well hey everybody man it was an exciting week for the Jesse family this week and because we're family I always
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like to share those personal insights with you so we're grandparents now here's a little picture of Macy Ann and
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we're all excited and and uh man we're just uh thrilled at what God's doing in our family and our life thank you for
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all your prayers pretty exciting I'm so glad you're here from all of our different locations from Bristol and
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Marion and Abington out in Chapel up in Bluefield over in country all of our
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cafes and those of you that are traveling this weekend I know it's sort of last weekend of summer so if you're
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watching on TV or you're watching online or on your phone just welcome so glad you're here so last week if you were
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here it was baptism week but also sort of began to kick off this series that we're calling the path of purpose sort
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of helping you find your way as you follow Jesus and what happens in your life when you follow Jesus and obey his
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commands it's pretty incredible so last week we looked at the first and premium purpose of our life and that is to be
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loved by God now today what I want to do is I want to look I want to build on this it's going to be sort of
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foundational over the next few weeks I want to look at the second purpose of our life and it's then it's this not
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only have you been called to be loved by God but you've also been called to
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belong to belong you say well to belong to what well to belong to God's church
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and I want to talk to you about this because in the culture today it seems like there's a lot of people who are a
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little negative toward the church and maybe you've had a bad experience in a church but I want to tell you this is God's plan for your life and it's the
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second purpose in which you've been created notice here in Hebrews chapter 2 verse 10. God is the one who made all
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things and all things are for his glory he wanted to have many children share in
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his glory god created the entire universe because God wanted a family and
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God doesn't want his children to be orphans he wants us to be connected so he puts them in a family so not only did
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God make you to love you and God only did God make you to be a part of his family but this has been his plan from
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the beginning of time I love how Paul describes it in Ephesians chapter one this is what he says his unchanging plan
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has always been to adopt us into his own family by bringing us to himself through
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Jesus Christ so again the first purpose of my life is that I Be Loved by God but
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the second purpose of my life is that I belong to his family and here's what I
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want you to know God's family is called the church it's called The Church The
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Church of Jesus Christ it's very clear First Timothy Paul says this to Timothy in chapter 3 he says I'm writing to you
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so you will know how to live in the family of God that family is the Church
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of the Living God the Supreme support and foundation of the truth so God has
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formed me and he's formed you for his family his family's called the church and I am called and you are called to
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belong to that family I'm called to belong to his church again this is all
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throughout the New Testament Ephesians chapter 2 verse 19 is what Paul says he says so now you're no longer visitors or
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strangers now you are citizens together with God's holy people you belong to
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God's family in other words the church is not some building that we go to but
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the church is something that we belong to it's not an event it's not a location the church really and the family here is
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relationship we worship here we have a place here together but you're the church the church is the people who have
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given their lives to Jesus Christ we're the people of God now what I want to do with you this weekend is I want to share
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with you the benefits of belonging to the church to God's family because there
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are some tremendous benefits to belonging to the church I want to convince you even in a culture that says
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it's not important that it is still important it's part of God's plan for
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your life because God designs his family the church to meet your five deepest
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needs matter of fact I believe in many theologians would agree with me on this that the only way you can get your five
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deepest needs met is when you belong to God's family the church now it's real
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interesting in scripture the church is referred to by these different metaphors
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these different words and there's five of them I want to look at all five of them today and here's what these
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metaphors are the church is called the family the church is called the temple the church is called a body church is
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called A Flock and the the church is called a garden and in all five of these metaphors it
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represents that these are the benefits when we understand this about the Church
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of Jesus Christ these are the benefits that actually parallel with the metaphor to help us understand why we need to
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belong to God's family these are implications for our life so let's look at the first benefit in God's family
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it's the first metaphor I learned my true identity now I understand last week
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that we uh we looked at this when Pastor Steve talked I talked a little bit about it last week and Pastor Steve did a
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great job when we looked at a man called Otto and and uh just talking about identity and such but today I want to go
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back over that and I want to look a little bit on how I learned my true identity and it's actually in the church
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and being a part of the Church of Jesus Christ so you're not going to learn your identity from the world you know you're
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not going to learn your identity from your parents you're not going to learn your identity from your peers or anybody else us your true identity can only be
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found when you're in relationship in God's family now we're all concerned about our identity I mean especially
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those of you that are a little younger as you get older it seems like I don't care as much as what I used to but the
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clothes we wear you know we want to wear a certain brand my kids want to wear a certain brand of clothes I can't even
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pronounce what they often want me to buy them but I refuse to because anything called lemon Lulu something I just like
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I'm not doing it you know it sounds crazy but I have my Starbucks cup and uh
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you know we all have our Apple stuff our Apple iPhone because those are the cool
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things and those are the things that really bring us to who we need to be and many of us find our identity in the
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clothes we wear or the brands we use or the logos that we attach ourselves to but the truth is most of our identity
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comes from our relationships for good or bad and if you had good relationships you probably have a good identity you
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had bad relationships your identity is much more difficult I'm a son I'm a
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father I'm a husband I'm now a grandfather I'm team member here at the
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church I'm a small group member I'm a pastor all these are relationships that
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Define who I am and you know who you are as you look at the relationships you are
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involved with in other people's lives so what that means is if my connections or my relationships get broken and my
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connections or relationships are poor then I have a hard time in understanding
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who I am it's been interesting over the past few weeks how many of you have struggled with this that you're
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struggling in your identity because you've put your identity in these things that have let you down
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those of you that are going or going through a divorce and all of a sudden in the pain of that
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relationship that's been broken the question that you now are asking is Sue
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Emma because your identity was tied to your spouse or those of you that have been married for a long time and your
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spouse your loved one dies and it's very common then to ask this question well who am I now as a single person
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or maybe your identities try tied to your work and you get laid off or you lose your job and all of a sudden you
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begin to think well who am I and what is my identity so our identity is actually
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tied to our relationship so how do I know who I really am well here's some
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good news this is great news and we find that here in Ephesians chapter 2 verse
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19 and this is what Paul says he says you are members of God's very own family
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if you've received Jesus Christ into your life he's talking to these Believers here at the church at Ephesus
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and he says if you're a child of God and you've asked Christ into your life you are members of God's own family
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and he says you belong in God's household with every other Christian and
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it doesn't matter then what other families you had your most important family is God's family and every time I
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teach on this I get some pushback and I know some of you are going to disagree with me and feel free to disagree with
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me but this is true if you study the scripture I think there's a there's a
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true case for this I hate to say this to you and it may shock some of you but your spiritual family is actually more
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important than your physical family and that's hard for us to understand it's hard for us to really digest as a child
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of God but the reason that God did it this way is because no physical family lasts I mean they just don't people grow
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up they move away people get divorced people die no physical family lasts and
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we all know this but your spiritual family is going to last forever and ever and ever and when you get your identity
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from your spiritual family that you're a child of God been born again and saved by Jesus Christ you're going to
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long-term identity that can never be taken away no matter what happens to you in your life and the problem is we go
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out trying to look for identity and things that aren't going to last so if you want your identity to last put it in
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something that's never going to change and the Bible says that God's family the church is going to go on for all
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eternity do you know the symbol of being in God's family well we saw it last weekend it's baptism
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and if you're here today and you've never been baptized even though we celebrated it last week I'm going to
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talk about the end of the message today but it's not too late you can be baptized today and I would encourage you
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to follow the lord in baptism establish your identity that you're a child of his
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it's part of being in the family of God it's the symbol of being in God's family
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if you haven't been baptized you need to do that here notice in Acts chapter 2 those who believed what Peter had said
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were baptized and added to the church that very day about 3 000 the same day
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that trusted Christ so if you believe then get baptized and get added to the church family that's the first metaphor
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I'm in a family and my family helps me to understand my identity now what's the
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second matter for well uh it's called the temple the church the family of God
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is called the Temple now it's interesting in other words it's like a
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building that we have here or the location you're in and basically this
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building is built for God's glory it's a building where God's family comes
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together and his presence dwells and it's where God is loved where God is
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honored and where God is worshiped Paul States this in First Corinthians 3 16 he
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says don't you realize that all of you together are the temple of God and his
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Spirit lives in you he's talking about the church when we're gathered together now why did God choose a temple as one
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of the metaphors of what it's like to be in the family in the church well because
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in a building all of the connected Parts support each other now you've probably
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built a house before you built some building before you may have been here when they were building this building
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and there's a bunch of parts scattered all around the ground but as those parts go together and form a building they all
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are connected and they all support each other so here's the second benefit of belonging to the family of God in God's
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Temple I'm supported by others this is extremely important in the culture in which we live I'm not out there on my
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own I'm not a Lone Ranger and so many of you that emailed and talked to me you're struggling with loneliness because
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you're out there on your own you haven't gotten back involved in person in worshiping God and you know I I'm so
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grateful for online and I'm grateful for TV but I'm telling you something there's
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something about joining with other believers together where we understand we're supported by those Believers we're
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just not by ourselves you know the strongest structure of a building is like the church and it's when we support
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and hold each other up in a building all the connected Parts need each other and
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they're held together by one another they're going to be some times in your life where you need some other people to
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hold you together because you're falling apart it's going to happen and if you're not in the building of God the temple of
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God the family of God the Church of God and you're not connected connected and you're disconnected from the temple of
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God nothing's going to hold you together and you're going to fall apart that's the reason Paul teaches over and over on
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this in Ephesians 2 he goes back to the Ephesian church and he says this in Christ the whole body or building is
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joined together and Rises to become a holy Temple in the Lord and in him he's
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talking in Jesus you too are being built together to become a dwelling in which
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God Lives by his spirit so we gather together as a family of God in this
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temple in this building and it gives us stability when we go through difficult times we have other people to lean on
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for support just like every piece of this building is leaning on each other to make a stable safe place for us the
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family of God to come to worship and praise him we're sort of like God's Legos my son Chris he loves Legos you
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know Legos are designed to be connected connected to other Legos I mean if the Lego is not connected to another Lego
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what it's worthless and if you connect Legos together man you can build all
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kinds of really cool stuff so if you're a believer in Christ you're one of God's
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Legos and you were designed for connection now here at Highlands the way
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we do this we it's really a unique way I don't know other churches that do it this way but we just decided we're going
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to give you an opportunity to connect with us and this is how you do it you can go online to our website and you
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look at those tabs and there's one that says next steps and you click on next steps and then it talks to you about
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membership and you go to that membership Tab and you see everything that we believe all of our Doctrine all of our
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policy you get to see who we are as a church and you can actually join and become a part of our church family all
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online and then when you do that when you sign that when you become part of that then our campus pastors know you've
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done that they'll get up with you you have some face to face with them and we'll get you connected in God's family now why is this important well because
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again the biggest epidemic in our society today is loneliness and somebody
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who talks to hundreds and hundreds of people there are so many lonely people in our world and they feel disconnected
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it's interesting in it that we have more technology to connect us than we've ever
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had in the history of time and yet we have more people who feel disconnected than ever before particularly young
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people teenagers college students so the answer get connected to the church get
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connected to the family of God well here's the third description of the church in scripture it's called a body
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so we're a temple we're a family and now the church is likened to a body the
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Bible says in First Corinthians chapter 12 verse 27 now you is talking about Christians are the body of Christ and
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each one of you is a part of it now what does this matter for being a body mean well it means that when you look at our
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body we all have different parts and every part of our body is connected to the other and in order to have a healthy
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body all the parts of our body need to function according to the gift set that God's given us and even though we're all
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different parts we in the church should all be connected together and when we're all connected together and in unity then
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together the church can accomplish what we can never do on our own we talk about
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above and beyond a lot at Highlands well we're not going to go above and beyond
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unless we're a unified body all pulling for the same vision to go out and
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transform people and transform places through Jesus so the third benefit of
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belonging to a church family is this in Christ's body I discover my unique value
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so I learned my identity as being part of God's family I get stability in God's
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Temple and God's Building but I learned my unique value as part of the body of
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Jesus Christ now Paul teaches this in Romans 12 verse four and five this is what he says
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he says just as there are many parts to our bodies so it is with Christ's body
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we are all parts of it and it takes every one of us to make it complete for
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we each have different work to do and catch this last statement we belong to each other and each of us needs all the
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other so the body of Christ the church is made up of all these different parts
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I mean look around you know does anybody look like you no God made us all unique
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he designed his family that way because God loves diversity and God loves variety now we're all needed to make his
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family the body complete nobody out here can say well I'm not important I'm not
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needed in a family of God no you're needed I don't think this happens very much
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anymore but you know when we were growing up we were porn and you could buy a jigsaw puzzle for a few bucks and
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that could entertain the kids for a week you know and my dad would buy these thousand piece jigsaw puzzles and you
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know work on it for a week you're going to lose a few pieces always lost a couple and you could put hundreds of
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pieces together but what was the glaring thing that you saw in the completed
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jigsaw puzzle if you had pieces missing it was not all those that were joined together it was the pieces that we're
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missing it says that we all have a work to do every one of us is needed we all
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have different roles so we all have different roles to play different things to do but the thing is we belong to each
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other you just don't belong to God oh that's awesome but we belong to each
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other and it says that every one of us needs all the others in other words you
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can't be who God made you to be without a church family without being connected to his body because we need each other
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let's look at the fourth one the fourth metaphor and this one's unique is the
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church is referred to in the Bible as a flock a flock it's a flock a flock of
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sheep basically is what the scripture refers to so in God's family we learn
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identity in God's Temple we're supported by each other in his body we discover
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our own unique value that we all belong to one another and in God's flock it's
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interesting that we're actually banded together I love how Psalm 100 verse 3
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says this he says God made us and we're his we're his people the Sheep of his
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pasture now you're probably thinking Hmm so those other three I was okay with but
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now you're saying I'm a sheep in a flock well that doesn't sound too appealing but actually sheep they're pretty
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innocent animals they're they're pretty neat animals they have no natural defense against predators so they have
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to be protected by Shepherds and Jesus is the ultimate Shepherd of his family and then there's guys like me and Pastor
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Steve Pastor Dave Pastor Brad you know we have all these other pastors at our
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locations Pastor Tyler here and you know we have other Shepherds that are also
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our job and we're going to give an account to God one day of how we protected the flock that he placed in
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front of us to leave and I don't know about these other guys but that's humbling to me and I take that seriously
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you know um I was raised on a farm and we had cows and you don't have to care for cows like
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you care for sheep sheep are pretty dependent on a Shepherd to protect them but I want to read one of the most
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famous chapters in all the Bible and it talks about our role as sheep and God
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being Our Shepherd Psalm 23 you've heard it many many times I love it out of the living Bible and this translation says
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this he says because the Lord think about this this is you if you're a sheep if you're a child of God because the
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Lord is my shepherd I have everything that I need he lets me rest in metagrass as he leads
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me beside quiet streams he gives me new Strength he helps me to do what honors
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him the most even when I'm walking through dark Valley of Death I will not
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be afraid for you are close Poseidon the guard and guiding all the way you
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provide delicious food for me in the presence of my enemies you welcome me as your guest blessings overflow your
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goodness and unfailing kindness shall we shall be with me all my life and
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afterwards I will live with you forever in your home amen I read that and I'm
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thinking I want to be a sheep that sounds pretty daggone good to me now we're talking well let me read what
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Jesus said about Shepherds and flocks and sheep over in John chapter 10 this
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is what he says he says I am the Good Shepherd and the Good Shepherd lays down
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his life for a sheep no one will ever be able to snatch my sheep out of my hand
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we have a saying in the church that once you belong to God's family you're always in God's family nothing you can do will
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ever take you out of God's family but you're adopted as a son or a daughter forever in God's family when you trust
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in Jesus Christ pretty incredible that he refers the family of God as a flock
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of sheep now I want to be a sheep right so the fourth benefit of being connected to the church is in God's flock I'm
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protected and I'm cared for now I got some other people looking out for me some other pastors and the Lord himself
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I enjoy Safety and Security I got a shepherd and that makes me more
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confident it makes me less anxious and less fearful I know God's protecting me
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because I'm in his flock so the final description final metaphor of the church
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is the church is likened as a garden as a garden a garden specifically probably more of a
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Vineyard is probably what the scripture is really teaching here but the Bible says in John 15 you know this famous
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scripture Jesus said that I'm the True Vine I'm the vine and my father The
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Gardener you know you are the branches we as God's children we're the branches he's the vine we're the branches so what
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kind of lesson do we get out of this well really what Jesus is liking in the church family too is he wants us to be
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fruitful he wants us to bear fruit he wants our lives to be productive he
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wants us to make a difference with the life he has created and purposed within
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us and I think we get this I mean I don't know anybody no matter where I go all over the world everybody wants to
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end their life feeling like they didn't waste their life that they were productive with their life they did
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something that counted with their life I hope you feel that way I know I feel that way so here's the fifth benefit
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that we get from being a part of God's family in God's Garden my life becomes
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productive it becomes fruitful I do something with my life notice here in
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the Bible in John 15 verse 4 and 5 Jesus says this a branch cannot bear fruit if
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it's severed from the Vine and you cannot be fruitful apart from me
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Jesus says I am the vine you're the branches those who remain in me and I in
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them will produce much fruit but apart from me you can do nothing the point is
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a disconnected branch it can't bear fruit and God has all
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kinds of fruit that he wants to bear in your life it's pretty amazing what he wants to do through you but you can't
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bear fruit you know none of that fruit is going to come from your life unless you're connected to Jesus and to
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his church family you got to be connected to the Vine so we'll review were built into the building we're
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dependent on each other we need each other we're part of the body we're a member of his family we're sheep
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in the flock and our our life becomes productive and
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fruit bearing when we're part of the garden the family of God you know all these metaphors that the
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scripture talks about his family basically sums up that nothing happens
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that God intends for your life until you get connected he wants you to be
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connected to his family to his church let me say another way in your life if
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you really live the life that God made you to live that you need the power to live on you need people to live with you
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need principles to live by you need a plan to live out you need a purpose to live for
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and where are you going to get that outside the church I love our church all right man I I love
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this place and I would say you're not going to get that anywhere so let me just ask you this question
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here's my one question as we sort of wrap this up why should you remain
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disconnected when a church like Highlands has so much to offer you and your family your kids
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oh you're not going to get this anywhere else I I just I don't want you to be
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disconnected man I want you to be a part of all that God's doing here in this
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incredible family what are you waiting on so as I wrap it up I would just say a
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couple of things first to those of you who have been coming to Highlands and you attend but you really don't belong
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I think now's your time I just what are you waiting on man well you've you've
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checked us out enough you know who we are you need to belong this is God's
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plan for you matter of fact in some ways we're disobedient when we're not part of the local church
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the church family he created us it's one of the purposes of our life you need to be involved you and your family
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and maybe all your life you've tried to fit in somewhere and you've tried to belong and you've looked for places to
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belong and Truth is you'd say you know what Pastor I I just don't feel like I've ever belonged anywhere
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well you do here this is a family you belong here it's a family that's open to you and you
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are welcome to belong to the family of God here so what do you do well again go
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to the website you check us out and you join right online then that'll connect you with one of our campus pastors and
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man you can get connected to the family of God you know one of the things really crazy to me and I hear this a lot in the
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culture is people will say well you know preacher I love Jesus huh I don't love the church now I want
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to be frank with you that's the stupidest thing I've ever heard anybody say I mean you're talking about the
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church that was designed to meet your deepest needs I mean guys you can't be
29:48
what God intended for you to be on this Earth without being connected
29:53
to his family the church when you're talking down about the church I want you
29:58
to understand something you're talking about the Bride of Jesus Christ you like
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somebody talking about your bride that way I don't think so it's God's family it's God's flock it's God's purpose for
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your life you are called to belong to God's family
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so I'll challenge you to do that let's pray God thank you so much for
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all that you're doing in this family I am humbled every day that I get to be a
30:29
part of this incredible group of people and Lord I know since I've been here 13
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years I'm better our family's better our kids are better we're stronger in our
30:41
marriage God our kids know you more because they've been involved in Youth
30:47
and children's ministry here we've had volunteers that have cared for them and wrapped their arms around them and help
30:54
them and Lord when our families gone through difficult times and we've had losses and
30:59
we've had situations where we feel like we're falling apart
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tons of people from this family have called come by cared for us and loved on
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us it's part of being in a family and to all of you who are disconnected
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and you say oh I love Jesus but I don't want anything to do with the church I
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don't I just want to say I don't know where he got that theology it's not biblical the church is not perfect
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but it is a part of where God wants you to be and I would encourage you to belong if
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you can't do it here with joy find some place and find a family that you can belong to
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I just want to encourage you to belong to our family because I think it's incredible and I think your whole family
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will prosper as we get involved and connected to the local church
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Lord we love you today if there's one here that's never trusted you may today be the day of salvation just ask Jesus
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Christ to come into your heart and life and forgive you of your sin and that's the first step of receiving the love
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that God has for you he talked about this last week and many of you made a decision to follow Christ your next step
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would be baptized and then the next step is to join the family of God so I pray
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that many Lord by your holy spirit will feel led to do this in the days ahead thank you for expanding and growing the
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family here we love you we ask all these things in Christ's name amen hey before
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we wrap up today I just want to share with you last weekend was incredible we had 42 people take their next step of
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faith and be baptized all across all of our locations isn't that amazing let's just give God a hand for that so amazing
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we had football players from Emory take their step hey here's the neat thing we
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had a lady who was actually watching on TV and if you were here last week remember I said if you're watching on TV
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get up get out to your car drive to the location and there was a lady who was watching on TV we'd already packed up
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the hamburgers we'd already taken down all the tables and all of a sudden Jade's still here and she says hey
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there's a lady here that came from watching on TV and she wants to be baptized so Tyler came back out here and
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changed clothes and baptized her and God is doing some neat things in our family
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I'm so glad you're a part of it we have the best days ahead so let's just thank God for all that he's doing today man I
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love you guys the best is yet to come