Hebrews 9 | Crossroads Daily

Hey, I'm Chuck, I'm Kirsten, I'm Caleb, I'm Chris, and thanks for being with us as we unpack Hebrews chapter nine. Now, first of all, well done. If you are reading through these Hebrews verses that we're in, well done. This is the thick part of the Bible. This is like the, and did he say something like that? Similar in chapter eight? Yes. Thick with two Qs. That's right. That's right. Thick with two Qs. There you go. And you know, the Hebrews had a longer attention span than we do. And he's going through this very meticulously. As we look into chapter nine, he's kind of saying, hey, there was this repeated process that was incomplete and Jesus fulfills it. He didn't come to just repeat the same process. He fulfills it in one act, one final act. He talks about once and final a lot. And the reason that is good news is because it means there's a freedom that we have now that the process is complete. So question for you guys would be, where's a place in your life where you're experiencing freedom because of what Jesus has done? How does this cause you to live a life of more freedom? I have so many things that come to mind, but the main one right now in my life is I don't really care what people think of me as much as I think I would if I didn't know Jesus. I find a lot of freedom in the fact that my identity is as a daughter of Jesus and not even as a daughter of my mom or a sister to my sister, my siblings. It's like I am a daughter of Christ and that's that.

And I think I find a lot of freedom in relationships and expectations that I'm like, man, if I am just aligned with what God wants for me, I'm good. I don't think of the extra things people are putting on me matter. I just really want to be kind and generous and gracious, but that doesn't always equal people-pleasing or trying to be something to everyone that I'm not meant to be. So that's the first thing that came to mind. Like a lot of men probably, I like to measure myself by what I can do, what I can get done. My usefulness, what I can contribute at work, at home. I don't know. This sounds crazy, but I find a lot of freedom in fun. I think God wants me to enjoy my life, actually. And I've just been, you know, like, again, what can I get done? What can I do? And so I've accidentally started training for a marathon. That's not an accident. The way that happened is, I like to run, but I would always limit myself on mileage because I got like 30 minutes and I need to get back. I need to get back and be useful to my family. And I started pushing those out a lot longer. And then actually, Chuck, you were preaching a couple weeks ago about how you ran a marathon. That was the last piece I needed to fall in place. And I was like, okay, Chuck did it. I think I can do it. Yes. I know this doesn't sound fun to everyone, but I really had fun running for like two and a half hours, you know, like, are you a, are you a run in silence or run and listen to something? I'm listening to stuff. I'm the same way. We're about to have a nerd session.

I'm the same way. I'm the same way. I'm the same way. But honestly, like, it's really freeing because, um, like I can do something for myself for that long. I've never done something for myself for that long. Wow. Since my kids were born and they're almost 10. Wow. So, uh, just freedom and taking care of myself and freedom and having some fun. Yeah. Have you picked a race? I haven't yet. Okay. All right. Maybe I'll get your thoughts about it later. All right. Sounds good. Sounds good. I love that, man. I'm encouraged to hear that running is fun for you. Maybe I'll get there one day. I can watch a movie in that same amount of time. And that says a lot. Yeah. That's true. That's true. Exactly. Uh, I have found a lot of freedom of what should my time with God look like every day? Like this thing of a quiet time that growing up, I thought it was like, you have to spend

30 minutes reading the Old Testament, then the New Testament, and then you have to journal about everything you read. And then you have to listen to a worship song and then you have to pray on your face for 10 minutes. And then, and then that's it. And if you don't do that, then you failed at following Jesus that day. And just so much, I've been finding so much freedom. We talked about this a few weeks ago, Chuck, like the setting embarrassingly small goals for yourself. And I had to start doing that eventually because I was like, I can't, I had such high standards in my mind of like, well, God's not going to be happy with me unless I'm talking with him in this way. And I just started being like, you know what? I'm going to read one verse today and then be like, God talked to me about that. Like what are we going to do with this? And then I'm going to pray for one thing and then I want to move on. And like you said, it's like, well, that's maybe one more prayer that I said than yesterday or one more verse that I read the day before. or, and you just also see the freedom. Like, I mean, like Jesus didn't have a personal Bible. Like he didn't have a pocket Bible. Like he's not having daily quiet. And like, I think knowing God through the scriptures is very important, but like, he's not highlighting, at least to my knowledge, like he's going to the mountainside to pray. And that's kind of all we know of like, what did his personal time with God look like? And so I feel like I've just started to ask myself the question of like, what today,

how, what can I do with that will bring me closer to God? And if that's reading a chapter, if that's reading a verse, if that's not reading at all, but it's praying and going on a walk with God, if that's listening to worship, like I'm going to do that thing because all God has called me to do is to know him. And so it's whatever that looks like for me in that day. Yeah, yeah. I love that, man. You know, I'm encouraged just hearing you guys talk about like where you're finding freedom. For me, I think Allie Patterson gave an amazing talk about what do we do with our cravings? And in that talk, she used this word, I was talking to a friend of mine, and it's like that word starve. We either indulge it or we starve it. And what I realized is, you know, I grew up in a Pentecostal church. I grew up in a church that was, you know, performance was a thing and I was a people pleaser. And so there are lots of things that I starved in myself only to have them come out sideways in worse ways. And so I think that one of the places I'm experiencing a lot of spiritual freedom is like, oh, I can enjoy things. I can enjoy my life. Even sensuality has a different feel for me now. Like, I actually love a good facial.

It's awesome. Who knew? Who knew that like a facial was like the sensually delightful thing. I love a good massage. One of my buddies for my 50th gave me like this, there's this place, I'm gonna get the place. I don't wanna advertise the place unless they're gonna give me free massages. But like, I'm gonna go and get a massage. Like, I just have found that there are things that I have starved myself from that are good things. But I have said, no, I can't do that. And it's like, man, no, I can enjoy my life. You know, I can enjoy a nice meal. I can enjoy a mixed drink. Oh my God, you know, like I can enjoy these things that don't all have to be like, oh, I'm gonna go down a path of hell and damnation because I'm gonna do it to extreme. I think that's something that I'm learning. Like, oh, I can rest in the confidence and the freedom that I have in Jesus and enjoy my life. Oh, I feel like that gets so twisted even with, because those things are not cheap. And as believers, so often you have, I just get really conflicted because I'm like, oh my gosh, what am I spending money on just self-indulgent? But you're right. It is like Jesus partied, partied is, I don't know.

He partied. It sounded like parties to me. I think Jesus was a blast to be with. I think he was a mixed drink guy. Like, I think he would indulge in a little yapping over a facial with his guy. I think so, I think so. But yeah, I love that you say that because I feel like I even stay away from those things because I'm like, oh, I should be like spending my money on all the good things that support the Bible, whatever those are, whatever those are. So anyways, thanks for that. That unlocked something in me too. I feel like you don't like get a following like Gia said if you're just a buzzkill of a person. Like he had to have been a blast to be around to be able to draw that many people to want to throw their lives away at any moment's notice just to walk with him. If you are a stick in the mud, that just doesn't happen. And there's parts of me like that too, where it's like, I'm like, well, no, this is a serious thing, this is God. Like, it's like, what am I doing? Like Jesus, like he was serious about the serious things of our faith. And then he also knew that the way that life was designed and that's to enjoy it. Like he created everything.

There's a lot of things I can be a stick in the mud about because I think that God wants me to be so serious about everything. I have three kids and they're 10, 10, and nine. And if they just worked all day, it would make me very sad. I love to see them play. Building Legos, playing outside on the trampoline, chasing each other around with square guns, like whatever they're doing. That brings me, like, I love it when they clean their room. That's great, right? But I want them to do that every day for hours and hours and hours. I don't judge them based upon what they got done that day, right? They bring me the most joy when they're enjoying life. And somebody said that to me once and it just turned something in my head about God is my father looking down at me. He gave me all this stuff and I'm just enjoying none of it so that I can prove. That I'm worth his sacrifice or I'm worth his love or whatever like nah, man, that's crazy Yeah, it's one of like what ten things he says is like you better rest And that's our high priest saying that you hear that title and you're like, ah, okay The way that you put it like you would never hang out with someone that's just like no not a fun time Yeah, hey, and we're talking about all these ways to have fun. Let me be clear. I I don't even get a massage once a Quarter, I mean this isn't something I do all the time and guess what? There is nothing to me more fun than getting out in a park somewhere and just enjoying the beauty of nature So these could be simple ways but indulgent ways. Do you make the time and space for that? That's what we're talking about today

So I just want to encourage you, you know Jesus completed a work for us and because of that we have a spiritual freedom that never goes away It's permanent. It's good and it's for you a lightning round So what is good news to you right now in your life in this moment? What's good news to you right now? Mine is that Jesus actually knows the real Chuck and loves him Yeah, that's mine Jesus is a master storyteller. Mmm. He knows where the story is going. I have a tattoo that Just says redemption. It's the word redemption. It's the title in my Bible right now in Hebrews chapter 9 redemption through the blood of Christ like I have been redeemed and I am seeing him redeem the loved ones in my life I'm far more messed up than I could imagine but God's love for me is far greater than I could ever imagine to yeah Yeah, that's a good word. It's a good word. Hey, what's the good news to you today? Say it out loud at some point. Maybe now maybe later to say it out loud and live in that good news today. Thanks We'll see you tomorrow