Final Series Wrap And Prayer

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Hey, brave friends. It's Mandy here, and I'm back for episode 10, our final episode in the So Blessed series. We've been walking through Matthew chapter five, looking at what does it mean to live a blessed life, to experience the joy that supersedes our circumstances. That's a blessing much deeper than anything in this world can provide. And I hope and I pray that the Holy Spirit has taught you so much that you have learned things that you did not know, and that you are, as we're going to talk about today, putting them in to practice. And as we've said from the beginning, we're looking at Matthew chapter five, but the Sermon on the Mount actually goes through Matthew chapter seven. And we intentionally wanted to give you an opportunity to have something to do beyond this study with the girls and the women in your local context. And so we just thought it was great that you could do chapter five with us, and then you could go and you could do chapter six and seven with the girls and the women in your life. And so if you're new here to Brave Girls Gather, we want to let you know that we exist because we believe that every girl and every woman needs a place where she belongs. And we can create that by gathering. And we need a place. We need a place to gather with other girls and other women and to be encouraged and to grow closer to Jesus and each other. And we also want to go. Jesus called us into a faith that calls us into action. And so we want to go and teach others how to do the same. And so that's why we exist. That's why we're here. That's why we offer these tools and resources. It's why we have this podcast. And we're going to dig into this content today. We are going to wrap up this series. But before we go a minute further, I want to pray for you. Heavenly Father, we praise you and we thank you that we are not left on this earth to figure out our faith. That you left us with a whole book of your truth, God, and stories of people that you empowered to do mighty and brave and courageous and simple things that share your love with the world around us. And God, we want to be more like you. We want to live out this life of blessing that you have called us to. We don't want to conform to the patterns of this world, God, but we want to be transformed by the renewing of our minds. And so I pray for each woman who's listening, each girl who's listening, Lord, that any truth you have spoken to her would stay with her and carry her, and that she would put those words into practice. And that today, your Holy Spirit would teach us as we wrap up this series anything else that you're wanting us to know. And we ask this in the name of Jesus. Amen. And so again, we've been working through Matthew chapter five. We officially ended the chapter last week, but we're wrapping up today. And we're just going to go back through and kind of remind ourselves of the things that we took a look at. And then I want to leave you with some encouragement. And so we're going to go back to the very beginning.

The Beatitudes And Salt And Light

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And in the beginning, we were looking at the Beatitudes, which were the blessed bees. Blessed are those who are poor in spirit, those who mourn, those who are meek, those who are hungering and thirsting for righteousness, those who are the peacemakers, those who are persecuted against. And there's these things that you you wouldn't necessarily consider blessing by the world's standards, but these are the blessings of God. These are the things that we embody and that we become, that give us that joy regardless of what we're going through, that allows us to walk in peace, whatever circumstance that we're in. And so we looked at the blessed bees, and then we looked at our identity as salt and light. Jesus called us the salt of the earth and the light of the world. And that we are called to make things taste better, and that we get to bring light into dark spaces simply by carrying the Holy Spirit, Jesus, within us. And he makes us ministers, he makes us encouragers to those around us. Then we looked at how Jesus fulfills the law, how he didn't come to take away the law, but he came to fulfill it. And in fulfilling it, he came to give us everything that we need to live righteous, holy, and redeemed, which includes him for all the times that we don't get it right. And we don't look at this book, we don't look at God's truths and go, oh, I'm just gonna do every truth and I'm gonna be righteous and I'm gonna be good. This was not intended. That the law given to Moses and the prophets was not given to them so

Why Jesus Fulfills The Law

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that we would be able to obtain it, but it's to expose our need, our desperate need for Jesus. And then we got into the you've heard it said, but this is what I say, where Jesus, again, he raises the bar and he says, you know what? You can try as great and as best as you want to be righteous. And the standard is you got to be as righteous as the Pharisees, you got to be perfect as your heavenly father is perfect, which is basically him saying, You're not getting in without me. You need what I'm about to do for you. You're gonna need me to cover your sin because you're gonna keep messing this up. And as much as you want to do it right and get it right, there's always gonna be a standard that you can't reach. And it's fulfilled in me, it's satisfied in me. And that is the debt that Jesus has paid for us. And the more we see our sin, the more we recognize the magnitude of what Jesus did for us. And when we see our sin and we understand what Jesus did, we're not ashamed of it because there's a place for it. And we recognize, we line ourselves up with the truth of I am not good enough and I sin and I mess it up. And that's why I need Jesus. And so our sin doesn't push us away from God, our sin draws us near to God because

Loving Enemies And Living Differently

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of what Jesus did. And then last week we were challenged in a big way to love our enemies because while we were enemies of God, Jesus came and died for us. God loved us even in our sin. And even when we were opposing him and when we fall short now, he's still loving us. And so he gives us a heart to love others in their sin. And we talked through that. If you haven't listened to the other episodes in this series, I want to encourage you to take the time, go back, just keep listening, just keep keep the play button going, and you'll walk through those and it will bless you. That's my prayer and hope.

Building Your Inner Home

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But today we're gonna go back to where we started. We started talking about this whole thing, talking about a house and what truly makes a house a home, and about how God wants to build our inner home. He wants to transform the inside of us. You see, the religious leaders of Jesus' day, and we we can even be like those religious leaders today, where we just try to make everything on the outside look good. And Jesus is saying, I want to make the inside look good. And that happens with me, with Jesus on the inside of us. And so Jesus ends the Sermon on the Mount, chapter seven, which you're gonna get to if you continue to gather with the women and girls in your life. But at the end of that chapter, he likens those who put his words into practice like two builders.

Wise Builder Versus Foolish Builder

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And one is a foolish builder who builds his house on the sand, and the other is a wise builder who builds his house on the rock. And the one who builds the house on the rock is the one who put Jesus' words into practice. That's what he's explaining as he's teaching here that those who actually do what he says are like wise builders who build on the rock. And when the rains come and the winds blow, you're still standing. Your faith, what you what Jesus built on the inside of you is still standing firm because it's built on him and it's built on him because you're actually doing the things, you're putting the things into practice that he said. And then there's the other house, which is the foolish uh builder's house. And when the rain comes and the winds blow, it just blows it over and it falls. The word says with a mighty fall. And so we want to be the wise builder who builds on the rock. And so that's why Brave Girls Gather exists, is we want you to build your house on the rock. And we believe that that happens when you gather in community with like-minded believers, when you gather girls who are younger than you and you invest in them, when you seek out women who are older than you to invest in you, when you lock arms with your sisters in Christ and you grow together and you grow closer to each other and you grow closer to Jesus and you go and teach others how to do the same.

Make A Gathering Plan

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And so, again, we want to encourage you to not stop here, but to actually make a plan from right now. Make a plan when you're gonna gather, when you're gonna read through chapter six and chapter seven of Matthew and have a discussion around it. What is God showing you through your reading? What does it teach you? There's some questions you can ask. What does it teach you about God? What does it teach you about people? How does it challenge you? And some rich conversations can come from that. It doesn't have to be something fancy. You can just invite girls over to your living room floor. You can meet a group of women at a coffee shop, whatever fits into your current stage of life, make it fun and make it real. And I want to pray for us as we wrap this thing up. Heavenly Father, thank you so much again for your great love and your great word and your great truth. I pray that those who are listening, if there's a heart that is being stirred right now, maybe there are groups that are already gathering and we're actually aware of some of those groups. And that woman is listening today, and you're just gonna inspire her of another way she can continue to help and invest in the girls and the women around her, Lord, or maybe it's someone and they've just did the study on the Bible app and they found the podcast and they're not gathering in community. And maybe they need to go find their people. Lord, I pray that you would guide them in that, or maybe you're nudging that uh young woman on the shoulder that you're calling her to gather a group of younger girls, or maybe it's a mom and she's been thinking about gathering her daughter, her middle school daughter, and her middle school friends, Lord. I pray that you would, through the power of your Holy Spirit, give them the courage to take the next step because that's what you want. God, you want us to keep walking with you, keeping in step with you, growing in you, putting your words into practice. So we're building a strong, firm spiritual house, Lord. We want to experience your blessing each and every day. We want the gift of you, and we want the gift of joy in every circumstance, peace, regardless of what's going on in our life. So make it real and make it true for us. And it is in the mighty, wonderful, good name of Jesus that we pray.

Support The Mission And Stay Connected

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Amen. All right, that wraps up this series. We want you back with us in the fall. We're already putting that series together. I want to kind of tell you about it, but I should probably keep it under wraps for now. But I want to let you know it is going to encourage you wildly in your faith and it's gonna make you love God more. And so stay tuned for that. Follow us on Instagram, bravegirlsgather.com. Go there, download resources. We are a nonprofit organization. We do not do this without the support of those who believe in this vision and this mission and come alongside us in prayer and by picking up and doing some of the work. And also those who give financially, you can give on our website. If this podcast has blessed you, if our ministry blesses you, if you believe in what we're doing, we are gonna ask you just straight up, would you give? Would you go to our website and give there? And then finally, we want you to know that if you are a part of this team, if you're listening on the podcast, if you're following us on social media, if you're downloading our resources, we see ourselves as one big team on one big mission to see girls and women have a space to gather, to grow closer to Jesus and each other and to go make disciples. You're not in it alone. We're here with you. We have each other. And we just want to keep encouraging you and praying for you and cheering you on in that. And so until we get back here again in the fall, we want to encourage you. Just keep going, keep doing the things, keep gathering girls, keep gathering women, keep growing together and keep going out there and teaching others to do the same.