Speaker: 00:00:00

Hey, welcome everybody to Gospel Talks podcast where we help Christians all over the world

become more effective in relational evangelism and discipleship.

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I'm George Bonocca and with me today on this week of Thanksgiving is Jeff Musgrave and

we're really excited to be uh getting together on, I think what is the 70th episode of

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Gospel Talks podcast.

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Isn't that cool?

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I don't know if you know this, Jeff, we have almost 5,000 unique listeners and we've just

crossed about 15,000 downloads.

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so we have about, in the last month we had a uh new, I think 489 new listeners added to

the show.

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And so it's just really, really incredible what God is doing.

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We thank all of you guys.

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You guys are the ones.

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that have made that happen by leaving us reviews.

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getting, we have nothing but five stars.

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Of course, now that I say that, somebody listening is gonna give us a one star.

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But we have nothing but five stars and you guys giving us a rating, putting something in

the comment section, that's the thing that propels us up in all the podcast directories

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and makes us more visible.

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And our goal is we don't monetize this podcast, we don't make any money off of it.

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The whole idea is to

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um is to go out there and be an encouragement to laborers in the harvest and equip them.

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And that's the whole purpose of the exchange ministry is an equipping ministry, equipping

the saints and coming alongside churches.

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And so thank you guys so much.

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We're thankful this season to look back on the year and see everything that God is doing

at the exchange and around the world and in His church and through His people.

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And we love you guys very, very much.

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I love the episode topic for today.

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I wanna get right into it.

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I was sitting at an exchange seminar listening to Jeff teach and two thoughts crossed my

mind and we're going to talk about the first one today.

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Next week we're going to talk about the second one.

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The one we're going to talk about today is it crossed my mind that the need to immediately

give the gospel in every conversation is actually a degradation of God's sovereignty.

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And I was thinking of the person, and there's people like this in every church, and I

think there's some people that are just wired like this because

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They have zeal for evangelism that comes out of their pores.

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And so it's not a bad thing.

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I'm not talking about like it's an evil thing at all.

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But I did think about this from a theological perspective.

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If you're in every conversation you have, you just have to at some point, just

artificially or forcefully or otherwise, just insert the gospel.

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You have to.

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Every unbeliever you talk with, no matter whether you know them or not,

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in every conversation you just have to get to the gospel, you just have to talk about the

gospel.

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Is that a degradation of God's sovereignty?

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ah My thought process was sometimes I felt guilty not getting the gospel to somebody who I

only met once.

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And the thought that plagues my mind is, what if I just messed up their salvation?

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And so that's what I want to ask you, Jeff, is how would you answer that?

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Yeah, well, I think that did I mess up their salvation, that's where you're really getting

into that degradation of the sovereignty of God, God calls people God woos people, he's

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the one who is shepherding all of that.

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And I think there's this balance.

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And that's what we want to talk about the next two weeks is this balance that God is

sovereign, he controls everything, but that he chooses to use

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The fact that he chooses to use us doesn't make him dependent upon us.

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It just makes us have the ability to impact eternity.

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I mean, it's, it doesn't degrade God's sovereignty.

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If I make a mistake, because I do, mean, none of us are perfect.

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We do miss opportunities.

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We do sin, and our sin is

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real.

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It's not like it was part of God's sovereign plan.

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It was my choice.

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But God in his sovereignty weaves all of that together and even uses these errors on our

part to accomplish his perfect will.

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So I think that we put way too much on our own shoulders when we when we uh think I'm

going to mess up somebody else's chance to get to heaven.

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That's that's in God's hands.

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Having said that, what a privilege.

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that God chooses to use us to, to be able to impact people for eternity and to be able to

have uh eternal friendships in heaven with people who are there because we had the

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privilege of giving them the gospel.

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That's, that's really amazing.

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I do want to kind of play the devil's advocate for just a moment.

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Not, not that I am anyway, downgrading what I just said and what you're thinking about.

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But

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back into the mind of the person who feels like I have got to give the gospel to every

single person in every single conversation that I have.

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And I think the reality is God has called us to give the gospel to every creature.

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I mean, that's that's the command of scripture that to go into all the world and give the

gospel to every creation, every creature.

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ah So I feel like we

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have to examine that uh concept and just kind of ask ourselves, number one, is that

possible?

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I mean, God gave us command, is it possible for me to obey that command?

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And I guess I have three different thoughts.

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And number one, certainly not as an individual.

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I think all of us have to admit that.

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Would you agree with me, George, that

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Right.

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As an individual, there's no way I'm going to be able to give the gospel to every single

creature on the earth.

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Yeah.

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And so if did God call me to do something that is impossible, and then I think no, God

placed me in a church.

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And so then I have to ask my question myself the question, is it possible for a local

church to give the gospel to every single creature?

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And again, I think the answer is probably not.

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uh So then I think we have to go a little broader and say, is it possible for Christianity

on earth today to give the gospel to every creature on earth today?

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And I think the answer is very absolutely yes.

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I love that illustration that we use ah in the exchange seminar of if you've got two

determined disciple makers,

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And they determine that they are going to give the gospel and train that person that they

lead to Christ to be able to grow in Christ and lead other people to Christ.

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If they were to do that twice a year, one person every six months, by the time 16 years

comes up, over 8 billion people have been impacted by the gospel because of the power of

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multiplication.

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And I think that the key is, if we as believers are personally being responsible, and

that's the other side of this equation is the human responsibility of humans.

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If we're being responsible to lead the people God puts in our life to Christ and disciple

them and train them to lead people to Christ and disciple them, then we absolutely do have

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the ability to lead the world or to give the world the gospel.

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in our lifetime and in the next 16 years, God's given us the opportunity to get that done.

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If we work together as the whole of the church, the universal church, everybody doing what

God called us to do.

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Yep, and it's been the vehicle, the church has been the vehicle for 2,000 years for

getting the gospel into the world.

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you know, um sure there have been at times people that by themselves have reached tens of

thousands, you know, in their preaching ministry.

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I think of like a George Whitefield.

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I think of the Wesley brothers.

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think of, you know, uh but none of that is sustained.

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None of that multiplication actually happens with

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out the church.

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so that church is the glue ah for gospel movement in the world.

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And so the best revivals, the ones that really last are the ones they go and plant

churches, not just where you go hit a country with an evangelistic campaign, but you

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actually plant churches in that country.

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Think of Burma, think of the missionary there.

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uh boy, what's his name?

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I forgot the...

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Yes, Judson.

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And so Judson...

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only saw maybe, I think a little less than 50 people come to Christ before he was in the

ground.

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And then by the time he was in the ground, that's it, that's all that had to come Christ.

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But 100 years later, there was something like almost 100 churches planted out of that.

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And it's because he focused on truth and the church.

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And so that's the power of what you're talking about, what the universal church and local

churches can do in the world when it comes to sharing the gospel.

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Absolutely.

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I had privilege of being in Myanmar in 2000.

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And I was up in the foot of the chen hills.

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ah And we were preaching to pastors and we had a uh auditorium full of about 1000 pastors

that we were preaching to what a what a privilege.

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And they were using a Bible that someone showed me.

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And in the front of it, it was written.

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in the uh chin language, but in the front of it, it uh had a English uh kind of almost a

thank you to add an iron Judson who was the first one who translated the Bible into

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Burmese.

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And eventually all these other translations and all these people impacted every single

person in Burma, Myanmar, can trace their Christian lineage back to that

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faithful man who only led just a handful of people actually, a church building full of

people to the Lord.

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And yet every single person in that country today can put their Christian lineage back to

him.

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That's the faithfulness of an individual working in a local church, who then God spreads

all over the world.

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That's that's the beauty of it all.

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Yep, amen, amen, I love that.

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So, yeah, go ahead.

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I was just gonna say I actually know a woman who was driving down the road.

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And uh she took the responsibility of giving the gospel to people personally.

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And she saw a man on a ladder working on an electric pole.

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So you've seen them up there.

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They put these big ladders up and they wrap them the wire with these big rubber uh things

and uh she's

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immediately thought that man needs the gospel, I should stop and tell him about Jesus.

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Of course.

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She didn't do that.

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I mean, literally, she would have had to have stopped him and what he was doing, yell up

at him, try to give the gospel that was an impossible situation.

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But but she literally felt guilty about that afterwards, because she assumed that that

feeling that prompting

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was the Holy Spirit and that she had disobeyed.

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And I think that that's where we can recognize that the probability is, maybe I should ask

it in a question, does God want me to give the gospel in every conversation that I have?

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And I think that we have to just like we have to go back to uh

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has God called us to give the gospel to every creature?

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Yes, the church as a whole.

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But is it possible for me as an individual to get that done?

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And the answer is no.

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So God doesn't want me as an individual to give the gospel to every single creature on the

earth.

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He just wants me to be a part of what he's doing.

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Same thing I think is true about does God want me to give the gospel in every conversation

that I have.

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And I think there's the practicality.

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of living life, that it is uh not fair for me to believe that God expects me to give the

gospel in every single conversation.

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Conversely, I think that it is fair for me to think God probably does expect me to give

the gospel to more people than I actually do.

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Mmm.

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that it is fair for me to recognize that there are probably times that God has called me

to give the gospel and I haven't done it.

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I think that that's what repentance is all about.

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God doesn't want us to live guilty, but God does want us to recognize our guilt and to

bring it to him.

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Mm-hmm.

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Yeah, yep.

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There are, um yep, there are times that you just, you do ask God for forgiveness.

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go, you know what?

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Should have been more intentional than that.

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I should have, I should have been, I should have had more urgency than that.

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uh Perfect example.

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I just wrapped up being a pastor at a church in North Phoenix and now been called to be

the lead pastor at a church at the very southeast end of the Phoenix uh area.

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And uh in a going away uh lunch that my growth group had, my small group had for me, uh

Inwalks and a couple that we've been trying to win to Christ, that we've been trying to

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lead to Christ, sorry, for a couple years.

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And uh I introduced them to the whole group and uh it was probably the third time they've

been in a church setting with us.

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And I got pretty teary when I was introducing them and telling people that I love them.

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and how much they mean to me.

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But um the reason I was getting teary is because I was looking at them and going, um I

should have had more conversation.

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And that's the time to say to the Lord, I did not do what I should have done, um but Lord,

I know nobody can stop you from doing what you will do.

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Amen.

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Well, that's a great balance.

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That's a beautiful balance, George.

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Thanks for bringing that up.

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Yeah, yeah.

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And that's the question, what is the balance?

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Yeah.

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And I think I think ultimately, we have to look around and say, Okay, where has God, we're

talking about the sovereignty of God, where has God sovereignly placed me?

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And so if you don't mind, I think it would be wise for us to just kind of delineate some

of these places so that we can have a practical expectation of ourselves.

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So where

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does God want me to give the gospel?

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Where am I humanly responsible?

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And the very first place I think of where I look around and say God sovereignly placed me

here is my neighborhood.

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You know, you're you're leaving one and you're getting into one.

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So I'm sure this is a thought in your mind right now.

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Yep, that's exactly it.

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Where we're buying a house right now, my house is built and the next two houses are being

built and the rest of the street are empty lots, brand, brand new community.

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And I'm just sitting there thinking, this is where God has put me with a bunch of new

neighbors.

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And I basically gonna become like a mover for the next couple of years of my life where I

just follow U-Haul trucks into my neighborhood and help people unload.

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I mean, that's...

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That's God's providence.

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the house that He opened for us.

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So, um that's just, you take that as it comes.

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He shows you that.

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Yeah.

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And it's, it's interesting because even let's just assume that you're talking about

someone who lives in a built out neighborhood and you look around and you, know, in my

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neighborhood, there's probably 1000 homes.

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And so I, I'm not going to get to all 1000 of those in a relational manner.

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But that doesn't mean I think sometimes because I can't do something for everyone.

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it keeps me from doing anything for someone.

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And I think that what I have to do is I have to start that's where that fine five lists

comes in.

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And I think that if we would just look around us, and start picking out the good thing

about you is you're going to be able to build that fine five list a little at a time.

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Because as those homes get built, you'll be able to add that next person to your fine five

list.

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Right, right, and I don't think I'll reach all 900-something homes in my community, but I

think I could start to build relationships with people on my street.

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Maybe we could have block parties once or twice a year.

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Those are just some of the things you look at where God's placed you sovereignly in his

sovereignty, and out of that, you draw your ideas, I think is kind of what we're getting

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at.

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And, and again, let me get back to this fine five list, because I personally believe that

the fine five list has helped me to be uh purposeful and strategic about getting the

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gospel to people because when I see someone that I'm burdened for, and I get them on my

fine five list, then

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I start planning, okay, what are my next steps with these people?

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um When it comes to neighborhood, we have to recognize the next step may be I'm going to

move them into their uh new house, I'm going to help them uh winterize their sprinkler

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system.

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I'm in Colorado, we do that out here in Colorado.

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I'm going to help them clean up the leaves that are falling.

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ah in their yard, those are those are good next steps.

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But frankly, those are not the kinds of activities that are going to allow me to get into

a soul level conversation.

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So I'm going to have to have more next steps.

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And eventually, I'm going to have to put myself in a conducive environment for a soul

level conversation.

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Yep, yep, think that's the progression there is very important.

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It's one of the things we heard in the webinar we just did is that some of the content

that people, you know, want to get into specifically is that turning point.

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But um I agree with you.

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uh You're taking your hints from the landscape that God has put you on.

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Yeah, I think one of the things that people think of these days financially is leveraging

themselves.

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And really, what we're doing is we're leveraging our opportunities to be able to get to a

place where we have an opportunity to talk to them about their soul needs.

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I've been thinking about this concept of soul needs, every human has them.

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God created them for him.

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But but people don't know that they need him.

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And if I just walk up to them and say, you need God, they're gonna immediately think to

themselves, this guy's crazy.

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I don't need that.

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don't even, mean, it's a, in their mind, this is a figment of someone's imagination.

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Why would I need a figment?

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uh And they don't understand.

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And so what I'm finding is, this is my strategy, that if I can help each person recognize

the real needs that they

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do have in their souls, and then help them see how the real God who's revealed himself to

us through the Word of God can meet that need, then then I have a uh genuine pathway into

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their heart that they want to listen to.

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Yep, yep, I agree with you 100%.

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And so neighborhood is a clear place where that happens.

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I think the other thing that we can think of it is that God sovereignly put me in my

workplace.

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uh That we know that I am here by the will of God.

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God in his sovereignty placed me here.

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Therefore, these people that I work with on an ongoing basis, I need to start

strategically.

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planning how am I going to take the gospel to every co-worker I possibly can.

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Yep, and those are, we've talked about that in the past, there's an episode, if you guys

go back, probably 10 or 15 episodes about HR nightmare.

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Is it an HR nightmare to give the gospel in your workplace?

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But man, I'm telling you as a pastor, the people that get one to Christ in the community

are the people that my people know.

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And so those are the real opportunities.

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And so look around in your life and say, you know, who's right there in the cubicle next

to me or whatever.

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That's how we're seeing God work right now.

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Yeah.

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And and you know, praise the Lord for television preachers for radio preachers for people

who give the gospel in podcasts.

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But but the fact is that unbelievers don't often think about my need to go listen to that.

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It's when we connect with people and show care for them, that they began to recognize this

person has something in their life that I don't have in my life.

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that we have the ability to connect with them in a way that other people can't.

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Yep, yep.

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It's just way more natural that way.

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And then now you have somebody you already, you have a point of familiarity when you enter

a church versus walking in and feeling like everybody's a stranger.

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Yeah.

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And I think the other uh thing that we so we have a workplace, we have a neighborhood,

these are very obvious places, but I think some places where maybe not so obvious is the

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gym where we work out the place where we get our haircut.

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um The place where I go to the restaurant and and this person comes and waits on our table

over and over.

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um These are

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connections that we can make coffee shops where we go on a regular basis and sit and see

the same people over and over.

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Sometimes these are places where God has sovereignly placed me has sovereignly placed

them.

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And that's where divine appointments come in.

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We're looking for those divine appointments.

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And when we are able to talk to someone we didn't plan to talk to, I think we have to ask

ourselves the question.

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I wonder if this is one of the places where God has sovereignly began to open a door for

me.

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Right?

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Yes, this is where I feel like people beat themselves up for not being a solar salesman.

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ah What I mean by that is there's this mentality of like, have these numbers to hit.

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I've got this quota, right, that God has given me versus sometimes God is like, now here

you want to stop and talk to this random person and try to get the gospel in in five

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seconds and you don't know them from Adam.

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but here I've put this person right next to you at the gym at the same time every week and

they're always waving to you and saying hi and you've never even had a conversation with

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them because you're in gym mode, maybe you just don't have an awareness in the right areas

of our life, right?

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So it's like, for me, sometimes it's picking up my head at certain times of day or in

certain parts of my daily rituals and habits and ruts and getting my head out of just

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being in go mode to being aware of, hey, I see that guy every time I walk into the gym,

every time I check into the gym.

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You know, maybe I should start having more and more conversation, try to build a

relationship, see if he'd ever be willing to go out to tacos or workout together or

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whatever.

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That's the kind of awareness that God wants.

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Instead, where we're trying to generate opportunities out of thin air, it's kind of like,

God's like, I wonder if God's sometimes sitting and having scratch in his head, here, I've

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put this person next to them.

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every day of every week and they're trying to grab this person.

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wonder what gave them the impression to do that, you know?

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Yeah, yeah.

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You know, I think that passage that we quote on a weekly basis when we do this podcast

that we pray the Lord of the harvest that he sent forth laborers, that passage is preceded

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by Jesus looking at a crowd of people and not seeing the crowd, but seeing individuals

because he begins to name the issues that are going on in their lives.

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They're fainting, they're with

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like sheep without a shepherd, something is going wrong in their lives.

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I really do believe that if we will, I love this phrase, it kind of keeps me on track,

walk slowly through the crowd and don't see crowds, see people, individuals, and that's

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what you're talking about.

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Yep.

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Yep.

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Yep.

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And just be aware of who gots put around you.

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You know, there is that person who says I have to witness to every single person because

Ezekiel 33 and I kind of wanted to end with this passage.

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God says to Ezekiel, so you son of man, I have made a watchman for the house of Israel.

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Whenever you hear a word from my mouth, you shall give them a warning from me.

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If you say to the wicked or wicked man, you shall surely die.

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And you, uh, if I say to the, to the wicked, you shall surely die and you do not speak to

warn that wicked from, to turn from his way.

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That wicked man will die in his iniquity, but his blood will I require at your hand.

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And I, that phrase jumped out at me and you do not speak.

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I think it's important for us to recognize this is an Old Testament passage.

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It was aimed specifically at Ezekiel.

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It's not aimed at me, but I do think there is a principle here.

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And the principle is that when I get to heaven, God is going to hold me responsible for

the opportunities they put in front of me.

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And I do think that that is a reality.

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I don't know about you, but when I hear the command,

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preach the gospel to every creature.

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When I recognize God is gonna hold me accountable for every word that I say, I have to

admit that gets a little overwhelming to me.

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And so I'd like to make a suggestion.

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Rather than keeping our eyes on this overwhelming responsibility, or some people do it

this way, on the overwhelming need of the lost.

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You know, there's just so many people who need Jesus and I can't get to them all.

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If I start focusing on the overwhelming responsibility, the overwhelming need, I'm going

to be overwhelmed.

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But if I will keep my eyes on my gracious Savior and as He opens doors, now I'm not

talking about the stuff that I feel stupid responsibility for, but when He genuinely opens

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doors,

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I walk through them.

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Then literally I'm walking hand in hand with a gracious God who is helping me all along

the way to meet the needs of people that he is sovereignly calling to himself.

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That's the balance that I wanna walk in.

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I love that, means you're not by yourself when you are evangelizing.

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You are never alone.

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He is already leading you.

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He is ahead of you in that opportunity.

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He knew what was gonna happen.

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He's already there.

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so um he's in his sovereignty directing you.

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And so I think the bottom line of what we're talking about today is trust, right?

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There's a song that we sang as kids growing up in church, trust and obey for there's no

other way to be happy in Jesus, but to trust and obey.

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And I think next week we're going to talk about obey, this aspect as it pertains to

evangelism.

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But I think this week what we're talking about is trusting in God.

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And that's where we make the mistake.

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That's where we're blasphemous even in our practice, is that we think we trust in

ourselves.

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Yep.

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And this is the danger, I hate to say this, we're a ministry that trains people, but this

is the danger of evangelistic training.

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is all of a sudden people can make a transition in their heart and their head where all of

a sudden they go from trusting God to trusting themselves because they have a tool.

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And it's like, no, no, Only God can do this thing.

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And so just trust in God the whole way, walk with him the whole way and see what he will

do.

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You just be a willing vessel.

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And that's the key for all of us.

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So, well.

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Thank you guys for listening.

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Pray with us as we pray to the Lord of the harvest that He would send forth laborers.

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The harvest is plentiful this season and it has been plentiful since Jesus left.

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It's just that the laborers are few.

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Pray for more laborers.

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We love you guys and we will see you next week.