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James 1:27.

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Religion that is pure and undefiled before
God the Father

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is this to visit orphans and widows
in their affliction,

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and to keep oneself
unstained from the world.

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Right.

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This is the final message of our four week
series that we're calling Good News

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for Every Family.

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We started out
with Good News for Children.

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That was the outdoor service
then Good News for Every Marriage.

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And then last week, Good News for Broken
Families, which I thought was great.

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And now orphans and widows is Good News
for the Family-less.

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And the message seems to be clear

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that God doesn't leave anyone out,

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which is pretty profound.

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It means I can say to you,
no matter who you are,

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no matter how far away you feel from God
or how close you feel,

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no matter if you have a wonderful family
or a broken family, or no family

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at all, God pursues you

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and that is amazing.

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Here are the three points
that I want to pull out

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of this verse,
and I want to use this as the outline.

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I want to talk about the religion of God,

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the heart of God, and the family of God.

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The religion of God. The heart of God.

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In the family of God.

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First, the religion of God.

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Let me start with this.

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I don't like that word I don't like
I don't know if I've ever liked

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the word religion,
and I only I have to use it

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because James used it,
which seems weird for me to say.

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The reason I don't like it is precisely

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the way it sounds in this verse,

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because religion always seems like
a bunch of rules, like boxes to check.

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And I'm good at checking boxes.

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And you know, in this verse

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it seems like, hey, if you want to please
God, just visit the orphans and widows.

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And I could just go check, check.

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But it doesn't really do anything
inside of me.

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That's why I don't like religion.

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But I told you a couple weeks ago
that it's important

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to read the Bible in context,
because if you just read a single verse

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out of context,
you can misunderstand the whole thing.

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This is what James says.

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But right before this verse he says, but

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be doers of the word and not hearers
only, deceiving yourselves.

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For if anyone is a hear of the word
and not a doer,

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he's like a man who looks intently
at his natural face in a mirror,

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for he looks at himself and goes away,
and at once forgets what he was like.

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But the one who looks into the perfect
law, the law of liberty, and perseveres,

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being no hearer of

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being, no hearer
who forgets, but a doer who acts.

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He will be blessed in his doing.

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James likens the

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Bible to a mirror, and when you look
in a mirror, what do you see?

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You don't see a list of rules.

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You see. You

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okay? Yeah, this is the point.

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Don't miss this. This is big.

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Before the Bible ever tells you
what to do.

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It tells you who you are.

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Before the Bible ever tells you
what to do.

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It tells you who you are

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and what James is saying here.

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And he does it all through his letter.

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If you're struggling to obey God,
whether you're struggling

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to forgive someone
or give generously or love those

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that God loves,

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you forgotten who you are.

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You've just forgotten who you are.

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And I say that because that's the central

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message of Christianity is
is called the gospel.

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And the gospel literally means good news.

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That's what that word means.

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And news is different than advice.

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Every other religion is based on advice.

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Do these things, then God will accept you.

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But not Christianity.

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Christianity is based on news.

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I remember hearing it, hearing this story
and it helped me a lot.

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In the ancient world,
if you lived in a city in a

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an army was going to attack your city.

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You would send your army out
to meet them in the field

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before they got to
the city, and then you'd wait

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to see what happened.

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And from the battle lines,
they would send a runner

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to tell everyone in the city
what had happened.

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If the runner came and said, the enemy
has broken through, bar the gates.

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Arm yourselves. Prepare to fight.

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That's advice.

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That's advice.

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But if the runner comes

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and the runner says
the battle has been won.

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The enemy has been decimated.

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Rejoice and be glad.

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That's news.

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The gospel of Jesus Christ is news

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is that the battle has been
fought by Jesus.

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Rejoice and be glad.

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That's Romans five eight.

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The God demonstrates his love toward

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us, that while we were still sinners,
Christ died.

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For a second Corinthians 521
God made him who had no sin

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to be sin for us, so that in him
we might become the righteousness of God.

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It's like

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James is saying,
if if I lived in under incredible debt

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and someone paid off my debt,
and you came to visit me

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a couple of months later
and found me with the same anxiety

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that I had before the debt was paid,
you say, have you forgotten

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what has happened to you?

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See that?

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That's what James is saying.

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James is giving something to do.

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But he said, before I tell you what to do,
you need to remember who you are,

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that the battle has been fought.

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The debt has been paid by Jesus.

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Rejoice and be glad,

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and in that joy,
then live out of that joy.

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And that brings me to my second point,
which is the heart of God.

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There are a lot of images
that the Bible gives

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to try
to describe our relationship with God.

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It'll talk about

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God being like a king
and we are his servants.

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God is a shepherd and we are his sheep.

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God is a Savior and we are
the ones who have been set free.

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But one of the most powerful images
I think, in the whole Bible is the one in

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right in the middle of Romans,
and it's the image of adoption.

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And I love this image.

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This is what Paul says, for
you did not receive

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the spirit of slavery
to fall back into fear,

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but you've received the spirit of adoption
as sons

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by whom we cry, ABBA, father!

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The Spirit Himself bears witness
with our spirits

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that we are children of God.

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I love adoption,
I love that the whole thing,

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because when someone is adopted,
they hear unmistakably from someone.

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I see you,

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I want you,

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and I love you, right?

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That's what this says,
that God does that with us.

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You know the Gospel of Luke, that
the disciples are hanging around Jesus and

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and then they
they one of them shows up to Jesus

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and said, Jesus,
would you teach us to pray?

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And of course, you would ask
that if you're a disciple, right?

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If you're if you're watching Jesus
and you watch him pray,

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I mean, I always feel like I'm
not a very good prayer,

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but if I was around Jesus,
I would ask him that.

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Teach me to pray like you. Pray right?

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And Jesus said, okay.

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And then he taught them
what we refer to as the Lord's Prayer.

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But we become so familiar
with the Lord's Prayer,

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I think sometimes that we we miss
what must have taken their breath away.

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Because the way Jesus starts

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the Lord's Prayer,
he says, okay, I'll teach you how to pray.

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This is the way you start.

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Call him father.

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And right then,
that must have blown their minds

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because no one called God Father.

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What Jesus was saying is because of me,
when you go to God,

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you can call him dad.

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When James mentions orphans

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and widows in the first century,
they were terribly vulnerable.

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Orphans and widows
fell through the cracks.

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There was no social
welfare net to catch them

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if they didn't, if you didn't have family
in the first century,

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you had nothing.

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You know the gospel, Luke,
Jesus goes into a town

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and there's a funeral procession going on,

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and Jesus ends up asking, what's going on?

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And they say, oh,
that's the only son of a widow.

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And it

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says that
Jesus was filled with compassion.

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And he goes over
and he raises the young man from the dead

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and gives him back to his mom.

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The reason that James mentions

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orphans and widows
is because they matter to God.

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It's showing God's heart

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what what God is saying
is that if you are alone

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or you are lonely,

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he's saying,

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I see you,

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right, I want you.

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I want those who are lonely

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and alone, taken care of.

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And that brings us to my final point,
which is the family of God.

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In the Gospel of Matthew, Jesus says
a couple of really interesting things.

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How I the Gospel of Matthew, Jesus says
a lot of interesting things, but

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there are two that kind of stuck out to me
as I prepared for this message.

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The first is in Matthew 12.

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Jesus is teaching in a house

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and there are tons of people.

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They packed the house, which you can just
imagine so much so no one can get in.

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And, Jesus, mother and his brothers come,

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his family comes and they're outside
and they send word they can't get in.

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So they send word
in, tell Jesus we're out here

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and we want to talk with him.

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And so somebody told somebody
who told somebody told somebody,

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the message gets to Jesus.

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And this is the way, Jesus responds,

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says while he was still speaking
to the people, behold,

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his mother and his brothers
stood outside asking to speak to him.

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But he replied to the man who told him,
who is my mother?

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Who are my brothers?

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And stretching out his hand
toward his disciples, he said, here

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my mother and my brothers,
for whoever does the will of my father

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in heaven
is my brother and sister and mother.

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I don't think Jesus was dissing his family

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as much as he was saying,
you don't understand.

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I'm creating a whole new family.

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He says something similar
in Matthew chapter 19.

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In Matthew chapter 19,

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a man comes to Jesus and he's referred to
as the rich young ruler.

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And he comes to Jesus and he says, what
do I need to do to inherit eternal life?

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And Jesus says, go and sell
all that you have

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and come and follow me.

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And it was too steep a price for that guy.

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So the guy just went away.

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And this is not my point.

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But what a mess, right?

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What a mess on his part.
Forget that he was rich.

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Forget that Jesus said go and sell all.

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But Jesus said, come,

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be one of my disciples.

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Follow me. What?

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He was inviting him to walk with him.

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24 seven.

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Can you imagine what that would have been?

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If he had done that,
we would know his name.

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We would name our children
after that guy we would name like Peter

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or John or Matthew, but instead

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he's just an anonymous guy
that was referred to

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as the rich young ruler
because he chose his money and property

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over Jesus.

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But there's some high point.

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What happens right after that is Peter.

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You can always count on Peter
to say something.

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And Peter says, Jesus,

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we've left everything to follow you
and you can hear what he's doing.

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He's just going, hey, we're good, right?

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I mean, we've sacrificed to follow you.

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And Jesus says this to Peter.

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He says, no, Peter,

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no one who has left father or mother

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or sister or brothers or houses to follow

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me will not receive back
100 times in this life

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and the life to come.

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What Jesus is saying is that Jesus didn't

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come just to call individual believers
to himself.

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Jesus came to create a family.

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When Jesus says to me,

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you can because of me,
you can call God Father.

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You can call him dad.

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And he says to you, because of me,
you can call him father.

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You can call him dad.

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What he's saying is you have siblings,

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I have siblings,
they're sitting all around

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scads of siblings.

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There's a sociologist and historian named
Rodney Stark.

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He wrote a book
called The Rise of Christianity.

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I've mentioned it
before. I really like that book.

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But in that book, he tries to explain why

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Christianity spread across the Roman

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Empire at lightning speed,
and one of the reasons he gives

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it is the way the church responded

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to those who had been marginalized,

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to people who are poor or orphaned,

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or widows or slaves,

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because when someone

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who is marginalized,
who was alone would come into the church,

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what they would hear is the heart of God,

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but they also were able
to feel the heart of God,

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because when they walked
into the ancient church,

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what they felt was
a bunch of people would say, we see you,

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we want you,

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we love you,

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you're home,

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right?

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Because the church is filled with people
who know what it is to be adopted,

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who know

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what it is
for God the Father to look at us and say,

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I see you, I want you, I love you

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because before the Bible tells you
what to do,

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it tells you who you are.

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There's an emperor named Julian
the Apostate.

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Some years ago, archeologists
found a letter

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that he wrote, and I love this

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because Julian
the Apostate hated Christians.

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And when he wrote the letter,
and I'll paraphrase it,

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he was writing it to some pagan priests,

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and he was saying, you know, I hate those
blasted followers of the Galilean.

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That's what he called Christians.

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Because Jesus was from Galilee.

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He wouldn't even mention Jesus name.

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But he said, listen, they take care of
not just their own.

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They care of take care of ours.

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And then he

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told the priests, if you don't start
imitating them and doing what

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they're doing,
the whole world is going to follow Jesus.

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And I love that,
because, you know, they did.

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But the other thing is, I like it

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that he realized we don't play fair

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because for us, people aren't just people.

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People are family.

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So if you are here

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and you are alone or lonely,

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I have good news for you.

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And the good news is that God sees you.

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God wants you.

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God loves you.

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But he's not just calling you to himself,

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he's calling you to a family,
to this family.

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And for us,

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we want to be a church where anybody

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who walks in that door not doesn't

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just hear about the heart of God for them,
but they feel it

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because we say, we see you,

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we want you, we love you.

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The gospel is good news

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and it's good news for everyone.

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It's good news for you.

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Would you pray with me?

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Our father in heaven,

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we come to you and I am so, so grateful.

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Adoption is something

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that just, resonates with me.

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The fact that you look at us and you say

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you see our us in our loneliness
and brokenness, and you say, I see you.

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I want you, I love you,

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and I will prove that by sending my son
Jesus

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to live in your place, die
in your place, and resurrection.

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Thank you that you didn't give us
some kind of dry religion of rules,

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but you gave us something
that actually changes us

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from the inside out, because there's
nothing more powerful than that.

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I pray that you would create
us, create a church here

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where we will have your heart.

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So everybody who walks in here,
we're not just here about you,

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but we'll feel

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what it feels like to be loved by you
because of us.

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That's our prayer.

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Thank you. We pray this in Jesus name.

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Amen.