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So thinking uh right now about anger, the problem of anger.
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Anger is at its core what we experience when our will gets violated.
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And if something doesn't work the way that I want to, somebody doesn't do what I want them to do, then I experience frustration and and then my will tends to go real quickly to willing the bad for the person that's gotten in the way.
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Um so the opposite of that is to will the good for someone, and that's what I want to talk about, moving in that direction.
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We'll get to somebody in the Bible who does this in a remarkable way.
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And I want, I want to think today, uh, this is one of those seasons where I've got word from a number of folks that I care about deeply who are struggling with um health issues or loss.
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Think about the people who matter most to my life.
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It is so easy for me to just focus on what have I gotten done, what have I accomplished, uh, the wrong set of metrics.
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And instead of, no, it's the people that matter.
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So Patrick Morley wrote about uh one time when he and his family were just overwhelmed by activity.
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And the more successful they got, the more people wanted them from them.
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And Patrick said to his wife one time, we've arrived.
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And she said, Yes, but we're at the wrong place.
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And then this thought occurred: let's prioritize everything based on who will be crying at our funeral.
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Like, why should I give myself to trying to please people who I don't even know, who don't even really actually care about me?
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According to one study, I'm not making this up, at the average funeral, only 10 people cry.
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All these trials and tribulations and heartaches, and only 10 people cry, seriously.
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The same source says that actually the number one factor that determines whether or not people uh will attend, particularly your graveside, is the weather.
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I'm lying there at the conclusion of my life, and like what the sky is doing is the primary determinant about whether people are going to stay there.
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Who's gonna cry at my funeral and why?
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And I'm am I living now in light of that reality then?
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Uh the defeat of anger is about so much more than just trying not to get angry with people.
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It is being at one with God and then caring for the people who are closest to me.
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That's the most important part of life.
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Load full transcript
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Uh, two contrasting figures in the Bible now as we walk through this day.
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Who's going to cry at my funeral?
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That's the question for today.
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And what am I doing to love and care for the people around me?
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So one character is Herod in the New Testament.
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You might know he was called Herod the Great.
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Uh he was the guy that was uh the greatest builder and the most powerful ruler of that century in Palestine.
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Um, but he was not a master of love.
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He had 11 or 12 wives.
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Historians are not certain.
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The only one that he really loved, he's suspected of trying to want his throne, wanting that for their son.
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And so he had her killed and he had their son killed.
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He wanted to be remembered.
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So his descendants had names like Herod Antipas and Herod Philip and Herodias, a little like the boxer George Foreman named his kids George Foreman I and George Forman II and George Foreman III and George Foreman IV and so on.
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But as he lay dying, he realized nobody was going to cry at his funeral.
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So, not making this up, a historian named Josephus wrote about this.
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The story is that Herod the Great actually had 70 of the most prominent citizens of Jerusalem locked up as he was dying, and then left orders that when he died, they were to be executed so that on the day of his death, people in Jerusalem would be crying.
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Just stop for a moment.
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Just thinking about this as an exercise for me, you might think about it with you.
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Who will not be crying at your funeral?
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I'll tell you who will not be crying at my funeral.
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Uh my critics.
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People who write me when they're asking for favors, but I never hear from them otherwise.
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People whose approval I'm constantly trying to gain, but who withhold it.
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Successful people whose success I think might rub off on me, so I want to hang out with them more, but I'm really just trying to use them.
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People I see frequently whose names I do not bother to learn.
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People who I think could make me feel important if I could just get them to notice me.
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They will not be crying at my funeral.
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People who are cooler than me, users, they won't.
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Famous people I never actually met, they won't.
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Uh people I'm afraid of.
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People who are afraid of me.
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Who's likely to cry at my funeral?
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Well, my children, I hope.
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My wife.
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My brother and sister, my brother's younger, so he'll still probably be around.
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My sister's a little older, but she's much shorter than me, so her heart doesn't have to worry as hard, so she'll probably be around too.
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My good friends.
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People that I have genuinely cared for when to the extent that I have done that, they probably will.
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And of course, that question, who's gonna cry at my funeral, is just uh a placeholder, a proxy for the deeper question, whom have I loved?
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Whom have I loved?
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There is a character in the New Testament who is at the opposite scale of Herod the Great.
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Herod was an angry guy.
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He was called Herod the Great, but he executed people so that they would be crying at his funeral.
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There's a woman in the New Testament named Dorcas, and about all that we know of her is from Acts chapter 9 and verse 36.
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The text says, She was always doing good and helping the poor.
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That's an interesting description of somebody's life.
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That'd be an interesting phrase to have go on wherever it is that marks wherever it is that whatever remains or cremates of my life end up always doing good, helping the poor.
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And then one day she became sick and she died, and we're told that her body was washed and placed in an upstairs room.
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Now, people in the ancient world were quite concerned about what would happen to their bodies after they died.
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Rome was filled with what were called burial societies that people would join if they paid, wherever they were on the status honor ladder, if they were, you know, real important, they would have very elaborate care for their body after they died, even if they did not have much at all.
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They would join societies, put little bits of money into it if they could to make sure that their corpses were cared for.
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And in fact, Romans were so confused, Romans were so confused about what Christianity was because it wasn't a philosophy.
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It was, it wasn't a family, it was open to like people of all different ethnicities and so on.
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It wasn't a religion, because religions were tribal things, and uh Rome had theirs and Egypt had theirs and and so on.
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And so a prominent theory in Rome held that Christian was a burial society because Christians would take such tender care of the sick and the dying.
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So Dorcas passes, and we're told in verse 39, all the widows stood around uh uh when um Peter had come to visit, showing him the robes and other clothing that Dorcas made while she was still with them.
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Dorcas was a widow herself.
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Nobody called her Dorcas the Great.
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But she had some resources.
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That little phrase uh doing good, constantly doing good, uh, implies the giving of alms, sharing what she had with other people.
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What am I gonna do with my alms today?
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And out of the resources of her life and the care, the servanthood of her little community flowed goodness to people who were on the outside.
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So people who could not afford clothes, clothes were dressed because of her.
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People who couldn't afford food were fed because of her.
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People who would have been outsiders otherwise became insiders because of her.
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We're told in the text that they laid her out in an upper room, upstairs room, might well be the upstairs room of her house, that because she was a person of some means, she owned her own home and she made it a home for people that otherwise would not have had a home, people that were without a house.
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We're told that her body was washed, which was a part of the Jewish preparation for burial.
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Um there's no mention of her bodies being anointed.
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That would have been the custom of maybe that the community was allowing the poor widows to prepare her body as an act of love, and they would not have had money for anointing, and they were crying at her funeral.
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But how could she have known?
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It is ours to care and to love and to give and devote ourselves to God, God's plan for community.
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Um but uh connection, community, friendship, love comes when it comes at all as a gift.
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One more thing about Dorcas.
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Maybe the main reason the book of Acts told her story, she didn't stay dead.
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Peter got down on his knees and looked at her and said, Get up.
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And she opened her eyes and did as she was told.
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And then it the text says, Peter took her by the hand and helped her to her feet.
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Then he called for the believers, especially to the widows, especially to the widows, especially to the marginalized, to the poor, to people that didn't
have anybody the championship except just her, and presented her to them.
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And uh our great hope is this that we're not gonna stay dead.
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So that as I'm hearing these kind of stories, had a conversation yesterday with Carrie, whose dad just recently died, and um, aging mom uh happened to be watching Big Kung New episode where I talked about reading Psalm 121 for my dad, and they watched that over and over as the news about Carrie's dad was going on.
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Not gonna stay dead, not gonna stay dead.
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Who's gonna cry now this day?
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Whatever my background, I can go about doing good.
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You can go about doing good, and caring for the poor, and giving something, and willing the good.
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And that actually is the opposite of living at the mercy of resentment and bitterness and carrying a grudge and being small-minded and being Herod the Great.
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What an awful way to go through life.
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Herod the Great over here, and Dorcas the Greater, Dorcas the Greater.
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Which which path do I want to take?
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We hope that when you're listening to these teachings every weekday from John, that you're not just listening to John, but you're listening for the voice of the Holy Spirit who knows you, knows your story, knows your circumstances, and cares and wants to help and guide you by the presence of the Holy Spirit.
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So, what was God speaking to you today during that teaching?
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For me, my thoughts were drawn to a funeral that you probably will remember.
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It was a funeral that Jesus attended, Lazarus, and Jesus wept.
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And it just got me thinking: Am I living my life in a way that if Jesus came to my funeral, I know, just go with me.
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Would he weep?
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Would he cry?
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Jesus said, Many will say to me on that day, Lord, Lord, did we not do all these amazing things in your name?
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Release a thousand YouTube videos and help people learn how to be spiritually formed?
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And Jesus will say to them, Depart from me.
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I never knew you.
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Maybe we knew him, but does he know us?
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Have we invited him in?
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Have we made him Lord?
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Have we surrendered?
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That's what I was thinking about.
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How about you?
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What is God speaking to you?
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What are you gonna put into practice today?
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You can drop it in the comments if you're watching on YouTube.
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At Become New, you can spend 10 minutes every weekday with Dr.
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John Orperg.
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To find out more, head over to become new.com.
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All of our resources are there for free for you if you want them.
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I'm Tim, the channel host.
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If you want to never miss a video, just text the word new to our number, 51504, and I'll shoot you a text every time John makes a new video.
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Glad that you're here, and I'll see you next time.