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Welcome to Gateway Church's podcast.

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Wherever you're tuning in from, we hope you're

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encouraged by today's message.

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All right, so the title of our message

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is, Who Are You Living With?

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Now, if bad grammar,

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Pastor Robert, we know you're watching. Sorry. If

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bad grammar just sounds like fingernails

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on a chalkboard,

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then the title for you is, With

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Whom Are You Living? You're

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welcome, Thomas. You're welcome. So proper.

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With whom are you living? But for the

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rest of us, who are you living with?

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It's something we can remember. Who are we living with?

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Yes, so we're gonna start in

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Joshua 24, 14 through 15. And

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this is where Joshua is talking to the Israelites,

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and they've come out

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of Egypt, they're on the other side of the Jordan, and

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they're living in the promised

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land. And he says, Now therefore, fear the

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Lord, serve him in sincerity

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and in truth, and put away the gods which

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your father served on the other side of the river and in

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Egypt. Serve the Lord. Remember

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that phrase, because we're gonna come back to it. And if

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it seems evil to you to serve the Lord, choose

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for yourselves this day whom you

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will serve, whether the gods which your father

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served that were on the other side of the river, or

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the gods of the Amorites in whose land

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you dwell. But as for me and my house,

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we will serve the Lord.

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As for me and my house, we

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will serve the Lord. The first thing

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is that the word house is

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much broader than an actual structure

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in which you live.

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Whenever we see in scripture where we talk about

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the house of David, it's talking much broader

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than the actual house. We see that God

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blesses our house. When God blesses our

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house, he's talking in this

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context that he blesses our life,

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he blesses our marriage, he blesses our family,

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he blesses our finances, he blesses

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all that your influence is

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there for it, like all of your

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work.

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your, uh, the places that

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God chooses for you to be at, God

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blesses those areas. So whenever we're

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talking about, as for me and my house, we

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will serve the Lord. It's not just

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this actual house and that

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we live in, but it's saying that God

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will bless everything, but for, as

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for me in my house, as for

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me and everything in my life, as

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for me and my marriage, we will

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serve the Lord.

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Yep. And so if we don't actively

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make that decision. If there's

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not an intentional decision made frequently

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to serve the Lord, we can easily

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open ourselves up to, you know, the

2:37

things of the enemy. We can have open doors in

2:39

our lives. If we're not careful, if we're not,

2:42

uh, intentionally serving him, it just

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kind of naturally creeps in, it just kind of naturally

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happens. So, um, when

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I was in college, I went to Hillsong

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international leadership college and, uh,

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studied worship there. And while

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I was there, I like graduated high school

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with 18 years old, got on a plane

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and went over 8,000 miles away.

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So we're there. I'm

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living in Sydney and

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we have a holiday break. There's

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some sort of holiday in Australia that we, that we

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were going to take a break. So all of my housemates

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who are from different countries go home and

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it's just me and my other housemate there,

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but her family comes in town. So she goes to

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the city and I'm home alone. Now listen,

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I didn't travel across the world and be

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nervous about staying home by myself. I was just saying

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that that night was

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the first, I'm pretty sure it was the first night that I was there

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by myself. I'm laying in bed and

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the way that my room was set up is

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my bed was against this long wall

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that had a very large window and outside

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the house with a walkway and

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a fence to the neighbor. Uh, you know,

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it was kind of just like a walkway from the front of the house to the backyard,

3:51

little easement area. So I'm

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laying in bed, I'm falling

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asleep. I'm just barely drifting

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and I hear the garbage cans. outside,

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move.

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And it just like peaks my hearing a little bit.

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Then I hear the gate

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to the front, to the back, open

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and shut. Now I'm like,

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hmm, that's not the wind. So I sit up.

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I'm like, I'm like sitting up in my bed and

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I turn towards where the window is and

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the floodlight of the neighbor's house

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pinks on and it just tasks this light

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into my room and in walks

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the shadow of a man. He says,

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every scary movie I've ever seen in my

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life came back to haunt me in this moment.

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So I'm laying there and my heart

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starts racing and I think to myself, did

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I lock the doors? Did I lock the doors? I

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was in college. I definitely

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did not lock my doors. So

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I'm freaking out internally. I'm quiet

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as a mouse though. And I'm

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having this moment of panic when

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I hear the sliding door of

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the laundry room slide open

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immediately. I'm like, well, this

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is the time we got to go. So I jump

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up. I run through my bedroom

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door. I get to the kitchen, which is right outside the

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door. I grabbed the biggest knife out of the butcher's

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box that I can possibly find. I run

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back in my room. I move the chest.

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It's like I have one piece of furniture in my entire

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room and it's this big chest. So I just like

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shove it in front of the door. I sit on the chest

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and I call my dad

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8,500 miles away. And I

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go, dad,

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I think somebody's breaking in. And he's like, Bridget,

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hang up the phone with me and call 911. I'm

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like, oh, yeah. I hang up the phone

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and I call the police. So I'm sitting

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there with the police on the phone, the butcher

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knife in my hand, wedged up against

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my door. And they're

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like, okay, we're going to send somebody to the officers

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are heading to your house. So I'm on the phone with a dispatcher

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and I'm going,

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I have a knife. If you come

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near me, I will. I'm killing you! I

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was afraid of my

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life here, y'all. Okay, the thing is, like in America,

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that totally flies. We have like self-defense laws,

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but not so much in Australia. She was like, um, please do

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not kill this

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man. I

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gotta do what I gotta do, lady. So

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I'm wedged up against it. I hear the door knock,

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you know, please, it's the police. And so she says, you know,

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they're there. So I'm like, so do

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I go out? She's like, yes, please go

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out of the room and go, you know, go to the police. So

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I move the chest out of the way and I peek

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through the door and I don't see anybody and y'all, I'll just haul

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as fast as I can with this knife and

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the phone. And I bust through the door to

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the police officers. And after

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I've like calmed down, I'm sitting

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there on the curb because I didn't even wanna go back in

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the house. They had cleared it, they

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had checked. They're like, yeah, we actually, the door, all

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your doors are unlocked, lady, come on.

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Word

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to the wise, if you're in college, please lock your doors. So

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I tell them though, like I don't have anything

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worth in the house, we are a broke college

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student. I have no jewelry, I have barely

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furniture. We don't even have a TV, I have nothing

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of worth in there. And they said, oh

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honey, he wasn't coming for your stuff.

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He was coming for you.

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He's probably been watching, because I walked everywhere.

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He's probably been watching you walk to school and

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walk home and he knew you were the

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only one home. That's

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a biblical principle that we can apply to our own

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lives. Let's shut the doors

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that could be open to the enemy. There

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are ways that we can open up

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the doors of our lives, to our houses

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that we just talked through. And

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if we don't intentionally shut those doors, we

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can be susceptible to the enemy. And

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he's not necessarily looking for your stuff. Now he'll use

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your stuff to get to you, but he's not looking for your

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stuff, he's looking for you. So in that moment,

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like I found out, I left my door

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open. So what did I do? I called my dad. He

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couldn't really do anything in the natural world. But you know the purpose

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is I called my dad Well

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when we realize that we've left a door open

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and we see that we can

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immediately call our Heavenly Father Say

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Lord, I I don't know what happened here. I left

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myself vulnerable and open Hey, I made

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some bad decisions in my past that open myself

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up to some things Hey, I just realized

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I really need to come clean about this hidden

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sin. That's in my life these

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old habits There's

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things that we can do in our lives to close the doors

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and open the doors

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Yeah, so the first thing Bridget did was call

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her dad Which obviously

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he can't just in the natural from

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over 8,000 miles away show up in

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the room But a heavenly father can

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show up in the room. And so point number

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one is who is in the house Who

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is in the house and we must? Invite

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the Lord into our house The

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most important thing as she did is

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call it that but we need to call our Heavenly

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Father and invite him into the house

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Now I just want to share something

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when this scripture says as for

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me and my house We will serve the

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Lord Something about

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the Lord this was some

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maybe not so deep. But what is it that

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a Lord does a Lord

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Lord a

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Lord Lord and

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so if I were to invite Joey

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over to my house and Joey comes over to

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my house Then I get to tell Joey

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what to do because he's Joey

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and so I'm saying hey Joey guess what? Thanks

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for being here. This is your spot. This

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is where you'll stay. This is what you do. We're

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gonna eat dinner at six I'm gonna go hang

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out do some things by myself and

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at dinner will be at six and You

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can come join us and then you go back over

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here and then we're gonna do this and this and this When

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you invite the Lord to stay at

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your house you like invite

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the Lord for all of the areas

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of your life Guess what? He

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is the Lord. You are to be hearing

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what it is that he tells you to

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do versus you telling the Lord what

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to do. You can't tell the Lord, Lord, here's

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your corner and here's the one

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area I want you to focus on, but then

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I'm going to be over here. I'm going to go do my own things

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and then I'll be back for you. That's

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not the way it works. Instead, the Lord

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says, hey, I know you wanted

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dinner at 5 30. Not going to work. We're

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going to have dinner at six and we're actually going

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to go to this place because I want you to witness to

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somebody. And then when after that

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you're going to come home and you're going to spend time with your family

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and you're going to do this. That is what it means

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to make him the Lord of your life that God

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is invited in and becomes Lord of our

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life. Now, when I was a kid, I

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was scared of hell

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so many times that I prayed

10:52

the salvation prayer hundreds

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of times. I grew up in church, so I heard

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it all the time and I was constantly praying it.

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And, but what I did is I did what I described

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is I invited the Lord into my life and I

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said, hey, right here, this is your spot.

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But it wasn't until I was 15 years old that

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I said, Lord, you're actually all

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of my house, all of that.

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I am. You are invited into and

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I'm no longer going to tell you what to do.

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Instead, I'm asking you to tell me what to do.

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And that is what it meant for me to be

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saved and to be, have a

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full relationship with God is truly

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making him Lord of our life. But we must

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invite him into our marriage. We must

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invite him into our life. Yeah,

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that's right. Cause it's not just about salvation. Obviously

11:37

it's about salvation, but it's not only

11:39

about that. If we're only inviting

11:41

him in for eternity sake, there's

11:45

a whole missed opportunity for the every day.

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The Lord wants to partner with us in the every day

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for our marriages, for our parenting, for our work,

11:52

for our schooling, whatever it is that we are encountering

11:55

in our lives. He wants

11:57

to be a part of that. If we invite him

11:59

in, he's not going to.

11:59

force his way in.

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He's just not going to do that. He's not going to force his

12:03

way into your life. He gave us a free will. That

12:06

means we can invite what we invite, we

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can resist what we resist, we

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can incur blessings and consequences

12:13

depending on the choices that we make.

12:17

If we don't partner for the everyday,

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we can miss out on the power that he has

12:22

available for us. 1 Corinthians 6,

12:25

20 says, For you were bought at a price, therefore

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glorify God in your body and in your spirit,

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which

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are God's.

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Our body is set apart

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for God. We are set

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apart for God. And

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in this passage that we've been reading in Joshua,

12:41

just a few verses down, we

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see that Joshua takes this large

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stone and says, we are setting this apart

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as a remembrance and as a witness that

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we are saying that as for me and

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my house, we will serve the Lord. And this is

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something that we can always look back at and

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know that God is our savior,

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that God is the one we

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are set apart for. Well, now

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there are many ways that people will do this to

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remind themselves or whatever to

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say, Oh yeah, I'm set apart for the Lord. But

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in marriage, there's the one

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main area that constantly is with

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me everywhere I go is my ring.

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And it is saying to myself and

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to the world, I am set apart. I'm

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set apart for Bridget and I'm set

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apart for the Lord. And so I am

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set apart. And in that we get

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to experience that we

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are not alone. It is this constant

13:34

reminder that there's something greater than

13:37

that. Now I don't ever take off my ring

13:39

unless there's like two times if I'm putting hair product

13:42

in or if I'm dealing with raw meat. But

13:44

any other time I'm reminded that

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I am set apart for the Lord. So

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if we look at a place, he asked, he's starting

13:51

a chapter four, verse

13:53

nine. It says that

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two are better than one because

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they have a good reward for the Lord.

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For

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if they fall, one will

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lift up his companion, but woe

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to him who is alone when he

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falls. For he has no one

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to help him up." Now just

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a quick little side note. Marriage

14:15

tip. Marriage tip, if your spouse falls,

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don't kick them while they're down. That

14:23

is the time to lift them up as the scripture

14:25

says. If they've had a hard day at work or something's gone

14:27

wrong, lift them up in that time.

14:30

Help them up. Don't kick them while they're

14:32

down. If they literally fall and

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it's funny, just chuckle for a little bit, but

14:37

nothing beyond that. So

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reading on verse 11, it says, again,

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if two lie down together, they

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will keep warm, but how can one be

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warm alone? Now just a marriage

14:50

question to all of you that are married. Who

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has an internal

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temperature different than your spouse?

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Yes,

15:00

that is Bridget Knight. Bridget is always

15:03

cold. I can't help it. It was made for summer.

15:06

Always. And so she is always bundled

15:08

up, always cold. And

15:10

at night she'll be like, oh, hold me. She

15:12

has scriptural proof that I need

15:14

to hold her now to keep her warm that she reminds

15:17

me of. How can one stay warm without another? She says,

15:19

how can one stay warm? And so, you know,

15:21

a little side joke

15:24

about us is when Bridget

15:27

was pregnant and she would get very

15:29

nauseous and so every pregnancy.

15:33

And so she started eating every two to

15:35

three hours. So being

15:37

a great husband and moral support,

15:39

I started eating every two to three hours. Now

15:43

she would eat like a small snack. I did full

15:45

on meal. I really wanted to show that support.

15:48

And so through that, I started working on my dad bod,

15:50

which just means you have more of a gut. And

15:53

so I looked a little bit more like a kebab after

15:55

this to where I was like skinny, but then

15:57

just one big belly was showing up. So

16:00

I told her based off this scripture, I said, you

16:02

know, every night, I'm

16:04

going to go ahead and say, I feel like this is a mature enough

16:06

audience. She likes to spoon.

16:10

And so that's where two of us come

16:12

together. And so here we are spooning and

16:14

I've told her like, hey, I'm showing

16:17

all this moral support to you by eating

16:19

all this food. And I

16:21

just want you to know, this is

16:23

great lumbar support for you. So

16:26

I would want you to see the love that I have

16:28

for you to care for you in such

16:31

a way. Reading on. Quickly,

16:34

quickly move on. Though one may be

16:36

overpowered by another, two

16:39

can withstand him talking about the enemy.

16:42

And the threefold cord is not quickly

16:44

broken. The threefold cord is

16:47

not broken easily. And so

16:49

what that means is it is you, your

16:51

spouse and the Lord. Now

16:54

it is a cord. A cord is a braided

16:57

strand. And when you're braided

17:00

together, when you, your spouse and the

17:02

Lord are so intertwined, you

17:04

will not be easily broken. However,

17:07

it's whenever you start to unravel and

17:10

unbraid the relationship with the Lord

17:12

and your spouse that you personally

17:15

are more susceptible to being broken. And

17:18

so we cannot be this cord

17:20

and be three individual cords and say,

17:23

well, yeah, we can't be broken. Instead,

17:25

we have to be a cord all

17:28

joined together, braided

17:31

together so that we will not be broken easily.

17:33

That's right.

17:33

So point number one was who's

17:36

in the house. Point number two is kick the

17:38

squatters out of the house. So

17:40

you might be asked, you said, remind me, what is

17:42

a squatter? I have a definition. A

17:45

squatter is a person who settles in or occupies

17:48

a piece of property with no legal

17:50

claim to the property. A squatter may

17:52

gain adverse possession of

17:54

the property through involuntary

17:57

transfer. So what does this mean? A property

17:59

owner. who does not use or inspect

18:02

their property for several

18:04

years could lose the title to another

18:07

person who makes a claim to the land, takes

18:09

possession of the land and uses the

18:11

land.

18:13

John 10, 10 says, The thief does not come

18:15

except to steal, kill and destroy. The thief

18:17

is looking for any land

18:20

uninhabited by the Lord. So

18:22

if there's something in your life, there's

18:24

something that you haven't fully given to the

18:26

Lord. He is on

18:28

the prowl. He is searching for that

18:30

land and he will be a squatter trying to take possession

18:33

of it. And we

18:35

have to have to be diligent

18:37

to search out our life to see if

18:39

there's any area that the enemy is coming

18:41

in. That's

18:42

something that's unintentionally come in and you

18:44

don't even realize it's there until it's like too late and then

18:46

it's there.

18:47

Bridget and I had a squatter show

18:49

up in our apartment at one point, a little bit

18:51

different. Oh, because it wasn't a real

18:53

squatter. I mean, it was kind of an odd. It was more of

18:56

another incident. But what

18:58

happened is we left town for

19:00

a week. We come back in town and

19:03

there was this package of peanut butter

19:05

crackers laying

19:08

on the floor in the kitchen. Listen,

19:09

listen. Okay. We get home, we open up the

19:11

door, we put down our stuff and right there in front of us is

19:14

this happy package of peanut butter crackers. And

19:16

James looks at me and goes,

19:19

We told our sisters to come by that apartment, check on it and stuff. And

19:21

I picked them up and was like, Your

19:24

sisters are such slobs. Throw

19:27

it in the trash. I was like, Yes. So I blamed

19:29

their sisters. So, yes, blame me and last. So,

19:31

so

19:31

he blames my sisters and I'm like,

19:33

Oh, sorry. So we get all of our stuff. We go to bed

19:35

the next morning, we get up and go to work. Normal

19:38

thing. We come home underneath the cabinet,

19:40

another

19:43

package of half eaten

19:45

peanut butter crackers. This time I was

19:48

like, Your

19:51

sisters are such slobs. Throw it in the

19:53

trash. She calls her sisters. Yeah, I

19:56

called my sisters because they were supposed

19:57

to gather the mail. They were supposed to, you know, I

20:00

checked on the place while we were gone. So I called

20:02

my sisters and I'm like, hey, one, where's

20:04

the mail? Can't find that. Two, you

20:06

left peanut butter crackers everywhere and James is

20:08

totally upset about it. My sisters were

20:10

like, okay, well, one, there was

20:12

a snowstorm so we never came to your house. Go

20:14

look in your own mail box. And two, if

20:17

there are peanut butter crackers, we never came

20:19

there, so it must have been you.

20:20

So then quickly, I go

20:23

back to the trash. I'm looking at it like inspecting

20:25

it like, is this chewed open or torn open? Uh-oh,

20:28

it may be chewed open.

20:30

So then I go to the pantry and I look and there's only

20:32

one more package of peanut butter crackers.

20:35

So like, okay, but now we know, next

20:37

day we go to work,

20:39

we come back.

20:40

Where do we go immediately when we came through the door?

20:43

And guess what, they're missing. No peanut butter

20:45

crackers in the pantry. And so then I'm, Bridget

20:48

and I both, we're searching the house, we're looking

20:50

for this other package of peanut butter crackers.

20:53

We cannot find it anywhere.

20:55

At this point, we lived in an apartment. It

20:57

was built in the fifties.

20:59

And so basically,

21:02

here we are, we're looking everywhere, we can't find it. Well,

21:04

at night,

21:05

here we are, we're laying in bed.

21:07

Snuggled, as James just clearly explained

21:10

to you.

21:10

Yeah, so here we are snuggling

21:12

in bed and lights are out every

21:14

day and all of a sudden we are just. Shh, shh, shh,

21:16

shh, shh, shh, shh, shh, shh. So

21:19

all of a sudden, I'm like, we both set up

21:21

and Bridget's like on top of my head. I'm like, her

21:23

on top of him? So that either that comes, I

21:26

will be eating, I would get eaten

21:28

first. He's gonna take the place of it. And she'll survive. And

21:30

so then all of a sudden she's doing all like Navy

21:32

steel stuff, tell me all this stuff.

21:34

Like steel seems thick, so I was

21:36

like. And I don't know what's happening. So all of

21:38

a sudden I flip on the lamp and

21:40

all of a sudden this giant

21:42

beast of a rat runs right up

21:44

from under our bed. Bridget screams.

21:47

Loudly. Loud, when she does,

21:50

it releases a louder scream

21:52

in me somehow. When

21:55

I scream, it releases a louder

21:57

scream in her. And I'm like, why on top

21:59

of him? A louder scream in me

22:01

and mine was as high pitched as hers

22:03

and I'm not proud to admit that. And

22:06

so we were both just screaming and

22:08

then we just started screaming

22:09

giant baked potato rat

22:11

because this thing looked like a Texas

22:13

spud like running, galloping

22:16

like a wild bronco and it runs

22:18

right out of our bed down the hall

22:21

and she's screaming. I don't have

22:23

any like golf clubs baseball bats.

22:25

We don't have anything to go get it. It's

22:27

a giant piece of wood. It's a four by

22:29

eight by eight foot long so I'm like hanging

22:32

around the apartment and I was

22:34

like I don't know. It's like a version of Elmer Fudd. All

22:36

I'm gonna do is like pull bolts over this thing. I don't have

22:38

any other option at this point. So

22:40

here we are we're like exploring we're

22:42

looking for it. I go to Home Depot. Wait wait

22:45

wait.

22:46

We also call his parents.

22:47

We're like please let us spend the night with you

22:49

tonight. Oh we weren't spoken with that dude.

22:51

No no and they were like okay you can come over

22:53

yeah of

22:53

course come over. So we stayed at my parents

22:56

and yes then

22:58

I go to Home Depot. I was like listen

23:00

I got a problem. I got rats and so

23:02

I need I need you to help and so

23:04

they gave me this cute little thing and I said you

23:07

have not seen this piece. No no no that's

23:09

not what we need. And so I was I need and so they gave

23:11

me

23:12

the grande and I was like it

23:15

looks like it was from a comedy skit. It was

23:17

cute. It really did and so we set it up

23:20

and I set two of them up.

23:22

First nut no tokers

23:24

but I put cheese in it. Then

23:25

we're like these dudes love peanut butter. We

23:27

put peanut butter on it. We

23:30

caught several disgusting

23:34

rats.

23:35

Guys you would think I

23:37

am like exaggerating when I say they were

23:39

big. They were I have

23:42

a measuring tape and I measured

23:44

the tails were over one foot long.

23:47

It was like a possum.

23:49

They were beasts in the land that

23:51

just came after us. It

23:53

was so bad.

23:55

I won't even plan on telling this but

23:57

I will now. I

24:00

just thought of it. I just came back. It's

24:02

like multiple nights in a row.

24:04

I kept saying, Bridget, are you eating

24:06

crumbs? There's crumbs in our bed. These

24:09

fat critters were in there just eating

24:12

these peanut butter crackers in my bed.

24:15

So

24:18

I change their sheets every night. He's getting out of me. I'm like, no,

24:20

I'm not eating the bed. You're eating the bed.

24:22

So all that to say, there are

24:25

squatters in the land

24:28

and you have to get fears to

24:31

fight the squatters that come in

24:33

and come after you. And so the

24:35

enemy would come in and you may have

24:38

just left it alone for a week like

24:40

we did when we were out. You might

24:42

have an area in your life that you haven't

24:45

given as much attention to.

24:47

And then the enemy comes in and

24:49

then the enemy comes and gives you a lie and

24:51

then adds to it. And then it grows

24:53

until you have disgusting rats,

24:56

the enemy in your place. And

24:59

so James 4 seven says, therefore

25:01

submit to God, resist the

25:03

devil and he will flee from you. We

25:05

had to make those rats flee from us. It

25:08

took some time. We got it.

25:10

So point number one was

25:13

who's in the house. Point number two was kick the squatters out of the house. Point

25:15

number three is clean the house. Time to clean

25:17

up that house. Joshua 24 14. Remember I said,

25:19

remember that little phrase. I'm going to come back to it. So 14

25:24

starts now. Therefore, fear the Lord, serve

25:27

him in sincerity and in truth and put away the gods, which

25:30

your father served on the other

25:32

side of the river and in Egypt, serve the Lord. So

25:34

what is he referring to here? He is

25:36

referring to the idols that they

25:38

started worshiping while they were

25:41

in bondage in Egypt. And

25:43

he's basically saying, like drawing a line in the sand, you

25:45

cannot serve God and

25:48

the gods of your past. You

25:50

cannot bring what is

25:52

from your past into the future

25:55

and expect a different outcome. You've

25:58

got to clean that stuff out.

26:00

There is a significant thing

26:02

that happens within the Jewish culture

26:05

the Feast of Unleavened Bread That

26:08

we do it today. There's and the Jewish

26:11

service is this Friday And

26:13

so you may want to check it out. It's

26:16

gonna be good. But the Feast of Unleavened

26:18

Bread What that is

26:20

is where they would take time and they

26:22

would remove all of the

26:25

leavened out of the house Any

26:27

bread that had yeast in it

26:29

leaven means basically the yeast in it So

26:31

any anything that had yeast

26:34

in it anything that was Baked

26:36

in that way and they would clean out all the

26:38

leaven within the house. Yeah, and

26:41

part of the reason is because of Where

26:44

they came from the Egyptians. Yeah,

26:46

so the Egyptians were the ones that basically

26:48

advanced baking Like we wouldn't have the British baking

26:50

show if it weren't for the Egyptians There's

26:52

like 40 different types of recipes

26:55

like ways and to make they cultivated

26:57

the yeast So the

26:59

Israelites had picked up on that in

27:02

Egypt So the Lord is telling them they

27:04

they're celebrating this Feast of Unleavened

27:06

Bread

27:06

Because they're celebrating that the Lord had brought

27:08

them out of Egypt He's saying remember

27:11

this and he's saying lay down those

27:13

old things You developed a taste

27:16

while you were in Egypt for something

27:18

that I did not get you and

27:20

Now you are still You're

27:23

still snacking on those delicacies

27:25

trying to bring it into the new land And he said

27:27

you can't do that You've got to lay that

27:29

stuff down

27:30

and not bring it into the future

27:33

with you and asking you to put that

27:35

away

27:36

Yeah, God is saying that he wants to

27:39

redefine and reset your taste

27:41

to be from him instead of your

27:43

culture Now with that

27:45

the what is leaven represent

27:48

throughout the Bible it represents

27:50

rottenness it represents Fermented

27:54

rottenness that and that is what it

27:56

like it also is Sin

27:59

and we see Jesus referring to this even

28:01

in the New Testament whenever he talks about the leaven

28:03

of the Pharisees the leaven of the Sadducees 11 of

28:06

Herod he's talking about the sin of the Pharisees of sin

28:08

of the Sadducees And so he's referring

28:11

to the sin because the sin is what puffs

28:13

you up It's what causes

28:15

you to expand to a way that you are not

28:17

meant to be and so he is calling

28:20

out the sin Well in this there

28:22

is the feast of unleavened bread and

28:24

so they for it Coincides

28:26

with Passover and they would for seven

28:28

days. They would remove all of the

28:31

yeast all of the products that

28:33

were made with yeast and so Pastor

28:36

Greg stone our Jewish pastor has even told

28:38

me that he remembers being when even he

28:40

was five years old Being up on the countertop

28:43

and standing on the counter and looking in every

28:45

single cupboard to make sure there's not even

28:48

a single Crumb and his mom was saying

28:50

alright Greg. Come on, you can come down now. He

28:52

said no mom This is so important We have to get

28:54

it all out because in the Jewish

28:56

culture you will be cut off if you do not

28:58

remove it And so we

29:01

even have heard of some families that now even

29:03

during the feast of unleavened bread What

29:06

they do is they will have the time

29:09

where they remove all the leaven, but then

29:11

the parents will even hide Bread

29:14

or something throughout the house and have

29:16

the kids go out and find it all And

29:19

so it on to the next generation It

29:21

is almost like a scavenger hunt

29:23

for the kids. And so here they are.

29:25

They're searching for it They're finding it and

29:28

why they do that is to teach the

29:30

kids that sometimes we have to search

29:32

our house To see if

29:34

there is anything in the house that does

29:37

not line up with our spiritual convictions

29:39

in a biblical convictions This

29:42

is a practice that we need today spiritually

29:45

that we on an ongoing basis

29:48

We search the house we

29:51

search every area of our life

29:53

and we say Lord Is there any area

29:56

of rottenness is there any area

29:58

of something that is public? that

30:00

is not of you. Is there any area of sin?

30:03

And we need to be able to search our lives and

30:05

see if there's anything that doesn't line up with God.

30:08

Yeah, 1 Corinthians 5, 6 says, your

30:10

glorying is not good. Basically

30:13

what they were glorifying wasn't godly.

30:15

So what they were setting their mind to, what

30:18

they were engaging in

30:20

was not godly. So he says, your glorying is not

30:22

good. Do you not know that even a little

30:25

leaven, little leaven leavens the

30:27

whole lump. What he's saying is just a little bit

30:29

of sin, just the tiniest

30:31

small amount of sin will corrupt your whole life. Just

30:34

the smallest slide, it's

30:36

such a slippery slope. Some

30:40

things just start so innocent. It's just a

30:42

conversation at work that starts. And

30:45

after a while you start having more conversations

30:47

and more conversations, and then you start having more intimate

30:49

discussions with somebody at work that you should not be having

30:51

those conversations with.

30:54

Maybe you have a gym membership,

30:56

and you're at the gym and you start there because you

30:58

wanna get healthy. But now you've

31:01

developed a relationship. You've developed

31:04

a fantasy. You've developed something

31:06

towards another person that's not your spouse.

31:09

It's not where you need to be.

31:11

There's some places that, you may have subscription

31:13

you need to get rid of. You may need to unfollow

31:16

some people. There's

31:18

some times in our lives where, in

31:21

marriage you have conflict. But

31:23

if you don't press into that conflict, if you don't

31:25

work through it, and you start retreating,

31:27

you start having these coping mechanisms that pull you

31:30

away. That can open yourself up

31:32

to something that the Lord just does not want for

31:34

you. And you don't want for yourself.

31:36

You don't want for your own marriage.

31:38

So it's time. Search out the leaven

31:40

in your life. Search out any

31:42

area of rottenness

31:44

that is

31:46

hindering you from truly

31:48

saying, I

31:50

am the Lord's. And as for me and my

31:53

house, and as for me and my marriage, we

31:55

will serve the Lord. With

31:58

that, I want to end with, story and

32:01

this is about a really

32:03

good friend of mine who's a businessman and

32:07

him and his wife there was another couple in

32:09

the church and they were going through just a lot of spiritual

32:11

oppression a lot of spiritual attacks and

32:14

just it was really a hard season

32:16

and so they asked my friend and his wife to

32:19

come over to their house and pray for them so they went

32:21

to their house and they're praying this friend of mine

32:23

just has a really good like amazing

32:25

prophetic gift and so he

32:27

they're praying for them and he says

32:30

that there's something outside this window

32:32

and there's a spiritual

32:35

attachment that's holding you back

32:38

and he goes what's outside this window

32:41

and he said I mean there's a some

32:43

trails down there and eventually if you keep going the

32:46

lake is down there and he goes no no that's not

32:48

it there's something outside

32:50

this window I was praying the Lord

32:52

told me we need to find out

32:54

what's outside this window what's outside this window and so the

32:56

wife says well I mean the flowerbeds

32:59

out there and there's no spiritual attachment there

33:02

and so then he says no no

33:04

I really feel like God told me this what

33:07

is right outside this window and then

33:09

the husband's head dropped

33:12

and he said well when

33:14

I was in college I won a

33:17

trophy not for something very

33:19

moral but I won this trophy and

33:23

my wife had been telling me to get rid of it

33:25

but it was significant to me because I won something

33:28

and so instead of getting

33:30

rid of it instead throwing it away I buried

33:33

it in the flowerbed it just

33:35

so happened it was like a little figurine

33:38

of another God and he

33:40

said that that that's it and

33:43

there's spiritual warfare

33:45

there's spirits that

33:47

attach to different things within our life

33:50

so they dug it up they destroyed

33:53

it got rid of it prayed for

33:55

the family prayed for them and

33:57

the spiritual attack disappeared

34:00

And so it's that there are

34:02

some different things within our life. And

34:05

sometimes it is something that

34:07

we're like, yeah, I know I shouldn't have that.

34:09

And, you know, it just... I

34:11

shouldn't watch that, but it's my guilty pleasure. I just

34:13

love it. Yeah, but I paid like $9 for that. No,

34:16

I paid $900 for it. And you're

34:19

saying, I can't get rid of this. Or maybe

34:21

it's jewelry from an ex or something.

34:23

And you're saying, I just... Love letters from an old lover. I can't get rid

34:25

of this. How would I get rid of this? And

34:28

God may be asking us to

34:31

purge out some things in our lives. God

34:34

may be asking us to remove

34:36

different areas of leaven in our

34:38

life. And you might think, wow,

34:41

these James and Bridges, they're really extreme.

34:43

I can't even get my like high

34:46

school trophy or whatever.

34:48

We have to realize... We're not

34:50

the ones asking you to do it, but is the Holy

34:52

Spirit asking you to do it?

34:54

And we have to realize we are

34:56

experiencing so much

34:59

spiritual attack. And

35:01

we need to make sure there's not a single

35:04

area of our life with an open

35:07

door like Bridget shared, where

35:09

the enemy can come in. So let's

35:11

search out our heart. Let's search out our

35:14

mind and say, are we in such

35:16

a way? Have we structured a life to

35:19

be able to say, as for me and my house,

35:22

we will serve the Lord. As for

35:24

me and my marriage, we will serve the Lord. As

35:26

for me and my work, we will serve

35:29

the Lord. Yep.

35:30

So just like Joshua

35:33

drew a line in the sand and asked

35:36

the Israelites, choose for yourself

35:38

today, whom will you serve?

35:40

We want to ask the same thing.

35:42

Choose for yourself today.

35:44

Who will you serve?

35:46

Who are you going to make Lord of your

35:49

life?

35:50

Pastor Craig last week said,

35:52

I want us to all as a church, pray

35:56

for boldness for seven days and

35:58

let's pray bold. prayers.

36:01

I'm asking that we now take the next seven

36:03

days and search out our life. Let's

36:06

allow the Holy Spirit, let's allow

36:09

God to reveal things in our life that

36:11

potentially could be holding us back from

36:14

being fully committed to the Lord.

36:17

With that, I'd love to pray with you. So just

36:20

take a moment and let like we do

36:22

every single week, we ask the Holy

36:25

Spirit, Lord what are you saying to

36:27

me through this message? Lord

36:31

I just pray, ask that you speak right

36:33

now. God,

36:41

thank you so much for your goodness. Thank

36:45

you for just even your love and passion

36:48

for marriage. Lord,

36:50

thank you that you care enough to

36:53

come in such a way that

36:57

we can call upon your

36:59

name and you will be there. That

37:02

you are such a grace-filled

37:04

God, but you are willing to to

37:07

work with us and as we

37:09

get better and we become more and more Christ-like.

37:12

Lord I pray that anything that

37:15

we need purged out of our life

37:18

that you would reveal it. Lord I pray

37:20

over the next days we ask

37:22

for a cleansing so that we

37:24

can be more pure to be able

37:27

to experience you in the greater way. In

37:30

Jesus mighty name, amen. Amen,

37:33

we love you guys. Love you so much.

37:35

We

37:45

hope

37:45

you have a great week.