Hey friends, it is so good to be here in sunny California with a gift.

Is it usually this hot in Portland?

Is this really strange?

Is this like a strange?

All right.

We have a saying in our church that I started saying maybe 10 years ago.

I say it at our kind of new members gatherings and people who are new to our church, our

newcomers events, our lunches.

I say enter at your own risk when you come into this community because we're going to

invite you to go places and ask questions.

That might be very difficult for you.

And so tonight we should have put a sign in the front Tyler and try your own risk.

Because to talk about matters of race is to poke a principality.

It's a wrestle with what Paul talks about in Ephesians chapter 6.

So I want to read a passage of scripture out of 2 Corinthians.

And then kind of lay out in some ways what does it mean for us to take the next step in

our own lives in this particular area of spiritual formation.

Paul says in 2 Corinthians 5 verse 17, therefore if anyone is in Christ the new creation has

come.

I love NT right has said that it's often translated if anyone is in Christ that person is a

new creation the oldest past the new has come and that can be such a self-oriented and

human oriented way of thinking about that verse.

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