?

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Which we'll get to in a little bit, but I believe it's really important

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for us to take a moment to acknowledge the bravery that this woman has to

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step out on faith and interrupt Jesus.

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Think of the bravery required to interrupt Jesus in the middle of a meal

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with all the, the highest officials.

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Think about that.

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Yet.

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Jesus honors it and he welcomes this woman's interruption.

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And so one point I wanna make this morning, oh, there's a picture

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of kind of what's going on.

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One point I wanna make this morning is that world changers welcome interruption.

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Okay?

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The real Jesus welcomes interruption.

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He welcomes this woman into this moment.

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And so let's be honest for ourselves.

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No one really likes to be interrupted during dinner.

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No, you right, you.

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You don't want solicitors going knocking on your door in the

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middle of dinner trying to sell you something or tell you about something.

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Or telemarketer phone calls can be an irritation.

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You know iPhones, now they say spam risk, right?

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When it's coming in there, you're like, man, I don't want to be interrupted.

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When we sit down and eat, we want to enjoy our food and our time with our family.

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You guys with me?

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Yeah, sir.

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Can we be real about that?

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It's important for us sometimes.

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And so on a, you know, this may be true on a normal evening, but

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especially at a dinner party, right?

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So can you imagine an uninvited guest coming into your dinner party?

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Right.

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The Pharisees are throwing this big dinner for Jesus.

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They're, they're, they're having this conversation and this woman who it

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describes in the text as a sinner comes in there probably pretty emotional,

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maybe a little inappropriate or obnoxious, and it probably irritated

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some of those Pharisees a little bit.

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Mm-hmm.

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. But we see that there was a theological moment that was being

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had between Jesus and the Pharisees.

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Yet he welcomes such a unique interruption and he ends up using

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that to teach on something else.

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Mm-hmm.

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, he uses that moment to teach on something else, and he welcomes

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the interruption in his life.

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So I want to ask you this morning, do you welcome interruption into your life?

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Okay.

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It's a unique thing to think about.

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Right.

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We, our view of interruption is bad, right?

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We tell the kids, Hey, don't interrupt.

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You need to, you need to wait.

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Right?

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But what I'm talking about is the interruption of man, what is the

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spirit leading me to think and do?

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And what is he interceding for me in my life?

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You know, uh, someone brought this up to me.

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Uh, Eric brought this up to me.

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The Good Samaritan experiment.

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Who has heard of the Good Samaritan experiment?

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Okay.

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Few of us, right?

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It's an amazing experiment.

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It's really convicting and we see that seminary.

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So what it is, is seminary students had to go prepare a talk

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about the Good Samaritan, right?

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So they're in, in training, they're being taught, and they have to go

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prepare this, this, uh, they're gonna teach on the Good Samaritan, right?

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So upon arriving to the classroom when they're ready to do their

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talk, they were told that the class location had been moved elsewhere and

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only had a few minutes to get there.

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So you gotta go across campus to the other classroom to be

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able to do your co your talk.

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And on the route to the classroom, there was someone that had been

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placed in their path that was in need, someone who needed help.

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And the experiment was designed to see what percentage of the seminary

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students would stop to help the person in need, despite being rushed to the

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classroom to teach on the Good Samaritan.

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The stats were pretty sad overall.

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Only 40% of the students offered some sort of help to the

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victim in low hurry situation.

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So what they did was they changed the, the time, uh, hey, you got, you know, 20

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minutes to get there, says 63% helped.

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They stopped, they saw him and they helped in medium hurry.

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So maybe like five, 10 minutes, 45% of the people stopped.

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But in people who were late, high hurry, only 10% stopped

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to help the person in need.

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So what does that say?

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It says a person in hurry is less likely to help people even if

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they are going to speak on the Parable of the Good Samaritan.

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So there's something in how we think.

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There's something about who we are in our DNI DNA as people.

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There's something that we lack here that Jesus emulates perfectly, that

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we should imitate exactly like him.

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You know, however, we see that Jesus takes the moment to be interrupted.

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And so I think it's important for us to ask, how would you respond if you

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were at the dinner, if you were in this moment, if you were with Jesus seeing

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him interact with this woman, what?

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What would be your response?

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I know for me, brothers and sisters, it would be, . I know naturally I would

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probably be feeling a lot of things.

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I'd be like, why is she doing this?

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What's I would be questioning, I'd be uncomfortable.

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I'd feel frustrated.

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I was like, we're just trying to have a conversation with Jesus

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and you have to do this right now.

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What's your problem?

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Mm-hmm.

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, my prideful nature would be to kick this woman out.

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Get outta here.

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What are you doing?

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Yeah.

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And selfishly enjoy my meal and my guests.

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I don't know what your response would be, but how many of us miss moments

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like this because of our selfishness and pride in our daily lives?

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How often do we miss these moments?

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How many of us miss the opportunities that God is giving us to imitate

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him and welcome interruption?

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You know, what would it look like if we welcomed interruption into our lives?

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What would it look like?

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Let's talk about it.

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What would it look like if you welcomed interruption?

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Maybe some of the conversations that you'd have at the grocery

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store would be much more fruitful.

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There you go.

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Maybe you'd be willing to listen and take a moment to hear what the, what

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the clerk has going on in their lives.

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Maybe the, the person who's homeless on the street, who's in desperate need.

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Maybe there's something that can connect there.

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Maybe you're able to help and meet that need.

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You know, maybe some of our coworkers are crying out for help,

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yet we're too busy and we never make the time to connect with them.

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You know, maybe some, some of us, it's, man, we don't associate with

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certain types of people because they make us uncomfortable.

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Okay?

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Maybe it's the gay person who's looking to learn about Jesus, but

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never gets an opportunity cuz we feel uncomfortable talking to them.

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Come on.

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Maybe it's the person who has completely different political views than you, who is

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searching for a purpose beyond themselves.

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Okay.

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Come on.

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But you're too closed off.

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Because you're not welcoming interruption, you know, unfortunately, we can

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sometimes miss these opportunities because we're too focused on our own

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needs or we're too busy that we're not willing to welcome people into our

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lives who may make us uncomfortable.

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Jesus does this in this moment.

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It's beautiful.

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You know, and I wanna share a brief story here of a week of, of a moment

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that I missed the interruption Jesus was trying to place in front of me.

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The campus probably has heard this story, but when I was a freshman in high

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school, I had just become a disciple.

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And, um, it was my Spanish class, my first Spanish class.

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I go in there second period, I'm sitting in there, everyone's talking.

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And there was this really nice guy who was saying hi to me.

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I was like, wow, this guy's really nice.

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We started becoming, you know, acquaintances, but in the high

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school world, he was considered maybe more on the nerdy side.

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Right.

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Maybe more of the quiet, not very cool.

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And so in my insecure and and selfish nature, I was like, ah, I don't really

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want to like get too close to this guy.

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And so I had just become a Christian and I ended up never even talking

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to him about Jesus and what Jesus had done for me in my life.

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And I missed an opportunity with him.

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Well, fast forward four years later, it's my freshman year of college.

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I go to a college devotional, campus ministry devotional, and

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Luke who walks right in the door.

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It's that guy.

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And he walks in there and he was going to a completely different school than I was.

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Completely different school.

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And someone else in our ministry had invited him out to church.

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He ends up coming out, he starts studying the bible, joins

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our ministry, gets baptized.

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He's still faithful to this day.

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Amen.

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He's actually trying to go into the full-time ministry to become a teacher.

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He's gonna get his master's of divinity.

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Right.

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And so I look at that moment and I was like, wow, I missed the opportunity.

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I missed this interruption.

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I missed the opportunity to, man, just let me say something, but

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God never missed the opportunity.

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God never misses the opportunity, and we see Jesus never misses the opportunity.

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Amen.

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Brothers and sisters.

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Amen.

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Jesus takes the time to welcome interruption into his life.

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And so if we want to imitate the real Jesus and be world changers, then we've

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gotta welcome interruption in our lives.

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Amen.

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Amen.

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Let's continue reading the passage here.

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Verse 39 says, when the Pharisees who had invited him saw this, he said to himself,

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if this man were a prophet, he would know who was touching him and what kind

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of woman she is, that she's a sinner.

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Jesus answered.

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Simon, I have something to tell you.

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Tell me teacher he said.

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Two people owed a certain money lender one hi one owed him 500 Denar

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Denari, and the other 50, neither of them had the money to pay him back,

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so he forgave the debts of both.

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Now, which of them will love him more?

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Simon replied, I suppose, the one who had the bigger debt forgiven.

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You have judged correctly, Jesus said.

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Then he turned toward the woman and said to him, do you see this woman?

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I came into your house.

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You did not give me any water for my feet, but she wet my feet with her

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tears and wiped them with her hair.

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You did not gimme a kiss.

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But this woman from the time I entered, has not stopped kissing my feet.

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You did not put oil on my head.

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But she has poured perfume on my feet.

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Therefore, I tell you, her many sins have been forgiven as her great

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love has shown, but whoever has been forgiven, little loves little.

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That Jesus said to her, your sins are forgiven.

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The other guests began to say to themselves, who is this?

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Who even forgive sins?

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Jesus said to the women, your faith has saved you.

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Go in peace.

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World changers.

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Recognize how much they've been forgiven of, okay, come on, this woman realize

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how much she had been forgiven of.

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I found a commentary that talked about how the point of this story of course,

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is that those who are aware of their great need have a great appreciation

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for the forgiveness they have received.

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They have a humility that comes with an appropriate sense of their sinfulness,

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but those who are blinded by their pride are unaware of how much they need it.

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So they don't have a proper appreciation for God's forgiveness.

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You know, and in the campus ministry we've been studying out Matthew, uh,

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chapter five, the, the Sermon on the Mount, the Be Attitudes, and it's

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been a great time going through those.

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And we're, we're really learning some good stuff.

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But the first one he says there, Matthew five, uh, verse three is he says,

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blessed are the poor in spirit for theirs is the kingdom of heaven, right?

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This idea of being poor in spirit.

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And so we talked about this with the college ministry at first was like, man,

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what does this mean to be poor in spirit?

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Such a unique and different concept.

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It's not something we usually think about, but what it really means is to acknowledge

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how much you've been forgiven of and understanding your need for God's mercy.

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Understanding that and recognizing that it's a sober judgment of yourself.

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It's to be sober minded and realize, wow, I need grace in my life.

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And so we've gotta be humble enough church to admit that we are sinful.

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We've gotta admit it, we've gotta acknowledge it, and we need God's mercy.

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Otherwise, it says we won't receive the kingdom of heaven.

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This isn't an option.

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This is a requirement in a sense that we've gotta be poor in spirit

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to receive the kingdom of heaven.

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You know, Jesus forgives the woman's sins.

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It says, because she had the humility to recognize her need to be forgiven.

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She had the humility to take us a leap of faith.

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She had the humility to say, you know what?

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I'm gonna use my hair.

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I'm gonna use this perfume that I have.

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Let's talk for a second church.

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Can I be real?

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Yeah.

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Let's talk for a second about the problems that can occur with not understanding

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how much we've been forgiven of.

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Yeah.

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Come on.

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Because this is a weakness for me, I'll be honest.

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It's, it's a tough thing to recognize.

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And so some of the problems with not recognizing how much you've been

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forgiven of is you can be prideful.

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Yep.

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And then if you're prideful, you lack compassion.

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Yep.

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, you lack compassion.

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So too many of us who have either maybe grown up in the church like myself,

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or maybe you've been around for many years, you've been faithful for many

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years, but maybe some of us have failed to completely understand our

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need for mercy, and we get prideful.

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Mm-hmm.

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, and we start to lack compassion.

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Maybe we start lacking compassion for those who have

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not yet been saved by Christ.

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The lost.

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Yeah.

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Because we're not in touch with how much he saved us from Yeah.

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We're not realizing it.

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We're not recognizing it, we're not seeing it.

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And so we don't have this overflow, man, I gotta share this.

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I've been forgiven of so much.

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I've gotta share it.

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I gotta spread it.

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I need my friends to know about this.

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And so we lack that compassion.

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We lack that zeal.

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You know?

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I think this can also lead to a lack of compassion that causes us to

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start pointing our fingers at maybe other churches or other people who

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are trying to live a life of Christ.

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And we start pointing to them and start saying, man, they're

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not living out true discipleship.

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And we start judging them all, just like the Pharisees do.

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Okay.

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All right.

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That lacks compassion.

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Who are we to start judging other churches?

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You guys with me?

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Okay.

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That's not our job.

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That's up to God.

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Mm-hmm.

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We cannot become arrogant like the Pharisees and think we're the only

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holy ones brothers and sisters.

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Mm-hmm.

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. We've gotta have the compassion and recognize our own sin.

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You know, another problem with not understanding how much we've been really

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forgiven of is we can get critical.

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Yeah.

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And when we get critical, this leads to becoming judgmental.

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Yeah.

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Criticalness leads to being judgmental.

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And so some of us can become critical of the very own church that

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has helped you learn about Jesus.

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Okay.

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And this leads to us being judgmental towards others in the church.

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Alright.

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You know, being critical towards the church.

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Or maybe the leaders in the church or certain practices we do in the church.

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It shows a lack of humility and empathy for those that are really

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trying to build God's church.

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Amen.

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We can't be critical.

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Criticalness does not lead to anything good.

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Yeah.

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There's a healthy type of criticalness, but I'm talking about the unhealthy.

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I'm talking about the the prideful criticalness where it's, man,

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look at all the problems here.

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We can't be like John Mayer waiting on the world to change.

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We gotta be proactive and help things change.

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Amen.

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Amen.

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He just sits there and waits.

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It's all the songs about, I'm waiting on the world to change.

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He ain't doing nothing about it.

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Let's not be like that.

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Amen.

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Amen.

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Okay, so the real Jesus brothers and sisters, he, he forgives those who know

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they need forgiveness, and so let's imitate the humility of this woman who

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knew she needed the mercy of Jesus.

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This.

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Let's imitate that example.

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Let's recognize that with our lives and a few action steps as we close out

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Prayer for the week is I want us to ask God to reveal the ways that you

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can welcome interruption in your life.

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Start asking God, what are the ways I'm, what are the opportunities I'm missing?

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Please show them to me.

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Please help me understand them.

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Help me see the ways that I can welcome this interruption.

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And an action step is I want us to ask a trusted friend, what are the

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ways that I can grow in my humility?

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Come on, let's get some help in our lives.

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So let's get some vulnerability in our lives.

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So let's ask, man.

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All right.

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I know I'm not perfect.

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What do I need to do to be more humble?

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How can I implement this idea of being poor and spirit into my life?

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What do you see in my character?

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Amen.

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So brothers and sisters, we're gonna in a few moments here, take communion together.

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Hopefully you can write these down.

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Take picture, whatever you gotta do.

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But as we close out and take commune, I want us to remember that disciples

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of the real Jesus welcome interruption.

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If you wanna be a world changer like Jesus, let's welcome

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interruption in our lives.

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And let's also remember that disciples of the real Jesus recognize their

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need for forgiveness and how the cross is what makes this possible.

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Amen.

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Amen.

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Let's say a word of prayer.

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Lord, thank you so much for this morning.

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Thank you so much for your son Jesus, to be able to see how he interacts with

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people, to see how he takes the moment and the time to be interrupted and

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welcome that, and value that and value others above himself is what the, the

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Bible, uh, says that he values others.

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He made himself nothing by becoming a servant.

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And God, I pray that as we reflect on the cross, as we reflect on the

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communion right now, Lord, that you help us to connect with this idea of

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realizing our need for forgiveness.

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God, I know as a, as a young man who's grown up in the church,

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it's hard sometimes to see that.

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It's hard to, but Lord, I know I need it.

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I know all of us need it because Jesus came here not for one, but for all.

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And God, I pray that as we take the community, we can remember that as

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disciples, we're called to love you with all of our heart, all of our mind, all

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of our soul, and all of our strength.

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And remember that the grace that you've shown us through the cross

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is the best gift we could ever get.

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We love you.

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We thank you.

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In Jesus name I pray.

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