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Hey everyone, and welcome to Christ
Community Chapel and our weekend service.

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My name is Jamie,

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I'm a pastor here at the church,
and it is my privilege to welcome you

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not only to our weekend service,
but the first week of what

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we are calling our Summer of More.

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And I mean looking around this room,
this is amazing,

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but we have so many amazing
things planned for you guys as we are

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doing some renovations in our sanctuary
to make room for more people.

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We are in the middle of our Proverbs

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series, more wisdom for more life.

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And tonight we're going
to be talking about reputation,

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which is something
I think that probably hits all of us.

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I think all of us, at some point,
some moment in our life, we've asked

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a question about who we are
and how we can know

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that we are good enough. And that's what
we're going to be talking about.

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And so if you want to join me,
our church Bibles,

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the passage is on page 514,

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so it's easy for you to find,
but we're going to be in Proverbs

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22:1 and 2.

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They see this.

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A good name is to be chosen
rather than great riches

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and favor is better than silver or gold.

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The rich and poor meet together;
and the Lord

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is the maker of them all and all.

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I'm going to hold out my outline so you can follow
along with where we're going.

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The three points.

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The first one
is going to be the value of a name.

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Then the second point is
what makes a name good.

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And then the third point
is the cost of a good name.

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So the value of a name,
what makes a name good,

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and the cost of a good name.

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And so the value of a name.

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Actually, just this week
I ended up having a conversation

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with my kids
about the meanings of their name.

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And I know you might be asking yourself
this is suspect.

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Pastor is preaching a message
on having a good name, and he happens

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to have a conversation with his kids
that he references in his sermon.

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But I promise you,
it was completely honest.

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We were watching the new animated movie
David and my youngest daughter

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turns to me after it
and she says, daddy, did you name brother?

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And my son's name is Jonathan.

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She says, did you name brother after
Jonathan, who was the friend of David?

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I said, yeah, I did.

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I named him after Jonathan because I love
Jonathan, the friend of David.

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And by naming our son that I wanted

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some of who
Jonathan is to be part of his character.

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And so we had a conversation with my kids

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about the meanings of all of their names,
and they soaked it up.

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They were locked in

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because I think even as kids,
they are interested in who they are.

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And somehow in that conversation,

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they had a clearer picture
of who I dreamed that they might be.

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You know, more important

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even than the name that were given,
I think, is the name that we earn.

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And that's really what a reputation is.

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A reputation is the name that we earn.

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And I think
it might even be more important

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because when I named my son Jonathan,
that was an aspirational name.

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That is something I wanted for him.

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But as he grows up into a man, he's
going to have his own reputation

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that he makes,
and that's going to be more true of him.

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And I think that's a little bit of what
Shakespeare was alluding to when he said

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a rose by any other name
would still smell as sweet.

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So it doesn't matter what you say it
is, it's what it really is that matters.

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It's substance.
And that's what a reputation is.

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A reputation is who we really are.

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And reputations are so significant.

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They drive so much of our life
not only at a large existential level,

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but also just
in the everyday facets of our life.

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And so I'll share this brief way
that you can also get to know

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me a little bit better.
I'm a part of Team Subaru.

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Hey, I have a blue Subaru Forester,
and my unique brand of Subaru Forester

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happens to have a two by four roof

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rack that I built myself
because I'm incredibly cheap.

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And so if you've ever been driving
and have been cut off by a blue Subaru

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Forester with two by fours on top of it,
that was probably me.

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It's going to be really hard

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to convince you that there's
another one of those out there.

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So I chose to get that
because I live in Northeast Ohio.

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Like I would imagine
a number of you guys do.

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And we have this thing called winter.

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And Subaru's have a reputation
for being incredibly reliable vehicles,

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but also being great in the snow, great
driving

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through mixed conditions
and things like that.

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And so that drove the choice
of what I buy.

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Reputations drive so many of our choices,
almost all of them.

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I would bet.

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That's why one of the first things we look
at when we buy something is the brand.

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Because a brand says
something about that product,

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and if we're not sure about a product,
what do we do?

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We look to the reviews for that product
and what our reviews,

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if not the reputation of that product
in the eyes of people who have bought it.

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And so reputations drive
so much of our lives.

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They are so important.

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And so it should not be a surprise
when Proverbs says to you and I that

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your reputation is so valuable

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that it is
the most important thing in your life.

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That's what it means in verse one
when it says, A good name is to be chosen

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rather than great riches
and favor is better than silver or gold,

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because gold and silver and great
riches are the most

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valuable things
that really we can imagine.

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And this is saying that a good name,
a reputation is more valuable than them.

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It should be chosen over them.

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And I think that even deeper, more
than just it being really valuable,

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I think that riches and gold and silver
represent the things that we work for.

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Is anyone in this room has a job, knows
that you have a job to get a paycheck,

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and if the paycheck stops coming

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in, then you find another place
to work to give you one.

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So when this says it's to be chosen over
great riches, it's saying

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that it's to be chosen over anything else
in our life that we could work for.

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And so this is asking us a question.

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It's saying,
what are we working for in our life?

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What are we trying to build our life on?

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And it's suggesting that the answer to
that question should be a good name.

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And that leads to the question then
so what makes a name good?

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And that is my second point.

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And so another way of asking this question
what makes a name good is saying

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who or where do we turn to know

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if our name or our life is good?

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Because remember, a reputation.

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A name is who we are.

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Who do we turn to to
look back at us and say, well done, good.

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And I think that
there are a couple of places

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we can turn and get a little bit mixed up
on this, and I want to start there.

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The first is we can turn to other people,
we can look to them.

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And I think that this is exhausting
because it's a life of performance.

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It is a life of trying to curate
your image so you look just the right way.

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It's adapting and reacting to other people
based upon their opinions,

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and it is turning over the wheel to them

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and wherever they lead you, you follow.

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And I admit, this

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is going to be a bit of a weird segue,
but that reminded me of my honeymoon.

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And on my honeymoon, my wife and I,

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we got to spend some time riding jet skis,
and what I would tell you,

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I learned 16 years ago, is that I hate

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riding on the back of a jet ski,

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because when you're riding on the back
of a jet ski and not driving it,

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you are constantly reacting to the person
who's driving.

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You are shifting your weight
as they make a turn.

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You're trying to anticipate
even where they are turning,

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and you know that
if you don't get it right,

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you are likely to get thrown off
of this thing and into the lake.

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I think that chasing the approval
and favor

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the reputation of other people is a lot
like that.

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You are constantly living your life,
looking at what they want,

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trying to react to it,
trying to anticipate it, and know that one

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small false move
can lead to losing everything.

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I think chasing a good name
in the reputation of other people,

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it doesn't work.

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And so maybe some of us will say, yeah,
I learned that lesson.

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I stopped caring
what other people think a long time ago.

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I just do what I think is right.

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And here's what I tell you.

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Trying to find your name
and your reputation in yourself.

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I don't think that that works.

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Either, because I think
that you're still performing.

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You are just performing for yourself.

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You have become the judge.

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I think anybody who spent any time alone
with their own thoughts knows just how

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harsh a critic that we can be of ourselves
when we are honest.

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Most of us know that we don't measure up
to our own standards.

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Most of us wish that we were
somebody different than we are.

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Psychologists will say that the two
most important desires

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in a person's
life are to be known and to be loved.

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Now that leads
to one of our deepest fears,

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because we sense that
if somebody really knew me,

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if they knew everything, if they knew
every thought that I've had, every desire

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that I've had
and they could never love me.

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And the problem with being your own judge
is that no one knows you quite like you.

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And so as we move
from chasing our approval in others

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to trying to find it in ourself,
we trade an exhausting voice

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of performance for a crushing voice
of trying to be our own judge.

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Neither of those work.

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So we're left to wonder where do we turn?

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Proverbs 22 does not leave us hanging.

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It points us in the right direction.

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And so the second verse says this the rich
and the poor meet together.

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The Lord is the maker of them all.

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So all of us, wherever you are at, rich,
poor, it does not matter your status.

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We all stand in the same place
longing for a good name.

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And where does it direct us to turn?

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It's not to others, it's not to ourselves.

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It's to the God who made us,
the one who made us and knows us best.

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If that is where we should turn.

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It's not that we should never care
about what other people think of us.

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And it's not that we should never reflect
on what we think about ourselves.

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But neither of those two things are stable
enough to build a life on.

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Neither of those two are able to be
the foundation that we crave and need.

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Only the Lord who made us
is able to be that.

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And so I want to talk about
building a life for a little bit.

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I have renovated approximately.

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I don't know, 1.7 homes in my life.

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I'm in the midst of it.

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If you can't tell,
that's the fraction there.

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My kids have lived on subfloor
for the majority of their lives,

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and I have learned a
thing or two about building.

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My wife has

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learned a lot of patience along the way,
but I've learned a couple of things.

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And so I think most homes are built
at three layers.

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You have the finishing of a home,
and that's the stuff

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on the surface that you can see.
It's the paint on the walls.

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It's the choice of whether you have carpet
or hardwood floor.

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It's the light fixtures,
it's all the stuff you see.

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And I think that that can be thought
of as our reputation to others.

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It's what people see in our life
when they look at us.

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But you go beneath the surface
a little bit

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and you have the framing of the house.

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You have the two by fours in the wall,
you have the joists in the floor.

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See, I know what I'm talking about.

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You have subfloor, you have electrical,

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plumbing and things like that.

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It's below the surface.

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It's harder to see and it holds it all up.

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And that's like the way that we see
ourselves.

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That's our relationship
and our reputation with ourselves.

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But beneath
all of that is the most important level.

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And that's the foundation of a home.

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It's what it's built on, and that is our
reputation and our relationship with God.

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It's what God would say about us
if asked whether our life is good or not.

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And so it's not that paying attention to
the finishing is wrong or bad.

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It's not that caring
about the structural integrity

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of the framing of a house is bad,
but I would say that

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if the foundation is cracked and broken,
if it is busted and sinking

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and maybe was never built correctly
in the first place,

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no amount of nails in the framing
and no number of coats of paint

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on the wall can stop the cracks
from coming back again and again.

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As the house is sinking,
they're just going to show back up.

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And I would even say that to worry
about the color of paint

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on the walls in a sinking
house is just insanity.

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And yet I think that that's
what a lot of us, myself

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very much included, have a tendency to do.

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That's what it's like trying to find
a name in other people instead of God.

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But if we turn to him,

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I think that we can have the kind of life
that we are made for.

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So that leads to a question
what makes God look at people

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like you and I and say, good.

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And so my third point,
the cost of a good name.

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You know that question what makes God
look at somebody and say, well done.

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What makes God look at somebody
and say that their life is good?

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I think is
one of the most important questions

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that a person can ask themselves.

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And we are going to look at a conversation
that Jesus has

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with a crowd of people
when somebody asks him a similar question.

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And so in John six,
if you want to look it up later,

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Jesus has just fed the 5000.

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He has gone over
to the other side of the lake.

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The crowd that was with him
there, they have followed him around

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and somebody asks Jesus this question.

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They say, what must
we be doing to be doing the work of God?

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What must
we be doing to be doing the work of God?

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I think another way of saying that is,
what do we need to be doing to have favor

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with God?

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What kind of life do
we need to be living in order for God

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to look at us and say,
well done, this is good.

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And I think that Jesus response
is noteworthy

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as much for what he doesn't say
as what he does.

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And so first, what he doesn't say.

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Jesus doesn't give a long list
of instructions and rules and regulations

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for how you and I can earn
a good name with God.

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He doesn't say, do this, do this, do this,

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don't do this,
never do that, always do this.

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And don't even think about doing that.

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That's that's not what he says
in a beautifully simple way.

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Jesus says one sentence.

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He says, this is the work of God
that you would believe

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in, the one
he sent the work of God for you.

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And I is to believe in the one he sent.

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The only thing that would cause God
to look as someone like you and I and say,

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well done, is that we would believe
in the one he sent.

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And so I think that there are two costs
that we can draw

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out, two costs of a good name
that we can see,

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one of them is paid by God,
and the other is paid by us.

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The one that is paid by God is Jesus life.

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The cost of a good name is Jesus life
because he is the one that was sent.

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He is the one who was sent to live

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a perfect life that we failed to live
and can never hope to live.

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He is the one who is sent to give his life

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on a cross, to die
the death that we deserved.

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He's the one who came back and invites us
to follow him into new life.

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See, the hope of the gospel
is not a reputation improvement plan.

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The hope of the gospel is a reputation
exchange.

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It's that God would look at people
like you and I

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and he would say,
I will take your sinful reputation

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and give it to another, and I will give
his perfect reputation to you.

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And I want to look at a verse
in second Corinthians 521.

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It's going to come up on the screen
and I want to read it with you.

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It says, for our sake
he made him to be sin who knew no sin,

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so that in him
we might become the righteousness of God.

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This says, for our sake or for our good,
he made him to be sin who knew no sin.

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So though Jesus was perfect, he took
all of our broken reputation on himself.

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And then it says

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that in him we might become
the righteousness of God, and we become

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that as his perfect reputation
and righteousness

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is counted towards us,

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the cost of a good name

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in the eyes of God
is the life of Jesus poured out for us.

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But how can we take hold of that?

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That's my second cost.

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It's the one that's paid for by us.

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The cost is belief.

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Jesus says you believe
in the one that he sent.

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It's trust.

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And I think that trust and belief,

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they always show up through choice.

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You and I, we will choose the thing

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that we put our trust
into over everything else.

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And so Jesus is saying that
we should believe in the one whom he sent.

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We should put our trust
in the one whom he sent,

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and we should choose
the one whom he sent above all others.

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And this is where we come
back to the Proverbs verse.

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Because Proverbs talks a lot about choice,

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it says that a great name is to be chosen
rather than great riches.

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And it says that favor
is better than silver or gold.

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We should choose it.

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And sometimes
we are asked to choose it over

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other things that look good,
like great riches and gold and silver.

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And Jesus says, yeah,
but I'm still worth more.

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And sometimes we have to let go of good
things are things

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that seem good in order
to take hold of the best thing,

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and a story
that I'll share really quickly.

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I've got an awesome tree in my backyard
that's great for climbing.

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My kids found it almost immediately

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when we bought our house
and they started climbing it.

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And when they were younger
especially, they would climb up the tree.

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And I don't know if you're a parent
if you've experienced this as well,

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but sometimes they would climb up and
they would not be able to get back down.

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And so they would be stuck
and they would call out and they say,

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daddy, will you come
and help me get down from the tree?

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And I'd walk out
and I would have my arms up in the air.

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And I say, I'm here.

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You can jump down and I'll catch you.

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And then there would be a silence
and a pause, and they'd say, daddy,

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I'm too scared.

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I can't, I can't let go.

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And I say, if you trust me, you'll let go.

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You can trust me. I will catch you.

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Sometimes, in order to show that we trust,
we have to let go of something,

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even if it seems like it's the thing
that's keeping us safe.

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And that's what Proverbs 22 is saying
when it says that a good name

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is to be chosen

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rather than great riches, because Jesus
is the greatest value of all.

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And if we trust him with our lives, if
we trust him with all of our reputations,

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then we can build the kind of life
we were made for.

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And I want to walk you through
how we can do that practically.

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Those three layers foundation, framing,
and finishing the way that God sees

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us, the way that we see ourselves
and the way that others see us.

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I want to show you
how we can step into trusting Jesus

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with our reputation at each one of those,
and what that leads to,

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so how we can trust
Jesus in our reputation with God.

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It means that we can believe
that he is enough, that he is the one

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and the only one
that can give us a good name.

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And here's where that leads to.

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It leads to a life
where we know where we stand with God.

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We don't have to wonder.

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We can rest that Jesus has said
it is finished and it is done

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and paid for forever.

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And then the way that we see ourselves,
our reputation with ourselves,

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the framing of our life, if we trust Jesus

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in our reputation with ourselves, here's
what that looks like.

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It looks like stopping
listening to the voices

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that tell us who we are from others,
stopping listening to the voices

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00:20:58,557 --> 00:21:02,477
that tell us who we are from ourself,
and starting to listen to what God says

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about us.

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At the beginning of John, it'll say

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00:21:05,831 --> 00:21:09,751
that those who believe in him
have the right to become children of God.

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What God says about us
is that we are his children.

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If you are in Jesus, then God calls you
son and God calls you daughter.

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God calls you beloved.

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And that can begin to write a new story
of how you see yourself

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and lastly, your reputation with others.

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When you and I trust Jesus
with our reputation of others,

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I think that it brings freedom
and it brings purpose to our life,

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because we begin to want a reputation
that points

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00:21:39,114 --> 00:21:42,117
not to ourself, but to God.

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Even our reputation is set free
from being egotistical in the gospel.

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How amazing is that? Our life.

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We want to point towards him.

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Every time that we jump off the branch,
we let go from that

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00:21:58,116 --> 00:22:03,388
and Jesus catches us
is like a five star review

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00:22:03,388 --> 00:22:07,275
to Jesus goodness and faithfulness
to catch us every time that we trust him

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00:22:07,275 --> 00:22:11,713
with our finances, with our marriage,
with our singleness,

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00:22:11,830 --> 00:22:15,517
with the career
that didn't go the way that we hoped

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00:22:15,550 --> 00:22:17,202
it would go, with a family

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00:22:17,202 --> 00:22:20,188
that is broken and we don't know how it's
going to be put back together.

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00:22:20,238 --> 00:22:24,676
Every time that we trust him with the
thing that feels like we can't get rid of,

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00:22:26,511 --> 00:22:27,796
we become a

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00:22:27,796 --> 00:22:31,149
review to the world of Jesus goodness.

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00:22:31,550 --> 00:22:35,187
And so Proverbs 22,
it says to you and I that there's

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00:22:35,187 --> 00:22:40,359
nothing more important in our life
than our name, but the only way

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00:22:40,359 --> 00:22:44,763
that we can know that we are good
enough is in Jesus and in him.

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00:22:44,763 --> 00:22:45,747
We can have the kind of

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00:22:45,747 --> 00:22:49,518
life we are made for with ourselves,
with others, and ultimately with God.

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00:22:49,518 --> 00:22:53,755
But it comes down to the choice
what will we choose?

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Will we choose to trust
Jesus as the foundation of our life?

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00:22:58,877 --> 00:23:00,912
And I want to invite you to consider that.

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00:23:00,912 --> 00:23:04,833
And maybe if you've never, maybe
you consider that for the first time.

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00:23:05,317 --> 00:23:07,753
Maybe if you've been walking with Jesus
for a while,

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00:23:07,753 --> 00:23:09,321
you consider it for the thousandth.

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00:23:09,321 --> 00:23:13,558
Where in your life is he inviting you
to take a leap and to trust him?

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00:23:14,042 --> 00:23:16,428
Here's what I can promise you.

401
00:23:16,428 --> 00:23:20,115
He tells us that it is always worth it.

402
00:23:20,482 --> 00:23:22,434
So if you would pray with me,

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00:23:23,435 --> 00:23:27,439
father, I thank you for your goodness.

404
00:23:27,472 --> 00:23:31,443
To never leave us, to never forsake us.

405
00:23:32,394 --> 00:23:34,596
God to be with us.

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00:23:34,596 --> 00:23:38,633
Every time
any person has ever leapt to you,

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00:23:39,000 --> 00:23:43,755
calling out for you to rescue them, God,
you have caught them every single time.

408
00:23:43,755 --> 00:23:47,876
You alone are the way
that we can have the name with you

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00:23:47,876 --> 00:23:50,162
that we long for in our lives.

410
00:23:50,162 --> 00:23:54,749
Can I pray that wherever we are tonight
we would have the courage to say, God,

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00:23:54,749 --> 00:23:59,788
I want to choose you for my life
because you're worth it.

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Amen.