Hi, my name is Pete Gazzara. I want to welcome you today to the Emotionally Healthy Leader

Podcast. Now, our title today is letting go of outcomes without giving up hope. Letting go of

outcomes without giving up hope. And we are releasing this podcast on the day of the United States

Election 2020 on November 3rd. Now, I've purposely chosen

this day, as well as the text, because it's so important now, but it's actually important

for your whole life. As we find ourselves living in a polarized, mixed up, often confusing world, and that's not

going to change. So our text comes out of Matthew 13 in the parable of the weeds and the wheat

from Jesus. And like so many of his parables, it's shocking, it's disturbing, it's jolting,

it's countercultural, it's almost scandalous. At least to us,

it's not the way that most of us would run the world. But fortunately, you're not, and I'm not, God is.

The shock of the parable that we're going to hear about is that a major work of the devil is inside

the church, not only outside. And so often we're angry and

judgmental. We get discouraged. We get confused. We say things we shouldn't say. We put words in

God's mouth. But Jesus, in scripture, and again, through this parable, gives us such a gift,

such a perspective. And so this message you're about to hear is based on the words of Jesus,

of course, in this parable, but it helps us see the world rightly and to know what are we to do then?

How are we to function? So I pray this message will do a few things for you. I pray that you

will not be surprised by the scandals and the lies and the hypocrisy

that you're sitting around you, both inside and outside the church, but also that it will give

you confidence that Jesus very much is in control. And as he said, I will build my church and the

gates of hell will not prevail against her. And we can trust that. The same time,

I pray and hope that this is going to cause you to be ever more prayerful in an abiding

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