Hey, thank you so much for joining us for this message from God's word. We're going to get right to it for a quick minute

But we wanted to introduce you to Snowball. This is the newest member of the Lusco family. Clover's pet clover. Show it's

Leslie Snowball can walk down the hall.

Oh, yeah, this is your first time at Freshlight Church, little guy.

Girl. Little girl. Yeah, I meant. So there she goes. There she goes. She's walking with us. She's headed to church. Clover saved up her own money. How much money was that Clover?

147 dollars. That's for the wheel. That's for the ball. That's for the food, the shavings. Our kids don't get allowance.

So they have to do chores to earn the money for this and Clover rigged a lot of leaves to bring Snowball into our lives.

And I thought it was an appropriate illustration because we're in a season where we're asking every single person who's a part of Freshlight Church or

blessed in any way by the messages as they go out to consider an investment into the work that God's doing at Freshlight Church as a way of saying

we have faith to see God do more. We're calling it the language around this year is the golden spike this dream of a train that crossed the country that happened because of so many rails that were put down and the last one was this golden spike.

So this is this idea we're all going to do our part and believe God for his part. So would you consider a gift to end the year of any amount to be a part of this.

Just be praying about it but right now at Freshlight Church you can put your spike down. You can nail it down into the ground and like Clover experience because we're a little hamster crazy where there's a lot of money pouring into something there's a greater passion as a result and we'll believe that your heart for God's kingdom will be even greater as a result of you not only giving a tie as many of you do and faithfully do thank you for generosity but ending this year any 2021 saying we want to see God do even more in the coming years.

So would you pray about what God would have you do maybe it's a $5 gift maybe that would mean a lot to you or maybe it's much much more that you're able to do but whatever it is we're on our department with you now please enjoy this message from God's word.

All right you can be seated grab your Bibles we're going to be in First Corinthians chapter 9 today I've got a message I want to bring to you called how to have a winning mindset.

First Corinthians chapter 9 we have been in this series talking about the largest ladder ever built about this time of the year I'm always thinking about ladders I'm seeing ladders everywhere as y'all are putting your Christmas lights up as you and I are feeling conviction over how many leaves we know are in our rain gutters and all of the things that you need ladders for.

And as I see my neighbors and people around the city as I drive around on ladders precariously perched on ladders how many of you have in the last month would you would say honesty and church been in aid what you would say unlawful position on a ladder anybody I have I'm just right there with you I think you know you know we always in our head think I know it says in like 900 stickers don't stand on this but I'm standing on this that was me.

This past week standing on a ladder I was spotted a couple people saw it I was like no but I'm good I'm right because as long as someone else is watching it's going to be okay and the things that we think we can do on ladders but but I always am reminded of how dangerous ladders are every year 500,000 Americans are taken to the emergency room after injuries sustained falling from ladders and shockingly there are over 300 ladder involved deaths every single year

and the majority of those the great majority of those are under 10 foot tall ladders they have fallen from and I only ever really knew that and knew to look into the statistics because when I was in Bible college I had a roommate whose dad had died after falling off a six foot tall ladder and it just it always impacted me to see him and to know how much he carried that grief and and to realize what a what a rather small thing most of us say that's not that big of a deal I mean a six foot tall ladder are far less careful perhaps then

we should be when I stand on a set of train tracks when I stand and look at the railroad ties going off into the distance I mean you can see here I cannot help but see a ladder it's just so visible and ladders help you get to places you couldn't get to otherwise help you to the reason we stand on the reason we do the dangerous thing is because we want to reach that that hard to reach place we need to be able to put that star on top of the tree we can't do it without the ladders help and the train tracks

do the same thing the train tracks are all about connection and the building of the Transcontinental Railroad as symbolized by the the laying of the final golden spike which was put into that final ceremonial tie there outside of Salt Lake City in 1869 it symbolized the nation completing our gargantuan project until the opening of the Panama Canal

in 1914 the same year that World War One started by the way which after all the work built in the Panama Canal almost nobody paid attention to it because this little thing called the first world war was starting but until the Panama Canal was finished it was by far the Transcontinental Railroad the biggest thing that America had ever undertaken and for a project so big the two most perhaps astounding details to me about it and my head is full of astounding ridiculous details about the Transcontinental Railroad

as you could probably imagine the two most amazing details to me is that it came in both head of schedule and under budget now that's just stupid okay no construction project costs less than you think it would and I have never been a part of one that has been finished before it was estimated but it was they only used up half of the time that President Lincoln allotted to get this thing done if the companies weren't finished by the east

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