WEBVTT
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Grace, mercy and peace be yours this day from God our Father, and from
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our Lord and savior, Jesus Christ.
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Amen.
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Everyone loves a good journey.
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Humor me for a minute.
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Close your eyes.
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Close them.
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Picture your favorite trip you've ever been on.
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Remember the sights along the way, the smells, the people who joined
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you.
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Challenges overcome and the joy found
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at journey's end.
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Feel free to open your eyes.
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Today, I'd invite all of you to think of the Christian life as a
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journey.
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It's the great adventure of our lives, interacting with God's creation
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and everyone in it.
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It's glorious.
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Yet there are times when the journey becomes too difficult to bear.
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Now, let me tell you about a journey that I went on recently.
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Now, I know that not many of you know me.
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Some do.
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But if there's one hobby that I really enjoy, I love downhill skiing.
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It is such a joy for me, and it's one of the few things that I can do
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really well.
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Like, I really enjoy it as a passion that me and my family share.
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Over Winterm, we drove out west to Colorado for four days, and we
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took turns falling down the mountains out there.
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It was absolutely beautiful.
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I loved it.
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There's no room for distractions when your heart is into what you're
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doing.
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And let me tell you, my heart is in it
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when I'm skiing. I feel locked in in the groove.
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I have a passion for it.
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I adore it.
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There's something about for me racing down a mountainside, feeling the
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sharp, cold wind on my face, and taking in the striking, rugged beauty
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of God's creation.
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Day one out there, amazing.
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Day two, even better than I expected.
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But on day three, a bit of a problem happened to me.
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Now, you see, all the way back in
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High school.
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You got to imagine younger and dumber high school
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James here for a minute.
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I ended up injuring my knee pretty badly.
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I needed surgery on it.
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And because I was young and dumb and in high school, I didn't think to
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rehab it as properly as I should have.
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And when I tend to overextend myself physically, I ended up getting in
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a bit more pain.
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So day three of skiing happens.
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I wake up.
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I get up ready for bed, jump to my feet in excitement, and I all be
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buckle out of pain.
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I was crushed, and my joy for the day evaporated as quickly as it
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started.
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It's hard to enjoy the journey when you're distracted by your wounds.
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What wounds distract you on your Christian journey?
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And this takes us to the audience of our Old Testament reading for
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today, the children of Israel on the Plains of Moab.
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They've been on an epic journey, a generational journey.
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It's a young, vibrant crowd.
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There's an excitement in the air.
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The Promised Land looms out in the distance, and the people are
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chomping at the bit to get to where they've been promised to go to.
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But their leader, Moses, makes these young people sit still, take
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their time, and listen to a nice long sermon about their history.
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The parents of these people had seen miraculous things.
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They were brought up out of slavery in Egypt.
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They witnessed their salvation on the shores of the Red Sea, and they
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saw the glory of God descending from the cloud on Sinai.
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These people saw God in their full glory.
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And what did they do?
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They resented Him at every turn.
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They were wounded, deeply wounded.
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Now, I'm not talking about a physical wound, not like my knee, but it
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sure cut to the heart.
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Their wound was that they did not trust in the Lord, their God.
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That whole generation doubted Him at every turn.
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Their wound paralyzed them so much that it made their journey cease.
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How's your Christian journey going?
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Like getting knee pain while skiing.
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It's remarkable how even a little pain or ache can take your heart out
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of it.
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Is your heart in the journey, or are you just limping along,
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distracted by a wound?
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Does that wound seem to fester when you hear the words for Moses
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today?
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See, I have set before you today life and death, good and evil.
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But if your heart turns away and you do not hear but are drawn away to
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worship other gods and serve them, you will surely perish.
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This fork in the road is is not a minor theme.
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Psalm one draws on it
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too. Blessed is the man who walks not in the council of the wicked, nor
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stands in the seat of scoffers, but his delight is in the law of the
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Lord, and he meditates on a day and night.
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But, hey, we're seminary students, and we might be quick to dismiss
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this as some Old Testament thing.
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We really don't need to worry about this, right?
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The earliest Christian writing, The Didache, draws on this theme, too.
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There are two ways the way of life and the way of death.
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Keeping on the way of life matters, but our wounds can cripple us
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along our journey.
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Let me tell you about another wound I have.
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It's a lack of trust
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similar to the Israelites. I feel a desperate need to succeed.
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I fear failure at every possible turn.
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It permeates into every task I do, every relationship I have.
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Did I pay attention enough in that lecture?
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Did I really try on that paper?
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Or as many of my profs probably think, did I turn in four more pages
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of fluff?
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Are these classes actually benefiting me long term?
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Do I let that person down again that genuinely cares for me?
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I don't want to fail others, and I feel a deep sense of shame whenever
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I do.
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It makes me distance myself from others, become a rampant
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individualist, and I push away everyone else that's trying to help.
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The very thing that I crave as my idol of success is the very thing
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that wounds me to the core.
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Maybe you're a lot like me.
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Maybe you're wounded in the same way.
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Or maybe maybe not.
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Maybe you're wounded at anger at someone else.
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I'm not talking about that guy that cuts you off in traffic, that guy
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that just seems to get under your skin and you hate even breathing the
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same air as him.
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Or maybe you fear for your security.
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Observing geopolitical conflicts.
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The culture that we live in today, even to the recent string of car
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robberies that are rampant in our community, you wonder about security
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for you, for your family.
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You and I all have wounds that we all share.
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We're wounded in very unique ways, and they all stem from a lack of
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trust in God to take care of us.
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And like the Israelites that came before us, it can be so easy for us
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to focus on our wounds and fail to endure the Christian journey.
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But our God doesn't leave us without help.
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The Lord cares deeply for his people from generation to generation for
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ages.
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When the Israelites did not follow the covenant, they swore on the
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Plains of Moab, he sent judges and prophets to call his people back
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to repentance.
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He went out of his way for his people time and time and time again.
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And he did this because God loves his people, despite their wounds,
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despite all of our lack of trust.
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And in due time, that love became incarnate in the person of Jesus
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Christ.
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In his death and his resurrection, Jesus heals all of our wounds.
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He heals my wound of the need to succeed, loving me despite all of my
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failures, which are many.
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Think of the wounds you harbor deep, deep down.
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The ones you wish that no one else knew about.
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Christ, heals us.
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Heals you of all of your wounds.
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And now that we're healed, what are we called to do?
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Do we stay faced down in the dirt of the Christian journey?
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Do you really think back to my skiing story.
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I stayed put once my knee started to feel better.
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By the power of the Holy Spirit, we get back up and live life
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according to his will.
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As we commemorate the confessor Philip Melanchthon today, and as I have
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a nice large group of nerds I mean, seminarians in front of me, I
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thought it appropriate to quote him today. The law always accuses
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but not only yes, the law accuses.
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Even though I walk on my knee just fine, it still has scar tissue that
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I'll deal with until Christ's second coming.
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While I might be fine in trusting God right now.
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I will always struggle with trusting in my own success rather than God
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Himself.
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All of us will struggle with our wounds.
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And if you don't believe that, well, you really don't need to be here.
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After all, this is a hospital for the broken, not a museum for the
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righteous.
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The law always accuses.
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But that's not all it does.
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The Law demonstrates God's will for his creation, guiding us along on
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our journey.
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And we follow the one who is our God, Jesus Christ.
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He is the living embodiment of his will for his creation.
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He's what it means to be fully human.
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And as our wounds heal, as we rise up and we stride after his steps,
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we look to his example and follow Him.
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Now, we know we will never measure up to His standard, but we're
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called to do it anyway.
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We follow Paul's words as we press on to the goal, following in
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Christ's footsteps.
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We follow Christ's command to the woman caught in adultery to go now
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and sin no more.
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We follow Christ's command to Peter on the shores of the Sea of
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Galilee at the end of John's Gospel to follow Him.
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We follow the example that's been laid out before us in Christ Jesus.
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It guides us along as we strive in this journey of the Christian
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life, teaching us what it means to live according to His Father's
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will.
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And the will of God is so much more than just telling us how to live
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our lives.
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It tells us how to truly live.
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For God willed the planets into motion and set the stars into the
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heaven
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by His word. The will of God is present in gravity, holding us to this
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creation.
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It's present in the very air that we breathe
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and it's all a gift from Him.
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God's will is how He designed us to live in His creation, locking us
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into the groove of what God designed us to be.
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Like me, racing down a mountainside on a ski hill. Like the Israelites
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chomping at the bit to get into the Promised Land.
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God wants you and I to take heart in the journey of our lives and all
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we encounter along the way.
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So enjoy the great adventure of our lives, sojourn with healed wounds
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and strive to embody His will.
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Enjoy the sights you encounter, the smells, the people you travel
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with, the obstacles overcome and the joy found at the journey's end.
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Everyone loves a good journey.
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Take heart in the Christian one.
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Amen.
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Now may the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, guard
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your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.
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amen.