I'd Rather Quit Than Do This!

This week on the 9941 Podcast, the crew is joined by longtime friend Marshall for a powerful, post-Easter conversation that digs deeper than the typical “empty tomb” message.

What happens when we slow down and truly consider both Good Friday and Easter Sunday—not just the victory of the resurrection, but the weight of the cross?

From cultural differences in how Easter is celebrated around the world to the often-overlooked significance of Christ’s suffering, this episode challenges listeners to rethink what they’ve always heard—and maybe missed—about the gospel.

The conversation also turns practical:

• How do you actually find a solid, Bible-teaching church?

• What should you look for in a church’s statement of faith?

• And what does it really mean to be part of a local church body?

 

Plus, a clear and direct breakdown of what the gospel truly is—and why leaving out key parts of it changes everything.

If you walked out of church this Easter feeling encouraged but still have questions…this episode is for you.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
What's up. I'm Granger, I mean it man, I'm Parker,
I'm Marshall. We have Marshall Guess with us today, back
to back weeks with guests. Marshall's sitting in Parker seat,
Parker sitting in Tyler's and Tyler is spending some time
with Mama. So Marshall, longtime friend of the podcast and
a longer time friend of us. It's good to see

(00:22):
you back in the room again.

Speaker 2 (00:23):
Nex. Man's good to be back.

Speaker 3 (00:25):
You don't have as much people now, You don't have
as much to live up to as I do with
Amber sitting in this spot last week.

Speaker 1 (00:30):
True, this is confusing me because I'm looking over here
at Parker and I'm like, is it messing you up?
That's usually where Tyler sits.

Speaker 4 (00:37):
Now, You're usually just getting Tyler's blank stare from here.

Speaker 1 (00:41):
You just get yours today.

Speaker 5 (00:42):
Yeah, that's right.

Speaker 1 (00:44):
People are going to miss Tyler not being on here too,
for sure, because they they anytime I travel somewhere, they go, Man,
I like Tyler. He's just just a cool country boy,
just wants to wants to love Jesus. Doesn't know much
about the world. Yeah. Amen, Amen, that's been time of
my whole life. This comes out as we record it.

(01:07):
We are recording what five days until Easter, and this
comes out the day after. So I think, as we
talked around in this group, what shall we talk about
today with the podcast, especially having Marshall with us, it
would be hard to not bring up Easter because people
are likely coming out of services yesterday. I think there's

(01:31):
people that are coming out of massive five to seven
service type Sundays. I think there's people that are coming
out of little little gatherings that they've been attending for
a long time faithfully as members of that church. I
think there's people that might have attended yesterday for the
first time in a long time and are fine with that.

(01:55):
Maybe people came to church yesterday. Easter seems to be
the day in America. In America that people will attend
more than any others. That statistically right, that is probably true. Yeah,
more than Christmas service with the candlelight Christmas Eve service
and stuff like that. And then I would wonder if
people also attended any kind of good Friday service. We

(02:20):
haven't had that yet. That's coming up here in three
days for us. And it's interesting we're talking a little
bit that in the Latin American culture that that Good Friday,
which they call Holy Friday, is the biggest day of
the entire year for the church, and not only for
the church, but just for the people. The cities are

(02:42):
shut down. There's no bus routes or taxis. There's certainly
no work, no school. I think we don't have school,
but that's about the only thing we shut down. In fact,
Parker reached out and asked if we would want to
celebrate the weekend at your house right.

Speaker 5 (03:02):
For I just asked if you wanted to do a
dinner on Friday.

Speaker 1 (03:05):
Good Friday, because you know we're going to be getting
to God. I think we're going to get together Marshall
night on Sunday. And so that was like, well, how
about we get together, Parkerson, how we get together Friday?
Which is great, you know, But then I started thinking,
this Friday is actually the bigger day for most of
the world. I would imagine Friday is the bigger day.

Speaker 4 (03:26):
I don't know if it's bigger, but it's definitely like
not as recognized at least here in America, which is interesting.

Speaker 5 (03:32):
I was trying to think about why that might be.

Speaker 4 (03:35):
And I mean, I guess it has to be because
the churches typically meet on Sunday. I guess most churches
have a good Friday service, though. But there's something about people,
I think, liking the idea of resurrection and new life,
new beginnings and uplifting message, pastel colors feel good, and

(03:56):
there's something about the reality of what happened on Friday
that invokes feelings of.

Speaker 5 (04:03):
Blood, guilt, shame, murder.

Speaker 1 (04:08):
Can you just tell us what happened on Friday and
what happened on Sunday, just to clear just.

Speaker 4 (04:13):
A So, on Friday, Jesus was crucified and killed, and
three days later, on Sunday, he rose from the grave
and resurrected, showing that he was who he said he was,
that he was the son of God, and.

Speaker 5 (04:31):
That God had accepted his sacrifice.

Speaker 4 (04:33):
And so you'll see visions of pictures of the empty tomb,
stone rolled away, The tomb is empty, the angels there,
everything's good, which is incredible news. It's the thing that
separates Christianity from every other world religion. Is our center
of our faith is someone who's not in the ground
anymore compared to every other world religion, but can't have

(04:55):
the resurrection without the cross, and the Easter Sundays, like
I said, kind of just points to new life. And
then and people like that idea more than somebody had
to be crushed for my sin on Friday, which and
which is like, yeah.

Speaker 1 (05:15):
So you said, I don't think it's necessarily bigger. It's
exactly what I asked. Scarlet's a friend of mine, is
it bigger? And she said, yes, Friday is bigger. It's
the biggest day in Honduras in this example. And then
I talked to another person who said, it's the biggest
day in Mexico.

Speaker 4 (05:34):
Yeah, I mean, I guess I don't know, Marshall, maybe
you'd know this botter than me. I'm trying to think,
like so many of the hymns that we sing are
on about the cross. I guess almost every single one
also turns into that but the grave could not hold him.
But and maybe in modern megachurches or like evangelicalism as
a whole, it's mostly about that. But I mean, so
many of our songs that we sing are about the

(05:56):
blood and the cross and the wrath of God being
satisfied and like that's where, that's where that payment happened.
Christ like I love meditating on Christ going. You can't
think about that enough. Christ going to the cross on
our behalf on Friday.

Speaker 5 (06:10):
It's huge.

Speaker 1 (06:13):
So I'm smiling because this is interesting. I didn't know
where this was going, but.

Speaker 4 (06:18):
When I surveyed the wondrous cross on which the King
of Glory died.

Speaker 1 (06:23):
So it's very much in our culture once again, American culture,
to celebrate the resurrection. And I told you guys earlier,
I don't want to compare the two which is bigger
and doesn't that it doesn't matter, But it's just interesting
thinking about how our culture has responded. And part of

(06:44):
you said, you said, the songs we sing are all
about the cross, the blood, the.

Speaker 4 (06:49):
The well unders, thinking like when I survey the Wondrous Cross,
nothing but the blood.

Speaker 1 (06:55):
But what I want to say is not all churches.
I think. I think maybe the majority of churches in
the West would reflect the resurrection and without mention of blood.
Not not totally, but most. I think most songs are
victory songs in modern worship. And this is not an

(07:19):
indictment on any any kind of song necessarily, It's just
an observation that most songs and you turn on kleave
for example, it's almost all victory. The tune is empty,
the grave is he, the grave couldn't hold him, and
he's he's now death is defeated. But it's not really

(07:40):
there's not a lot about Friday. It's Sunday. This isn't
just interesting stuff. I don't think I've ever really thought
about all of this a lot until I talked with
Scarlet and Honduras and and I asked her, because we
don't have classes. She's a teacher of mine. We don't
classes this week at all, because they take the entire

(08:03):
week off. They take the entire week off in it all,
and but it culminates Friday. That's the day when there's
not a single bus that moves, a single taxi. It
sounds like Christmas here, Yeah, And I asked her about that,
she said, I asked her the order of importance of
days and Honduras and she said, Vienna Santo's Holy Friday, one,

(08:26):
Pasqua Easter what we call Easter, they call Passover is
two Mother's Day. Three. I was like, where's where is
Christmas on this list? She said maybe four, top ten,
maybe four, maybe five. That's different than us. Yeah, And

(08:47):
of course they don't have Thanksgiving. We would add that
in there too, but but but it's just interesting. Yesterday
you sent me a little bit of our liturgy for
this coming Friday. Yeah, and it's a different kind of service. Yeah,
And I think there should be there should be a

(09:07):
different kind of observation that happens on that on that Friday.

Speaker 2 (09:11):
And I think that's probably why, at least culturally, good
Friday doesn't get as much FaceTime as Easter. Kind of
to Parker's point, where it's about blood and guilt and shame,
good Friday really, if recognized appropriately, really emphasizes sin and
our wickedness, and so that would require the culture and

(09:33):
society to admit that we are this wicked, sinful people,
which is why you have to have a Good Friday.
But Easter gets a lot of love because it's all
about hope and and and peace, like like Parker was
talking about. So it's it's very much a well, this
is where I can go feel good because I'm gonna
get some hope, but I'm gonna be positive. It's gonna

(09:54):
be very positive. But Good Friday is actually needing to
confront you in the face with how wicked you are
and your sin is why Good Friday had to happen,
and that's just hard for people to I mean, that's
what for some Christians to really wrestle with, which is
why there needs to be an aspect of that every

(10:16):
Sunday service as well. Not to not to beat people up,
but to have this balance of your sin required the cross,
and through repentance and faith, you now have the hope
of this resurrected life that brings the peace and the
joy and the comfort. But you can't overlook your sin

(10:37):
because God didn't elaid it on Christ. And so you know, yeah,
we will have a Good Friday service, but we're hoping
our Good Friday service kind of ends with this this
push towards hope of Sunday, recognizing that without the resurrection,
there's really nothing good coming out of Good Friday.

Speaker 1 (10:58):
Yeah, you said not to beat people up about it,
and I know that that's a that's kind of a
common rebuttal from people. It's like, man, I life is
hard enough. I don't necessarily want to go on a
Sunday and be beaten up more about how bad a
person I am. I've heard people say that, and the
Puritans would have thought differently about that they would have

(11:20):
thought that the more you see Christ for who he
is is revealed in scripture, and the more magnificent He
looks to you, you're the wickedness of your sin also
rises in proportion to that as well, and so you
can't help but be kind of propelled into confession of

(11:42):
that sin as you're looking to Christ. Those two things
happen at the same time. It's not that we force
you to look at your sin so that all of
a sudden you could feel more guilty about, well, look
what you did to this innocent lamb, you know. It's
not that once you see Christ for who he is is,
then you start to realize your own wickedness and your

(12:04):
need to confess. And so, in some ways, every service,
every Christian service, should provide people, and this is my opinion,
should provide people with a way to communicate their own
confession in a way that they might not know quite
how to do, or in a way that they might

(12:25):
not even know their need for a confession. But when
you see Christ as he's revealed in scripture, you just
have this something that wants to come out of you.
And we traditionally we would call that confession, which has
a weird connotation because of church history, but it's still
relevant today and Good Friday helps us magnify that even more.

Speaker 4 (12:49):
And there is a certain freedom in that, like not
to only purposely feel worse about yourself so that you'll
become depressed, But there's a freedom in this. It reminds
me of this quote from a Mark Dever sermon. I'm
going to say it briefly. There's a little bit of
language in it that's like a little bit hard to understand.
But I always think about this guy who's talking about

(13:10):
he's like a sixteenth century guy, and he's talking about
how when he finally had somebody preach to him about
his own sin, how it.

Speaker 5 (13:17):
Actually freed him.

Speaker 4 (13:19):
He said, before, I was happy by telling myself that
man is just an animal like any other which sought
its meat from God. But now I was really happy,
for I had learned that man is a monstrosity. I
had been right in feeling all the things odd, for
I myself was at once worse and better than all things.

(13:40):
The Optimist pleasure was dwelt on the naturalness of everything.
The Christian pleasure was poetic, for it dwelt on the
unnaturalness of everything in light of the supernatural. So here's
the main point. The modern philosopher had told me again
and again that I was in the right place and
I was good, and yet I had still felt depressed,

(14:04):
even an acquiescence. But when I had finally heard that
I was in the wrong place and I was a monstrosity,
my soul sang for joy like a bird in spring.

Speaker 1 (14:16):
Wow, you could cut costad of what you would think,
the result would be right, because, like you said at
the beginning, that thing that's what most people initially think,
is like, I don't want to be told how bad
I am, Like it's already tough enough. I don't want
to feel depressed. And what you're saying isn't what the
author that quote is saying. Is No, this will set
you free if.

Speaker 4 (14:36):
You really search the deepest, darkest thoughts of your life
and your motives, and you see the evil that's there,
like Steven Sermon was so good on Sunday of like
see all the evil all around you, do you realize
the evil starts really right here in your heart and
you really see that like a guy like this that

(14:58):
has had a guilty conscience and then he finally learned that, oh,
the philosophers were wrong. I knew I wasn't naturally good,
like a lot of people are deceived into thinking they
are naturally good. But this is a particular person who
kind of knew. If you really dive into your own
soul and your conscience, you realize you are guilty. And
so hearing that truth that oh I do have evil

(15:22):
in my heart and I do need somebody to die
for me, then it's like, oh, thank you Jesus.

Speaker 1 (15:28):
And you remember when we were talking about the long
time they were talking about the Puritans with specifically with
Christmas and how they were against celebrating Christmas. Yeah, it
was the same thing with Easter, right, I'm assuming it
was they they they were lost on why that that
day should be recognized, because that shouldn't that be part
of every preaching and every sermon, And because I think

(15:50):
the only the only one they really did was Thanksgiving,
right because they knew they were they wouldn't be in
heresy because it had nothing to do with anything. Yeah,
this is so fascinating to me because, like I said,
a lot of people are coming to this podcast fresh
out of a victory, empty tomb resurrection feel good. Amen.

(16:14):
Amen to all that. Amen. But like you said earlier,
it doesn't happen without the crucifixion, and not only you know,
not only what physically happened to Jesus, because we were
talking earlier about the blood and and and I have
heard people say before. I heard an atheist tell me

(16:37):
one time, dude, you know that the crucifixion. I know
that's really bad, But that's not like the worst way
to die. You Christians make it sound like Jesus died
the worst death. Well that's because we're not just talking
about physical here, although even physically.

Speaker 4 (16:52):
Isaiah says he was marred beyond human semblance. Yeah, which
didn't even look like a human being.

Speaker 1 (16:57):
And would say, well, I could think of worse, I
could think of worse ways to die. Some of the
martyrs after Christ, they would say, actually died in a worse,
more horrific way. Whatever. That's not something to argue. But
I think, what, that's not what Christians say. We don't say,
look at Christ, he died in the worst way that
any humans ever died physically, but it was it was

(17:22):
the weight of God's wrath, not not not just the
whips and the lashes, and the beatings in the in
the nails, you know, and the afphyxiation was more than
that was the It was what the sky turned black with,
you know. So the curtain tore in two with the

(17:42):
the the the torment of the punishment, the chastisement of
of all this sin we're talking about was put on him,
and he took it in in his body. So we're
not just talking about the physical aspect of the crucifixion.

(18:03):
And without without a proper meditation on that on Friday,
then then without that Sunday really loses its weight. And
it wasn't until these literally these last couple of days
that I even thought about this at all. How in
America we put all of our chips in the basket

(18:24):
of the resurrection.

Speaker 4 (18:27):
But it makes you just like cling to Christ, like
our sermon was on Exodus twelve, and you just think
about the parallels. I remember when I when I realized,
like a year ago that Exodus twelve, I finally got
the connection with the blood of the lamb on the
door posts. In Exodus twelve, so those who don't know
God's people are told to find a spotless lamb, and

(18:48):
that God was going to judge ultimately, guys, correct me
if I'm wrong. He's going to judge like essentially Pharaoh
and the Egyptians because he continued they continually would not
let his people go. And so God's like, Okay, I'm
going to finally bring this judgment on all of your people.
I'm going to kill the firstborn human and animal in
the entire city, in the entire area. The only way

(19:10):
that you will escape my just judgment for your sin
is by getting a spotless lamb and taking its blood
and smearing it over your doorposts. And then when you
realize the connection from that with Christ being called called
the Lamb of God, it's just incredible. And then so

(19:32):
I thought that was just a perfect text right before
Easter Sunday to tie into this idea that of meditating
on like the wrath of God is coming, and like
the only thing that protects us from the just wrath
that we deserve is the blood of this lamb who
is slain on Friday.

Speaker 1 (19:56):
Yeah, yeah, it's yeah, you wouldn't tell someone just meditate
on the empty tomb. That's not a bad thing to
meditate on. That's a great thing to meditate on. But
that's not what you would tell someone if you if
you if they were struggling in in believing or in

(20:17):
in repenting.

Speaker 4 (20:20):
There's just so much written richness and before it, so
I feel like I'm talking a lot.

Speaker 1 (20:24):
This is great.

Speaker 4 (20:25):
You're in Tyler's chairs, talk just like Jesus, and you
just think you just can't really think about it enough.
Of everything that happened leading up to it, the posture
of Jesus knowing what was before him and what he
was going to endure for the love that he had
for sinners, and like thinking of him in the garden,
like how much how much it affected him knowing what

(20:50):
he was going to have to endure, knowing the cup
that he was going to have to drink, as he's
praying in the garden at night, all by himself, you
know he was.

Speaker 1 (20:58):
He wasn't thinking necessarily, Man, I'm gonna have to endure
these nails. I'm gonna have to really endure these this
not being able to breathe. I'm sure, I'm sure that
was part of it. But he was going to drink
the cup of the wrath of.

Speaker 4 (21:14):
God, yeah, willingly for us, knowing that at any moment
he could have had two hundred thousand angels there to
do anything that he wanted. He was the one who
I saw west Huff video today and he's just like
one to whom for from through all things were made.
This God humbled himself to die for sinners who I

(21:40):
didn't want anything to do with him for twenty seven
years of my life.

Speaker 1 (21:43):
M And now we those that are not not we
the world, but we that are trusting in Christ, follow
him with our mini crosses and we we a man
and I were talking about this before the podcast. We

(22:04):
will meet our final obstacle, our our final right of
passage as believers, will be death itself. So once again
looking at looking at Friday, the Death of the Christ,
we will once face that interesting where you're talking about
reading to your son David about Pilgrim's progress and meeting

(22:27):
that the way that it's portrayed in that book.

Speaker 4 (22:30):
The river of death must cross the river. Yeah, it
gives me chills thinking about it. And get to the
river and they look and they try to find another
way around. They can see the city in the distance,
which it represents, you know, Heaven. They see that the
city and it's him and his body, and they look
to the left, and then they look to the right
and there was no other way. They had to go

(22:51):
through the river. It was really dark and really deep.
And then and then Christians like, I can't do it.
I'm just a worthless pilgrim. I'm not going to make it.
And then his buddy's like, we have to trust the
King's promises. He said he'll get us through. You think
about death.

Speaker 1 (23:07):
Yeah, And as little Christians as they were called in
the Book of Acts, are as little christ as they're
called the Book of Acts, Christians, we carry a little
cross and we walk the path of death. So Christ
in the garden knew this was coming, and we in

(23:28):
a way, no, it's coming for us. And we have
the promise of God and the hope in Christ. But
nonetheless we will face this final adversary in our lives
as Christ knew that he would face. But because of Sunday,

(23:48):
we know that he's made away and through the resurrection,
and not only the empty tombe, but his body is
made new, and we see he's the first born from
the dead. I wonder if I wonder if this was
how much of this has talked about on this past
weekend for churches, How how would we know if someone's

(24:12):
listening to this podcast and they're like, yeah, I went
to church yesterday, I didn't really hear much of this
kind of thing. How would we How would you just
know where to find a good church in your town?
Where do you? Where would you guys start? I should say,
like our website or would you just go check check
them out on Sunday? Or would you take someone's word
for it?

Speaker 2 (24:35):
Uh? I mean there are some helpful websites.

Speaker 1 (24:39):
Maybe you're a bad personal because you're just so in
the world of this of this church world that yeah.

Speaker 2 (24:47):
So, I mean that's the weird thing about being a
pastor is you don't get to really visit any other churches.
Although two weeks ago I did visit some other churches,
which was encouraging. It was a blessing. I do think actually,
I think before starting going to a website, I think
it is having conversations with people but asking very specific questions.
So asking somebody where they might go to church. I

(25:10):
think it's also a good conversation just to be able
to have with other people about their faith. And if
somebody starts talking about the church, I think when you
start asking questions like well do they preach the gospel
every week, And if that person can't tell you what
the gospel is so they don't know. If their church
preaches the gospel every week, that's probably a good sign
that it's probably not a good spot to be. So,

(25:31):
I think, you know, asking does your church preach the
gospel every week? Tell me about what y'all are preaching
through right now? Is it something going through scripture or
is it kind of hot topic of the week. Kind
of songs do you guys sing. Are they songs that
are talking about the blood and the Cross and the

(25:51):
resurrection and the hope that we have in that, or
are they more songs that lean towards how I feel
and I'm supposed to experience. So I think you can
do that. I think going to the church's website is
always helpful. Always look for a statement of faith. If
a church doesn't have a statement of faith on their website,
that's usually not a good sign. You want a church

(26:14):
to be very clear with what they believe and hold
to be true convictionally.

Speaker 1 (26:18):
How a statement of faith? Yeah, it's usually in the
about section right typically usually uh, and what we believe?

Speaker 2 (26:26):
What we believe. There's another one yeah, yeah, what we believe.

Speaker 1 (26:32):
Is there an off the top of your head, things
that we could look for in a statement of faith
because there's a lot of copying pasting going on these
days with church websites. So what would you look for
in a statement of faith?

Speaker 2 (26:46):
Yeah, I mean, without getting super specific initially, just at
first glance, is how how long it is? If each
statement has one sentence, that's a little discouraging.

Speaker 1 (26:56):
That's helpful.

Speaker 2 (26:58):
Because you want to like really know what they believe
about it definitely, what they believe about the word definitely,
So what do they say about the Bible? And then
it's it'll be labeled different things in different statements of faith,
but essentially how you can be saved? And if it
says anything apart from Jesus Christ alone not good. You

(27:22):
can look at what they believe about baptism because some
might say they may not say it under how you
get saved under the baptism one. They may say baptism
is required for salvation. That's not true, and so that's
not under the how you get saved, but it's tied
to it.

Speaker 1 (27:38):
So that's another topic for another discussion.

Speaker 2 (27:40):
Okay, market, So you do yourself a date back. That's right,
So definitely how you get saved. Not all of them
have something about the church, but actually think that's a
really helpful one is what does the church think about
what does that church believe about the church itself. I

(28:02):
think that'd be a really helpful one to be looking for.
I mean, most of the statements are going to be
helpful to look at. I mean there's usually ones on God,
on the Father, on the Spirit, things like that, But
what I find most of the time is the one
on God and even Jesus. They're almost all the same.

(28:23):
Where it's where you start getting the statements about church
and the statements about salvation that those really start to differ.
There are a few things that I personally don't think
need to be in a statement of faith because I
don't think every Christian needs to be needs to believe
those because they're salvafic in those in that sense, or
I think there's Christian freedom to disagree on a few issues.

Speaker 1 (28:46):
I'm talking about, like last things.

Speaker 2 (28:49):
Yeah, the timing of Jesus' return. Scripture is not explicit
on that, and so I think it's unhelpful to require
all your members to hold a very specific position on that.
I do think churches need to be clear on their
positions on baptism in Lord's Supper, so you know, our

(29:10):
church doesn't baptize infants. We don't see the argument in scripture.
I have Presbyterian friends who do, so I believe they're
going to be in heaven. I don't think this is
a salvation issue. But it would be very hard for
me to join that church in good conscience because I
would be disagreeing with things that they are practicing and
saying they're in scripture. So I want to be able

(29:32):
to know what does this church not only believe, but
how do their beliefs influence their practices.

Speaker 1 (29:38):
There was a really good discussion with Ligan Duck Endeavor, Yeah,
talking about this Presbyterian Baptist conversation, both of them saying
that the churches they would recommend to other people are
sometimes the churches that wouldn't be able to accept them
into membership. Yeah, because they hold a godly conviction according
to Scripture, right right, Strange way to think of it. Yeah,

(30:01):
The churches that would just accept anyone into their covenant
membership are the churches you probably would be more suspicious about.

Speaker 2 (30:08):
Yeah, Yeah, so I definitely think a more robust kind
of statement of faith is more helpful because you really
get to see what that church believes. I'm not saying
these certain churches are bad, but I get a little
hesitant when I see at the bottom of a statement
of faith. And if you'd like to actually know more
about what we believe, we invite you to come and
find out. So just tell me up front, Just let

(30:31):
me know what I'm walking into. You don't want a
church not saying this is what they're doing, but you
don't want a church to be hiding something. So you
just want to be upfront with what you believe and
what you what you're going to preach, and what you're
going to teach a couple things and showing that it's
all coming from scripture. So trying to give scripture references
to all these costs.

Speaker 1 (30:50):
Yeah, a couple of things we said, you said a
couple of keywords, buzzwords, membership. Don't know if that's this
podcast or another one. But you're also not talking about
attendants different things.

Speaker 2 (31:03):
Yeah, I'm talking about committing yourself to a very specific
local body of believers that are going to hold you
accountable to your profession of faith and that you're going
to be responsible for holding them accountable to their profession
of faith, where you're walking alongside them calling them out
and you don't pay for it. You're calling them out
and their sin, they're calling you out in your sin.

(31:24):
You're encouraging them. You're you're living out the one another
passages in a way that you've made an agreement with
this other group of people. I'm committed to you, you're
committed to me as we are both committed to Christ,
and we're going to help each other follow follow Jesus.
So it's much more than attendance. Uh, it's much more

(31:44):
than just being a name on a on a on
a sheet.

Speaker 1 (31:49):
It's it's more than just carrying a card that allows
you certain privileges once you've signed up and gone through
a class.

Speaker 2 (31:54):
Yeah, it's in some sense, it's a sacrifice. Yeah, it's
a it's a it's a desire to be known by
other people, even in the ways that you don't want
people to know, the stuff that you try to hide
from other people. This is, you know, belonging to a
local church is committing yourself in a way that says

(32:15):
I'm gonna i want you to see who I really
am and and help me be conformed into the image
of Jesus. And I can't do that if you only
see my positive side.

Speaker 1 (32:25):
Yea ca Can you guys have a meaningful membership? So
a Presbyterian, the room is confirmed that it's not just
a Baptist thing that you would be. And I know
memberships a buzzword it is, so I'm not I'm not
stuck on that word. Could you could call it a flock,
you could call it a covenant relationship? But who are you?

(32:49):
Are you a part of this church? And in what ways?
What what ways? Would we know? Where the boundary of
our churches? Who's who is in our body? Our local body?
Which the universal church? You say this a lot. Universal
church has always made manifest through many, many, many local churches.

(33:12):
But what makes the local church well the church? Who?
How is the church defined just by travelers that come
in and out, that attend occasionally on Sunday? Who are
the shepherds, the pastors? Who are they responsible for? And

(33:34):
how whatever word you want to use for that. There
there has to be a way to define who the
church is, just like you would say, mister, mister Jones's sheep.
Over here, that's mister Jones's sheep, and over here is
mister mister thomas His that's his flock. There are two
different flocks. You wouldn't argue that they're not both sheep,

(33:54):
but you'd say, I know this is mister Thomas's sheep,
and if one was loose, where do we return it
to mister Thomas?

Speaker 2 (34:02):
And some pushback I've gotten in the passes. Oh, so
you're saying, I'm not respond like, I don't have to
care about what other Christians do. I don't have to
care about my local church. It's like, no, that Like
if I if I know somebody's a professing Christian I
see them out in the if I see them on
the square doing something that they shouldn't be, I'm gonna
try to confront them on that. But there's a difference
between me going up to that guy and saying, hey man,

(34:23):
you shouldn't be doing that, and he's like, you have
no authority over me. You who are you to tell
me this? Versus Parker doing something like that, And it's like, Parker,
we we've covenanted together as members of a local church
that you asked me to come tell you this. If
I saw you sinning, you asked me to call you
out in this. You asked me to call you to repent.

(34:48):
And so there's this mutual agreement between us. I'm going
to fail and I need you to call me out
when I'm deceived by sin, and I want you to
do that. And another push people tend to give is, oh,
so I need to know every single person in my
church equally. I don't think that's true. I think you
have a responsibility for every single person in your church,
so I think you should at least know know who's

(35:10):
a part of your church. But that doesn't necessarily mean
you need to know everybody's deepest, darkest secret. You'll get
closer with some people in the church, but you have
that covenant relationship with each other through whatever you want
to call it, where I am responsible for you because

(35:30):
of this agreement that we have made to hold one
another accountable in this walk with Christ.

Speaker 1 (35:36):
And so in some sense I have an authority over you.

Speaker 2 (35:40):
You have an authority over me to make sure that
we're going to walk faithfully, and we've asked each other
to do that. And so I'm not going to know
every single member of the church at the equal level.
But if I saw somebody walking around the square, They're
not going to walk up to me and go, hey,
been a member at Amaeis for eight months, I'm like, great,

(36:00):
never never met you. I'm gonna at least know who
they are. I'm gonna know a little bit about them.
I'm hopefully going to go up to them and be like, hey,
how you know, how's life because there's this recognition of
I at least know who's a part of us. Yeah,
and to a certain degree. Common example be Matthew eighteen,
take it to the church? Who who's the church? For

(36:20):
this specific example of this specific center that's not repenting,
We're just taking them. We've taken them to any Christian,
any anybody that's that claims to be in the body
of Christ, the universal body of Christ.

Speaker 1 (36:32):
Are just going to take it there? Or was Jesus
talking about your specific group, your specific covening group of Christians?
And I would leave that to how anyone hears this
would interpret that scripture or any one in other passage
that we see in the epistles. And I say these
things because I know there's a lot of pushback with

(36:53):
membership a lot of pushback. I don't need to be
a member of a church. I don't need to be
part of a country club. This is a conversation going deeper,
deeper into this now.

Speaker 4 (37:02):
Yeah, I think you could just start with like a
lot of our listeners that are that listen in you know,
rural areas, and you just don't really have many options.
I think a really good starting point is, like what
Marshall said at the beginning, is getting really clear on
the gospel. And what is the Gospel? Is a great
book called What Is the Gospel? By Greg Gilbert, and
he outlines what the Gospel is not, which is just
as important to know what it's not and then knowing

(37:25):
what it is and then being able to even if
you can't navigate your way perfectly through a long statement
of faith on a church's website, if you're attending a church,
am I hearing this message consistently and regularly preached from
the pulpit? And then you could ask yourself, is baptism

(37:45):
in the Lord's Supper being administered as I see it
administered in scripture? And then is the overall posture of
this church to grow the individuals and attendants spiritually to
mature them in Christ or is it only to grow
the number of people there?

Speaker 1 (38:02):
M yeah, hey man, when did you become a member
of your church?

Speaker 6 (38:11):
Uh? Just so brought about two years now? Yeah, yeah,
it's just after we got back from Israem interesting pushed you,
pushed you into it. Yeah, I started the.

Speaker 3 (38:28):
Started all the class say classes, they are classes teach
you what membership is and like you talked about the
covenant part of it specifically of like, this is not
we're not in charge of the Methodists. You know, we
will hold accountable ultimately obviously, but uh in our group
while we're saying we're going to live life together and
ass that's what the the the class was about a

(38:52):
little better understanding of what being a membership here, being
a member is here. And then even if you miss one,
the other ones are just kind of supporting each other.
The other classes are. So I missed one of them,
but I already we knew where we were with it
before I even left for Israel with you. But when
it came back, that's when we like did the official

(39:13):
you know, stand up in front of the entire church,
introduce yourself, say a little bit about you know who
you are and in a member's meeting, not just a
normal church, but in the members meeting, and and say
we know what you know, having a covenant with you
is and and we want to be members here, and

(39:33):
they vote.

Speaker 1 (39:35):
Over the years, there have been, over the decades, centuries,
there have been nuances or disagreements on what congregationalism looks
like where members of a church would have a say
in the workings of the church, and a lot of
people people have looked at that in different ways, but
at some level, in all levels of it, it does

(39:57):
put weight on once again the question who is the church?
Who decides these matters, whatever those matters are that that
have been debated, Who decides that? When you say, when
Paul says the church or when Jesus says the church?
Are we talking universal all Christians of all all walks

(40:18):
of life? Are we talking about the manifestation of the
local bodies? Once again, I would I would I anticipate
pushback and I would say, let's reason together comment below
maybe on this and that this could spin off into
another episode on where is membership in the Bible? You know,

(40:39):
the questions like that, I don't see the word membership
in the Bible is not in there. You know, you
hear that quite a bit too. But I think what
we would say is it implies many times that the
the this specific local body is known. Like that's the
simplest way to say it. Yeah, anything else on someone

(41:00):
that's looking for a church, or maybe they attended one
yesterday for the service and they're thinking, I don't know,
I felt good. It felt good when I left that
guy seemed to know a lot, and that made me
feel really good that he seemed to know a lot.
Is that a good reason to think that it's a
good church.

Speaker 2 (41:21):
I No, that's not the only reason.

Speaker 1 (41:28):
I think it's the very common reason people use is man,
my guy knows this stuff, and I leave always feeling
like I love God a little bit more. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (41:39):
So, I think some questions you want to think through
as you're hearing somebody preaches, how how much in the
Bible are they so or are they using as kind
of like a launching I'm start hearing this text and
then I'm just gonna talk for the next forty minutes.
Yeah so, I think that's that's a good indicator, is
how much they're actually in the text. Kind of walking

(42:00):
through it and I think part of that is important, yes,
because you want you want to hear from God himself,
not not what this guy thinks. And I'm saying that
about myself as a guy who preaches regularly. I don't
want the church to leave with while Marshall really knows
this stuff. That would actually be a discouraging thing for
somebody to tell me after the service is Wow, you

(42:21):
really know your stuff, because really part of my job
as a pastor is to help people see it for
themselves in the text. So one of the things you
don't want a guy doing a magic trick in the
sermon where he gets done with it and you're like,
I have no clue how he did that. That like,
I've never seen that, and I don't know if I
can do that. That's crazy. He really knows the stuff.

(42:41):
You want to be able to walk from it and go,
how did I not see that before? It's clearly there.
I can I can clearly see the connection. Why did
I not see that before? That? Those are two very
different things, and so how much is he in the text?
But part of it him working through text is helpful
because you want the tone of the sermon to match

(43:04):
the tone of the text. So that's why I don't
always want to push against too much people feeling good
leaving a service. There are some texts that if I
were to preach, I do want the congregation walking out
feeling encouraged, feeling better, feeling peace. But at the same time,
there's some texts where you kind of need to leave
feeling the weight of sin and the weight of conviction.

(43:28):
And so you as whoever, when you're listening to a
guy preach the text that he's working through, you want
to think, is the tone of this sermon matching this
tone of this text, or you know, is he talking
about God's love as though I should feel guilty that
God even wants to love me? Like, you know, I

(43:48):
want that to be a nourishing thing for the people.
I don't want that to be a convicting thing. But
also if he's talking about sin and apologizing that the
Bible actually says it, that's discouraging. Sorry, guys that I'm
sorry the Bible says this. I know it could be
a little awkward in our day and time, but we
got we got to handle it. You know, it's here.
Sorry about that. No, I want him with conviction to

(44:11):
say this is a serious issue that we got to
deal with, and uh, it's not going to be popular,
but we gotta we gotta, we gotta say with this
what this says. So I think the way you hear
guys speak about what he's talking about and determining is
it actually coming from scripture? Is it coming from just

(44:31):
his own thoughts. And there's there's stuff in sermons that
do require a past a preacher to give some of
his own opinion. The way he applies it right, he's
going to try to apply it to his very specific context.
That's going to be a helpful thing, but the majority

(44:52):
of it shouldn't be that. The majority should be him
trying to help you see the text for what it's
already saying in a way that you feel more confident
with your hand toling of the Bible. I want our
members to leave church every Sunday feeling more confident with
scripture and not like I don't know how in the
world I'm ever going to do what he does. I
want them to walk away feeling excited to dive back

(45:14):
into it for themselves and go through it again and
talk about it in family worship that week when their
family's worshiping at home and as they sing songs and
stuff like that. So yeah, Also, I mean you asked earlier,
what's a sign of a good church. I do think
a sign of a good is not the only sign,

(45:34):
because it's gonna happen in bad churches too, But it's
how often they pray in the service. How much prayer
is actually in the service. I mean, prayers an example
of us showing our dependence upon God. And so if
you can go through a service with never praying, or
you get the quick fifteen second right before the guy
starts preaching again, not saying that that church is bad,

(45:58):
but I would just ask them, why aren't you praying
more in your service? So yeah, how much? How much
are they in the Bible? How much are they praying?
What is the content of their songs? That's kind of
backtracking a couple questions, But.

Speaker 1 (46:11):
Now that's good. I think that's a pretty good overflow.

Speaker 4 (46:14):
A group of American pastors decided to travel to London
in the eighteen eighties, and they decided to hear the
two greatest preachers of their day. One Sunday, they went
to a prominent church in London with a congregation of
over three thousand members. The Americans were in awe and
struck by the preaching. They left marveling, saying, what a

(46:34):
great preacher, What a great preacher. The next Sunday, the
pastors went to the Metropolitan Tabernacle to hear Charles Spurgeon preach. Afterwards,
they left marveling and proclaiming, what a great savior, What
a great savior.

Speaker 1 (46:52):
I love that story. Yeah, the other guy, I forgot
his name Jay, ironic that I forgot his name, but
evidently he was like really charismatic, really good, really good
at capturing attention and drawing out these illustrations. And he's
forgotten in my mind now. But yeah, yeah, that's that's helpful.

(47:18):
I think there there are that these are complicated things
man for people to discern a church, and I feel
like I'm kind of in this world every day, and
partly came from Yeah, two days ago, a guy a
message to me is like, hey, I know you haven't
I haven't heard from him in so long that his

(47:39):
number didn't even pull up, that it was a known number.
I had to say, hey, I don't I don't know
who this is. Because he came in on signal. Actually,
I'm sorry, I don't know who this is. Brother, So yeah, yeah, sorry,
this is so and so. We met, you know, seven
years ago. My question I was going to ask you is,

(47:59):
as we think through celebrations of life, which I don't.
I don't like that term over funeral for the same
reason we've been talking about Good Friday, we should think
about funerals and we should meditate on our own mortality. Anyway,
he said, should we cremate or barry? And you know me,

(48:19):
because I love these conversations we're having. Now, I said, well,
what does your pastors say? Because I'm wanting to just
kick the can down the road and say I'm wanting
to communicate something that we could talk. I'm happy to
talk about this, but I want to say, do you
sit with your pastor with questions that you have, knowing

(48:40):
that he likely did, likely wouldn't, likely wasn't going to
and that communicates something about the church he was in.
And he said, well, actually, I'm in a new church.
I don't really know the guy. And and so then
I said, what's the name of the church. He gave
me the website I go to. Website I go to.

(49:02):
I usually will go to look at the about or
what did you say? It was called again our beliefs,
Our beliefs. Yeah, look at that quickly, quickly, we'll look
at their leadership. What does the leadership structure look like?
I can get a lot just from looking to that.
And then I'll go to the sermons series they're in.
Are they in a topical thing where it's talking about
life and finances and giving and marriage and suffering and

(49:28):
all the things? Or are they like in Luke and
there this week's Luke chapter five, picking up where they
left off last week. That says a lot about that
church and the way that they look at the Word
of God is what's communicating to the people as opposed
to what we think this one's going to be about marriage,
which in it's in small doses not necessarily a bad thing.

(49:51):
But this church was None of it was encouraging to me.
And I even watched I usually will watch a little
clip of the pas buster and the latest sermon, and
as I was watching it, and I was seeing some
things that were frankly unbiblical, he was adding to the text,
adding things that weren't there. And I just sat there

(50:14):
for a second, just thinking this is hard. This is
hard for somebody, somebody. I think about these things all
day long because that's just the world I'm in. But
what about the most people don't And it's so important.
Being in a healthy local church that preaches the Gospel
is critical, critical to this spiritual fidelity of the family

(50:38):
of the not just the man, but his family. And
a man has to make these decisions for his family
if we're talking about a nuclear family, Yeah, it's complicated.
Without enough voices coming through, a lot of people get
all their information from podcast. I've said before, like I'd
rather stop this podcast and not have another episode if

(51:00):
we were only contributing to noise on the internet. I
don't want to be that guy. I would much rather
be working with my guys in my church on individual things.
I would much rather do that than possibly contribute to noise.
But if we could bring any clarity through this podcast,
I'll keep doing it. We don't need we don't need

(51:22):
to have an episode tomorrow. But if we have clarity
on well, what what could I do? If I don't
know a lot about what these guys are talking about,
what do I look for? Or I have three options
in my town? What's the difference in any of those three. Well,
I just like I feel better when I go to
this one, Like it's more comfortable, and I walk away

(51:43):
more comfortable. I don't blame the guy. That's that's what
I would think of a restaurant. I like to go
that one. I feel better when I leave that restaurant,
or or any other human consumeristic thing. Churches are hard, man,
It's it's hard to discern these things. So maybe this
podcast could be just a small, small, little sliver of clarity.

(52:08):
Did you have something else? So we've said several times,
is the church preaching the gospel? Will you share the
gospel with us? Marshall? Because in that question alone, what
is the gospel? And we did give away that book
of several weeks ago, but in that question alone, what
is the gospel? Said? This is another thing that I

(52:30):
encountered daily where people go, yeah, they preach the gospel.
What is the gospel? Well, that's a good question, and
that's hard to answer, they'll say, or well everyone's got
a different idea of it, or well, the gospel is
the good News of Jesus. What's that that it's good?
You know what I mean that we're forgiven? But how

(52:53):
are we forgiven? She goes to Jesus man.

Speaker 4 (52:57):
Yeah, so or that he was just a moral example,
or yeah, he because he teaches us.

Speaker 1 (53:04):
Yeah, he taught us how to flip tables, man, like
when when the government starts and croaching on our rights,
theseus went in there just flipped those tables. So that's gospel, man, Like,
there's a thousand ways we could say it, but the.

Speaker 2 (53:17):
One that or that Jesus made me a better me,
like using Jesus as a means to an end.

Speaker 1 (53:24):
Yeah, and that's the gospel. Yeah, so what is the gospel? Marshall?
We say this every episode, so I don't Last week
I told it Amber and then later she told me
my heart was pounding because you said that. And so
I certainly I know for a fact I'm not putting
pressure on you because you literally do this. This is

(53:46):
what you do. But maybe I should ask you when
you tell us the gospel also, is there something that
is there a component to it that if it that
a church could leave out, perhaps it would be half
a gospel, because half a gospel is no gospel, or

(54:06):
one in the half gospel is no gospel.

Speaker 2 (54:09):
Yeah, you want to make sure that, So maybe I'm
not gonn answer exactly how you want.

Speaker 1 (54:14):
Sorry, I just tend to overp know it thinks.

Speaker 2 (54:18):
The Gospel requires justice and mercy, right, and so what
we tend to do is someone might lean more on
one than the other good because mercy really only matters
if you understand justice. And so in the Gospel, it's
the fact that we we all are oh because of

(54:39):
our sin, because we're all sinners, none of us it
gets to escape that reality. We're all sinners, we're born
into it. So we're all owed God's wrath. So that's
the justice part, right, or that's part of the justice part.
That God needs to punish sin because of his holiness.
He would not be if he did not punish sin,

(55:01):
because we've got to punish the wickedness. So we are
owed his wrath. But through his mercy through Christ, we
get to experience forgiveness for those who repent to their
sins and follow in faith. So the justice still remains
because through faith and repentance, the wrath owed to us

(55:23):
gets poured out on Christ. So there's the justice part still,
He's still pouring out his justice, it's just been redirected
to Christ. Instead of us, and that's through his mercy,
meaning we're not going to get something that we deserve,
Christ taking on himself. This is where you get to
tie the eastern part right. And because of his resurrection,

(55:44):
that makes true everything Christ said about himself and his
atoning work on the cross makes it valid and legit,
so we can believe it because he rose from the dead,
meaning those who repent of their sins and followed Jesus
the Christ in faith have not only received mercy from
God and the fact that we no longer face his wrath,
but Christ faced it on our behalf. But through his resurrection,

(56:07):
through faith, through repentance, we're actually adopted as children into
the family. So now we have grace. So God's wrath
has been taken from us, so we've received the mercy
we are gifted as grace and the fact that now
we get to be counted as righteous because of what
Christ has done. None of that required us and we
couldn't do it. And in the midst of all that,

(56:28):
his justice has been satisfied because of Christ's atoning work
on the cross. So in the Gospel, you have justice
and you have mercy, but then you also get this
gift of grace that says you are no longer an
enemy of mine, You are now my child. You are
now one that has been reconciled to me because of Jesus.
And so when you see the Gospel in its fullness,

(56:51):
it's not just to make me feel better. It's not
just to make me a better me. It's to help
me see how wicked I am and my utter on Christ,
Who's going to take on this wrath so that I
don't have to face it, Which is why Paul can
say in Glatians, is no longer I who live, but
it's Christ who lives in me. My life is now his.
He died the death that I should have died. So

(57:13):
I'm going to live the life that's going to glorify
Him and exalt Him in everything I say, think and do.
Because of the mercy that I've been shown and the
grace that I've been gifted, I can do nothing but
live for Christ and follow in obedience to what He
has said, not in my own strength, but through the
Holy Spirit, which Christ promised to his people who would

(57:34):
follow in repentance and faith. And so even everything I
do that's good is only because God has equipped me
to do it with faith in Christ and the spirit
that He's gifted through that. So nothing that I do
that's good is because of me, So I get no
credit for that in big ways or small ways. Whatever

(57:54):
good I do. If I'm a good dad, it's because
of Christ. If I'm a good husband, it's because of Christ.
If I'm good path because of Christ. I if I
help an elderly woman cross the street, it's because of Christ.
Any good that I do is because of Jesus, and
so the Gospels, it goes back to the comfort of

(58:15):
recognizing our sin. The deeper I understand my sin or
the weight, the more weight that I feel of my sin,
the deeper appreciation I have for the mercy and grace
that's been shown through Jesus. And that's what you want.
As a preacher, That's what my goal is is to
help people see is yes, this is this is how
desperately you needed God's justice to be poured out on

(58:38):
somebody else other than you because it was owed to you.
But I want you to leave here treasure in Christ
more than you did when you walked in, because He
is such a beautiful and glorious gift that you didn't
deserve and I need you to see that from the text.
I need you to see your sin, but I also
need to see how your sin was dealt with through Christ.

(58:58):
And I need you to leave here treasuring Him more
than anything and hating your sin more than anything, because
that's what's going to be worth it in the end.

Speaker 4 (59:07):
A footnote to that one time, Marshall, he said one
of your sermons that it can be we can fall
into temptation that Jesus. So you know, as Christians, we
believe that God coexists in three persons, Father's son and Spirit,
and we can begin to think that Jesus twists the
Father's arm so that he would love us, and that

(59:28):
God the Father really all he wants to do is
just pour out his wrath because he doesn't really even
like us that much.

Speaker 5 (59:33):
But Jesus twists his arms and now he's got to
save us.

Speaker 4 (59:37):
So we would say that it's incorrect to say that
God the Father loves us because Jesus died on the cross.
We would say John through sixteen, for God so loved
the world that he sent his son, And then you
see how deep the Father's love for us that he
would not spare his only son.

Speaker 2 (59:58):
Yeah, exactly, exactly, Yeah, and this is good.

Speaker 1 (01:00:01):
I feel like we just keep going and going and going.

Speaker 5 (01:00:05):
And man's hoping it didn't.

Speaker 1 (01:00:09):
Like one of the things I want to say to that,
to what you just said. When you told the gospel,
there were people that even pushed back on total depravity,
and they say, I don't want to spend too much
time on this, but people will say, so you're saying
with what you just said that there's an old lady
that goes and picks up somebody's grocery, buys their groceries,
and she's an unbeliever, she's saying. You're saying she's not

(01:00:31):
capable of being good on her own. She's an atheist,
but you're saying there's nothing good in her. But I
literally just saw her pick up someone's groceries.

Speaker 2 (01:00:40):
Yeah, I would say, yes, she's unrighteous and apart from Jesus,
she will face the wrath of God.

Speaker 1 (01:00:46):
But she's an unbeliever and she did something good apparently.
Oh yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:00:50):
I mean I think we can all do good things,
but none of it's counted as righteous right before God.
So God's not measure our good and our bad. When
I when I said, you know, if I'm a good husband,
it's because of Christ. When I'm if I said I'm
a good good pastor or a good father, or if
I do do some good stuff, I'm not saying like

(01:01:11):
I'm incapable of doing those things. I'm saying my dependence
on christis what's driving me to do those things. So
I'm seeking to be a good husband, not because i
want to be seen as a good husband, but because
I'm seeking to love my wife in a way that
Christ has instructed me to.

Speaker 1 (01:01:30):
And so when.

Speaker 2 (01:01:30):
God looks down and sees the way that I love
my wife, He's not going, Wow, Marshall's doing a good
job today. I'm impressed. Last Thursday was a bit rough,
but you know, he's he's kind of improved over the
week and he's doing great. He looks down and sees
Christ's righteousness over me, and my gratitude to the Lord
for what He's done on the cross shows itself, and

(01:01:52):
my desire to be obedient to his word in the
way that I love my wife and the way that
He's instructed me to. So my good husband is because
of Christ. So I'm I'm when when when I think
to myself, what's it like to be a good husband.
I'm not trying to get creative with that. I'm I'm
looking to the word and saying, what does the word
say I need to be doing a husband, not to

(01:02:12):
gain God's favor, but in response to the grace and
mercy I've been shown this is what I should do
because is what God's called me to do. Same thing
with parenting, same thing with pastoring, you know, help helping
the elder lady across the street. I'm not doing that,
so I would be you know, somebody catches me on
their social media's like, look at this guy, Look how
great he is. I don't want that. And God's not

(01:02:34):
looking down on me saying, okay, that's that's seven elderly
ladies in the last year that you helped to cross
the street.

Speaker 1 (01:02:38):
Good.

Speaker 2 (01:02:39):
He's I'm just doing it because Christ is said to love,
love your neighbor, help those around you, share the gospel
with them. And so I'm everything I'm doing, I'm seeking
to do and to be in obedience to his word.
Things things that I abstain from are seeking to be
obedient to God's word.

Speaker 1 (01:02:59):
So future talking about a podcast about total depravity, and
pushbacks on it. Attributes of God and different theories of
atonement would be all really cool things.

Speaker 2 (01:03:12):
In one episode.

Speaker 1 (01:03:13):
No, no future future episodes. As we think about future episodes,
people comment below on future episodes as well. What you
would like to hear to talk about. We always do
a book giveaway. Give a book that was part of
this discussion.

Speaker 2 (01:03:30):
Yeah, Alistair Beg The Man on the Middle Cross. This
was birth out of a sermon that he preached a
while back. So it's actually a really powerful sermon. In fact,
you probably will find now if you search it, you
can find the whole sermon, but you probably find the
main clip that kind of made its way. It makes
it way, It makes its way around every Easter if

(01:03:52):
you just google Alistair Beg. The Man on the Middle
Cross talks about how one of the two thieves that
was crucified with Jesus, how he was saved and what
he says when he gets to heaven and they say
why should I let you in? It's a really powerful clip.
But coming from that, he wrote this this little book

(01:04:16):
where he shows three examples from Scripture of people who
in scripture who would have had no no real answer
for what the saving work that God had done until
they until it was revealed to them. And so it's
just a really helpful book, especially around this time of year,

(01:04:37):
but good any time of year.

Speaker 1 (01:04:39):
But comment for this one. It mean I got a
couple from last week. Well sorry for the book to
hold a comment to get to get the book giveaway.

Speaker 3 (01:04:47):
Man on the Middle cross, the Man on the Middle cross.

Speaker 1 (01:04:52):
The comment the Man on the Middle cross on YouTube
not none for one the podcast on you YouTube, comment
that we will Caden will give this book away. And
also comment, please comment any any pushback on ending we said,
or anything you would like us to say or talk
our discuss in the future. That'd be great, helpful, be great.

(01:05:14):
What you got for comments last week?

Speaker 3 (01:05:17):
I do feel better, so thank you for those, which
Jason from Michigan said, I hope you feel better. But
you know how Tom Brady became the starter by coming
in when the starter was down. I think it was
a threat that Amber is going to take this now.
Marshall for Tyler's and yeah, exactly, watch out, watch out Tyler.

(01:05:38):
The great show. Guys, keep it up. Tyler is spot on.
By the way, nothing compares to the time you give them.
Cindy said, great episode and it was great seeing Amber
join you guys say for Michelle, love seeing Amber, thank
you for today's podcast, and had one from a girl
named Kira. I absolutely love this podcast. It's always so
convicting and inspiring. As a teenager sixteen, it really speaks

(01:05:59):
to me and so I I just want to thank
you for the show. I don't think you guys know
the impact that you're having.

Speaker 2 (01:06:05):
Gotta blush you all.

Speaker 1 (01:06:06):
Yeah, that's great, all great comments. All right, We'll see
you guys next week.