Discipleship and Preparing for Holy Week

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When the Bible says that God made him sin, who knew no sin, that we might become the righteousness of God in him.

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What he's saying is not only that God puts our sins on Jesus, so he dies the death.

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We should have died.

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We're also told that God puts his righteousness on us.

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He died, the death, we should have died and lived the life.

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We should have lived both.

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So it's not just that God pardoned you and says, now you get out of jail free.

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He treats you as if you had done everything that Jesus has ever done.

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Think about that.

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That's too big.

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Oh, you mean God is actually treating me.

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If I've put my trust and hope in Jesus Christ, God treats me as if I had done everything Jesus had ever done.

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Yes.

Announcer: 00:01:04

Welcome to the Everyday Disciple podcast where you'll learn how to live with greater intentionality.

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and integrated Faith that naturally fits into every area of life.

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In other words, discipleship as a lifestyle, this is the stuff your parents, pastors, and seminary professors probably forgot to tell you.

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And now here's your host Caesar.

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Kalinowski

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how you doing?

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Wow.

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Well, I'll tell you that.

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A couple of weeks around here have sure been busy.

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Maybe you joined me for the Everyday Disciple challenge, but that thing was amazing again, but wow.

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It keeps us very, very busy.

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In fact, I hope if you didn't join us, maybe you still follow along here on the podcast because I posted those five special episodes.

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The four days of the.

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Plus last week, a little bonus episode on People of Peace.

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And maybe you've heard me talk about that again, but as we talk through that for the challenge folks, I just felt like it was worth sharing that topic again.

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Cause I, you know, come up with different things and we're in a little different context these days.

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And also I hope you really enjoyed all those extra episodes.

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We normallhy.

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Put out one a week, but there's been five here in the last two.

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Anyway, the dust is finally settling and I got to say what a great bunch of folks who have joined us in the Everyday Disciple incubator that came through the challenge and they decided they wanted to keep going on to get that full framework for discipleship.

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And I could not be more excited to be on this journey with them and, uh, help pass on all the things that God's shown us here, how to make disciples in everyday life.

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Becoming a reality for them and their families and their churches to God is so good.

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Hey, if you've not joined us over in the Everyday Disciple Podcast group on Facebook, yet, would you do that?

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I'd love to see in there.

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Love to get your ideas for future episodes.

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Love to hear your thoughts on current episodes or whatever's going on in mission.

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That's our place to be able to get together and talk.

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That if you've not joined us over there, pretty easy to find, just search around for the Everyday Disciple Podcast or once you've logged in to Facebook, you can just open up a separate tab and go to Everyday Disciple dot com forward slash Facebook.

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And it'll take you boop right to the group, and then you can join.

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Here you go.

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Well, we'll get to know each other.

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I sure hope so.

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And also please share this podcast.

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If this is a benefit to you and I know thousands of you are listening.

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Uh, and so in your regular repeat listeners, so I'm guessing you're getting some value out of this.

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You're learning some things I sure hear from a lot of you, would you pass this on?

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Would you stop for a moment and send out a text.

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Pasted onto your Facebook group or something.

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It's pretty easy to do.

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Everybody can find this on any application where podcasts are being listened to, but they can also go to the site and dig around through all of our other episodes.

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And I'll just send them over to Everyday Disciple dot com forward slash.

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Podcast pretty easy.

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Okay.

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And then one last little bit of business before we get going.

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If you're interested in finding out more about our full framework for discipleship and mission and having Tina and I walked through all of that with you, we have room for one more team cohort, and then we're pretty much full.

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So if you've got some folks in your church or.

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Maybe it's in your denomination or your church planning network.

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And you'd like to, as couples go through all this together and get the step-by-step coaching and teaching and have your own personalized roadmap.

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We're going to help you create all that we would love to have you join us, but we've only got one spot for one more team cohort.

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So that's, you know, like five to eight couples together who are kind of working on the same journey and heading down the road together.

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Wouldn't it be great to have the same language and concepts and framework and tools to do this together?

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Yeah, so to learn more, you can just go over to Everyday Disciple dot com forward slash coaching.

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Yep.

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Everyday Disciple dot com forward slash coaching.

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And there's a way to get ahold of us through there.

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And we can set up a time and talk about that and see if we can get you started.

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Now as I've been personally preparing my heart and focus for holy week and Easter this season, I thought I would take the opportunity to make this a special episode of the podcast, a very special episode and give you a few of my thoughts, almost like a devotion of sorts.

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And I'm still working this stuff out and.

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Trying to push it deeper into my heart as we're preparing for the holy week in Easter and, all that.

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But as we make disciples of Jesus understanding the major significance of this week and Jesus' death and resurrection cannot be overstated or over celebrated in your communities.

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Each of the gospels found in the Bible.

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Have different details of all of this.

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Okay.

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Like all four gospels have slightly different perspectives and I encourage you to read all of them.

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Matthew, mark, Luke, and John.

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And it's fascinating when taken altogether.

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And so what I'm going to do today and kind of build my thoughts out of this is I'm going to share a narrative from the story formed way.

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That's our story of God, training the story from ways what we do in community over 10, 12 weeks with people and it's narrative and discussion and narrative discussion.

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And I want to share this particular narrative with you, where it is synthesize.

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Using all four of the gospels.

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So there's pieces of all four that are unique from each sort of woven into one death narrative.

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And I want to share that with you today, and then I'm going to point out four specific things.

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Jesus' last meal, last kiss, his last prayer and his last breath.

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The narrative begins with a little context and set up.

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And I liked that it helps place me back into the larger narrative.

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So here we go, Jesus and his disciples traveled to Jerusalem for the Passover festival everywhere.

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He went, he had compassion on people and met their needs.

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The Pharisees and other Jewish leaders were becoming increasingly upset with Jesus in his claims.

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He continued to tell people that he could forgive their sins.

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This enraged, the Jewish leaders.

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They saw this as the ultimate disrespect to God, and they look for ways to trap Jesus into saying something that they could arrest him for.

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But Jesus was just too wise for them.

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Many of his stories pointing out the hypocrisy of the Jewish leaders.

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Jesus said when the Pharisees and teachers share with you, God's commands, listen to them, but don't follow their example.

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They don't live out what they teach.

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The people surrounded him and asked, how long are you going to keep us in suspense?

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If you are the Messiah, tell us plainly Jesus replied.

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I've already told you and you don't believe me.

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The proof is the work I do in my father's name, the father and I are one, the people picked up stones to kill him.

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And Jesus said, my father has directed me to do these good works.

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For which one of these are you going to stone me?

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And they replied, we're not stoning you for your good works and miracles, but because you, a man claims to be God, the high priest met with the Jewish leaders to discuss capturing Jesus and putting him to death.

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We can't arrest him during Passover.

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They agreed or you'll create a huge riot.

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Now Jesus and his 12 disciples met together in a home to celebrate the Passover.

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During the meal, Jesus picked up some bread and he thanked God for it.

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And then he broke it into pieces, giving it to his disciples.

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He said, take this and eat it.

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This is my body given for you.

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Later in the meal, Jesus picked up a cup of wine and he thanked God for that.

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And then he gave the cup to this disciples and said, all of you drink this.

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It is my blood given for you a new covenant between God and his people.

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It is poured out to forgive the sins of many.

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Remember me when you continue to eat and drink these things together, Jesus told them when you see what happens tonight, you will all abandoned me.

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It is a part of God's plan that I'll be betrayed and die, but don't fear.

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I will rise again from the dead.

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Now Jesus knew that his disciples Judas would betray him bringing Jewish soldiers to capture him later that night when no one was around.

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After the meal, when it was dark, Jesus went away to pray, filled with pain and sorrow.

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He pleaded with God father, if there is another way besides my death, please let that happen.

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But I'll do whatever you ask.

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And just as Jesus had finished, praying, Judas showed up with an armed mob.

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He greeted Jesus with a kiss assigned to show the guards, which one they should arrest.

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Jesus said to them, am I a dangerous criminal that you need weapons to capture me?

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Why didn't you arrest me in the temple where I've been teaching every day?

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No, this is a part of God's plan just as the prophets predicted long ago.

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When the guards arrested Jesus and dragged him away, his disciples all ran away and hid the guards, beat Jesus, and they brought him before Jewish leaders for questioning.

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They asked, are you the Messiah?

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The son of God and Jesus answered.

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I am.

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And you'll see me seated next to God in power.

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Coming back on the clouds of heaven.

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When Jesus said this, the high priest tore his clothing in horror, and he said, any man who claims to be, God must be put to death.

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Then they slapped Jesus in the face and they spit on him.

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Jesus was brought to the Roman governor named pilot, since the Jews could not execute anyone without official approval.

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The Jewish leader stirred up the crowds and they pressured pilot to have Jesus put to death.

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They were shouting crucify him, crucify him, pilot feared a riot would break out.

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So he handed Jesus over to the Roman soldiers to be crucified.

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Crucifixion was the most cruel and humiliating way to die.

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Jesus was brutally beaten and whipped by the soldiers.

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They put a crown of sharp thorns on his head and a purple robe around his shoulders, hail the king of the Jews.

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They laughed and all night, the Roman soldiers continued to beat Jesus and mock him.

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When morning came, they led Jesus to a place called skull hill and like a criminal Jesus was nailed to a heavy wooden cross between two thieves.

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Hanging there.

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He cried out father, please forgive them.

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They don't know what they're doing.

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And at noon darkness filled the skies, blocking out the sun for three hours.

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Suddenly the thick curtain hanging in the temple, tore down the middle.

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And at that moment, Jesus shouted father.

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I give you my life.

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It is finished.

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Then Jesus breathed his last breath and died.

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The soldiers broke the legs of the criminals crucified next to Jesus to speed up their death.

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When they found that Jesus was already dead, they didn't break his legs to be sure.

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One of the soldiers stabbed him in the side with a spear and blood and water poured out late Friday afternoon.

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Jesus' body was taken down from the cross wrapped in long strips of cloth and buried.

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In a rich man's tomb, a large stone was rolled over the entrance to the tomb and Roman guards were posted to make sure nothing happened to his body.

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Now that's where I'll stop this narrative.

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That's our.

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Friday narrative, the death story that's woven together from all the gospels.

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How powerful is that?

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Now, let me draw our attention.

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Our hearts to four things here.

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This is Jesus' last meal before his death.

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We know later after his resurrection, he does once again, eat and do life with his disciples.

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But this last meal is an important one.

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They're celebrating the Passover.

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And if you know the story, you know, that, that original Passover as God released the Israelites from their slavery in Egypt was still the celebration that went on from year to year.

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That was when God himself gave the Israelites away that they could be spared, that the firstborn in all their families could be spared.

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If they trusted God, they were instructed to take a firstborn male lamb, one who was perfect without blemish, without spot.

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And they were to sacrifice that lamb without breaking any of its bones.

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And then they were to take that blood of that lamb of that perfect lamb.

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And they would put it on their door posts.

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And if they did, if they trusted God, then when God sent the , angel death would pass over their homes.

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And that's exactly what happened.

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And here Jesus travels to Jerusalem with his disciples and they are sitting down and they are celebrating this meal, this Passover meal once again.

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I hope you're seeing the connections between Jesus' perfect life.

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As the lamb, as the spotless lamb, how in his death, there was no broken bones and his blood was once again, given that we might be spared, that we might be set free from slavery.

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That last meal is packed with significant.

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And it's where we hear about the new covenant, the new covenant between God in all of humanity, where God now keeps both sides of the covenant.

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He is not only our perfect God, but through Jesus life, given through his body and blood, he now keeps that side of the agreement our side of the agreement.

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His life has been exchanged in place of ours.

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So we are now free.

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God keeps both sides of the agreement in the new covenant.

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That is such good news for us.

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That's amazing.

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And there are so many parallels going on here.

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That last meal with his disciples is powerful.

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Now in that narrative, we also hear about a last kiss where Judas comes in.

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It's been with Jesus for years now.

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He's one of his disciples.

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He's a close friend.

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And he betrays Jesus with a kiss.

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He shows the soldiers who they should arrest and he lines his own pockets to do.

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So.

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Have you ever felt betrayed by someone that close to you?

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Someone who you've done life in ministry with, and maybe even a greater parallel here, as I think about this last kiss is that we've betrayed God with our words in our actions to over and over.

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We say, we trust him with our eternity and yet we don't trust him with tomorrow.

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We say we believe Jesus and want to walk in his ways and obey all of his teachings.

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And we think we do.

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And yet we don't live focused on making disciples.

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We're not working towards the world being filled with God's glory, through more disciples of Jesus, making more disciples.

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We live primarily only for our ourself.

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Our schedules, our time, our preferences, we're all just too busy.

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We're all filled with everything, but, and at times our life must just be a betrayal to what we say we believe.

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Hmm.

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That last kiss reminds me of myself.

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We also see a last prayer here in this narrative.

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Now actually two prayers come to mind.

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Thinking about a last prayer, really two come to mind when Jesus is in the garden, after that meal with his disciples and he's praying to his father and he says, if there's any other way, please let that happen.

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If there's any way besides my death.

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And he knows what he's about to face the most cruel way to die, the brutal punishment and torture.

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He says, if there's any way, but that let that happen, but not my will, but yours be done.

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Wow.

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That's amazing.

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You see such an ultimate obedience and humility in Jesus there in that prayer, he knows what's ahead.

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He knows all the weight of my sin, your sins, the sins of humanity from beginning to the end.

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And he says, not my will, but yours be done.

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Oh, I can't even imagine we don't, I don't barely understand the depth of my own sin and how much that must grieve God, but Jesus knew fully.

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And he said, but not my will, but yours be done tying that back to that betrayal and the last kiss where I betrayed God with just preference and busy-ness and things I think I want to do.

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And Jesus is not my will, but yours be done.

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That leads him to the cross.

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Wow.

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And there's a second prayer too.

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That kind of blows my mind.

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When I listened to this story, when Jesus is hanging on the cross, he says, father, forgive them.

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They don't know what they're doing.

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And that just blows my mind because hanging they're barely alive.

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Tortured, bleeding.

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Jesus mindset.

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His countenance is to pray for us and to ask his father to forgive these torturers and in, so doing prays for us too.

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Do you think there's anything that God is not willing to forgive in your life?

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If when Jesus is hanging on the cross, he can ask the father to forgive his torturers.

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Do you think there's any hidden sin in your life?

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That Jesus and God, his father is not willing to.

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And in fact has already forgiven them?

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no there's not, there's not that thing from your past life or when you were in college or that hidden sin that you hope no one knows about, or you don't like to talk about or you thought you were past, and you've got a lot of people fooled, but you're kind of back into it.

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None of that, all of that is forgiven.

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It's all forgiven.

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If Jesus could hang there in that moment of suffering and beg his father to forgive them.

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Then there is no sin in your life that he is not willing to forgive.

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And in fact already has, do you believe that?

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I hope so.

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I hope you'll believe it in a new, deeper way today and this season.

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And then we come to Jesus last breath in Luke 23, it says it this way.

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Jesus called out with a loud voice father into your hands.

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I commit my spirit.

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It is finished.

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And when he had said this, he breathed his last breath.

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Yeah, it is finished.

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You know, when Jesus is coming back, he's not returning to deal with sin.

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It is finished.

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He's not coming back to deal with and mop up the last bits of my sin or yours, or we all tend to think of someone who is so much worse than us.

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It is finished.

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It was all done on the cross.

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There's no more sin, no more guilt or shame.

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No more " do to be".

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It is finished.

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See, God's not sitting up in heaven, looking down and freaking out about, oh, look at that person sinning.

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Oh man.

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So are Caesar.

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I can't believe he's thought that or said that.

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No, he's not because in his mind it's already been put away.

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It is finished.

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It's forgiven and it's forgotten when God looks at us and says what sin.

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He's not looking at you with a list of sins forgiven, like, oh yeah, that Caesar, he boy oh boy, when he was a teenager in his early years, you should have seen him, but you know, I forgave all that and that's how we live with others.

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We tend to forgive, but we don't forget.

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God has chosen not only to forgive, but to forget he says your sins have been put as far as the east is from the west.

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What sin.

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He doesn't look at you as the former, anything or the person who used to dot.dot dot, but now he'd been forgiven by his grace in his mercy.

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He says, what sin you see at the cross?

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There are two amazing substitutions going on here.

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And once again, I have to thank Tim Keller for magnifying.

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this amazing truth here in such a concise way.

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When the Bible says that God made him sin.

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Who knew no sin that we might become the righteousness of God in him.

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What he's saying is not only that God puts our sins on Jesus, so he dies the death.

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We should have died, but we're also told that God puts his righteousness on us.

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He died the death.

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We should have died and lived the life we should have lived.

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So it's not just that God pardoned you and says, now you get out of jail free and I've chosen to forget about all of that.

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He treats you as if you had done everything that Jesus has ever done.

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Think about that.

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That's too big.

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See this idea of being clothed in the righteousness of Christ.

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At times, it's a bit abstract for a lot of people, including myself, until I refocus on this.

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And then I realized, oh, you mean, God is actually treating me.

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If I've put my trust and hope in Jesus Christ, God treats me as if I had done everything Jesus had ever done.

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Yes.

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Yeah.

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You're not just forgiven and your sins.

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Aren't just forgotten.

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Jesus.

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Didn't just die.

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The death, you should have died.

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He didn't just go through infinite suffering on your behalf.

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He also perfectly obeyed in your place so that when you believe and trust him, his righteousness is now yours.

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It is finished.

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You're free.

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You are free.

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Now, lastly, as I start to wrap up, let's just ask this question.

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Why, why did Jesus do this?

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Why did he do it.

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Why did he let God forsake him?

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My God, my God.

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Why have you forsaken me?

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Why did he put himself in a position where all of this could happen to him?

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And I think probably the right answer.

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I know what it's supposed to be, but it seems totally inadequate at first.

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See, the right answer is Jesus did all of it for the glory of God.

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That's why he did it to show the world, his father.

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He did it to glorify his father.

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And of course I know that's the right answer, but that reasoning is partially an it's inadequate because in heaven, Jesus was already glorifying his father.

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He did not have to come to earth to glorify his father.

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So why did he come?

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What did he get by coming to earth and living a perfect sinless life and then dying in our place?

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What did he come to get that he didn't have before?

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Us.

Caesar: 00:25:10

Yeah, us and see this, this brings our connection right back to disciple-making and why Jesus gave his disciples and us the command to go and make more disciples of his, transforming them from glory to glory.

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This is when we become restored, transformed back to who God created us to be into the likeness of Christ.

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Remember he said, I don't stop until I finish.

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That will be made just like him.

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Then we too will become the glory of God.

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Yeah.

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Jesus in us, the hope of glory, right?

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That's why Jesus died.

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It's not just a personally glorifying his father, but that we all might do the same, that the whole world might be filled with his glory.

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And that happens through disciples of Jesus being transformed into his likeness, more and more from glory to glory, making more and more disciples of Jesus in every family, in every neighborhood, in every city, in every nook and cranny and every nation.

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That's why he did it.

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And that's a humbling and amazing thought and a privilege that we get to live his life now.

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And he said, I'll never leave you or forsake you.

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And as he sent his disciples and that says, he says, and I go with you more good news.

Caesar: 00:26:40

Now as always, I want to leave you with the big three takeaways from today's talk.

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So if nothing else, you don't want to miss these, and I'm happy to send you a printable PDF of this week's big three as a free download by going to Everyday Disciple dot com forward slash big three.

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Here's the big three for this week.

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Judas betrayal of Jesus mirrors.

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Our own betrayal . When we say we love and trust Jesus, and yet live our lives for our own gain.

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We betray his life, death and resurrection.

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When we don't live with a focus on being and making more disciples of Jesus as the central focus of our lives and our church programs, we betray the truth of the cross and all that Jesus died to accomplish and number two.

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When Jesus prayed father, forgive them.

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That includes all your sins too.

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Don't miss that past present and future Jesus knew all of it before choosing to die in your place.

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And he's already begged his father, your father, to forgive you to God does not rank sin.

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And there's nothing that he was not willing to forgive.

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It is finished.

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Yeah.

Caesar: 00:27:58

And number three, because of Jesus' perfect life lived in your place.

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God now sees you without sin for let that soak in.

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If you believe scripture, if you believe what he said, God now sees you without sin.

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And God now treats you like you've done everything.

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Jesus ever did.

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You're now free from living with guilt and shame and shoulds and suppose toos that's live.

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Like we really believe that you were free to approach God on his throne of grace with anything and everything in your life.

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You're his perfectly loved child.

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And that is certainly good news today.

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And every day.

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And during this holy week and at Easter and all of it.

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So live it like you believe it and proclaim it often.

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Okay.

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I hope you've enjoyed and been encouraged by some of these thoughts.

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What a great celebration ahead.

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Praise God.

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Well, that's all for today.

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Join me next week is I'm going to have a special guest on Twila Franz.

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She's been on the podcast with me before more than any other guests.

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And I love her heart and insights on Missional living.

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And we're going to talk about when Missional living feels hard and you blame yourself others, or maybe God even, and it's going to be a great conversation.

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I hope you'll join us for that.

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I'll talk to you soon.

Announcer: 00:29:27

Thanks for joining us today.

Announcer: 00:29:28

For more information on this show and to get loads of free discipleship resources, visit Everyday Disciple dot com.