February 1, 2025 • 46 mins
What are you looking for in your relationship with Jesus? Are you looking for something real, not just going through the motions of what it supposedly means to be a Christian? Why are we not getting something more in church or in reading the Bible that truly changes our lives? Why does everything seem so dead? Listen in as the On the Table crew discuss the juice of life; the stuff that makes this relationship with Jesus real, fulfilling, and alive.
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Episode Transcript
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Coming up. But I want to live. Iwant to find that edge where
life happens. Because thisworld, I'm telling you, it's out
to suck all of that out ofeverything, right? And what
sickens me the most is when thechurch begins to suck all the
life out of things.
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You music. This is our firstepisode of On the Table. And the
whole idea is to put somethingon the table and talk about it.
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So we thought it'd be fun toactually bring something and put
it on the table. It doesn't haveto be exactly what we're talking
about, but it can be somethingthat we reference. So okay, I'm
going to start off, and I'mgoing to have, I'm going to put
this picture on table, so if Ican make it stand up straight.
So should show to the camera.
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Credit, Deanna Martin,and here's my thinking on that.
So why do I have a picture onthe table? I also was going to
have a Bible, but you'll justhave to. I don't have one around
here, so, and that's probablynot the right representation
anyway, but my inspiration forthis is to just talk about, like
the body of Christ, about likejust being a Christian, just
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like I look at art and I thinkit's beautiful, it's creative,
it's expressive, it's alive, youknow? And it doesn't matter, we
don't have to leave the pictureso much. But, oh, sometimes life
is just upside down. It's notalways perfect, no, but no,
that's the thing I was thinkingabout this. And my point of
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inspiration is to talk aboutjust the fact that, what are we
looking for when we come to God,when we go to church, when we
get when we look atChristianity? It's the question
that I think that Nicodemus wasasking when he approached Jesus,
he was like, you know, there'sall sorts of sermons about that
and everything else, but when Ilook at it, more and more that I
just see what he's just, he'sjust groaning inside. He's like,
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coming to Jesus, like, he's,he's, he's a Pharisee. He's done
all the religious stuff. He'sdone. He's, he's followed the
letter of the law. He's doingall this stuff, but he's empty
inside. He's asking Jesus, youknow, what is it I'm what's the
secret sauce? What's the thing?
What's What do I? What am Imissing? What do I, what do I
need to do to get the realstuff? And of course, Jesus
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tells him, you know, hey, it'snot you've got to be born of, of
the Spirit, you know? And I justthink when just to get honest
and real about this, becausethat's what we're trying to do
here. Is the thing I want to puton the table and have a
discussion about, is, why are wemissing that? Why are so many
people looking to whether it'sgoing to church, trying to read
the Bible, whether it's going toa fellowship, whatever it is?
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What are we missing? Why are somany people not getting filled
with something that meaningful,that really changes their life,
because that's what they'rewanting, right? I mean, maybe
not. Maybe some people, I can'tjudge people I don't know, maybe
people go to church sometimesjust because it's like, oh, I,
you know, my parents told me Ishould go to church, or they're
trying to check some box off.
And we always make that claim.
But I, I think a lot of peopleare going to church because
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they, they just are. They'relooking for something. They're
looking for, something real.
This world's just so mundanesometimes, and it's just,
there's high spots and lowspots, don't get me wrong, but
there's a lot of the worldthat's just rigged around, kind
of just death, just things thatare dying or dead or just dead
inside. And you know, I don'tI've been to church services
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where they were alive andactive, but I've been to a lot
of them where they're just, it'slike, it's, it's not bad, like
the music might be really good,like the the sermon might be
engaging, it might beinteresting. You might learn
something. But I don't walk awaygoing, Man, I encountered the
living God there. I might evenget chills. The music's so good,
or whatever else. But it didn'tchange my life. It didn't, it
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didn't, it didn't connect toGod. And I just, I, I want to
talk about that, because I knowin my life I found that I found
the thing. I found the juice,the secret power, the stuff
that's life, you know. Andsometimes I think we're looking
for the artwork, we're lookingfor the expression. We're
looking for something more realthan just words on a page or,
you know, here's a bulletin, andwe're gonna go through this
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point and do this, and then dothat, and then you can sign up
on Wednesday to do this service,and you can do a lot of stuff.
And it's like, I know there'sall that going through the
motions, but there's just stuffthat's deeper. And I think, I
don't know if it's COVID orwhat, but something just busted
something inside of a lot of us,and we're sick and tired of the
I know, for me, I can't talk toyou guys, but I think I'm just
tired of just stuff that doesn'thave a lot of deep meaning to
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it. You know, I'm just goingthrough the motions. So I think
I've, I kind of feel like I knowwhat the difference is, but I'm
but. That's what's on the table.
I want to, I want to just have areally honest discussion,
because that's what we're doinghere. We don't have any we don't
have to live up to anybody'sexpectations of what we believe
or don't believe, or how we talkabout it, or what we say or what
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we don't say, or whichscriptures we use, or that kind
of stuff. And that's the beautyof this thing, right? Is we're
just saying we can just have anopen discussion, because people
have real thoughts and they'reafraid to have open discussions.
They're afraid to, oh, what if Idon't say it right? Or what if,
you know, what if I'm notsupposed to think that way? Or,
what if I'm not supposed to askthose kinds of questions. So if
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you're listening to this today,that's, that's the, that's the
whole idea is we hope that wecan just have honest, open,
engaging discussions and notworry about that. You know,
let's dissect this thing down tothe parts that matter, and just
put the parts back in thematter. So I'll just put that on
the table and say, what it Idon't know if anybody wants to
just jump in. Like, what youcould start with? What are you
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looking for? Like, what? What'syour Nicodemus experience? What?
What if you were gonna approachJesus, or approach the church,
or maybe not asking that, right?
But what's the longing of yourheart? What do you what are you
looking for when it comes toGod? And your experience with
God? Ithink that connection, like you
were kind of mentioning, is,like, it's a big thing, like
you're saying sometimes you cango through the motions of being
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at a church service or whateverelse, and you you're kind of
missing that connection. I thinkit's like a, I don't know, like
a relationship instead of just aexperience or a, I don't know
what else you want to call it aclass, yeah, like where you're
connecting with other people,you're connecting with God. And
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it's real, it's honest. There'sno pretenses. There's no wall
that's put up. It's like real, Idon't know, discussing the
difficult subjects, it's gettingdeep into what's on your mind
and you're struggling with, orsomething you need encouragement
for, something you need prayerfor something that you can
connect with each other on adeeper level than just, Hey,
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how's your Sunday? How's theweather, kind of conversation,
or, I don't know, yeah,I like that. Have you been to
churches where, and I'm not, I'mnot asking any names. I just, I
know we've been to differentones. We've had a church and had
different experiences. But if,have you guys been to a church
where you felt like it, there'slot that there's just certain
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things you couldn't bring up, orthat would just not be something
you could talk about in church.
Yeah, for sure, but I don't, Idon't know if that's because
there would have actually been abad reaction to the question,
but more so a idea in my head ofwhat the I don't know how the
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how the pastor would react to myquestion, or how what the
congregation would think, but,you know, I've never asked those
kind of, like, any kind ofquestion in church where I'm
like, Whoa. Like, his responseis really negative. I shouldn't
talk like this here. I don'tfeel comfortable. I think it's
actually more of a judgmental,like, pre like, even judging the
church a little bit like, ohyeah, they will react bad if I
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ask something, or if it soundslike I'm doubting something, or
asking a question that's goingto make them stumble with, like,
how to answer it? Like, that'snot welcome there. Like they
wouldn't be upfront with meabout the answer. But again,
I've neverthat's pretty fair. Like you're
saying you're already prejudging them, that maybe, maybe
they would, maybe certain placeswould be open to whatever you
had, whatever your struggle was,and just actually come around to
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you. And I know that's true. Iknow. I think the body that we
had, you know, years ago, wouldhave definitely done that. I
think you could have brought upanything, and we would have just
surrounded somebody and prayedfor them, for sure,
that's what welcomed me to thechurch I was younger. You're
talking about what crossCorrect, right?
And what do you think? I mean,what do you think causes that
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pre judgment to think that youwouldn't be safe to do that? Is
there certain things that, youknow, Christians
can really come acrossjudgmental, but I feel like it's
also one of the things where younotice it more, because they're
supposed to be the people thataren't being so judgmental. So
it's like, it's like, a higherstandard. Yeah, exactly.
Because, like, you talked, Italked to anybody, like going to
public school, and everybody wasjudgmental, like every single
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person who talked to yourneighbors. So we talked to
judgmental, but becausesomeone's supposed to be
representing Christ, it's funny,even the people that say they
don't believe in Christ, they'reautomatically like, Hey, that's
not how God would act. Yeah,you know, I, I can't help but
think and that some of thatcomes from the fact that just a
misunderstanding of the gospel,I mean, that's that's become a
big part of our whole ministry,right? Is, I think that if
people that spoke in churchwould open the door to more
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honest discussions, it wouldhelp the people be feel more
comfortable, you know, but I,honestly, I still stand by this.
I think in a lot of churches, ifthe pastor, for instance, or the
worship leader, were to juststand up there and say, I just
had a crappy week, and I justreally was raging in my flesh.
And I just, man, I I reallyscrewed up this way and that
way. And I really, I yelled andscreamed at my kid. And I used
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to, you know, the F word 30times in my wife's face. And I,
you know, can you imagine goingto church like that, and someone
just saying that up on a stage?
I can't, because, I mean, I can,because I think I said things
like that, but when I was apastor, but I've never been to a
church where they did that. Butwhy? Because, I'll guarantee
you, because I've been to pastorprayer meetings. I guarantee you
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that they did it. I guaranteeyou they had those days in those
weeks, and so did everybody outthere. But it's because we don't
understand our dual nature, andwe have this concept in
Christianity that, basically, Ikind of thought about it earlier
Laurel and I were talking aboutthis concept of duality, and we
were talking about it. It'slike, I think the basic
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perception of of being aChristian is thinking of you
having a gage, you know, youthink of a gage in your car, and
it goes from, like, empty tofull. And if you kind of think
of a gage of, like, sort of badon one side, on this side, I
guess, and it goes out to, youknow, righteous or amazingly
good. And so, the idea, I think,that most people believe in
Christianity is, you know, it'syou're trying to make your gage
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go closer to the good personthing, right? And so if you were
to kind of come in and admit,oh, man, I really screwed up, or
I had this problem, whatever,then I think you would feel
like, oh, people, you know,everybody, no one else is saying
that. So I would just feelterrible to say that, right? The
problem is, it's a bad it's baddoctrine. The Bible says that we
have two different gages. Now,once we come to Christ and we're
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born from above or born again,we have now a one Gage, as we're
a new creature in Christ, Jesus,and that Gage is pinged to
righteous 100% all the time. Cannever leave that and the other
Gage, really, you might be ableto flicker a little bit off of
bad but our flesh isn't everreally going to be made
straight, and that's thereality. So the truth is, if I
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have a terrible day and I fleshout and I've made the choice to
walk in my flesh, it hasn'ttouched who I am in Christ, the
eternal part of you, right? Thepart of you that's going to live
on in heaven forever, the partof you that's been made new and
righteous. And, yeah, I thinkthat's like something that a lot
of people don't get, and thatmakes it really difficult. I've
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never heard thought in anotherchurch. I don't think I've ever
heard the term duality or to anew being. And when I feel like
I have, it's always more of justlike, oh, well, now that Jesus
died and rose from the dead,you're going to heaven, so
you're new in that way, yeah,because you believe, but it's
like, they're not making it likea, a real, almost, like
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physical, tangible thing oflike, no, like, it really is
separate. Because I think thewhole idea of like, spirit and
soul and consciousness and thatkind of whole like, almost seems
like mystical world is, likealmost removed from the church.
Yeah, maybe it's almost scaredto be talked about, right? A
lot of churches don't even thatI've been to recently, don't
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even mention the Holy Spirit andand I, and I understand their
trepidation of talking about thespirit, because oftentimes the
spirit is because he is kind ofmystical, kind of, you know,
because he's ethereal, he'sspiritual, you know, and he's
not really understood. And so Ithink there's this fear that if,
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if people talk about the spirit,then it can go into some pretty
weird things. Sure has in somedoctrines, you know. And so I
think I don't know why I'massuming, which is probably
wrong, as you know, but I'massuming that it's because
they're afraid that if they talkabout the spirit, then then
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they're gonna churches that dotalk about the spirit focus on
one thing that he does, and theymake that their whole ministry,
like healing or right? And sothey say, Well, we're we're not
that. So they don't even talkabout the spirit that much, let
alone our difference in in ourown being. Now,
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I think you're right, but, Imean, let's be honest, being a
spiritual being is what it is tobe Christian, right? There's
nothing outside of that. Gettingback to the Nicodemus story,
Jesus tells him, dude, you'reyou're looking the wrong
direction. There's nothing youcan do into this person that you
are to make any, you know,amount of difference at all. I
mean, I'm paraphrasing forJesus, but he was saying is, you
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got to be born of the Spirit.
That's the only thing that'sgoing to get you spiritual. He
says the same thing at the womanat the well, right? He's like,
hey, you know, she's like, Hey,well, should we be worshiping
here in Samaria at our templesand our wells, in our situation
or, or is it Jewish thing? Shewants to get into this sort of
physical here and now stuff. Andhe tells her, no, the true
worshippers worship in spiritand in truth. And it doesn't
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matter where you came from, whatyour blood is, how what you did
yesterday or five minutes ago,it matters your faith in the
living Jesus, the living God,put your faith in Him. And then
in second Corinthians, we talkedabout that scripture I talked
about a minute ago, where youbecome a new creature in Christ,
Jesus. That. It's the same areawhere it says he gave us his
righteousness, by the way. Doyou think that go back to that
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meter again? Do you think Jesusrighteousness ever kind of
starts to fade? Is it ever sortof like, Ah, it's only about
half righteous today. So if wehaving, if we have become the
righteousness of Christ, theactual righteousness that Christ
had just by faith, then that cannever be tarnished, that that
isn't just, oh, that's the onethat's going to heaven or the
one that's eternal, that's rightnow. The kingdom of heaven is
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right now. As soon as you putyour faith in Christ, you have
living in you this beautiful getback to this picture that's on
the table today. This beautifulnew creature that's Jesus, says
in that John three Nicodemusstory, he gives this reference
to the Spirit. He says, By theway, the spirit, nobody knows
where it's come. It's like thewind. It kind of blows in.
Nobody knows what direction, andthey don't know where it's
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going. That's the beauty. It'slimitless. It's powerful. It's
amazing. Paul says in Romanseight, you know, he's like, I
had this, you know, prior to themy Christ experience, basically,
I was under the law, and the lawbasically brought me down. But
now I have this new law inChrist, the law of life and
liberty in Christ, Jesus andI've lifted up, and it's just
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all the all the barriers aregone, and that's the way
Christian that's whyChristianity is good news. But
the minute we begin to muddy thetwo and mix the two gages and
start to go, hey, you know whatit's, oh, you know what? You're
a bad Christian today, andyou're, oh, you're a little
better tomorrow, because youdidn't do all that sin or
something else. Then we takeaway from the fact that if I
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give into my flesh and people doon a regular basis, it, it
doesn't touch the fact that youcould stand right back up five
seconds later and do somethingspiritual, because you're also
the full, full on Spirit of God.
You you have any the ability,every second of every day to
express the real power of theSpirit, which tongues are great,
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healings are great, and we'renot here to knock those things
right. But the real power of theSpirit is to love one another.
The power of the Holy Spirit isto provide for us a pure, holy
love that God had for us, whichis based on grace. And so that's
why I think for me, what I'mmissing so often when we come to
the body of Christ, whetherthat's a church that's brick and
mortar or a group of people thatcalls to be a Christian, or
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Bible study, or whatever else isthat I want to find life. I want
to find life abundantly, lifeeverlasting. I want to have
people that are just willing tobe themselves and let go of all
of this garbage and this filththat the world has put on us and
all these rigid barriers andeverything and after, oh, I've
got to talk a certain way. Ican't I can't drop this, or I
can't say that, or I can't bemyself, right? Oh, I might be
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judged for that, whether likeyou said, I like what you said,
maybe they wouldn't judge you,sure, but because of, because
you, because we do see themjudge people, because the
Christian community judges gaypeople. So often, I say the
Christian community like it'srepresentative of everybody.
It's not. But what we see thesepublic, Big Mouth versions of it
are really out there bashingwhole people groups, which is
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not anything that Jesus wouldever want, right? I think about
the Super Bowl this last yearhad some ads, and I forget the
name of that group. Does anybodyremember they put out some new
ones too? Iforget he gets us. Is that it
gets us? Yeah, I think that'sit. And it's this powerful ad.
And we saw it, and we're like,oh, that's so awesome. They're
just going, you know, they'relike, they're washing the feet
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of like gay people and ofvarious different kinds of
situations. And I thought thisis so awesome. It's in the Super
Bowl, right? And then the dayafter a bunch of Christian
groups start going after thisgroup and saying, That's not
Christian at all, and all thisother stuff. And you're like,
what? How? How is that notChristian? I just don't
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understand. Yeah, I don't get iteither. And so I'm, I'm, I'm
excited about what it is to beChristian, but I am all together
mad about what it's become. I,you know,
I think, you know, you'retalking about the point about,
you know, the two differentgages and and I think we
sometimes almost think ofChristianity, almost like a
stair step, like I'm slowlystepping up the steps toward
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Christ, and I'm getting betterand better and and I think
getting back to our discussionat the beginning of, like,
judgment and stuff, I think, youknow, it's easy when you have
that mindset of, I'm steppingcloser to God to then look down
at the steps below you and belike, Oh, that person down
there, they're not as high as Iam up here. And or to look down
on yourself and be like, Man,that person I know is way up
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there. I'm never going to makeit to their level,
steps that you used to be on,yeah. And it just it causes, I
think, this judgment ofcomparison versus if you realize
that no by faith, I get all theway to the top because of Jesus
like that takes away. It levelsthe playing field of everyone,
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and it takes away thatcomparison that we constantly
live in. And I think it alsofrees us when we're not so
focused on that all the time.
Time of like, trying to betterourselves and trying to work at
that, and failing and winning,and then failing winning, it's
like that frees up our mentalcapacity to, like, have the
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ability to then focus on livingand loving and the true life
that you're talking about.
There's nothing to prove toanybody,
and then going off of that. Ifwe look at that gage of our
flesh, then too it keeps us outof judging, because we realize,
like we all have that Gage. Weall have. If you're in Christ,
you all have the the Jesusrighteousness Gage, the new you
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and so. But if we look at ourfleshly gage and realize, like
everybody has that Gage, andwherever your your needle is on
your gage, it doesn't matter,because it's all forgiven. And
so that's why you don't judgepeople groups. You don't judge
people who are struggling withaddiction. You don't judge
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people who you know still have afoul mouth. You don't judge
whatever, whoever that you thatwe have a tendency to look down
on at those lower stairs, youknow, because we realize we all
have that Gage, and some of us,our needle is in a different
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place than other people. But thepoint is, it's still in the
flesh Gage. And that flesh gagewe own. We all own it. And we
can't, right? We can't sit aboveanybody, because we realize,
yeah, it just has differentforms, right? Paul put it where
I was at. He said, like in yourin my flesh, nothing good
dwells. And I think, I thinkthat's just true. And I think if
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we were super honest about that,and we were also super honest
about the fact that in myspirit, nothing bad dwells. And
we could encourage one anotherin that. And we could actually
just, I just want to put thechallenge out there to you guys
and anybody listening to this. Ijust challenge anybody that
calls themselves a Christian.
First of all, I hope that youunderstand that to be a
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Christian means you put yourfaith in Jesus for His
righteousness, which will bringyou salvation. It also brings
you righteousness, and it bringsyou sanctification and holiness
in a brand new person, all theway 100% there's no progression
towards that through your lifeas you work hard, because the
minute you begin to mix andmatch those two doctrines, and
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you start to say, Oh, it's myworks. That's gonna make me a
little holier, then you're gonnablame you if you get holier and
like you said a minute ago, oryou'll blame you when you don't,
yeah, and that's where's yourfocus, then on you and others,
instead of on man, I'm a screwup, like everybody else, but
Jesus won the war, so now I'mnot just to screw up. That's the
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old me that's dragging arounduntil my bodily death, and then
I finally get to chop that loosejust be the new me. But in the
meantime, the more I understandthat in my life, the last 20 or
30 years, the difference is thatI can just chop that loose at
any given point, and I can juststart to say I'm free in that
and I don't waste timecondemning myself over my
stupid, rotten flesh. It's justout to kill me every day. Yeah,
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it's like, Paul says, right? Hesays to put off the old man. Put
on the new man. That's anymoment like you just said, Any
moment we can choose that. Yeah,put it back on if we want and do
something horrible or hateful orwhatever else.
It doesn't feel right, though,that's why we're trying to
encourage it, right? Because howdo you really feel like you just
blow it and, you know, you'vejust, you've just, like, you're
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just fleshed out. Do you feellike, like, maybe you've been
around this doctor long enoughthat you just throw the light
switch on? But I think, I thinkfor a lot of people, it's hard
to kind of think, oh, man, Idon't, I'm not in a good place,
you know, I've got a Don't,don't, don't expect me to do
anything. You know, Christian,right now, I'm like, a little
while to recover before you'reusing, yeah, I've got to do some
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work to get I've got to, I'vegot to, I've got to, you know,
and really, what you're sayingis you've got to pay for that.
You've got to pay some price forthat. And the minute you say
that, that's spitting on theblood of Jesus, He paid the
price for that, it'slike we feel like we have to pay
penance for our sins in themoment. We have to wallow in our
shame. Yeah, ifI'm not acting shameful enough
for long enough, then maybe Idon't really feel bad for what I
did or something, right? Whenreally you're just wasting time
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that you could be now putting onthe new man, walking in that
walking in love, making thatchoice to go, okay, yeah, maybe
I just blew up at my kid becauseit was the last straw of my
patients, and I just yelled atthem, maybe I custod them,
whatever. That doesn't mean thatthe very next moment, I can't go
do something loving for them, orI can't right, apologize and
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say, Hey, I'm so sorry. I cannotbe
better if you did that insteadof wallow in the in the Oh god,
I'm so sorry. I'm not, I'mgonna, I'm gonna, you know, do
this, that, and the other thing,when he's like, I paid for that.
You are well equipped. Go do thegood stuff. Stop wasting time
trying to make up for the badstuff. That's what I shed my
blood for on the cross. Andthat's
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life like to me, I think, likewhen we do that with our kids,
that's building a relationship,that's love, that's real, that's
reality, and they learn that.
That mommy yells, and Mommy getsin her flesh, and Mommy has a
breaking point and But mommyalso humbles herself and
apologizes. That means childrealizes that mommy respects
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child as a human being. Because,you know, the child goes, Oh,
wow, somebody actually loves meand respects me enough to
apologize to me, you know, thatI have value, and then you're
just all of that good,beautiful, spiritual stuff
develops in that relationship.
And that's, that's the reality,that's the juice,
(25:32):
and that's the real stuff, youknow, like, that's, that's the
beauty of the real power of theHoly Spirit, is that, that He
loves us, he's with us. He, youknow, Jesus died for us. We can
have grace for people. We can.
We're living in a hard worldwhere our flesh is against us,
the world's against us. All thatstuff that's like, real stuff,
like, and I want to talk aboutthat stuff with people. When I
get together with Christians, Idon't want to talk about, I
(25:54):
don't want to just sit a certainway and go, Oh, and then
whatever, you know, maybethere's more rock and roll. It's
a church. You know, our countrylike you, like mine. But you
know what I mean? I want tolaugh my ass off. Sorry. Maybe
I'll cut that out of the video.
I won't, but I want to laugh. Iwant to I want to have fun. I
(26:15):
want to enjoy stuff. Maybe I gotoo far, sometimes, whatever.
But I want to live. I want tofind that edge where life
happens. Because this world, I'mtelling you, it's out to suck
all of that out of everything,right? And what sickens me the
most is when the church beginsto suck all the life out of
things for the sake of the factthat they just don't believe in
grace enough, that that's I'mjust gonna put it where it's at.
(26:37):
They don't believe in graceenough. And for some churches,
not all. I'm not going to I'mnot going to point this finger
at everybody for sure, becausethis isn't the case, but I know
it is the case with a lot ofchurches, and God forbid, if
you're this kind of church, somepeople know innately that by
preaching against sin and bykeeping people condemned on
their sin, that they willcontinue to come back to your
(26:59):
church, and they will continueto put money in the coffers and
that sickening beyond belief andthat that just that needs to be
obliterated. And if you're at achurch like that, you need to
wise up and read the Bibleyourself and figure out that is
not what Christ came to do. Thatis not what the church is
supposed to be doing. Yeah, youknow, I'm not, I'm not going to
name names. I bet I've been tothose places, and that's absurd.
(27:21):
That's just absurd. You know,like, I'm just, I'm fired up
about this because, because Iknow people right here at this
table, and other people in theworld who have been freed by the
gospel of grace, and they're themost loving people. They're the
most full of the Spirit people.
And when you're full of when youmeet someone that's full of
spirit. They're alive. They'renot always like, I'm being today
and I'm being all gregarious. Itdoesn't mean they're just
(27:43):
always, you know, peeing intothe top, yeah,
always joyful, or always walkingin your spirit, or what you
know, butthere's some level of reality,
because you don't, you're notafraid anymore, yeah, about what
everybody thinks, because you'relike, you know what? God thinks
so highly of me that he made mehis son. He made me a son of the
living God. He adopted me as ason like that can't be taken
(28:06):
away by me or anybody else youknow. And that's beautiful. And
I just think people arebeautiful. They're real. They
have warts, they have problems.
And man, if people and they wantthat connectivity you've talked
about, but, but we don't get it,because it's not real. We have
this big we have these layers ofthings that are they're not
(28:29):
real. That's how we interactwith each other. Yeah, and
that's like, Man, how do we doto just break through that? It's
interesting. You were talkingabout people, certain churches,
motivating people to come backby making them feel bad about
their sin. And I think it'slike, you can motivate people
with fear or you can motivatepeople with love. And I think
it's like, I think themotivating with love is so much
(28:52):
stronger and betterto both churches. Yeah, the one
I missed is the one that we hadbefore we ended up moving, you
know, but that was because itwas welcoming, you know?
It opened and nobody was goingto judge you, no matter what. I
mean, people came in that churchon a regular basis that were
drug addicts, that were, I mean,let's face it, we're all
(29:15):
addicts,something, we're all addicts.
And I've noticed, I don't know,but you guys have noticed, like,
the older I get, I realize, notonly is there nothing good in
your flesh, but your flesh isout to kill you. You notice
that, like, it's not like, it'snot like you crave sweets or
donut or something, because, ohyeah, I like to just have a
sweet ever so often, if left,left its own devices, you would
(29:37):
just eat a whole box, and youget diabetes cookies. I mean,
everything you think about theflesh, everything about it, or
you'll get it, you'll get hookedon something late at night, and
then all of a sudden you get ongetting enough sleep, and that's
gonna kill you. You eat toomuch, you drink too much, you do
all these things, like, have younoticed the flesh is never
satiated? So it's always shop.
It's always, you know? Yeah, itcan be shopping. It can be
(29:57):
whatever it is. Is, it can beplaying. It can be on your
phone. It can be playing. AndI'm not saying those things to
condemn people to do thosethings. I'm saying that we're
all real, and we all have ourstupid, stinking, rotten flesh.
But to me, I just think it'sfunny, because I've just started
laughing my flesh, because it'snot it's always sold as, man,
that's going to make you feelgood. The marketers do that,
right? The marketers, they playon all these things, you guys,
(30:19):
you go to the store, what's onthe ends of the aisles, all the
stuff you shouldn't eat, all thesalty chips and all other stuff,
because they know that's howthey're going to make the money,
right? Because they know thatwe're all addicts one thing and
another. And so, you know, Idon't know about you guys, but I
can't just eat a couple ofchips. If I get if I get a bag
this big, I'm going to eat thatmany chips. I need to get a
(30:40):
little bag, you know? And justone, yeah, cuz I
was gonna say, you get thelittle bags. And they're like,
Oh, that wasn't much. I couldhave a second bag.
I was over here, like,babysitting a couple months ago,
and I'm like, Hey, you have atheater room. We're not We're
(31:01):
not charging them forbabysitting. I'm gonna pay
myself a snack a couple hourslater. We're like, just
literally turn the bag up saltat the bottom. Yeah, anyway,
crazy stuff, but, yeah, butthat's all right. We're all like
that. I'm not trying to make I'mnot, by the way. I'm not trying
to say, oh, you know, whateveryou do is okay, and it doesn't,
(31:23):
there's consequences. That'swhat I'm saying. Yeah, it left
our own devices. We would justkill each other and die
ourselves. Like it's not it'snot good. We hurt each other
with some things we do. Yeah?
But I also think that the churchhas gone so far with this
concept of condemnation, insteadof the concept of forgiveness,
the concept of grace, that we'vedeveloped so many rules and
regulations against things thatare written and not written.
(31:45):
Laurel's done a great job in herbook talking about this. She
calls it the code, but I thinkit's really powerful description
of the fact that we have thesesort of unwritten codes about
what's good and bad. And we'vebeen talking a lot about some of
those, like, I'm really kind ofcurious, like, a lot of those
things that everybody thinks areso bad I'm not even sure their
sins. Just, be honest, I'm not awhole nother topic for another,
(32:06):
but I do kind of wonder,sometimes we've defined sin as,
like, basically anything fun,yeah, and it's like,
yeah. I've definitely gotten theimpression from various church
or Christian groups that, yeah,anything like emotions are bad
altogether, or that, yeah, doinganything that's not specifically
(32:30):
God focused basically, is justfleshly and a waste of time.
And, oh, I've heard thatrecently, and I think it's, it's
toxic, like it can suck the lifeout of things like you're
talking about, like it's, it'sjust, yeah, I hate that,
and yeah. And the opposite islike, okay to be like, Oh, you
shouldn't watch that certain TV,you know, series, or whatever
(32:51):
else that you guys are watchingthat's, that's bad, or whatever
else, or you shouldn't get intohockey, or you shouldn't do
that, you know, those arehobbies. How does that directly
benefit the Lord? And yet, I'vebeen over here on your hockey
nights, and guess what I see? Isee a loving family is whooping
and hollering and having fun,and I see a loving Christian
experience. And you know what Ithink I think of when I see
(33:11):
that, I see God up thereenjoying your life, because
that's what it said. He said hemade us for his enjoyment. So
yeah, and I think it's sobackwards sometimes, and yet
somebody would look at that so,you know, it's kind of like
they're with Jesus, like, hey,couldn't we do something better
with that money or that time? Orhow come you're eating with
those people? You know, there'salways somebody that's wants to
make it sound like there's somebig, better thing you should do.
(33:34):
The bottom line is, he did thebig, great thing, and
it was the Pharisees that weredoing that to him. And those,
they were the legalists of theday, you know, yeah, and we
have, we have, I think mostpeople understand that
obviously, that we can't followthe old covenant law because,
well, there's no temple for onething, we can't sacrifice
(33:55):
animals. We try to mix and matchit a little bit. Yeah, thou
shalt obey the 10 Commandments.
We hear a lot, but I don't knowwhere I was going with this
thought. Oh, but the you know,so, so we just, we kind of put
Yeah, we kind of make up our ownrules. We make up our own things
(34:17):
that we Thou shalt not, youknow, and they'll shout dues and
and it just it sucks the lifeout of life comes the focus.
Yeah, that's definitely happenedto me. I go through phases even
understanding grace. Sometimes Igo through phases where I'm
like, what about this? Or howshould I feel about that? Or I
(34:38):
don't know what I think aboutthis yet, like I haven't come to
a conclusion yet, and I should,or I feel bad that I haven't
come to a conclusion on it likeI don't know, I have a great
example, but, yeah, no, I agree.
But logically speaking, I justkeep falling back to the point
that just if Grace isn't the theway that we are accepted by God.
(34:59):
Yeah, then, at least for mepersonally, I'm screwed like I
have no chance. So yeah, so I,you know, I'm either wrong, and
you know, it's not about grace,and I just don't, I'm not
capable of being good enough forGod. I'm not. I'm just not. I
gave up on that a long time ago,and thought I was giving up on
(35:21):
God, and that's when I actuallyfound God. Actually found God,
but, but I will never go back tothat, trying to please, trying
to live up to some standard forGod. Once I recognized that it
was his standard that he set forfor us, that was so high I can
never achieve it. And then heachieved it for me. Yeah, why
would I want to go back undertrying to achieve it again? In
fact, it's insulting to him. I'mgonna compete with you, Jesus,
(35:43):
see if I can get close to yourrighteousness on my own. Like,
you know, I feel like, wow,a lot of people read and I, I
understand why they do this.
It's very there's some things inthe Bible that are very
difficult to comprehend, like,it's just hard to sort through,
that even if you've looked at awoman then, like, if you're just
reading it, word per word, andyou're not, I don't know. You
don't have people to talk withabout it, and you don't have
(36:05):
that, you know, like, I don'tknow. Maybe you're not really
feeling the spirit when you'rereading it, or getting, like, I
don't know, thinking through itproperly, which sometimes I read
a verse 100 times, and it's 100and first time that I finally
get get something out of it,like, right? Like, it's not
always every verse is some bigepiphany. But I feel like a lot
of people read, you know, a lotof Jesus's teachings, and they
(36:26):
focus on the whole like, likehis thoughts, like, Hey, this is
what the law was saying youshouldn't do. But even if you
did this, thought it's just asbad as murdering or it's just as
bad, yeah, as committingadultery. And I think people
hear that and they're like,well, then I shouldn't be
lusting, or I shouldn't beangry. And don't get me wrong, I
(36:46):
get with their hearts at andthat's good, right? Yeah, sure,
it's not. We shouldn't bewanting to hurt people and kill
people and hate them, like,because it doesn't benefit you
or them, right? Like, but Ithink it's, it was the heart of
Jesus, though, the heart of God,that was like, You're not
benefiting anybody by wanting tosleep with your neighbor's wife,
like, you're gonna hurtsomebody. It's not loving. Like,
that's the whole thing. Like, isit loving? Is it? And I think
(37:09):
that the whole law was kind ofcovered, and now there's some
things in the Old Law. Like, I'mlike, How is it on loving to to
not smear the blood exactly inthis exact way?
I'm not, like, mixed materialsin your Yeah, that's a
whole other topic. God was astickler for some things that I
don't quite understand why, butthankfully, we're not under that
old law. But I think that peopleforget that the reason he's
(37:31):
saying those things is becauseof the big miracle that he's
about to perform, which is,like, this is why you needed me,
if you wouldn't have shown thepurpose of the law, right?
People just thought, Oh, I'mreading the law, so I get the
purpose. Like, no, I don't thinkyou really did get the purpose
until Jesus explained it. Butnow people are just reading what
Jesus said the law was about andthen taking that is now their
(37:53):
new law. Yeah, when it's like,hold on, like, No, it says that
the law was nailed on the car,like it's gone, like Jesus
fulfilled it.
He nailed it. That's exactlygood description. That's exactly
right. I mean, he was goadingpeople who felt like they were
obeying the law. You're talkingabout Sermon on the Mount. When
he was talking about that, henailed it. He was he I love what
(38:14):
you said. He's not like what hewas saying was wrong. He never
said anything was wrong. It'sright. You shouldn't. You know,
have hatred in your hearttowards your brother, and I
don't think he was exaggeratingin his perspective at all to say
that that's in because it'sbecause he's always been about
the thoughts and intents of yourheart, not so much just about
(38:34):
what you do the spiritual being,not just and so, so that's true,
but if you look at but you haveto look at the context of it
like you're saying, and you haveto understand what he was
understand what he was doing. Hewas goading people to say, Oh,
you think you're following thelaw, but you're not, you know,
because you're, you're stillcommitting murder because you've
got this hatred in your heart,for instance, right? And he goes
(38:55):
on to to ultimately say, infact, in order you got to be,
you got to be more righteousthan the Pharisees. You got to
be perfect. Like your father inheaven is perfect. He sets a
standard so high in that samesermon. Yeah, that if you really
want to follow that, oh man, Igotta not hate people, you know
in my heart, yeah, dang, what ajerk I am. Oh, here I'm hating
myself. Wait, yeah, I justkilled myself. Oh, yeah. His
(39:18):
whole point, I think you justnailed the mic, was to let you
know you're all sunk, yeah, andthat there's no way out except
for something he could do. Andof course, at the time, he
hadn't died yet, sure, and theywere, and he was talking Jews,
and they were under that lawns,but, but you're right, he was
just setting the scene. I lovethe way you put that so that,
you know, a few months or a yearlater he was gonna, you know, he
(39:39):
was going to do that, and thenthe Spirit was going to come and
fill people with the truth aboutwhat East was talking about what
happened. And then they canwrite these letters and say,
hey, you know what? Add all thisup and realize, now, wow, yeah,
you know, I don't have toactually perform even better
than the Pharisees, because Godgave me. His righteousness. It
(40:01):
would have beenhard to be honest, it would have
been hard to do everything eventhe Pharisees did, if you want
to talk about like, a checklistof following the law, Oh, yeah.
Oh, I would have been sunk,like, even compared to them. So
it's like, I mean, the Gentilesare out of luck, right? The
Gentiles didn't even have thelaw. So it's like, everyone
would have been out of luck ifwe're under the same law that
people are still trying to putus on, which is, like, I don't
know, it just it's crazy to me.
(40:24):
Yeah, well, that's what Paultalks about. Like you were just
saying. He says, like, the lawwas only given as a tutor to
teach people that they couldn'tdo it. And now he says, Now
we're not under that tutoranymore. We don't need to be
told that we're bad anymore. Weknow that, like you've been he
showed us that for however longthe law was in effect. Now we
(40:46):
know like, hey, they couldn't doit. We couldn't do it.
We don't need to do it. We can'teven if we want, actually, we
don't need to. So why are wetrying? So I thought
it was interesting in thereadings we've been doing that,
Solomon said that straight up, Ihadn't caught that before. Right
before he gives that templeprayer, he's just praying to God
(41:08):
himself, and he's and he says,You know, God, no one's ever
been able to actually live. Sothank you for being so gracious.
And I'm like, Oh, that's cool.
Yeah. So many people say thatDavid says that, you know, not
early on in the Psalms. I alwaysget a kick out of David's at
first in the Psalms. The first,earlier psalms are like, kill
all those unrighteous people,unrighteous. Then he commits
(41:31):
more and more sin, you know, anddoes the Bathsheba thing and all
this stuff. And this is thelater Psalms. They're like,
Thank you for being done, notimparting, you know, the penalty
for my sinforgiving. That a cool picture
of the way that we go through,like our relationship with
Christ. And I think a lot oftimes we do start out pretty,
you know, self righteous andand, and then we kind of
(41:54):
realize, as we get older, okay,I keep I keep goofing out. I
keep failing. This is not good.
Then we start just praising Godfor His grace and His Yeah,
Mercydefinitely been that way for me,
for sure. Older I get, the moreI see how sinful I am and how
thankful I am that God gave megrace and but that's
(42:19):
the thing. You're turning thatinto a positive thing than a
negative? Yeah, the feelingright? Yeah, yeah, feeling that
way, yeah. I don't know a lot ofpeople. It's funny. You're
saying, like, oh, people startoff like being judgmental, but I
the only way, reason I disagreea little bit is like, I remember
growing up, I started just withthe being told how I should act,
(42:43):
to be like God through thechurches I grew up in, and then
that made me very judgmental.
And then it was like, that mademe not want God. And that was
like, why I just kind of waslike through my teenage years,
like, Nah, I'm good. Like, andhe came back, you know,
thankfully, but I don't know. Ijust
want you understood grace. Graceis the leveler of that. I think
(43:04):
because you, because I wasthinking that same thing when
she said that, I know peoplethat have just gotten more and
more pent up, more and morejudgmental the older they get,
but that's because they neveractually got grace. I think
that, yeah, well, that's thething. I think that's what I'm
saying. This thing changes,David. David is a beautiful
picture of that, right?
Oh, if you get grace,if you get grace, if
(43:26):
you don't, you just get more andmore bitter. Let's face it. I
mean, we all know some bitterChristians in our lives, and
they just get more and morebitter as time goes on. Yeah,
sorry.
I think because people feel somuch shame, I think because if
you don't have grace, then youhave to have shame. You have to
have guilt that you're just notlaying down. You have to have, I
(43:48):
think, that that you just livein that.
And I think some people,depending on the kind of person
they are or their background,some people just kind of get
defeated in that and walk awayfrom or feel shameful. But then
there's this other class ofpeople that just looks it's the
latter thing they they feel theshame, and you know how they
deal with it, they say, but I'mnot as bad as that guy, right?
Yeah, it's like the Pharisee inthe Jesus story, where he's like
(44:09):
the one Pharisees going, God,thank you so much for not making
me like that sinner over there,and the other guys beating his
chest. ThenJesus says that guy is the guy
that's gonna gonna go to heaven,not the Pharisee. So it's kind
of funny stuff. Kind of loopsback around to what you were
saying earlier about, you know,I we'd love to go to a church
where the pastor is being realabout being, like, having flesh
(44:32):
and, yeah, that. And it's like,That guy, that's a great example
you're giving that Jesus wastalking about, yeah, and he, he
just gives the preferencestraight up, like, that's the
guy, that's the guy I'mlistening to,
the authentic guy, yeah, the guywho's real. He's not impressed
by ourworks towards righteousness at
all. I think it just actuallyupsets him. Well, in Isaiah, the
end of Isaiah, he says, It'slike filthy rags, or
righteousness. What kind offilthy rags? So, yeah, well,
(44:54):
look up the words women's, uh.
Menstrual rags. That's probablydon't smell so great, probably
back then especially. But well,that's, that's what's on the
table. I just, for me. Just wrapit up for me. I just, I want
(45:15):
something deeper. I want, I wantreal stuff I don't. I want to
cut through all of the makebelieve playing church stuff, I
don't. And because we havegrace, we don't have to worry
about all that. We don't have tohave all these pretenses of, oh,
we have to have a certain way,or it's going to be upsetting to
God. It's like God wouldn't havedied for us if we're upsetting
to God. God loves us, and weneed to actually love other
(45:36):
people like that. And get downto where we just talk to people
and listen to them and and whenthey're telling you a story,
instead of, oh, yeah, you shouldwork harder on that, instead of
saying that. Say, man, yeah, youknow, you know what I struggle
with and this, tell them that,and that's going to cut through.
You know? I just, I don't know.
We have that here. We have it inour own family, to whatever
extent God would grant it. I'dlove to just share that as many
(45:56):
people as we can. Yeah, I agree.
So hit subscribe, so you can getthe episodes and come join us
again and find out next time.
What's on the table? Yeah.
Coming up. But I want to live. Iwant to find that edge where
life happens. Because thisworld, I'm telling you, it's out
to suck all of that out ofeverything, right? And what
sickens me the most is when thechurch begins to suck all the
life out of things.
(00:22):
You music. This is our firstepisode of On the Table. And the
whole idea is to put somethingon the table and talk about it.
(00:44):
So we thought it'd be fun toactually bring something and put
it on the table. It doesn't haveto be exactly what we're talking
about, but it can be somethingthat we reference. So okay, I'm
going to start off, and I'mgoing to have, I'm going to put
this picture on table, so if Ican make it stand up straight.
So should show to the camera.
(01:06):
Credit, Deanna Martin,and here's my thinking on that.
So why do I have a picture onthe table? I also was going to
have a Bible, but you'll justhave to. I don't have one around
here, so, and that's probablynot the right representation
anyway, but my inspiration forthis is to just talk about, like
the body of Christ, about likejust being a Christian, just
(01:27):
like I look at art and I thinkit's beautiful, it's creative,
it's expressive, it's alive, youknow? And it doesn't matter, we
don't have to leave the pictureso much. But, oh, sometimes life
is just upside down. It's notalways perfect, no, but no,
that's the thing I was thinkingabout this. And my point of
(01:50):
inspiration is to talk aboutjust the fact that, what are we
looking for when we come to God,when we go to church, when we
get when we look atChristianity? It's the question
that I think that Nicodemus wasasking when he approached Jesus,
he was like, you know, there'sall sorts of sermons about that
and everything else, but when Ilook at it, more and more that I
just see what he's just, he'sjust groaning inside. He's like,
(02:10):
coming to Jesus, like, he's,he's, he's a Pharisee. He's done
all the religious stuff. He'sdone. He's, he's followed the
letter of the law. He's doingall this stuff, but he's empty
inside. He's asking Jesus, youknow, what is it I'm what's the
secret sauce? What's the thing?
What's What do I? What am Imissing? What do I, what do I
need to do to get the realstuff? And of course, Jesus
(02:33):
tells him, you know, hey, it'snot you've got to be born of, of
the Spirit, you know? And I justthink when just to get honest
and real about this, becausethat's what we're trying to do
here. Is the thing I want to puton the table and have a
discussion about, is, why are wemissing that? Why are so many
people looking to whether it'sgoing to church, trying to read
the Bible, whether it's going toa fellowship, whatever it is?
(02:55):
What are we missing? Why are somany people not getting filled
with something that meaningful,that really changes their life,
because that's what they'rewanting, right? I mean, maybe
not. Maybe some people, I can'tjudge people I don't know, maybe
people go to church sometimesjust because it's like, oh, I,
you know, my parents told me Ishould go to church, or they're
trying to check some box off.
And we always make that claim.
But I, I think a lot of peopleare going to church because
(03:17):
they, they just are. They'relooking for something. They're
looking for, something real.
This world's just so mundanesometimes, and it's just,
there's high spots and lowspots, don't get me wrong, but
there's a lot of the worldthat's just rigged around, kind
of just death, just things thatare dying or dead or just dead
inside. And you know, I don'tI've been to church services
(03:37):
where they were alive andactive, but I've been to a lot
of them where they're just, it'slike, it's, it's not bad, like
the music might be really good,like the the sermon might be
engaging, it might beinteresting. You might learn
something. But I don't walk awaygoing, Man, I encountered the
living God there. I might evenget chills. The music's so good,
or whatever else. But it didn'tchange my life. It didn't, it
(04:00):
didn't, it didn't connect toGod. And I just, I, I want to
talk about that, because I knowin my life I found that I found
the thing. I found the juice,the secret power, the stuff
that's life, you know. Andsometimes I think we're looking
for the artwork, we're lookingfor the expression. We're
looking for something more realthan just words on a page or,
you know, here's a bulletin, andwe're gonna go through this
(04:24):
point and do this, and then dothat, and then you can sign up
on Wednesday to do this service,and you can do a lot of stuff.
And it's like, I know there'sall that going through the
motions, but there's just stuffthat's deeper. And I think, I
don't know if it's COVID orwhat, but something just busted
something inside of a lot of us,and we're sick and tired of the
I know, for me, I can't talk toyou guys, but I think I'm just
tired of just stuff that doesn'thave a lot of deep meaning to
(04:49):
it. You know, I'm just goingthrough the motions. So I think
I've, I kind of feel like I knowwhat the difference is, but I'm
but. That's what's on the table.
I want to, I want to just have areally honest discussion,
because that's what we're doinghere. We don't have any we don't
have to live up to anybody'sexpectations of what we believe
or don't believe, or how we talkabout it, or what we say or what
(05:12):
we don't say, or whichscriptures we use, or that kind
of stuff. And that's the beautyof this thing, right? Is we're
just saying we can just have anopen discussion, because people
have real thoughts and they'reafraid to have open discussions.
They're afraid to, oh, what if Idon't say it right? Or what if,
you know, what if I'm notsupposed to think that way? Or,
what if I'm not supposed to askthose kinds of questions. So if
(05:32):
you're listening to this today,that's, that's the, that's the
whole idea is we hope that wecan just have honest, open,
engaging discussions and notworry about that. You know,
let's dissect this thing down tothe parts that matter, and just
put the parts back in thematter. So I'll just put that on
the table and say, what it Idon't know if anybody wants to
just jump in. Like, what youcould start with? What are you
(05:52):
looking for? Like, what? What'syour Nicodemus experience? What?
What if you were gonna approachJesus, or approach the church,
or maybe not asking that, right?
But what's the longing of yourheart? What do you what are you
looking for when it comes toGod? And your experience with
God? Ithink that connection, like you
were kind of mentioning, is,like, it's a big thing, like
you're saying sometimes you cango through the motions of being
(06:14):
at a church service or whateverelse, and you you're kind of
missing that connection. I thinkit's like a, I don't know, like
a relationship instead of just aexperience or a, I don't know
what else you want to call it aclass, yeah, like where you're
connecting with other people,you're connecting with God. And
(06:34):
it's real, it's honest. There'sno pretenses. There's no wall
that's put up. It's like real, Idon't know, discussing the
difficult subjects, it's gettingdeep into what's on your mind
and you're struggling with, orsomething you need encouragement
for, something you need prayerfor something that you can
connect with each other on adeeper level than just, Hey,
(06:56):
how's your Sunday? How's theweather, kind of conversation,
or, I don't know, yeah,I like that. Have you been to
churches where, and I'm not, I'mnot asking any names. I just, I
know we've been to differentones. We've had a church and had
different experiences. But if,have you guys been to a church
where you felt like it, there'slot that there's just certain
(07:19):
things you couldn't bring up, orthat would just not be something
you could talk about in church.
Yeah, for sure, but I don't, Idon't know if that's because
there would have actually been abad reaction to the question,
but more so a idea in my head ofwhat the I don't know how the
(07:42):
how the pastor would react to myquestion, or how what the
congregation would think, but,you know, I've never asked those
kind of, like, any kind ofquestion in church where I'm
like, Whoa. Like, his responseis really negative. I shouldn't
talk like this here. I don'tfeel comfortable. I think it's
actually more of a judgmental,like, pre like, even judging the
church a little bit like, ohyeah, they will react bad if I
(08:03):
ask something, or if it soundslike I'm doubting something, or
asking a question that's goingto make them stumble with, like,
how to answer it? Like, that'snot welcome there. Like they
wouldn't be upfront with meabout the answer. But again,
I've neverthat's pretty fair. Like you're
saying you're already prejudging them, that maybe, maybe
they would, maybe certain placeswould be open to whatever you
had, whatever your struggle was,and just actually come around to
(08:24):
you. And I know that's true. Iknow. I think the body that we
had, you know, years ago, wouldhave definitely done that. I
think you could have brought upanything, and we would have just
surrounded somebody and prayedfor them, for sure,
that's what welcomed me to thechurch I was younger. You're
talking about what crossCorrect, right?
And what do you think? I mean,what do you think causes that
(08:47):
pre judgment to think that youwouldn't be safe to do that? Is
there certain things that, youknow, Christians
can really come acrossjudgmental, but I feel like it's
also one of the things where younotice it more, because they're
supposed to be the people thataren't being so judgmental. So
it's like, it's like, a higherstandard. Yeah, exactly.
Because, like, you talked, Italked to anybody, like going to
public school, and everybody wasjudgmental, like every single
(09:11):
person who talked to yourneighbors. So we talked to
judgmental, but becausesomeone's supposed to be
representing Christ, it's funny,even the people that say they
don't believe in Christ, they'reautomatically like, Hey, that's
not how God would act. Yeah,you know, I, I can't help but
think and that some of thatcomes from the fact that just a
misunderstanding of the gospel,I mean, that's that's become a
big part of our whole ministry,right? Is, I think that if
people that spoke in churchwould open the door to more
(09:35):
honest discussions, it wouldhelp the people be feel more
comfortable, you know, but I,honestly, I still stand by this.
I think in a lot of churches, ifthe pastor, for instance, or the
worship leader, were to juststand up there and say, I just
had a crappy week, and I justreally was raging in my flesh.
And I just, man, I I reallyscrewed up this way and that
way. And I really, I yelled andscreamed at my kid. And I used
(09:59):
to, you know, the F word 30times in my wife's face. And I,
you know, can you imagine goingto church like that, and someone
just saying that up on a stage?
I can't, because, I mean, I can,because I think I said things
like that, but when I was apastor, but I've never been to a
church where they did that. Butwhy? Because, I'll guarantee
you, because I've been to pastorprayer meetings. I guarantee you
(10:20):
that they did it. I guaranteeyou they had those days in those
weeks, and so did everybody outthere. But it's because we don't
understand our dual nature, andwe have this concept in
Christianity that, basically, Ikind of thought about it earlier
Laurel and I were talking aboutthis concept of duality, and we
were talking about it. It'slike, I think the basic
(10:41):
perception of of being aChristian is thinking of you
having a gage, you know, youthink of a gage in your car, and
it goes from, like, empty tofull. And if you kind of think
of a gage of, like, sort of badon one side, on this side, I
guess, and it goes out to, youknow, righteous or amazingly
good. And so, the idea, I think,that most people believe in
Christianity is, you know, it'syou're trying to make your gage
(11:03):
go closer to the good personthing, right? And so if you were
to kind of come in and admit,oh, man, I really screwed up, or
I had this problem, whatever,then I think you would feel
like, oh, people, you know,everybody, no one else is saying
that. So I would just feelterrible to say that, right? The
problem is, it's a bad it's baddoctrine. The Bible says that we
have two different gages. Now,once we come to Christ and we're
(11:26):
born from above or born again,we have now a one Gage, as we're
a new creature in Christ, Jesus,and that Gage is pinged to
righteous 100% all the time. Cannever leave that and the other
Gage, really, you might be ableto flicker a little bit off of
bad but our flesh isn't everreally going to be made
straight, and that's thereality. So the truth is, if I
(11:49):
have a terrible day and I fleshout and I've made the choice to
walk in my flesh, it hasn'ttouched who I am in Christ, the
eternal part of you, right? Thepart of you that's going to live
on in heaven forever, the partof you that's been made new and
righteous. And, yeah, I thinkthat's like something that a lot
of people don't get, and thatmakes it really difficult. I've
(12:12):
never heard thought in anotherchurch. I don't think I've ever
heard the term duality or to anew being. And when I feel like
I have, it's always more of justlike, oh, well, now that Jesus
died and rose from the dead,you're going to heaven, so
you're new in that way, yeah,because you believe, but it's
like, they're not making it likea, a real, almost, like
(12:33):
physical, tangible thing oflike, no, like, it really is
separate. Because I think thewhole idea of like, spirit and
soul and consciousness and thatkind of whole like, almost seems
like mystical world is, likealmost removed from the church.
Yeah, maybe it's almost scaredto be talked about, right? A
lot of churches don't even thatI've been to recently, don't
(12:54):
even mention the Holy Spirit andand I, and I understand their
trepidation of talking about thespirit, because oftentimes the
spirit is because he is kind ofmystical, kind of, you know,
because he's ethereal, he'sspiritual, you know, and he's
not really understood. And so Ithink there's this fear that if,
(13:15):
if people talk about the spirit,then it can go into some pretty
weird things. Sure has in somedoctrines, you know. And so I
think I don't know why I'massuming, which is probably
wrong, as you know, but I'massuming that it's because
they're afraid that if they talkabout the spirit, then then
(13:37):
they're gonna churches that dotalk about the spirit focus on
one thing that he does, and theymake that their whole ministry,
like healing or right? And sothey say, Well, we're we're not
that. So they don't even talkabout the spirit that much, let
alone our difference in in ourown being. Now,
(13:59):
I think you're right, but, Imean, let's be honest, being a
spiritual being is what it is tobe Christian, right? There's
nothing outside of that. Gettingback to the Nicodemus story,
Jesus tells him, dude, you'reyou're looking the wrong
direction. There's nothing youcan do into this person that you
are to make any, you know,amount of difference at all. I
mean, I'm paraphrasing forJesus, but he was saying is, you
(14:21):
got to be born of the Spirit.
That's the only thing that'sgoing to get you spiritual. He
says the same thing at the womanat the well, right? He's like,
hey, you know, she's like, Hey,well, should we be worshiping
here in Samaria at our templesand our wells, in our situation
or, or is it Jewish thing? Shewants to get into this sort of
physical here and now stuff. Andhe tells her, no, the true
worshippers worship in spiritand in truth. And it doesn't
(14:42):
matter where you came from, whatyour blood is, how what you did
yesterday or five minutes ago,it matters your faith in the
living Jesus, the living God,put your faith in Him. And then
in second Corinthians, we talkedabout that scripture I talked
about a minute ago, where youbecome a new creature in Christ,
Jesus. That. It's the same areawhere it says he gave us his
righteousness, by the way. Doyou think that go back to that
(15:06):
meter again? Do you think Jesusrighteousness ever kind of
starts to fade? Is it ever sortof like, Ah, it's only about
half righteous today. So if wehaving, if we have become the
righteousness of Christ, theactual righteousness that Christ
had just by faith, then that cannever be tarnished, that that
isn't just, oh, that's the onethat's going to heaven or the
one that's eternal, that's rightnow. The kingdom of heaven is
(15:29):
right now. As soon as you putyour faith in Christ, you have
living in you this beautiful getback to this picture that's on
the table today. This beautifulnew creature that's Jesus, says
in that John three Nicodemusstory, he gives this reference
to the Spirit. He says, By theway, the spirit, nobody knows
where it's come. It's like thewind. It kind of blows in.
Nobody knows what direction, andthey don't know where it's
(15:50):
going. That's the beauty. It'slimitless. It's powerful. It's
amazing. Paul says in Romanseight, you know, he's like, I
had this, you know, prior to themy Christ experience, basically,
I was under the law, and the lawbasically brought me down. But
now I have this new law inChrist, the law of life and
liberty in Christ, Jesus andI've lifted up, and it's just
(16:12):
all the all the barriers aregone, and that's the way
Christian that's whyChristianity is good news. But
the minute we begin to muddy thetwo and mix the two gages and
start to go, hey, you know whatit's, oh, you know what? You're
a bad Christian today, andyou're, oh, you're a little
better tomorrow, because youdidn't do all that sin or
something else. Then we takeaway from the fact that if I
(16:33):
give into my flesh and people doon a regular basis, it, it
doesn't touch the fact that youcould stand right back up five
seconds later and do somethingspiritual, because you're also
the full, full on Spirit of God.
You you have any the ability,every second of every day to
express the real power of theSpirit, which tongues are great,
(16:56):
healings are great, and we'renot here to knock those things
right. But the real power of theSpirit is to love one another.
The power of the Holy Spirit isto provide for us a pure, holy
love that God had for us, whichis based on grace. And so that's
why I think for me, what I'mmissing so often when we come to
the body of Christ, whetherthat's a church that's brick and
mortar or a group of people thatcalls to be a Christian, or
(17:16):
Bible study, or whatever else isthat I want to find life. I want
to find life abundantly, lifeeverlasting. I want to have
people that are just willing tobe themselves and let go of all
of this garbage and this filththat the world has put on us and
all these rigid barriers andeverything and after, oh, I've
got to talk a certain way. Ican't I can't drop this, or I
can't say that, or I can't bemyself, right? Oh, I might be
(17:37):
judged for that, whether likeyou said, I like what you said,
maybe they wouldn't judge you,sure, but because of, because
you, because we do see themjudge people, because the
Christian community judges gaypeople. So often, I say the
Christian community like it'srepresentative of everybody.
It's not. But what we see thesepublic, Big Mouth versions of it
are really out there bashingwhole people groups, which is
(17:58):
not anything that Jesus wouldever want, right? I think about
the Super Bowl this last yearhad some ads, and I forget the
name of that group. Does anybodyremember they put out some new
ones too? Iforget he gets us. Is that it
gets us? Yeah, I think that'sit. And it's this powerful ad.
And we saw it, and we're like,oh, that's so awesome. They're
just going, you know, they'relike, they're washing the feet
(18:21):
of like gay people and ofvarious different kinds of
situations. And I thought thisis so awesome. It's in the Super
Bowl, right? And then the dayafter a bunch of Christian
groups start going after thisgroup and saying, That's not
Christian at all, and all thisother stuff. And you're like,
what? How? How is that notChristian? I just don't
(18:42):
understand. Yeah, I don't get iteither. And so I'm, I'm, I'm
excited about what it is to beChristian, but I am all together
mad about what it's become. I,you know,
I think, you know, you'retalking about the point about,
you know, the two differentgages and and I think we
sometimes almost think ofChristianity, almost like a
stair step, like I'm slowlystepping up the steps toward
(19:06):
Christ, and I'm getting betterand better and and I think
getting back to our discussionat the beginning of, like,
judgment and stuff, I think, youknow, it's easy when you have
that mindset of, I'm steppingcloser to God to then look down
at the steps below you and belike, Oh, that person down
there, they're not as high as Iam up here. And or to look down
on yourself and be like, Man,that person I know is way up
(19:27):
there. I'm never going to makeit to their level,
steps that you used to be on,yeah. And it just it causes, I
think, this judgment ofcomparison versus if you realize
that no by faith, I get all theway to the top because of Jesus
like that takes away. It levelsthe playing field of everyone,
(19:49):
and it takes away thatcomparison that we constantly
live in. And I think it alsofrees us when we're not so
focused on that all the time.
Time of like, trying to betterourselves and trying to work at
that, and failing and winning,and then failing winning, it's
like that frees up our mentalcapacity to, like, have the
(20:12):
ability to then focus on livingand loving and the true life
that you're talking about.
There's nothing to prove toanybody,
and then going off of that. Ifwe look at that gage of our
flesh, then too it keeps us outof judging, because we realize,
like we all have that Gage. Weall have. If you're in Christ,
you all have the the Jesusrighteousness Gage, the new you
(20:35):
and so. But if we look at ourfleshly gage and realize, like
everybody has that Gage, andwherever your your needle is on
your gage, it doesn't matter,because it's all forgiven. And
so that's why you don't judgepeople groups. You don't judge
people who are struggling withaddiction. You don't judge
(20:56):
people who you know still have afoul mouth. You don't judge
whatever, whoever that you thatwe have a tendency to look down
on at those lower stairs, youknow, because we realize we all
have that Gage, and some of us,our needle is in a different
(21:16):
place than other people. But thepoint is, it's still in the
flesh Gage. And that flesh gagewe own. We all own it. And we
can't, right? We can't sit aboveanybody, because we realize,
yeah, it just has differentforms, right? Paul put it where
I was at. He said, like in yourin my flesh, nothing good
dwells. And I think, I thinkthat's just true. And I think if
(21:38):
we were super honest about that,and we were also super honest
about the fact that in myspirit, nothing bad dwells. And
we could encourage one anotherin that. And we could actually
just, I just want to put thechallenge out there to you guys
and anybody listening to this. Ijust challenge anybody that
calls themselves a Christian.
First of all, I hope that youunderstand that to be a
(21:59):
Christian means you put yourfaith in Jesus for His
righteousness, which will bringyou salvation. It also brings
you righteousness, and it bringsyou sanctification and holiness
in a brand new person, all theway 100% there's no progression
towards that through your lifeas you work hard, because the
minute you begin to mix andmatch those two doctrines, and
(22:20):
you start to say, Oh, it's myworks. That's gonna make me a
little holier, then you're gonnablame you if you get holier and
like you said a minute ago, oryou'll blame you when you don't,
yeah, and that's where's yourfocus, then on you and others,
instead of on man, I'm a screwup, like everybody else, but
Jesus won the war, so now I'mnot just to screw up. That's the
(22:40):
old me that's dragging arounduntil my bodily death, and then
I finally get to chop that loosejust be the new me. But in the
meantime, the more I understandthat in my life, the last 20 or
30 years, the difference is thatI can just chop that loose at
any given point, and I can juststart to say I'm free in that
and I don't waste timecondemning myself over my
stupid, rotten flesh. It's justout to kill me every day. Yeah,
(23:02):
it's like, Paul says, right? Hesays to put off the old man. Put
on the new man. That's anymoment like you just said, Any
moment we can choose that. Yeah,put it back on if we want and do
something horrible or hateful orwhatever else.
It doesn't feel right, though,that's why we're trying to
encourage it, right? Because howdo you really feel like you just
blow it and, you know, you'vejust, you've just, like, you're
(23:23):
just fleshed out. Do you feellike, like, maybe you've been
around this doctor long enoughthat you just throw the light
switch on? But I think, I thinkfor a lot of people, it's hard
to kind of think, oh, man, Idon't, I'm not in a good place,
you know, I've got a Don't,don't, don't expect me to do
anything. You know, Christian,right now, I'm like, a little
while to recover before you'reusing, yeah, I've got to do some
(23:44):
work to get I've got to, I'vegot to, I've got to, you know,
and really, what you're sayingis you've got to pay for that.
You've got to pay some price forthat. And the minute you say
that, that's spitting on theblood of Jesus, He paid the
price for that, it'slike we feel like we have to pay
penance for our sins in themoment. We have to wallow in our
shame. Yeah, ifI'm not acting shameful enough
for long enough, then maybe Idon't really feel bad for what I
did or something, right? Whenreally you're just wasting time
(24:06):
that you could be now putting onthe new man, walking in that
walking in love, making thatchoice to go, okay, yeah, maybe
I just blew up at my kid becauseit was the last straw of my
patients, and I just yelled atthem, maybe I custod them,
whatever. That doesn't mean thatthe very next moment, I can't go
do something loving for them, orI can't right, apologize and
(24:28):
say, Hey, I'm so sorry. I cannotbe
better if you did that insteadof wallow in the in the Oh god,
I'm so sorry. I'm not, I'mgonna, I'm gonna, you know, do
this, that, and the other thing,when he's like, I paid for that.
You are well equipped. Go do thegood stuff. Stop wasting time
trying to make up for the badstuff. That's what I shed my
blood for on the cross. Andthat's
(24:49):
life like to me, I think, likewhen we do that with our kids,
that's building a relationship,that's love, that's real, that's
reality, and they learn that.
That mommy yells, and Mommy getsin her flesh, and Mommy has a
breaking point and But mommyalso humbles herself and
apologizes. That means childrealizes that mommy respects
(25:09):
child as a human being. Because,you know, the child goes, Oh,
wow, somebody actually loves meand respects me enough to
apologize to me, you know, thatI have value, and then you're
just all of that good,beautiful, spiritual stuff
develops in that relationship.
And that's, that's the reality,that's the juice,
(25:32):
and that's the real stuff, youknow, like, that's, that's the
beauty of the real power of theHoly Spirit, is that, that He
loves us, he's with us. He, youknow, Jesus died for us. We can
have grace for people. We can.
We're living in a hard worldwhere our flesh is against us,
the world's against us. All thatstuff that's like, real stuff,
like, and I want to talk aboutthat stuff with people. When I
get together with Christians, Idon't want to talk about, I
(25:54):
don't want to just sit a certainway and go, Oh, and then
whatever, you know, maybethere's more rock and roll. It's
a church. You know, our countrylike you, like mine. But you
know what I mean? I want tolaugh my ass off. Sorry. Maybe
I'll cut that out of the video.
I won't, but I want to laugh. Iwant to I want to have fun. I
(26:15):
want to enjoy stuff. Maybe I gotoo far, sometimes, whatever.
But I want to live. I want tofind that edge where life
happens. Because this world, I'mtelling you, it's out to suck
all of that out of everything,right? And what sickens me the
most is when the church beginsto suck all the life out of
things for the sake of the factthat they just don't believe in
grace enough, that that's I'mjust gonna put it where it's at.
(26:37):
They don't believe in graceenough. And for some churches,
not all. I'm not going to I'mnot going to point this finger
at everybody for sure, becausethis isn't the case, but I know
it is the case with a lot ofchurches, and God forbid, if
you're this kind of church, somepeople know innately that by
preaching against sin and bykeeping people condemned on
their sin, that they willcontinue to come back to your
(26:59):
church, and they will continueto put money in the coffers and
that sickening beyond belief andthat that just that needs to be
obliterated. And if you're at achurch like that, you need to
wise up and read the Bibleyourself and figure out that is
not what Christ came to do. Thatis not what the church is
supposed to be doing. Yeah, youknow, I'm not, I'm not going to
name names. I bet I've been tothose places, and that's absurd.
(27:21):
That's just absurd. You know,like, I'm just, I'm fired up
about this because, because Iknow people right here at this
table, and other people in theworld who have been freed by the
gospel of grace, and they're themost loving people. They're the
most full of the Spirit people.
And when you're full of when youmeet someone that's full of
spirit. They're alive. They'renot always like, I'm being today
and I'm being all gregarious. Itdoesn't mean they're just
(27:43):
always, you know, peeing intothe top, yeah,
always joyful, or always walkingin your spirit, or what you
know, butthere's some level of reality,
because you don't, you're notafraid anymore, yeah, about what
everybody thinks, because you'relike, you know what? God thinks
so highly of me that he made mehis son. He made me a son of the
living God. He adopted me as ason like that can't be taken
(28:06):
away by me or anybody else youknow. And that's beautiful. And
I just think people arebeautiful. They're real. They
have warts, they have problems.
And man, if people and they wantthat connectivity you've talked
about, but, but we don't get it,because it's not real. We have
this big we have these layers ofthings that are they're not
(28:29):
real. That's how we interactwith each other. Yeah, and
that's like, Man, how do we doto just break through that? It's
interesting. You were talkingabout people, certain churches,
motivating people to come backby making them feel bad about
their sin. And I think it'slike, you can motivate people
with fear or you can motivatepeople with love. And I think
it's like, I think themotivating with love is so much
(28:52):
stronger and betterto both churches. Yeah, the one
I missed is the one that we hadbefore we ended up moving, you
know, but that was because itwas welcoming, you know?
It opened and nobody was goingto judge you, no matter what. I
mean, people came in that churchon a regular basis that were
drug addicts, that were, I mean,let's face it, we're all
(29:15):
addicts,something, we're all addicts.
And I've noticed, I don't know,but you guys have noticed, like,
the older I get, I realize, notonly is there nothing good in
your flesh, but your flesh isout to kill you. You notice
that, like, it's not like, it'snot like you crave sweets or
donut or something, because, ohyeah, I like to just have a
sweet ever so often, if left,left its own devices, you would
(29:37):
just eat a whole box, and youget diabetes cookies. I mean,
everything you think about theflesh, everything about it, or
you'll get it, you'll get hookedon something late at night, and
then all of a sudden you get ongetting enough sleep, and that's
gonna kill you. You eat toomuch, you drink too much, you do
all these things, like, have younoticed the flesh is never
satiated? So it's always shop.
It's always, you know? Yeah, itcan be shopping. It can be
(29:57):
whatever it is. Is, it can beplaying. It can be on your
phone. It can be playing. AndI'm not saying those things to
condemn people to do thosethings. I'm saying that we're
all real, and we all have ourstupid, stinking, rotten flesh.
But to me, I just think it'sfunny, because I've just started
laughing my flesh, because it'snot it's always sold as, man,
that's going to make you feelgood. The marketers do that,
right? The marketers, they playon all these things, you guys,
(30:19):
you go to the store, what's onthe ends of the aisles, all the
stuff you shouldn't eat, all thesalty chips and all other stuff,
because they know that's howthey're going to make the money,
right? Because they know thatwe're all addicts one thing and
another. And so, you know, Idon't know about you guys, but I
can't just eat a couple ofchips. If I get if I get a bag
this big, I'm going to eat thatmany chips. I need to get a
(30:40):
little bag, you know? And justone, yeah, cuz I
was gonna say, you get thelittle bags. And they're like,
Oh, that wasn't much. I couldhave a second bag.
I was over here, like,babysitting a couple months ago,
and I'm like, Hey, you have atheater room. We're not We're
(31:01):
not charging them forbabysitting. I'm gonna pay
myself a snack a couple hourslater. We're like, just
literally turn the bag up saltat the bottom. Yeah, anyway,
crazy stuff, but, yeah, butthat's all right. We're all like
that. I'm not trying to make I'mnot, by the way. I'm not trying
to say, oh, you know, whateveryou do is okay, and it doesn't,
(31:23):
there's consequences. That'swhat I'm saying. Yeah, it left
our own devices. We would justkill each other and die
ourselves. Like it's not it'snot good. We hurt each other
with some things we do. Yeah?
But I also think that the churchhas gone so far with this
concept of condemnation, insteadof the concept of forgiveness,
the concept of grace, that we'vedeveloped so many rules and
regulations against things thatare written and not written.
(31:45):
Laurel's done a great job in herbook talking about this. She
calls it the code, but I thinkit's really powerful description
of the fact that we have thesesort of unwritten codes about
what's good and bad. And we'vebeen talking a lot about some of
those, like, I'm really kind ofcurious, like, a lot of those
things that everybody thinks areso bad I'm not even sure their
sins. Just, be honest, I'm not awhole nother topic for another,
(32:06):
but I do kind of wonder,sometimes we've defined sin as,
like, basically anything fun,yeah, and it's like,
yeah. I've definitely gotten theimpression from various church
or Christian groups that, yeah,anything like emotions are bad
altogether, or that, yeah, doinganything that's not specifically
(32:30):
God focused basically, is justfleshly and a waste of time.
And, oh, I've heard thatrecently, and I think it's, it's
toxic, like it can suck the lifeout of things like you're
talking about, like it's, it'sjust, yeah, I hate that,
and yeah. And the opposite islike, okay to be like, Oh, you
shouldn't watch that certain TV,you know, series, or whatever
(32:51):
else that you guys are watchingthat's, that's bad, or whatever
else, or you shouldn't get intohockey, or you shouldn't do
that, you know, those arehobbies. How does that directly
benefit the Lord? And yet, I'vebeen over here on your hockey
nights, and guess what I see? Isee a loving family is whooping
and hollering and having fun,and I see a loving Christian
experience. And you know what Ithink I think of when I see
(33:11):
that, I see God up thereenjoying your life, because
that's what it said. He said hemade us for his enjoyment. So
yeah, and I think it's sobackwards sometimes, and yet
somebody would look at that so,you know, it's kind of like
they're with Jesus, like, hey,couldn't we do something better
with that money or that time? Orhow come you're eating with
those people? You know, there'salways somebody that's wants to
make it sound like there's somebig, better thing you should do.
(33:34):
The bottom line is, he did thebig, great thing, and
it was the Pharisees that weredoing that to him. And those,
they were the legalists of theday, you know, yeah, and we
have, we have, I think mostpeople understand that
obviously, that we can't followthe old covenant law because,
well, there's no temple for onething, we can't sacrifice
(33:55):
animals. We try to mix and matchit a little bit. Yeah, thou
shalt obey the 10 Commandments.
We hear a lot, but I don't knowwhere I was going with this
thought. Oh, but the you know,so, so we just, we kind of put
Yeah, we kind of make up our ownrules. We make up our own things
(34:17):
that we Thou shalt not, youknow, and they'll shout dues and
and it just it sucks the lifeout of life comes the focus.
Yeah, that's definitely happenedto me. I go through phases even
understanding grace. Sometimes Igo through phases where I'm
like, what about this? Or howshould I feel about that? Or I
(34:38):
don't know what I think aboutthis yet, like I haven't come to
a conclusion yet, and I should,or I feel bad that I haven't
come to a conclusion on it likeI don't know, I have a great
example, but, yeah, no, I agree.
But logically speaking, I justkeep falling back to the point
that just if Grace isn't the theway that we are accepted by God.
(34:59):
Yeah, then, at least for mepersonally, I'm screwed like I
have no chance. So yeah, so I,you know, I'm either wrong, and
you know, it's not about grace,and I just don't, I'm not
capable of being good enough forGod. I'm not. I'm just not. I
gave up on that a long time ago,and thought I was giving up on
(35:21):
God, and that's when I actuallyfound God. Actually found God,
but, but I will never go back tothat, trying to please, trying
to live up to some standard forGod. Once I recognized that it
was his standard that he set forfor us, that was so high I can
never achieve it. And then heachieved it for me. Yeah, why
would I want to go back undertrying to achieve it again? In
fact, it's insulting to him. I'mgonna compete with you, Jesus,
(35:43):
see if I can get close to yourrighteousness on my own. Like,
you know, I feel like, wow,a lot of people read and I, I
understand why they do this.
It's very there's some things inthe Bible that are very
difficult to comprehend, like,it's just hard to sort through,
that even if you've looked at awoman then, like, if you're just
reading it, word per word, andyou're not, I don't know. You
don't have people to talk withabout it, and you don't have
(36:05):
that, you know, like, I don'tknow. Maybe you're not really
feeling the spirit when you'rereading it, or getting, like, I
don't know, thinking through itproperly, which sometimes I read
a verse 100 times, and it's 100and first time that I finally
get get something out of it,like, right? Like, it's not
always every verse is some bigepiphany. But I feel like a lot
of people read, you know, a lotof Jesus's teachings, and they
(36:26):
focus on the whole like, likehis thoughts, like, Hey, this is
what the law was saying youshouldn't do. But even if you
did this, thought it's just asbad as murdering or it's just as
bad, yeah, as committingadultery. And I think people
hear that and they're like,well, then I shouldn't be
lusting, or I shouldn't beangry. And don't get me wrong, I
(36:46):
get with their hearts at andthat's good, right? Yeah, sure,
it's not. We shouldn't bewanting to hurt people and kill
people and hate them, like,because it doesn't benefit you
or them, right? Like, but Ithink it's, it was the heart of
Jesus, though, the heart of God,that was like, You're not
benefiting anybody by wanting tosleep with your neighbor's wife,
like, you're gonna hurtsomebody. It's not loving. Like,
that's the whole thing. Like, isit loving? Is it? And I think
(37:09):
that the whole law was kind ofcovered, and now there's some
things in the Old Law. Like, I'mlike, How is it on loving to to
not smear the blood exactly inthis exact way?
I'm not, like, mixed materialsin your Yeah, that's a
whole other topic. God was astickler for some things that I
don't quite understand why, butthankfully, we're not under that
old law. But I think that peopleforget that the reason he's
(37:31):
saying those things is becauseof the big miracle that he's
about to perform, which is,like, this is why you needed me,
if you wouldn't have shown thepurpose of the law, right?
People just thought, Oh, I'mreading the law, so I get the
purpose. Like, no, I don't thinkyou really did get the purpose
until Jesus explained it. Butnow people are just reading what
Jesus said the law was about andthen taking that is now their
(37:53):
new law. Yeah, when it's like,hold on, like, No, it says that
the law was nailed on the car,like it's gone, like Jesus
fulfilled it.
He nailed it. That's exactlygood description. That's exactly
right. I mean, he was goadingpeople who felt like they were
obeying the law. You're talkingabout Sermon on the Mount. When
he was talking about that, henailed it. He was he I love what
(38:14):
you said. He's not like what hewas saying was wrong. He never
said anything was wrong. It'sright. You shouldn't. You know,
have hatred in your hearttowards your brother, and I
don't think he was exaggeratingin his perspective at all to say
that that's in because it'sbecause he's always been about
the thoughts and intents of yourheart, not so much just about
(38:34):
what you do the spiritual being,not just and so, so that's true,
but if you look at but you haveto look at the context of it
like you're saying, and you haveto understand what he was
understand what he was doing. Hewas goading people to say, Oh,
you think you're following thelaw, but you're not, you know,
because you're, you're stillcommitting murder because you've
got this hatred in your heart,for instance, right? And he goes
(38:55):
on to to ultimately say, infact, in order you got to be,
you got to be more righteousthan the Pharisees. You got to
be perfect. Like your father inheaven is perfect. He sets a
standard so high in that samesermon. Yeah, that if you really
want to follow that, oh man, Igotta not hate people, you know
in my heart, yeah, dang, what ajerk I am. Oh, here I'm hating
myself. Wait, yeah, I justkilled myself. Oh, yeah. His
(39:18):
whole point, I think you justnailed the mic, was to let you
know you're all sunk, yeah, andthat there's no way out except
for something he could do. Andof course, at the time, he
hadn't died yet, sure, and theywere, and he was talking Jews,
and they were under that lawns,but, but you're right, he was
just setting the scene. I lovethe way you put that so that,
you know, a few months or a yearlater he was gonna, you know, he
(39:39):
was going to do that, and thenthe Spirit was going to come and
fill people with the truth aboutwhat East was talking about what
happened. And then they canwrite these letters and say,
hey, you know what? Add all thisup and realize, now, wow, yeah,
you know, I don't have toactually perform even better
than the Pharisees, because Godgave me. His righteousness. It
(40:01):
would have beenhard to be honest, it would have
been hard to do everything eventhe Pharisees did, if you want
to talk about like, a checklistof following the law, Oh, yeah.
Oh, I would have been sunk,like, even compared to them. So
it's like, I mean, the Gentilesare out of luck, right? The
Gentiles didn't even have thelaw. So it's like, everyone
would have been out of luck ifwe're under the same law that
people are still trying to putus on, which is, like, I don't
know, it just it's crazy to me.
(40:24):
Yeah, well, that's what Paultalks about. Like you were just
saying. He says, like, the lawwas only given as a tutor to
teach people that they couldn'tdo it. And now he says, Now
we're not under that tutoranymore. We don't need to be
told that we're bad anymore. Weknow that, like you've been he
showed us that for however longthe law was in effect. Now we
(40:46):
know like, hey, they couldn't doit. We couldn't do it.
We don't need to do it. We can'teven if we want, actually, we
don't need to. So why are wetrying? So I thought
it was interesting in thereadings we've been doing that,
Solomon said that straight up, Ihadn't caught that before. Right
before he gives that templeprayer, he's just praying to God
(41:08):
himself, and he's and he says,You know, God, no one's ever
been able to actually live. Sothank you for being so gracious.
And I'm like, Oh, that's cool.
Yeah. So many people say thatDavid says that, you know, not
early on in the Psalms. I alwaysget a kick out of David's at
first in the Psalms. The first,earlier psalms are like, kill
all those unrighteous people,unrighteous. Then he commits
(41:31):
more and more sin, you know, anddoes the Bathsheba thing and all
this stuff. And this is thelater Psalms. They're like,
Thank you for being done, notimparting, you know, the penalty
for my sinforgiving. That a cool picture
of the way that we go through,like our relationship with
Christ. And I think a lot oftimes we do start out pretty,
you know, self righteous andand, and then we kind of
(41:54):
realize, as we get older, okay,I keep I keep goofing out. I
keep failing. This is not good.
Then we start just praising Godfor His grace and His Yeah,
Mercydefinitely been that way for me,
for sure. Older I get, the moreI see how sinful I am and how
thankful I am that God gave megrace and but that's
(42:19):
the thing. You're turning thatinto a positive thing than a
negative? Yeah, the feelingright? Yeah, yeah, feeling that
way, yeah. I don't know a lot ofpeople. It's funny. You're
saying, like, oh, people startoff like being judgmental, but I
the only way, reason I disagreea little bit is like, I remember
growing up, I started just withthe being told how I should act,
(42:43):
to be like God through thechurches I grew up in, and then
that made me very judgmental.
And then it was like, that mademe not want God. And that was
like, why I just kind of waslike through my teenage years,
like, Nah, I'm good. Like, andhe came back, you know,
thankfully, but I don't know. Ijust
want you understood grace. Graceis the leveler of that. I think
(43:04):
because you, because I wasthinking that same thing when
she said that, I know peoplethat have just gotten more and
more pent up, more and morejudgmental the older they get,
but that's because they neveractually got grace. I think
that, yeah, well, that's thething. I think that's what I'm
saying. This thing changes,David. David is a beautiful
picture of that, right?
Oh, if you get grace,if you get grace, if
(43:26):
you don't, you just get more andmore bitter. Let's face it. I
mean, we all know some bitterChristians in our lives, and
they just get more and morebitter as time goes on. Yeah,
sorry.
I think because people feel somuch shame, I think because if
you don't have grace, then youhave to have shame. You have to
have guilt that you're just notlaying down. You have to have, I
(43:48):
think, that that you just livein that.
And I think some people,depending on the kind of person
they are or their background,some people just kind of get
defeated in that and walk awayfrom or feel shameful. But then
there's this other class ofpeople that just looks it's the
latter thing they they feel theshame, and you know how they
deal with it, they say, but I'mnot as bad as that guy, right?
Yeah, it's like the Pharisee inthe Jesus story, where he's like
(44:09):
the one Pharisees going, God,thank you so much for not making
me like that sinner over there,and the other guys beating his
chest. ThenJesus says that guy is the guy
that's gonna gonna go to heaven,not the Pharisee. So it's kind
of funny stuff. Kind of loopsback around to what you were
saying earlier about, you know,I we'd love to go to a church
where the pastor is being realabout being, like, having flesh
(44:32):
and, yeah, that. And it's like,That guy, that's a great example
you're giving that Jesus wastalking about, yeah, and he, he
just gives the preferencestraight up, like, that's the
guy, that's the guy I'mlistening to,
the authentic guy, yeah, the guywho's real. He's not impressed
by ourworks towards righteousness at
all. I think it just actuallyupsets him. Well, in Isaiah, the
end of Isaiah, he says, It'slike filthy rags, or
righteousness. What kind offilthy rags? So, yeah, well,
(44:54):
look up the words women's, uh.
Menstrual rags. That's probablydon't smell so great, probably
back then especially. But well,that's, that's what's on the
table. I just, for me. Just wrapit up for me. I just, I want
(45:15):
something deeper. I want, I wantreal stuff I don't. I want to
cut through all of the makebelieve playing church stuff, I
don't. And because we havegrace, we don't have to worry
about all that. We don't have tohave all these pretenses of, oh,
we have to have a certain way,or it's going to be upsetting to
God. It's like God wouldn't havedied for us if we're upsetting
to God. God loves us, and weneed to actually love other
(45:36):
people like that. And get downto where we just talk to people
and listen to them and and whenthey're telling you a story,
instead of, oh, yeah, you shouldwork harder on that, instead of
saying that. Say, man, yeah, youknow, you know what I struggle
with and this, tell them that,and that's going to cut through.
You know? I just, I don't know.
We have that here. We have it inour own family, to whatever
extent God would grant it. I'dlove to just share that as many
(45:56):
people as we can. Yeah, I agree.
So hit subscribe, so you can getthe episodes and come join us
again and find out next time.
What's on the table? Yeah.
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