God Is a Giver | Why Christmas Still Gives Us Hope (A Christmas Story)

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[MUSIC: Crossroads Music: The Gift]

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- Well, hey, welcome to Crossroads.

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We're so glad you're here for week three

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of Christmas at the Movies.

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- And this week we're looking at a Christmas story, right?

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- That's right, that's right. Question for you.

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Do you have a BB gun or a leg lamp?

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- I do have a lamp that is fragile, which is Italian for--

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Let's get to that later.

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- Hey, we're actually right now going to start off

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our time with some songs.

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And it's the thing I love most about this time of year

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is that almost every song you hear is a worship song.

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If you set aside like I Want a Hippopotamus for Christmas

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and that one Mariah Carey song, most of the others

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talk about Jesus and who He is

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and what He came to this earth to do.

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- You know, there's that song I think we're playing it

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that says In Excelsis Deo, which is Latin for

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glory to God in the highest. It was there the whole time.

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- That's right, that's right.

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So I encourage you guys, and for us, like,

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not to just use these as songs that

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sort of set the holiday vibe, but instead

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as a chance to connect with God through these words,

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through these truths.

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So I'd love for you to sing along

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and consider these words right now.

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- Hey. Welcome in. Welcome to Crossroads.

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Why don't we stand together. My name is Justin.

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We're going to start by singing

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some of our favorite Christmas songs together.

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We're glad you're here. Let's do this together.

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- Let me pray for us.

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Lord, will those words be words from our heart,

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that no matter what life looks like,

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we'll choose to praise Your name forever.

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Because Your name is good. Your name is truth.

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It's the truth and it's the excitement of this season.

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The name of Jesus, a Savior born to save all of us.

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That is worth being excited about

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and it's worth being thankful for.

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So would we, more than anything else in this season.

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More than the lights and the Christmas trees,

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would we be excited and grateful

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for the gift that is King Jesus?

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That's the true gift.

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And God, when we spread that gift all around us,

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will we not be ashamed of His name

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because His name brings healing and His name is power.

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And it's by His power that we pray, we sing,

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and we say, all together Amen. Amen. Come on.

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I'll tell you my favorite, my most favorite

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part about Christmas is Christmas music.

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I mean, it's just it's wonderful. It is.

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You can't -- It's just great.

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And we love Christmas so much that we actually

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created some songs for our community for Christmas.

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So our EP, The Gift just dropped.

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It's on Spotify, Apple Music,

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wherever you listen to music,

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so you can go listen to it today.

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And I want to tell you a secret.

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There might be two songs on that EP that we created

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just for Christmas Eve this year,

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so you might want to go check them out ahead of time,

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because you can be singing them with us

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here in a couple of weeks.

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Hey guys, thanks for being here.

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Why don't you turn to somebody next to you,

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give them a high five. Tell 'em Hey.

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If you don't know their name, you can have a seat.

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- Oh, my God.

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- Remember when you were a kid

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and you got that one gift that

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just sent you shouting for joy?

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What if you could get that feeling back this year?

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You're invited to an experience for the whole family,

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with cookies and snow and candlelight

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and the gift that can still change your life.

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Join us for Christmas Eve with Crossroads.

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Get service times and locations at crossroads.net.

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- Arturo, what's the best Christmas gift

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you've ever gotten?

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- Man, for 25 years, it's been this stuffed turtle

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I got when I was like 6 or 7.

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And to this day, I don't cuddle with it like I used to,

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but it is on my bedside.

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- Awesome. - Best gift.

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- Love it. - Yes.

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- You like turtles. - That's right, I like turtles.

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- Well, hey, we've got an incredible gift

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for our entire community.

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It's going to be our Christmas Eve service. Seriously.

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The music, the teaching, every piece of it

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is going to be amazing and built for you and the entire family.

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It's going to be starting December 23 at 7 p.m. eastern.

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It's going to be live streamed

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and then available on demand everywhere after that.

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- And let me tell you something.

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Those family, relatives, friends, even coworkers

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that you know or maybe don't know

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are maybe a little hesitant about church,

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maybe open to a conversation about God.

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There is no better way to share, you know, a service

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than by just sharing the link to this Christmas service.

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So we want to encourage you to consider that

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this Christmas season.

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And you never know, you never know what sharing

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a simple link could do for the trajectory

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of someone's whole life. Yeah, yeah.

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- Yeah. There's something special about this time of year

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where I just think, like, people are a little more hopeful

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or a little more like, open to the idea

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that God might want to show up in their lives,

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because that's really what Christmas is all about.

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But actually, I just got an email like three days ago

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from a guy I'd never talked with, and he said,

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"Hey, you don't know me, but I actually

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was just watching a Crossroads service on YouTube

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and met Jesus for the first time."

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Wow.

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- He was asking about how he could get connected,

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who he could get connected with. It's incredible.

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Like there are people whose lives will be different

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because they encountered Jesus this Christmas.

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And would love for you, for your family members,

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for your friends to experience that and be a part of that.

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And as we said, starting on the 23rd, 7 p.m.,

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it's going to be available on all the things,

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Roku, Apple TV, Youtube, Crossroads App, YouTube.

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All the things. Check it out

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and have your friends do the same.

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- Yeah, and you know this time of year is usually

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coined as the most wonderful time of the year.

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But the reality is, sometimes it's just not.

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And I don't know where you are this Christmas season.

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You could be experiencing feelings like grief

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and maybe divorce.

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Maybe this is the first Christmas where you're feeling

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alone or without someone that was there last year.

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I mean, that's real. That's real.

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And and we want you to know that we are willing

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and wanting to come alongside you this Christmas season.

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- Yeah. Yeah, I mean, I remember a number of years ago,

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the first Christmas after my mom and sister passed away.

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It was like uniquely hard.

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There's something about this time of the year

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that while it is beautiful, while it is hopeful

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that if you're experiencing loss

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or just that disconnect from what you expected

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your life to be like or look like

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and what you're experiencing, that can be

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uniquely challenging and we've got some resources for you.

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If you go to Crossroads.net/care, we've got

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some resources we've curated and collected

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and created there for you to help you

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move towards healing and experience

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more of God's hope this season.

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And as always, you can also email us.

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You can email anywhere@crossroads.net

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or hit the chat button.

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We'd love to connect with you, encourage you,

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pray with you, process with you.

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- All of the resources that we provide,

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we hope could point you to

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the hope that you can find in Jesus.

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And in this next video, it's just a little quick snippet

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of what can happen when you make just one small step,

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and what that one small step could multiply into,

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which could be bigger than you could imagine.

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- My name is Mary Jones and I've been attending

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Crossroads for about ten years now.

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So I grew up in the church.

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My dad was a pastor.

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And after I got out of college and I found my own church,

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I had a negative experience there

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that kind of got me off track, I think.

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And so I took about 15 year vacation from God.

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When my girlfriend Audrey started to work with me

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she invited me to come to Crossroads

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and I came with her about ten years ago.

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And so I thought, something is --

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Something's really different here.

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So I came back the next week and the next week,

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and I just kept coming back.

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And it was exactly what I was looking for.

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I saw my husband the first time in church.

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We were married for 24 years. We have one daughter.

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I was a good little preacher's daughter

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and good little preacher's daughters

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do not get divorced ever.

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I don't even know how to explain the circumstances

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that led to it, but it was devastating

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in a way that I've never experienced before.

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I didn't know what my purpose was.

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I only knew how to be a mom and wife.

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And there have been days when I couldn't do anything

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but sit on my couch and cry out, "Jesus, help me!"

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I couldn't say anything else.

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There was a lot of fear.

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I didn't know if I could make it financially.

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My income was more than cut in half.

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I just thought there's absolutely no way

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that I'm going to survive this cataclysmic event

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if I don't hang on to God, that's the only chance I have.

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Actually, this is about the time when 10X came around

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and I was like, "God,

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I don't have any more money to give You."

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And all of a sudden someone helped me get this job

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and it was only for a year, but it was so well paying.

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And I immediately thought God gave me this job

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so I could contribute to the 10X.

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But I really wanted to invest in the things

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that Crossroads does.

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I believe in the school that we're helping

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to build in Nepal for the girls.

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- I am Anjali and I'm just so much grateful

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to Crossroads team for blessing for the construction

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of our new building for this school.

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It's full of mud and things. We need to do a lot still.

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So we will be building two bigger classrooms

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and they will have enough space to play and do activities.

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And also we can hire more teachers.

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And above there will be two more classrooms,

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so there will be four classrooms.

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Why we wanted to add more building and classrooms

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is like more parents are wanting to take

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more admission of their kids,

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and we don't want to say no to anyone who comes to us.

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We can do something for the community

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and we can give hope.

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I just want to say thank you for dreaming with me

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and always supporting. It really means a lot.

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- Every time a big need comes about,

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we're just right on top of it.

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And I was like, I want to be more a part of that.

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Every month when I see that charge go debited out,

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I'm like, yeah, I'm part of --

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I'm part of something that's really important.

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This whole thing started maybe about the money

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and the focus was on the money,

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but I don't even think about the money anymore.

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I was really curious to see what is it going to look like

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when there's an awakening.

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And I think just last week it came to me that

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the revival had already started

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because it was right in here.

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I had never even considered that God might do

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this kind of work in my life.

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It's just incredible.

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- It is so encouraging to see what's happening

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inside of one life that God has in His hands.

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I know all of our sites, all of our places,

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you got your own similar stories.

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And it's also encouraging to just hear a little bit

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about what's happening in Nepal and other places.

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Sometime in 2026 we'll do a deep dive

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on all the progress of 10X,

00:27:06

which was about 10Xing our size of the church,

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10Xing our impact of church, 10Xing our depth as a church.

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I'll just tell you before that happens,

00:27:15

it is astounding the things that we were asking

00:27:18

God to do and planning to do how many are already done.

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It's utterly amazing and I can't wait

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to share with you that at a later point.

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But I'll just say this if you made a 10X commitment

00:27:30

above and beyond your regular giving, thank you.

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Hey, even thank you more if you've started.

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It's really, really important not to say something,

00:27:37

but to do something.

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So we're a big church.

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We've got resource that God has blessed us with,

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and at the same time, we're like a lot of other non-profits.

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End of the year is really important.

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So please, if you are going to engage

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with our church financially, we would love to have you engage.

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And whether you've made a 10X commitment or not,

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you can go to Crossroads.net/give.

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Now, this is not a day where we're talking about giving.

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It's not. You might think it is

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because I'm going to talk about how God is a giver.

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But we're not talking about you and I giving.

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Well, I just want to get into the identity of God.

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He's really pretty amazing.

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And we're going to look at

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one of my favorite movies of all time.

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And I'll give you the story of it in just a moment.

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- Christmas at the Movies

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is perfect with some coffee.

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Don't need that ring-a-ding

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ding-a-dong ding-a-ding talking.

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So if we see the glow of a cellular telephone,

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we'll take 'em and we'll break 'em.

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And we won't say we were mistaken.

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You've been warned. Merry Christmas.

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- Entertainment reflects the culture in which it is created.

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And we're being exegeting these passages --

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These passages, these movies over the past few weeks.

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We're going to continue to do it this week,

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and I'm going to do another one next week.

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Next week is Christmas Vacation.

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Can't wait. It's taken so long.

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Can't believe it's taking so long to do that one.

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But when we talk about we're going to exegete this,

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we're talking about what is it that naturally comes out of it,

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What is coming out of these movies?

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And we're finding out things about God in these movies.

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Because God has created us, and any art that moves us

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is moving us because it's tapping in to

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the identity of God.

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Today's movie is called A Christmas Story.

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I didn't see it until I was about 20, 24 or so.

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It was right after Lib and I were married.

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And I was over at her house, her parents' house.

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And where did this movie come from?

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It was, I felt like somebody had been spying on me

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my whole life as a little boy, and then just broadcasted it.

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I actually felt violated.

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I'm going, "How does this guy know

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what I used to think as a little kid?

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How does this guy know the way that I operated?"

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Ralphie is all about, all about a Red Ryder BB gun

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with a compass in stock and a thing that tells time.

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That's what he's about.

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And he does everything he can all movie long

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to get that to be given to him.

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He's working the system. He's massaging the system.

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Many of us, many of us believe that

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we have to work the system, massage the system

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to get God to give us something.

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The big idea today is just this: God is a giver.

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That's the big idea.

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And if you don't see Him as a giver,

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you're going to have an outage in understanding Him,

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an outage in having an actual relationship with Him.

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When you see that He's a giver,

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like, all of a sudden you see all kinds of things.

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Last night before I go to bed, it's normal for me

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to sit in my front porch for a little bit.

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I go out my front porch.

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I'm sitting there and I could not believe

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how beautiful it was at 10:00 last night.

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Took a photo of it.

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No, no, no, uh, no flash. Just this photo.

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That was at 10:00 at night because of the moon

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and reflection off of the snow.

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It was way more beautiful, actually, than that.

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But I saw that and I thought, man, God is a giver.

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He's a giver. He gives beautiful scenery.

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He gives a time to just relax and decompress

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and enjoy this place and this night.

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To understand the story, we've got to understand

00:31:42

a little bit of these parts, which follows Ralphie

00:31:45

as he tries to get his parents to give him something.

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In this clip, we'll introduce you to a little bit

00:31:50

to the culture of his family and who he is.

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You're going to meet Ralphie,

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you're going to meet his brother.

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You're going to see him anyway.

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You're going to see his mom and you're going to see his dad.

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Let's get acquainted with this family.

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- Ralphie, why don't you go help your father?

00:32:04

- Really? Can I? - Yeah.

00:32:07

Watch the traffic there. - Okay, okay.

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- It was the first time that it had been suggested

00:32:12

that I go help my father with anything.

00:32:18

- What are you doing here?

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- Mom said I should help.

00:32:21

- Oh, yeah? - Yeah.

00:32:23

- Okay. Sit down here. Squat down.

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That's it. Yeah. Here. Hold this.

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No, not that way, not that way.

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Come on, Rat Trap, hold it like this.

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- How? - Like this.

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I want to put the nuts in it.

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Okay, there we go. There's four of them.

00:32:42

And we got it. Ha-ha, right there.

00:32:46

There it is. I'm gonna get that dirty.

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Bang, bang. There we go.

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- For one brief moment, I saw all the bolts

00:32:55

silhouetted against the lights of the traffic.

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And then they were gone.

00:32:59

- Oh, fudge.

00:33:05

- Only I didn't say fudge.

00:33:07

I said the word. The big one.

00:33:10

The Queen mother of dirty words.

00:33:13

The f dash dash dash word.

00:33:15

- What did you say?

00:33:19

- Over the years, I got to be quite a connoisseur of soap.

00:33:22

My personal preference is for Lux,

00:33:24

but I found Palmolive

00:33:25

had a nice, piquant after dinner flavor.

00:33:28

Heady, but with just a touch of mellow smoothness.

00:33:35

Lifebuoy, on the other hand. - Yuck.

00:33:37

- Are you ready to tell me? - [mumbles]

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- All right. Where did you hear that word?

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- Now I had heard that word at least ten times a day

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from my old man.

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My father worked in profanity the way other artists

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might work in oils or clay.

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It was his true medium. A master.

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But I chickened out, and I blurted out

00:34:03

the first name that came to mind.

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- Schwartz!

00:34:07

- Oh, I see.

00:34:21

Hello, Mrs. Schwartz? Yes. I'm fine.

00:34:24

Um, Mrs. Schwartz, do you know what Ralph just said?

00:34:29

No. No. He said.

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- No. Not that.

00:34:36

- Yes, that.

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Do you know where he heard it?

00:34:41

No. He heard it from your son.

00:34:43

- What? What? What?

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[sceaming over phone]

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- What did I do, Mom?

00:34:53

[sounds of mom spanking Schwartz]

00:34:54

I didn't do nothing. Ah ah ah.

00:35:03

- Oh, bygone era when you could laugh about spanking kids.

00:35:06

It was wonderful.

00:35:08

God bless America the way it used to be.

00:35:10

This movie, A Christmas Story comes from Jean Shepherd,

00:35:15

a series of stories he had in a book that he published

00:35:18

called In God We Trust, All others Pay Cash.

00:35:22

Jean Shepherd is actually the voice of Ralphie

00:35:25

in that movie, and he actually co-wrote the story

00:35:29

or the screenplay that the movie is based on.

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And it has become a classic because

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it taps into something in us.

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And what's it tap inside of us?

00:35:37

It taps into us, we want a father figure,

00:35:40

we want a parent figure to be a giver.

00:35:44

We don't want to feel like we're on our own.

00:35:46

We want to feel seen. We want to feel known.

00:35:49

I know one thing about everybody in here

00:35:51

I think all of us have in common.

00:35:53

I don't care what amount of money you make.

00:35:56

I don't care what your skin tone is.

00:35:57

I don't care how old you are.

00:35:59

One thing all of us have in common in here right now

00:36:01

is you want God to give you something.

00:36:06

I want you to just think just for a moment,

00:36:08

let's just be honest about it.

00:36:09

Just get that in your mind.

00:36:11

If God were to give you something this Christmas,

00:36:13

what would that be? I'll give you a couple seconds.

00:36:16

I want you to have that in your mind

00:36:17

as we go through the rest of our time here today.

00:36:24

We all have something we want.

00:36:26

We might feel guilty that we want it,

00:36:28

because we might feel like I have so much

00:36:30

I shouldn't want anything else. It's okay.

00:36:34

All of us have something that we want.

00:36:36

And that's part of what Christmas is.

00:36:39

Christmas is about God being a giver

00:36:43

and giving His people something they wanted

00:36:46

or if some of them didn't know they wanted it,

00:36:48

something they needed, and that was a Savior.

00:36:51

In the book of Isaiah, this is an Old Testament passage

00:36:54

where there is a prophecy

00:36:56

what's going to happen in Christmas.

00:36:58

And here's what says in Isaiah 9:6,

00:37:02

hundreds of years before Jesus actually is born,

00:37:04

before Christmas takes place.

00:37:06

For to us a child is born, to us a son is given'

00:37:13

and the government shall be upon His shoulder,

00:37:16

and His name will be called Wonderful Counselor,

00:37:21

Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.

00:37:27

It says here to us a son is given,

00:37:31

for us a child is born, unto us a son is given.

00:37:34

Handel's Messiah [singing] for unto us a child is born,

00:37:38

is based out of this inspiration.

00:37:40

Art comes out of the things that inspire us.

00:37:43

The things that we watch again and again every year

00:37:46

are things inspire us because

00:37:48

they actually tap into the identity of God.

00:37:52

And then when this prophecy is fulfilled

00:37:53

in the book of Luke chapter 2:11, it says this:

00:37:56

For unto you, unto you is born this day

00:37:59

in the city of David, a Savior, who is Christ the Lord.

00:38:03

Unto you is born, meaning, unto you is given.

00:38:06

Today the very core message of Christmas

00:38:10

is that God is a giver.

00:38:17

Ralphie wants his Red Ryder BB Gun

00:38:22

with a compass in the stock, and the thing that tells time.

00:38:24

He wants it, but the problem is he's going through life,

00:38:27

and life is a bit stressful on him.

00:38:31

He's got people who are dragging him down,

00:38:33

i.e. like the bullies.

00:38:35

The bullies are dragging him down who is Scott Farkus.

00:38:38

You ever saw him before? Scott, this is a bully.

00:38:41

Scott Farkus was old school bully.

00:38:42

This was back when bullies would make you bleed, you know?

00:38:46

Today, "I'm bullied. My feelings are hurt."

00:38:48

No, no, no. I was I was born in a time when bullies,

00:38:51

like, made you bleed. That was Scott Farkus, right?

00:38:54

Interesting thing about him, as he's aged,

00:38:56

look what he looks like right now.

00:38:58

This is Scott Farkus right now.

00:39:00

This is, um --

00:39:03

No, it's not Andy Dalton. Andy Dalton is --

00:39:06

Andy's a good and godly man, a very godly man.

00:39:08

But he does have red hair like Scott Farkus does.

00:39:11

This is the way he is right now.

00:39:12

And Scott Farkus, in reflecting on

00:39:14

the enduring fame of this movie,

00:39:16

who still makes every other year

00:39:18

a royalty payment of $1,800.

00:39:21

He said this, he says: I've seen five year old kids

00:39:24

squat down in front of the TV

00:39:26

and not talk while they watch it.

00:39:28

There's no song from Frozen.

00:39:30

There's no dancing, no talking reindeer, snowmen.

00:39:34

It's kids, in a time when that five year old

00:39:37

doesn't care if it's a little white boy or girl,

00:39:40

a little black boy or girl, Hispanic, Asian, Jewish.

00:39:43

It doesn't matter; they don't care.

00:39:45

They're watching it because that's their family.

00:39:50

The dynamics. And what about their family?

00:39:52

I mean, it's a pretty traditional family

00:39:53

Ralphie comes from, what's the family?

00:39:55

What's the through line?

00:39:56

I believe it is there's kids who want something

00:39:59

from their mom and dad.

00:40:01

And all of us in here, we want something

00:40:03

from our Heavenly Father.

00:40:06

And do you believe?

00:40:07

Do you believe that's in His nature to be a giver?

00:40:10

You may not believe you're going to get it.

00:40:11

You may not get it. I'm sorry.

00:40:13

I'm not a health and wealth guy.

00:40:14

I'm not a prosperity gospel guy.

00:40:15

You may want it and jump through any hoops

00:40:17

spiritual you want doesn't mean you're going to get it.

00:40:19

But at His heart, at His heart He is a giver.

00:40:23

We not may not believe He's a giver.

00:40:25

We want Him to be a giver, and therefore

00:40:27

we work the system to get our thing what we want.

00:40:31

Like we'll work religion.

00:40:33

Like religion for many of us is how we get God

00:40:35

to give us what we want, or so we think.

00:40:36

So man, I am going to go to church early in the morning

00:40:40

on a frozen day because God's going to be impressed with me.

00:40:43

Maybe He'll be more likely to give to me.

00:40:45

I'm not saying everybody here had that as an attitude,

00:40:47

but some of us, you know, we think that way.

00:40:49

Like, I've got to make sure I volunteer in Kids' Club.

00:40:52

I got to do that.

00:40:53

I got to make sure I tithe.

00:40:54

I've got to make sure I give to the Push for 10X.

00:40:57

Fine to do all that. Great. Actually good to do all that.

00:41:00

But if we do those kind of things.

00:41:04

I'm going to read the Bible in a year.

00:41:05

I'm going to amp my prayer life.

00:41:07

Oh, great. Wonderful.

00:41:08

But if we do those kind of things because

00:41:10

we're trying to impress God and get Him to give me what I want.

00:41:15

I'm having a hard time getting pregnant, God.

00:41:16

So maybe if I do these things,

00:41:18

You're going to give me a child.

00:41:22

It's a way that we strong arm God.

00:41:24

We don't believe He's a giver.

00:41:25

We're trying to control and manipulate Him.

00:41:27

Some of us pray only when we want something.

00:41:30

And by the way, that is okay.

00:41:33

No matter why you pray or when you pray,

00:41:36

God loves to hear your voice. It's okay.

00:41:40

But I'm asking us just to notice.

00:41:43

Hmm, does seem like the most times I pray

00:41:45

is when I want something.

00:41:48

Because we're trying to get God's attention.

00:41:51

Some of us work on our morality,

00:41:52

whatever our morality is, and try to increase

00:41:56

our purity quotient, not because we want to be more like Jesus,

00:42:00

but because we think it's going to give us

00:42:02

some more brownie points to get God to give us

00:42:04

what we actually want Him to give us.

00:42:07

I'm just asking us to reflect on this.

00:42:09

We all want God to be a giver.

00:42:12

We all try to maybe manipulate God to be a giver

00:42:14

in some way, shape or form.

00:42:15

But do you believe that God is a giver?

00:42:21

Ralphie manipulates his way throughout the whole movie.

00:42:24

He does everything he can to get people

00:42:27

to notice what he wants and to get his way.

00:42:30

So the prime time is to go before Santa.

00:42:34

And here's that scene.

00:42:36

- Come on, kid.

00:42:38

- Ho ho ho! - Come on.

00:42:44

- Come on up, come on up. Ho ho ho.

00:42:49

Ho ho ho. Ho ho ho. And what's your name, little boy?

00:43:01

- Hey, kid. Hurry up, the store is closing.

00:43:05

- Come on. - Listen, little boy,

00:43:08

we've got a lot of people waiting here, so get going.

00:43:14

- What do you want for Christmas, little boy?

00:43:17

- Uh.

00:43:18

- My mind had gone blank.

00:43:20

Frantically, I tried to remember what it was I wanted.

00:43:22

I was blowing it. Blowing it.

00:43:24

- Come on, kid.

00:43:27

- How about a nice football?

00:43:30

- Football, football? What's a football?

00:43:33

Without conscious will my voice squeaked out football.

00:43:36

- Okay, get him out of here.

00:43:40

- A football? Oh, no. What was I doing?

00:43:43

Wake up, stupid! Wake up!

00:43:45

- No!

00:43:52

- No, no, I want an official Red Ryder

00:43:53

carbine-action 200-shot range model air rifle!

00:44:00

- You'll shoot your eye out, kid.

00:44:03

Merry Christmas! Ho ho ho.

00:44:08

- No!

00:44:14

- Ho ho ho.

00:44:16

- Ho ho ho!

00:44:19

I love that scene.

00:44:21

Ralphie's thinking that's the secret sauce.

00:44:23

Gotta get to Santa. Gotta get him to hear me

00:44:26

and do what I want him to do.

00:44:29

I've tried this with God.

00:44:31

I've tried to get things from God.

00:44:33

And there's a lot of things I have not gotten from God.

00:44:37

A lot of things.

00:44:39

I wanted to be a pastor of a church

00:44:42

before I came here to Cincinnati Crossroads.

00:44:46

And it was a great church, fairly well known,

00:44:49

great position, great environment,

00:44:51

great weather, by the way, and God didn't give it to me.

00:44:55

He didn't give it to me.

00:44:57

And I'm actually glad He didn't give it to me

00:44:59

because I wouldn't be here had He given that to me.

00:45:02

And some of you are going, "Man, I kind of wish

00:45:04

God would have given that to you.

00:45:05

Actually, now I think about it."

00:45:08

A lot of things I believe God's given, He hasn't given me.

00:45:11

I wanted three sons.

00:45:13

I asked God to give me all sons, I wanted sons.

00:45:16

The reason being is I wanted to disciple a godly man

00:45:20

from birth until death, or at least my death.

00:45:22

I just saw a dearth of godly, strong men

00:45:26

that would lay down their life for God

00:45:28

and do things that were bold.

00:45:29

I just thought there's too few many of us.

00:45:32

And so I want to be able to develop them.

00:45:34

First child as a daughter

00:45:36

and Lib knows this is such a big deal for me.

00:45:39

She's apologizing on the delivery table.

00:45:41

I'm like, "Honey, no."

00:45:42

I'll tell you what, I'll tell you what.

00:45:44

I'm glad God didn't give me three sons.

00:45:46

He gave me one.

00:45:47

I'm glad -- I love my daughters.

00:45:49

In fact, I wish God gave me three daughters when I wish.

00:45:54

You know, my son is great.

00:45:55

He and I are very, very close, close friends.

00:45:57

He's phenomenal and impressed with how he's going in life

00:45:59

and what God's doing in his life. It's wonderful.

00:46:01

And there's something beautiful about girls

00:46:04

because they add sons to your family.

00:46:06

Every time they get married they add sons to your family.

00:46:08

And God's given me actually three sons.

00:46:10

Two of them are sons in law.

00:46:11

And we're tight and we're close.

00:46:13

And He's giving me sons that aren't related to me

00:46:15

and aren't my family structure at all,

00:46:16

but people look to me as a father figure.

00:46:19

God answers that prayer, has given me that

00:46:21

in ways I never could have thought of before.

00:46:23

We asked God to to heal a Lib of cancer,

00:46:26

so she didn't have to go through chemo.

00:46:27

He didn't. He's a giver, but He didn't give us that.

00:46:31

I'm almost ready to say I'm glad he didn't give us that,

00:46:36

because He's given us other things

00:46:37

as a result of going through this journey.

00:46:39

Our love for each other is deeper

00:46:41

than it would have been otherwise.

00:46:43

Our spiritual maturity

00:46:45

is deeper than it would have been otherwise.

00:46:47

I still would take the healing before chemo started.

00:46:50

Now radiation is about to start,

00:46:52

would still take all that, but I can understand

00:46:55

maybe why God hasn't given that.

00:46:57

But you'll never be able to shake a firm belief

00:46:59

that at his core, God is a giver.

00:47:03

And the problem with us is that we're tainted ground.

00:47:06

None of us are a blank canvas.

00:47:10

You know, you save a lot of money if you're an oil painter,

00:47:13

o have a canvas that's just painted over

00:47:15

from the previous paint, and then you go to town on it.

00:47:18

Again instead of re-stretching canvas

00:47:21

and all that stuff, getting a frame.

00:47:22

The problem is, even when it looks like a blank canvas,

00:47:25

there's these phrases like stained ground,

00:47:27

tainted ground, ghosting or residual layer

00:47:30

that are underneath the new part that's been painted over,

00:47:34

that when the brushstrokes come in contact with it,

00:47:36

that's the texture's mess up.

00:47:37

Sometimes the old colors bleed through

00:47:40

because none of us are blank canvas.

00:47:43

When we talk about God being a giver,

00:47:45

we're talking to a room full of people

00:47:47

who have their hurts and their disappointments

00:47:50

and their things that haven't worked out well.

00:47:53

And I am first in line for that, in my own world.

00:47:57

I've had a pretty easy life, really pretty easy life.

00:47:59

But I can have many examples of things that I didn't get

00:48:02

I thought I should have gotten.

00:48:04

Growing up in my family, so thankful for my family.

00:48:07

Very generous. Generous to adopt me.

00:48:09

Generous that I never went hungry.

00:48:11

Generous I had my own room.

00:48:13

Generous I never had to pay a tuition bill

00:48:14

or room and board bill going through college.

00:48:16

My parents were were very, very generous in many, many ways.

00:48:20

And they also came from poverty.

00:48:24

And my grandfather was a, um, he was a preacher

00:48:29

and he was a preacher in a day and time

00:48:31

and in a community where the way you got paid

00:48:34

was by chickens.

00:48:35

People in the church would come by

00:48:37

and they would drop off chickens.

00:48:39

And so my mom would always talk about

00:48:40

how they used to have to have to

00:48:42

suck the chicken bones to get nutrients.

00:48:44

And the only cash they had was in his pocket

00:48:47

was the cash that he had from refereeing

00:48:49

high school football games on Saturday.

00:48:51

So when you come from those sorts of environments

00:48:54

and then you have money as an upper middle class,

00:48:56

my dad was a nuclear engineer.

00:49:01

He would troubleshoot nuclear reactors.

00:49:03

Pretty, pretty smart dude. Right?

00:49:04

So they have they have resources, but their resources

00:49:09

were meant to be saved, not to be spent.

00:49:12

So when the things I wanted, I just wouldn't

00:49:15

ever get the physical things that I wanted.

00:49:18

Again, I'm just complaining just to understand,

00:49:22

help you understand my background

00:49:24

and how this affects my understanding of God.

00:49:26

I've told this story before. I'll tell it again.

00:49:28

So stockings, hang stockings.

00:49:31

My mom would have stuff in the stockings. Wonderful.

00:49:33

And some of you are going.

00:49:34

Haha, a mom would hang stockings. Must be nice.

00:49:36

I know, I know, I know, it's all perspective.

00:49:39

And I would open up the stocking stuff

00:49:41

and at some point in my life I realized,

00:49:43

wait a minute.

00:49:46

This is all stuff to help the family budget.

00:49:49

Wait a minute. This is toothpaste.

00:49:51

This is toothbrush.

00:49:52

This is a spare pair of socks.

00:49:55

This is stuff that you would normally buy me

00:49:57

she's putting in here anyway. I know what's going on.

00:50:00

It's another way for them to save money.

00:50:03

Now, my pain in that, relative pain,

00:50:06

would come out in various ways because I'm not a blank canvas.

00:50:10

I would get so angry with my wife

00:50:12

when she would stuff stockings for my kids.

00:50:14

My kids get stockings like this. I'm not kidding.

00:50:17

They're big and the toe comes out.

00:50:19

These fake stockings and she's jamming stuff.

00:50:21

Can't even fit it all in there.

00:50:23

And it's stuff that should be wrapped under the tree.

00:50:26

I would get so mad when I'd see kids pulling this out

00:50:29

because I'd always be, you know,

00:50:31

doing Christmas Eve services and come back wasted.

00:50:33

And she's putting all this stuff together and not me.

00:50:36

So I'm just kind of getting in the morning.

00:50:38

And I look at these things and I would get so angry.

00:50:40

And I thought the anger was that

00:50:42

she was overspending the budget,

00:50:44

which basically she never has any budget.

00:50:45

Just buy what you want, honey.

00:50:47

Her gift language is -- Her love language is gift giving.

00:50:51

It's what she does.

00:50:53

And then I realized the reason I'm getting so angry here

00:50:57

is because I'm actually bitter towards my kids

00:51:01

because they're having the kind of Christmas

00:51:03

I would have liked to have had.

00:51:06

Strange how odd we get on our background,

00:51:09

how odd we get with things that

00:51:11

have and haven't happened with us.

00:51:15

And therefore I need a talk like this.

00:51:17

I need a truth like this that's in the Bible

00:51:20

to remind me whatever my parents do, don't do,

00:51:22

whatever faults I have as my parents towards my kids,

00:51:25

however outages I have in being a giver like God,

00:51:29

God has no outages in being a giver.

00:51:32

He may not give us what we want,

00:51:35

but He's given us what we need,

00:51:37

and He may fulfill even all of our wants.

00:51:40

Because the thing that God is about,

00:51:41

and I talked about this a couple weeks ago,

00:51:43

I'm saying it again, the main thing God's about

00:51:45

is not giving you and I what we want.

00:51:47

The thing He's about is you becoming like Him,

00:51:50

is you looking like Him.

00:51:52

So He will give you things to help you understand

00:51:55

who He is and to bring you along

00:51:56

in that spiritual development path,

00:51:58

because He's a giver from the beginning of the Bible

00:52:00

all the way to the end.

00:52:01

Let me just go through some examples,

00:52:02

some highlights from beginning the Bible to the end.

00:52:04

Here we go. God gives us an earth

00:52:08

and gives Adam and Eve life

00:52:10

and gives them freedom in the Garden of Eden,

00:52:13

and says,

00:52:14

"Go anywhere you want, eat whatever you want.

00:52:17

Name things. Just one thing I have,

00:52:19

this one tree over here, like, don't take that tree, \

00:52:22

the tree of knowledge of good and evil.

00:52:24

Don't, don't eat anything there."

00:52:26

And of course they do.

00:52:27

And as the story goes, then they realize,

00:52:30

"Oh, knowledge of good and evil, meaning

00:52:32

Now I've done evil. I've dishonored God.

00:52:34

So now I can have knowledge of good and evil.

00:52:36

And now we feel naked. We're like, oh man."

00:52:39

Adam and Eve are covering themselves up with fig leaves

00:52:43

and walking through the garden in shame,

00:52:45

seeing cellulite that they didn't see before.

00:52:47

I don't know why they're covering themselves up, right?

00:52:49

They're just upset with this.

00:52:51

And God is a giver, and God becomes the first entity

00:52:54

to kill something in the earth.

00:52:57

He sees these fig leaves aren't working,

00:52:59

and he kills an animal and strips it of the skin

00:53:02

and makes them clothes because He is a giver,

00:53:05

He gives them clothes even when they messed up.

00:53:09

And then He gives Abraham a vision

00:53:11

to be the head of a amazing country,

00:53:15

an amazing family that's going to outnumber the stars.

00:53:19

And He gives prophecies

00:53:20

and He gives priests to serve His people.

00:53:23

And Jesus comes in and He gives us the Son of God.

00:53:26

And He comes in and He blesses us with Him,

00:53:29

and He blesses us through teachings,

00:53:31

and He blesses us through all sorts of things,

00:53:34

miracles and exorcisms.

00:53:36

And He gives us the Holy Spirit.

00:53:38

He gives us forgiveness.

00:53:40

He's such a giver of forgiveness.

00:53:41

In fact, forgiveness isn't a New Testament thing.

00:53:44

It's a God thing.

00:53:45

It's an Old Testament and New Testament thing.

00:53:47

The book of Psalm 103:8. This is Old Testament.

00:53:51

Here's what it says.

00:53:52

The Lord is merciful and gracious,

00:53:55

slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love.

00:54:00

This is Old Testament. He's abounding in it.

00:54:02

He gives steadfast love. He gives second chances.

00:54:05

It's what He does because He is a giver.

00:54:08

God never runs out of chances for you.

00:54:11

God never runs out of grace for you.

00:54:13

He never runs out of forgiveness for you.

00:54:15

He never runs out of patience for you. Never, ever, ever.

00:54:18

He's always willing to give those things

00:54:20

because at his nature, He is a giver.

00:54:24

He gives us the Holy Spirit not to now just where

00:54:27

I try to find where the Spirit is, go to the Spirit.

00:54:30

He gives us the Holy Spirit.

00:54:31

He deposits the Holy Spirit in the life

00:54:34

of anybody who received Jesus.

00:54:36

We have the Holy Spirit.

00:54:38

And then out of that, He gives us the fruit of the Spirit.

00:54:41

We have certain characteristics

00:54:42

that start to come naturally forth in our life:

00:54:45

love, joy, peace, patience, kindness,

00:54:47

goodness, faithfulness, self-control.

00:54:50

All these sorts of things are things that God gives us.

00:54:53

You just find that you're trending more like Him

00:54:56

than you were before because He's given you the Spirit.

00:55:00

He gives us the Word of God in written form.

00:55:02

He gives life.

00:55:05

By the way, you may have known Him,

00:55:09

my father in law, my mother in law and father in law

00:55:13

moved from Pittsburgh to Cincinnati 25 years or so ago

00:55:17

to help Lib and I and start the church and everything.

00:55:19

And many of you may know Roger, Roger and Sally

00:55:21

were always out at the information center at Oakley

00:55:23

if you came to Oakley. He died just a couple of days ago.

00:55:27

Oh, I know. Oh. I'm sorry, I'm sorry.

00:55:29

It's okay, it's okay.

00:55:30

He's not been himself for a while,

00:55:33

and especially the last year or so,

00:55:35

just not himself and not doing well.

00:55:39

And he had a stroke and he's been in hospice

00:55:44

with a bed inside the house and morphine and all that stuff.

00:55:47

And he passed a few days ago.

00:55:49

And I shared that to say we're not grieving at all.

00:55:53

We're we're grieving over the last few years

00:55:55

because his life was not the life he would have wanted,

00:55:58

the kind of life that none of us want

00:55:59

when we get really, really old and long in tooth.

00:56:02

But nobody in our family is grieving at all

00:56:04

because we know he has eternal life.

00:56:06

We know he is one with God. That's not a fairy tale.

00:56:09

There's thousands of people my friend John Burke

00:56:11

has interviewed who've had near death experiences.

00:56:13

I believe that to my core, where there's no mourning at all

00:56:16

because God has given him eternal life.

00:56:18

And we're thankful that God gave Roger Neubauer to us

00:56:22

and that He gave him to me as a godly father figure

00:56:25

that I desperately needed, and quite frankly,

00:56:29

still crave to this day.

00:56:31

All that is signs of God being a giver.

00:56:36

In Matthew 7:9, Jesus wants to make sure that

00:56:40

we understand who His Heavenly Father is,

00:56:43

what a core competency of the Heavenly Father is.

00:56:47

And here's what Jesus says:

00:56:54

Which of you, if his Son asks him for

00:56:57

a Red Ryder BB gun with a compass of stock

00:56:59

and thing tells time.

00:57:00

Which of you, if his son asks for bread, will give him --

00:57:04

See, here's the thing, I've asked.

00:57:06

I asked for BB gun every every, every year,

00:57:09

every year, every Christmas, every birthday

00:57:11

ask for it again and again and again.

00:57:13

I did everything I could to get when everything.

00:57:15

And it never worked. Didn't.

00:57:17

It was like, that's why this movie

00:57:18

was just sunk in me so much.

00:57:20

And now I have real guns and a lot of them.

00:57:22

So let me keep going here.

00:57:24

Or which of you, if his son asks him for bread,

00:57:26

will give him a stone?

00:57:28

Or if he asks for fish, will give him a serpent?

00:57:30

If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts

00:57:34

to your children, how much more will your Father

00:57:37

who is in heaven give good things to those who ask Him?

00:57:41

So it's saying, if you Brian being evil,

00:57:44

relative to God speaking, if you being evil

00:57:47

because you get upset that your wife

00:57:48

gives generous gifts inside

00:57:51

of the stockings, but even you, Brian,

00:57:57

wouldn't give them a stone.

00:57:59

Your mom gave you some deodorant, whatever.

00:58:02

She wouldn't give you a scorpion.

00:58:03

You wouldn't give him a scorpion.

00:58:05

So we understand there's some basic things

00:58:07

that no earthly parent would do, some basic goodness.

00:58:11

Okay. So if you're at that basic level of goodness,

00:58:13

how much more will your Heavenly Father exceed that

00:58:19

and go beyond that because He has good desires,

00:58:23

good intentions for your life.

00:58:27

The major characters in the Christmas Story,

00:58:30

they are all givers. All of them are.

00:58:34

The wise men. The wise men come

00:58:38

and they give frankincense and myrrh.

00:58:40

Let's read it in Matthew 2:10, which just happens

00:58:43

right where this teaching I gave

00:58:45

about Jesus with good fathers.

00:58:46

Here's what says about the wise men,

00:58:48

or the Magi they're also known as.

00:58:50

When they saw the star, they rejoiced exceedingly.

00:58:53

And going into the house, they saw the child

00:58:55

with Mary his mother,

00:58:57

and they fell down and worshiped Him.

00:58:59

And then opening their treasure, they offered Him gifts,

00:59:03

gold, frankincense, and myrrh.

00:59:06

So these people who are not --

00:59:11

They're not believers in the Old Testament sense.

00:59:14

They're from a Zoroastrianism cult in Persia

00:59:18

who God chooses to use for some way, shape or form.

00:59:21

And maybe the reason He chooses to use them is

00:59:24

they have a heart to reflect Him

00:59:26

and that they are givers, like God is giver.

00:59:28

Because the Christmas story is all about giving.

00:59:32

They're giving gold, frankincense, and myrrh.

00:59:34

Mary gives her womb for the cause of Christmas.

00:59:40

She gives her womb and allows God to impregnate His seed,

00:59:45

implant His seed inside of her.

00:59:48

And this is a massive act of generosity,

00:59:51

because she knows this is going to be scandalous

00:59:55

in her day and in her time.

00:59:57

Joseph knows it's going to be scandalous,

00:59:59

knows it's going to be a problem,

01:00:01

knows people will be talking about him

01:00:02

because no one's going to believe this idea,

01:00:04

and they're going to think that Mary cheated on Joseph.

01:00:06

But Joseph, when he has a visitation from an angel,

01:00:10

he chooses to give his life to be faithful

01:00:13

to his engagement vow to his soon to be bride

01:00:18

and to be the earthly foster father, if you will,

01:00:24

of Jesus of Nazareth. He is a giver.

01:00:29

He represents who God is.

01:00:34

The identity of God, your Heavenly Hather

01:00:36

is one of a giver.

01:00:38

You have to know this and believe this

01:00:40

if you are to have any prayer life

01:00:42

that has any potency at all.

01:00:44

The identity of God is a giver.

01:00:45

You have to know this and believe this

01:00:47

if you are to have any intimacy and leaning into Him at all.

01:00:50

If you think he's stingy, you're never going to lean into Him.

01:00:54

You don't want to be around people who are stingy. Right?

01:00:56

I don't want to be around people who are stingy,

01:00:58

who have alligator arms whenever the bill comes for lunch.

01:01:01

"--Oh, let me get let me get --

01:01:02

Oh, okay. You got it."

01:01:05

Your God is a giver.

01:01:09

When I came to the end of this movie,

01:01:12

the final culminating scene,

01:01:15

pretty much the culminating scene, it touched me deeply

01:01:20

because we see the generosity of the father

01:01:24

here with Ralphie, who knows what he wants.

01:01:28

Let's watch it.

01:01:29

- Did you get everything you wanted?

01:01:32

- Almost.

01:01:33

- Almost, huh? Well, that's life.

01:01:37

Well, there's always next Christmas.

01:01:39

- Yeah.

01:01:41

- Hey. That's funny.

01:01:44

What's that over there behind the desk.

01:01:46

- Where?

01:01:48

- Behind the desk against the wall over there.

01:01:52

Why don't you go check it out? Go on.

01:02:11

- What did you put over there, honey.

01:02:13

- Santa Claus probably brought it.

01:02:52

- Oh, it was beautiful.

01:02:54

I could hardly wait to try it out.

01:02:57

- Do you know how to load it?

01:02:59

- Yeah. - Yeah?

01:03:02

That's right. Careful, they run all over.

01:03:21

Close her up. Close it up.

01:03:23

- Can I -- can I try it out, Ma? Can I?

01:03:27

- Okay, but outside.

01:03:29

Oh, I still say those things are dangerous.

01:03:32

No, no. Put on your galoshes and your coat.

01:03:34

It's cold out.

01:03:38

- I had one when I was eight years old.

01:03:42

- What if he hurts himself? Ralphie, your coat.

01:03:49

- Oh, man. So good. The Red Ryder.

01:03:54

Red Ryder with the --

01:03:57

How's it go? I just forgot it.

01:03:58

Compass in the stock and the thing that tells time.

01:04:01

Right, right, right, right, right.

01:04:02

You know, what I love about that scene

01:04:05

isn't just that Ralphie gets what he's wanted.

01:04:09

It's that you get to see the father's joy in being a giver.

01:04:15

That's the way your heavenly dad is. You know?

01:04:17

I want to spend the rest of our time here,

01:04:19

I want to pray for you and I want to pray for

01:04:21

the thing that you thought of earlier

01:04:24

that you love God to give you.

01:04:26

So let me pray for you right now.

01:04:28

God, you got a lot of children

01:04:30

with a lot of different needs

01:04:31

and a lot of different wants.

01:04:34

I thank You for having the kind of mind

01:04:36

that can hold it all together, and can focus on

01:04:40

each of us as individual children in a way

01:04:43

that no parent can focus with as many as you have.

01:04:48

And so I'm asking for the things that we want.

01:04:52

God, for those in here who want a child,

01:04:56

I'm asking for the womb to open up.

01:04:59

I'm asking for whatever the blockage is

01:05:01

and wherever the tubes are, I'm asking for whatever the --

01:05:04

Whatever's going on with the membranes,

01:05:06

whatever is going on with the sperm, whatever it is.

01:05:09

God, I'm asking that you would make a way

01:05:12

and you would give a child to the couples who want a child.

01:05:17

God, I'm praying. I'm praying for those

01:05:19

who've got a medical issue and a diagnosis

01:05:21

and there doesn't seem to be an answer for

01:05:23

or the answer is one they don't want.

01:05:25

I'm praying you'd make a way.

01:05:27

You'd make away with wisdom from medical professionals,

01:05:30

or you'd do something that's beyond

01:05:31

what medical professionals can do today.

01:05:33

God, I pray for you to be a giver and give healing.

01:05:37

God, I pray for the person who, man,

01:05:40

they just they want ends to meet.

01:05:43

They want less stress financially.

01:05:45

God, would you cause something to break?

01:05:47

Help them to see something they can do

01:05:49

to manage their finances differently.

01:05:52

Help them to have a different job

01:05:53

or a different offer that brings them in more cash.

01:05:57

God, I also pray, God, all these things are things that,

01:06:00

uh, you know, are needs, but there's also wants in here.

01:06:04

There's wants, and God, I'm praying for those.

01:06:07

You don't just provide our bare minimum needs.

01:06:11

You're generous. You provide things that we want.

01:06:13

So things that we wanted in here

01:06:16

maybe wanted that date.

01:06:18

Maybe we want that promotion.

01:06:20

Maybe we want thicker hair. Whatever.

01:06:25

Whatever it is, God, you are the giver

01:06:28

of every perfect gift the book of James says.

01:06:31

And I pray that you would give gifts

01:06:34

to your children this Christmas.

01:06:39

Not because you owe it to us,

01:06:40

not because we deserve it,

01:06:42

not because we've worked the religious system,

01:06:45

but simply because we want to recognize you

01:06:47

as a good Father who is a giver.

01:06:50

And we thank you for that, for who you are.

01:06:53

I pray these things in the name of Jesus. Amen. Amen.

01:06:57

You know, that was a great and much needed reminder

01:07:00

that I have a Father who gives,

01:07:02

and He gives good, great things for me.

01:07:06

- Yeah. Yeah. I loved Brian's prayer at the end.

01:07:09

Like, we all have things that we're asking God for

01:07:12

that we want to see breakthrough and that we want

01:07:14

to see God bring healing or hope to or whatever.

01:07:17

And I was actually reminded me of some research

01:07:21

that I heard recently. - Okay.

01:07:22

- It was the largest study ever done,

01:07:25

over 100,000 people, ages 8 to 80.

01:07:28

And when they did this one thing,

01:07:30

they experienced huge improvements in life,

01:07:33

like, decreases in things like anxiety

01:07:35

and loneliness by 30% each.

01:07:38

Even alcohol abuse down by 62%.

01:07:41

Anxiety, all, all kinds of things that

01:07:44

people would ask God for help with

01:07:46

they experienced huge breakthrough by doing one thing.

01:07:48

Do you know what the one thing was?

01:07:50

- No, what is it?

01:07:52

- Reading your Bible at least four days a week.

01:07:55

If you read your Bible at least four days a week,

01:07:58

the research would show that

01:08:00

you will experience improvements in these areas

01:08:03

of your life and like two dozen more

01:08:04

that I don't have time to talk about.

01:08:06

And it's for those reasons and so many more,

01:08:09

we're actually gonna be doing something special

01:08:11

that we've never done before

01:08:12

as a whole Crossroads community.

01:08:14

In 2026, we are going to be reading through

01:08:16

the entire Bible in a year as a community.

01:08:19

- Wow. Well, that is either exciting news for some of us

01:08:23

or daunting news, especially if you have tried

01:08:27

and failed at that before, which I guess makes two of us.

01:08:31

- Yeah. Yeah. Last year.

01:08:32

- But you know what?

01:08:33

I have a couple friends that have succeeded in this,

01:08:36

and I think the difference was I was doing it alone.

01:08:38

They did it in community. - That's right.

01:08:40

- And I think that's how we're going to do it.

01:08:42

In fact, that is how we're going to do it

01:08:44

through the Crossroads App.

01:08:45

- Right. In the Crossroads App in 2026,

01:08:47

we're going to be doing this thing together

01:08:49

where we can interact, where we can comment,

01:08:51

where we can know what each other's sort of learning

01:08:54

or getting out of the scriptures

01:08:55

so that we're not, not, not going through this alone.

01:08:59

So the only thing you need to do now, this is for 2026.

01:09:02

The only thing you need to do right now

01:09:03

is just download the Crossroads Anywhere app,

01:09:05

get it on your phone, get it ready.

01:09:07

And then come January 1st, 2026,

01:09:10

we're going to jump into this together.

01:09:12

- Hey, we're so glad you joined us this week

01:09:14

and we'll see you in the next one.

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