May 6, 2025 • 54 mins
Chaos isn't just a word, it's the underlying current of our human experience. Today, we're diving deep with Manny Arango into the biblical roots of disorder, exploring how chaos existed before sin and how God's design always intended for humans to bring order to the wild. We'll unpack the six-step cycle of chaos in scripture, examine why peace isn't something we pray for but something we create through intentional living, and challenge our American notion of freedom as mere independence. From generational patterns to personal anxiety, from the dragons in Genesis to the transformative power of Jesus, this conversation cuts through surface-level spirituality. We're asking hard questions: How do we break cycles of chaos? What does true freedom actually look like? And how can we move from self-centered living to a life of radical service? So join us as we crush chaos.
Dr. Manny Arango is a Bible nerd and founder of ARMA Courses — an online educational platform that helps Christians to become biblically literate. The platform has grown to thousands of monthly subscribers since launching in 2020.
Dr. Manny Arango was born in Boston, MA but based in Houston, TX, where he and his wife Tia are preparing to plant The Garden, a brand new church in the heart of the city.
Manny graduated from North Baptist Theological Seminary in June 2024 with a Doctorate in New Testament studies.
He’s been married to his beautiful wife Tia for over a decade and they have a son named Theophilus.
Manny's Book:
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Manny Arango (00:00):
As Christ followers, we now have the power
(00:04):
to break the cycle of chaos. Idon't have to live in my great
grandparents chaos, or mygrandparents chaos, or my
parents chaos, or the chaos ofmy life five years ago, I can
make the decision as a followerof Jesus to break any kind of
generational cycle or any kindof cyclical habitual pattern,
(00:30):
and to follow Christ intofreedom, you
Joshua Johnson (00:40):
Joshua, hello and welcome to the shifting
culture podcast. And once wehave conversations about the
culture we create and the impactwe could make, we long to see
the body of Christ look likeJesus. I'm your host. Joshua
Johnson, you know, chaos isn'tjust a word, it's the underlying
(01:01):
current of our human experience.
Today, we're diving deep, withmany Arango into the biblical
roots of disorder, exploring howchaos existed before sin, and
how God's design always intendedfor humans to bring order to the
wild. We'll unpack the six stepcycle of chaos in Scripture.
Examine why peace isn'tsomething we pray for, but
something we create throughintentional living. And
(01:23):
challenge our American notion offreedom as mere independence,
from generational patterns topersonal anxiety, from the
dragons in Genesis to thetransformative power of Jesus,
this conversation cuts throughsurface level spirituality.
We're asking hard questions, howdo we break cycles of chaos?
What does true freedom actuallylook like, and how can we move
(01:43):
from a self centered living to alife of radical service? So join
us as we crush chaos. Here is myconversation with Manny Arango.
Manny, welcome to shiftingculture. So excited to have you
on. This is gonna be a fun one.
So thanks for coming.
Unknown (02:02):
Oh, thank you for inviting me super, super excited
to be with
Joshua Johnson (02:06):
you. Yeah, it's going to be good. We're going to
crush some chaos today. So as wecrush chaos, we want to know why
this like as you, you worked onthis for a long time. You were,
you were studying this, you weregoing in there. Why is chaos
something that you started tosay, oh, I want to, I want to
dig into chaos. Okay.
Unknown (02:25):
Well, first of all, I was a youth pastor for 10 years.
Well, there you go, yeah, yeah,yeah. And, you know, I so from
2009 to 2019 I served multiplechurches as young adult pastor,
youth pastor, and then I wouldsay, in the last six years, have
focused, you know, on adults,adult ministry, I begin to
(02:48):
realize that sometimes inchurch, if all we have is a
hammer, everything becomes anail. And so what typically
starts to happen is the onlyquestion we ask is like, Oh,
does someone have sin in theirlife. So then, if the answer is
yes or no, sin is just the onlyit's like the only equation we
know how to solve for. Thereality is that anxiety is not a
(03:11):
sin issue, but it is a chaosissue. Dysfunctional
relationships may not be sinissues, but they are chaos
issues. You know, I know thatdifferent denominations may
disagree on whether or notdrinking alcohol, for instance,
right is a sin issue. I wouldnot say it's a sin issue. I know
there are other brothers andsisters in Christ who would say
it is a sin issue. What I thinkwe can definitely all agree on
(03:35):
is, man, it's got the potentialto create chaos, and it could be
a chaos issue, and so after justman it, I feel old saying this,
but almost 20 years of like justbeing in the trenches doing
ministry with people, you beginto realize your job as a pastor
is not just addressing the sinthat's in people's lives, but
(03:58):
addressing The chaos that's inpeople's lives. You are trying
to bring order to people'schaos, and that may not always
present itself like sin.
Sometimes that is so for me, mydad was addicted to drugs for
for for decades, and my motherwas a teenage mom, and I got
(04:19):
diagnosed by a therapist withsurrogate spouse syndrome, like
my mom essentially had spousalor spouse level expectations of
me, even though I was not herspouse, right? I was her son,
but that's because my daddropped the ball in so many
areas that my mom then wasdepending on me to pay bills
(04:39):
when I was 15 years old and bethe man of the house. And those
things aren't sinful, but man,were they damaging? Were they
dysfunctional? Were theychaotic? That was chaotic, and
living in the home of an addictwas chaotic, and sometimes, if
all we address is sin is. Youknow, it's funny. You know,
(05:00):
after doing ministry for a longtime, you begin to realize that
sin and there's nothing wordwith the wrong there's nothing
wrong with the word sin. I wantto preface that. It's a good
word. It's it's in the Bible.
Anywhere that's in the Bible, Isay, let's use it. Let's keep
it. However, the goal isn't justto talk, it's to communicate,
(05:21):
and communication requires thatI know how words affect other
people. I've just realized,after doing ministry for a long
time, the moment you say theword sin, people's defense
mechanisms go up. And it'salmost like their guilt and
shame triggers. It's like theirguilt and shame alarms just
start going off. But you knowwhat's funny? Like, I've talked
(05:44):
to non Christians who will justadmit there's chaos in my life.
Like you don't even have to tellthem their sin in their life.
They will just admit to you thatmy life's chaotic, my life's all
over the place, my life'sdysfunctional, my life's this or
that. And so I just began to askthe question meant, is there
chaos in the Bible? And and Iwas shocked to find out that the
(06:08):
answer is absolutely yes. It'sjust that the Bible talks about
chaos in ways that are deeplysymbolic, and that the themes of
chaos are very much so prevalentin the scriptures. But the we
don't see the word in the sameway that we don't see the word
trinity. That doesn't mean thatthe Trinity is not there, just
means that word isn't present.
So that, that is what got me onthis whole journey, is honestly
(06:30):
a pastoral heart and a nerdybrain. So once I began to
realize that the theme for chaosthroughout the scriptures, or
the main symbol for chaos outthe scriptures was a dragon.
Man. It was on. It was on andpopping for me. I was like,
yeah, if you're telling methere's anything Game of Thrones
ask in the Bible, help me in I'minterested.
Joshua Johnson (06:56):
All right, we're going to talk about dragons, and
we're going to talk about chaos.
But I want to say one of thethings that what you're doing, I
think, is trying to get behindwhatever the sin issue is,
there's something behind it,right? There's something that is
actually aggravating it. There'ssomething that is going on
beneath the surface that wedon't usually address. We
usually address, what is surfacelevel? Oh, you're going deeper
(07:18):
than surface level. How doesthat work? And how have you seen
that in ministry when youactually go deeper underneath
the surface? What happens therefor us
Unknown (07:30):
two things, a people, a hate it, or people embrace it
and they're forever grateful. Soeither, either one, people hate
it and would rather just sellfor behavior modification, or
people really embrace the idea.
So I'll, I'll tell you somethingthat really like helped me a
lot. And as an author, there'sthese, there are these moments,
(07:53):
you know, you have this thought,especially doing a lot of
interviews, I have thesethoughts, and I go, dang it. I
wish I'd written that in thebook. You know, all these
moments of like, I wish I hadsaid it that way. I practice
confession. I think it's a goodbiblical practice. And so I said
to a mentor of mine, to a pastorthis couple years ago, I said, I
have a pornography problem,like, I mean, I was just kind of
(08:16):
at the end of my ropes and justreally overwhelmed. And and I
remember saying, like, justconfessing, like a moment of
vulnerability, like, I have apornography problem. And he
looked at me, and he said, No,you don't you have a pornography
solution. Said Your problem isnot porn. He said, The way
you're solving your problem ispornography. He said, and our
job is to figure out what youractual problem really is,
(08:40):
because your actual problem maybe insecurity, your actual
problem may be a lack ofintimacy, your actual problem
could be whatever. And I thinkthere's a lot of people who they
settle for sobriety when Godreally wants to offer them real
freedom and lasting freedom. AndI think there's a lot of people
(09:00):
who think, if my behaviorschanged, we're good. And the
reality is that you could changebehaviors. Muslims can change
behaviors. Buddhists can changebehaviors that that's not like
distinctly Christian to just beable to like change behaviors,
but to change mindsets, tochange the driving factor that's
(09:21):
that's causing sin in your life.
Anytime I've preached about thischaracter in the Bible named
Samson, I always like to letpeople know that sin is how we
as humans try or attempt topacify our own pain. And so the
(09:44):
real question is, okay, what amI pacifying? And underneath the
surface of the sin what? Whatthe sin problem, or the sin
issue, is typically chaos. Andtheologically, I'm making the
argument, or crush on chaos thatthere was. Chaos in the cosmos
before there was ever sin, andthat that's not a design flaw,
(10:06):
that that's a design feature,and we have to learn how to
navigate chaos if we're gonnalearn what it means to be truly
human. But yes, sin, whetherwhether it's a habit or a
behavior or a mindset orwhatever, whatever the behavior
is that's that's causing guiltor shame or whatever. It's just
(10:27):
the tip of the iceberg.
Underneath that iceberg are allkinds of identity, foundational
beliefs that have to actuallyget worked out, and what begins
to happen, or what I begin to, Ihope, unpack in the book, is
that when I begin to put my lifein order, there are certain
things like anxiety that justfix itself, not magic, not like
(10:50):
it just magically goes away. Butwhen I focus on fixing anxiety,
it's funny, I only become moreanxious. But when I focus on
ordering my life, it's likeanxiety begins to get solved at
Joshua Johnson (11:06):
the root level.
There's so much in there. Let'sgo back into where chaos began.
If you said it was in thecosmos, where was chaos? What is
chaos and why is it presentbefore sin showed up in the
world?
Unknown (11:19):
That's great. Fantastic question. Okay, there's four
main forms of chaos that we findactually in either in Genesis,
chapter one, verse one, two orthree, or Genesis, chapter one,
verse 21 but before we get outof the first chapter of the
Bible, all four forms of chaosare there? Ironically enough,
(11:42):
they all start with D, which ishelpful for
Joshua Johnson (11:44):
me as a community. It is helpful for a
pastor loves, oh
Unknown (11:47):
yeah, if we don't have alliteration, it's not anointed,
you know, which, ironicallyenough, is an alliterated
statement. So, okay, the firstform of chaos is the deep. So
the Bible says that in thebeginning, God created the
heavens and the earth, and theearth was formless and void and
darkness was over the surface ofthe deep. The Spirit of God
hovered above the waters. Okay,so the first form of chaos that
(12:10):
we have is the deep. That wordin Hebrew is to home. That would
get translated as primevalabyss. So the deep would be like
the ocean depths that, like willcrush you if you try to get down
there, like the furthest reachesof the of the of the oceans that
(12:32):
you can imagine. And I know thata lot of time as Westerners, we
think about creation, especiallyGenesis, one as the account of
God turning nothing intosomething. However, Genesis,
chapter one, verse two, actuallysuggests that God isn't turning
nothing into something, but thathe's turning chaos into order,
(12:55):
because we have the deep isthere. The Deep is in verse two,
and then the waters would belike the seas. Okay, so the deep
is that underlying that belly ofthe beast. It's the thing that
every ancient person was themost scared of the second form
of chaos is darkness. So, sodarkness is present in verse
(13:16):
two, the third, which isactually interesting, that word
formless and void in verse two,the Hebrew, there is Tohu vavo
Who the NIV translates that asformless and void, which makes
us think of nothingness.
However, in Isaiah, that thatsame verse, that same word, is
used Tohu vavohu, and it meanschaos and desolation, or chaos
(13:36):
and confusion.
And so the image that we'reactually supposed to have is of
a desert, of a desertwilderness. So the deep
darkness, desert. And thenGenesis, chapter one, verse 21
God made the great sea creaturesin Hebrew. That word is tiny,
(13:59):
and that gets translated asDragon. There are dragons in
Genesis, chapter one. Now Iwould say that the scriptures
and not this. I don't think thisis like a evil thing or a
malicious thing, but thescriptures have been
intentionally demythologized bymodern translations. And by
(14:21):
demythologize, I just mean we inour modern world are trying to
solve a problem that ancientauthors and ancient audiences
are not trying to solve. So forthe modern translator or for the
modern Western individual, we'rereally trying to prove that
evolution is wrong and thateverything that God made was
(14:42):
created by him. So we have acreationist agenda which causes
us to read the Bible a certainway. I'm all about God created
everything. So I have no issueswith that. The only problem with
that is that the ancientaudience wasn't trying to prove
that you. They didn't live in aworld where there were atheists.
(15:03):
There were no atheists, therewere no evolutionists running
around Ancient Egypt or ancientMesopotamia. That's not even
remotely a thing. However, therewere polytheists, and what Moses
is doing in the book of Genesisis not trying to prove that
evolution's wrong. He's actuallytrying to prove that God is
(15:25):
unlike ra that God is unlikeMarduk, that God is unlike Baal,
that that is what Moses is upto. And at some point we have to
realize the Bible is written forus, but not to us, and get back
to okay, but so what was in theoriginal mind of the original
audience, and what would havebeen in their mind, for the
(15:46):
forefront of their mind, is thatany god, any good God, is able
to take chaos and create orderout of it, which is why, during
the plagues, what does Yahwehdo? He proves that the gods that
the Egyptians worship are notable to sustain the order of
creation, which is why you get areturn to darkness, which is why
(16:10):
the Nile that was worshipedturns to blood. He's proving,
Yahweh is actually proving yourgods don't have the power to
sustain the order of the cosmosthat without me, everything goes
back to chaos, because I didn'tstart from nothing and make
something. I started from chaosand I made order. And if you're
(16:32):
not going to worship me as theGod that brings things from
chaos to order, then you won'tbe able to enjoy the order that
I've blessed you with. So, okay,all four forms of chaos. So what
does God do? God now does notcompletely eradicate those four
forms of chaos. However, hecreates boundaries for all of
(16:55):
them, so he doesn't eliminatedarkness. He says that darkness
can happen at night, and that,that's its boundary. It has a
time boundary, okay? And it hasstars and a moon to govern the
chaos which is in the ancientworld. This would have been
thought of as angelic beings, asas the host of heaven, okay.
(17:18):
Number two, the the to home, thedeep gets boundaries. God
creates land and he creates theoceans, and he doesn't. There is
no word for create that, thatHebrew word bara is not used of
the seas, because Genesis one,verse two, tells us that it's
already there, the deep and thewaters are there. But God
(17:40):
separated water from water, andhe caused dry ground to appear.
So the thing that gets made isdry ground. And there's a
boundary for the desert and forthe wilderness. The boundary is
the Garden of Eden. So now Edenis a place of order and the
wilderness is a place of chaos,a nerdy nugget. Adam doesn't get
(18:03):
made from the soil of Eden. Hegets made from the soil of the
wilderness, which is why humanswill never find order or
discipline or commandments ofGod to feel natural. So this
idolization of authenticity isis really hard, because for the
(18:24):
Christian, we're saying, no, no,no, no, no, you weren't even
taken from ordered soil. Youwere taken from chaotic soil.
And order has to be imposed onus. And so none of the order
that I've had to learn as ahuman, comes naturally. None of
it. You want to know what comesnaturally. Lying comes
(18:45):
naturally. Chaos comesnaturally, sin comes naturally.
Man, I don't have to try likethat. Stuff comes really easily,
hiding, shame, guilt, like thesethings come very, very
naturally. Okay? And then theonly thing that's not given a
boundary is the dragon, and Godallows the dragon to be in the
(19:08):
garden. Which gets us to ourlast question, why I would
propose there are multipleanswers to that question. I'll
tell you. The answer that I putforward in the book crush on
chaos is that most of us assume,and I would say that we
incorrectly assume that when Godcreates the world, he made it
(19:28):
perfect. I think that we hearthat in church a lot, the Garden
of Eden was perfect. God made aperfect world, and then Adam and
Eve jacked it up with sin. Andthe reality is that there isn't
one time in Genesis, chapterone, two or three, where the
creation is described asperfect. Never God never called
(19:48):
it perfect. He called it good.
And a good garden has anadversary, because good, unlike
perfect. Means that it is doingwhat it is designed to do, and
in the same way that Yahwehcreates boundaries for chaos,
Adam and Eve are commissioned tosubdue and rule. Subdue and
(20:12):
rule. What if they're in aperfect world, there's nothing
to subdue or rule. They'recalled to subdue and rule,
because there is chaos in thegarden, and they have to learn
how to subdue and rule so theycan grow the garden to overtake
the wilderness. So a dragonwants the humans to be an agent
(20:33):
of chaos. God wants the humansto be an agent of order, or
agents of order. Obviously, theymade their decision to be agents
of chaos, which is why they thenget banished into the realm of
chaos. Okay, so, and think aboutthe assumptions where you bring
in a marriage. Most people arehoping that God would give them
(20:54):
a perfect spouse, and Goddoesn't give a perfect spouse.
He gives a good one, a good oneat best. And you know, you know,
I have a couple of employees, ahandful of employees, and God,
doesn't give perfect employees.
He gives good ones. He doesn'tgive us a perfect church. He
gives us a good church. Hedoesn't give us a perfect
(21:15):
business or a perfect podcast,or a perfect anything. He gives
us good good. And we turn goodinto great, and then we turn
great into fruitful and andthat's our job. So a perfect
garden would have made Adam andEve lazy, but God put them in a
garden and allowed a dragon ofchaos to be in there with them,
so that they could learn how togive boundaries to chaos, just
(21:39):
like the God that they follow?
Has given boundaries to chaos.
They were supposed to do whatthey saw their father do, which
is, provide boundaries for thedarkness, provide boundaries for
the deep, provide boundaries forthe desert. They were supposed
to put the dragon in his place.
Last nerdy detail is that inevery creation myth outside of
the Bible, it is the god figure,or the creator figure, or the
(22:03):
deity that conquers the chaos.
So Marduk conquers this dragonnamed Tiamat Ra, the sun god Ra,
in Egyptian folklore, conquersthe chaos dragon named Apep. Or,
you know, in the in theCanaanite story, Baal, or Baal
(22:24):
from the Old Testament, actuallyconquers a chaos dragon named
lOTAN. But God is not like theseother gods. He's not like Baal
or Marduk or RA he will notdishonor himself by confronting
anything face to face, even inRevelation, when the dragon gets
kicked out of heaven, Michaelgoes to do it because God has no
(22:47):
rival. He has no equal, and hewon't fight anything like it's
an equal of his. He literallyjust sends Michael. So the devil
is such a non issue for God thatMichael, hey, you got some
errands today. Man, go fight. Gofight the dragon and cast them
out of heaven. So the dragon isin the garden because he is Adam
(23:10):
and Eve's adversary, not God'sadversary. Obviously, they fail.
Jesus comes as a human to dowhat Adam and Eve were unable to
do. In Jesus, fully divine andfully human, actually conquers
the dragon. And so, okay, myvery long winded answer to your
fantastic question is that Ithink a lot of times we assume
(23:33):
perfection, when God justdoesn't. There's no place that
says it's perfect, but he saysit's good. And I think that we
have to begin to see work asgood. Oh, wow. Adam and Eve had
work to do. Yeah, it's good,man, that work is good. An enemy
is good, an adversary is good, astruggle is good. That stuff's
good, and it's and is designedto be in there, in the garden
(23:56):
for a good reason. All
Joshua Johnson (23:58):
right. Well, we'll get back to some nerdy
Bible stuff in just a second.
But guys, let's go intosomething like your anxiety,
where there's, there's chaos.
You're feeling chaos. There's,there's a lot of chaos.
Oftentimes, I would think thatif I'm anxious, I want peace,
but what God does is He createsorder out of chaos. Yes. So what
(24:20):
is, then the difference betweenorder and peace in our in our
lives. And what does order bringthat we think peace may
Unknown (24:28):
Fantastic question, thanks for throwing me a
softball that this is, this isamazing. You're welcome just
lobbing softballs for me, Iwould say that peace is a fruit.
So if you even think of thefruit of the Spirit, love, joy,
peace, patience, kindness,goodness, gentleness, self
control. So peace, then, is nota seed or root. It's fruit. It
(24:51):
is the natural byproduct whenthere's order in my life. So I
used to tell the kids in myyouth group all the time for.
The first five years of youthministry. Man, I would pray for
them to have peace, you know,they would leave Wednesday night
service full of peace, and thenI'd see them on Wednesday, on,
you know, Wednesday, we'd haveyouth service. Then I'd see them
(25:12):
on the weekends, and their peacetank was at 50% and they'd be
back the next Wednesday, theirpeace tanks at 0% anxiety is
back, and I just felt like I'm ahamster on a wheel. Every week
they run out of peace. I feltlike Chick fil A just free
refills of peace every week,just given more peace and and,
you know, they would find peacein all kinds of things, in the
(25:33):
worship, in the sermon, in theministry, time at the altar,
they'd find peace in all kindsof things. But then I remember
five years in going, you knowwhat? Instead of teaching on
peace, I really need to teach onorder, because if I teach them
order, they'll they'll be ableto sustain the peace that that
(25:54):
we preach about. So let's takeorder in in I kind of unpack
tons of or different forms oforder through the book, but one
of them is sequence. Right. Justsequence. I could have all the
right ingredients for a cake,but if I do it in the wrong
order, I'm not going to get acake. I'm going to get a miss.
So sequence matters. Simplestuff. I wasn't teaching them
(26:17):
anything profound, just simplestuff, like sex goes after
marriage. That's the sequencemarriage then sets. If you put
it before, it's not that God'sGod hates you or you're gross or
disgusting, or any of that, likewe don't, we don't have to be
offensive to people, but man,sex creates this possessive
(26:41):
nature that's healthy inmarriage, but that's really
unhealthy outside of it. And Icould pray for you to have peace
all you want, but if you're in adysfunctional relationship with
your boyfriend and you've letsex enter into the relationship,
then there's going to be acertain amount of anxiety that
(27:03):
you're going to have about thatrelationship. Because the
reality is that that it's built,it's not built on anything
stable, like you're just playinga really risky game. Another
easy one is fathers, like whenyou just start looking at
fatherhood stats, like whenthere's an active present dad in
(27:24):
the home, anxiety rates go downwhen there's an active present
dad in the home, like thesuicide, teen suicide goes down.
Depression goes down, povertyand incarceration and all this
stuff goes down. Well, duh. Imean, dads are a part of God's
(27:45):
order. This is order. And so Iremember being honest with the
kids in my youth group andsaying, like, hey, my dad, my
father, took me to a crack housefor the first time when I was
five. So I hated male authority,and it wasn't until I forgave my
father and and started to allowsome spiritual dads to exert
(28:09):
authority in my life thatcertain forms of anxiety went
away. And it's not that I neededto pray more, it's that I
couldn't rebel against order,and think I was still eligible
for God's peace. It just doesn'twork that way. Actually, by
accepting God's order andsurrendering to the order that
(28:32):
he has for my life, I begin torealize that peace fixed itself,
that peace is this naturalbyproduct of order, and that
whenever there's order in mylife, peace thrives. Same with
like, let's say rhythm. So like,I'd say sequence is one form of
order. I would say hierarchy isanother form of order, and dads
(28:54):
fall into a hierarchy that Godintends for the family and for
society. I'd say rhythm isanother form of order. So if I'm
working seven days and restingzero, I'm out of rhythm. I'm out
of sleep with the rhythm thatGod created me for. And so of
course, I'm going to be anxiousbecause I'm tired, I'm burnt
out, whereas when I work six andrest one, work six, rest one,
(29:19):
I'm now back in rhythm, whichmeans I'm in sync with God's
order, and when I embrace hisorder, even when I take a
Sabbath, when I know there'swork that needs to be done, it's
almost like that anxiety aroundwork begins to go away, and my
identity isn't just what Iproduce, but I begin to enjoy
(29:43):
God's rest. And so I may think,no, if I could just get
everything on my to do listdone, then I can rest. And God
says, No, you embrace rest, evenwhen there are things on the to
do list. I was at a church in StLouis, and one of the deacons
at. Church walked me out togreet people in the lobby. And
on the way, one of thecongregants, I didn't know that
(30:06):
the guy was a deacon. X, I justthought he was part of the
security or safety team. And hesaid, Hey, Deacon, Mike, can you
pray for me? Deacon Mike said,Yeah, I can pray for you. Like,
gotta make it quick, so I gottaget pastor Manny out to the
lobby. And he said, he said,What do you need prayer for? And
the guy said, all my finances.
Like, I need prayer for myfinances. Deacon Mike was just
about to pray for the guy, andthen he said, before I pray for
(30:27):
you, do you tithe? Like? Are youdo you give like? Are you
generous? Do you tithe? And hesaid, No, no, I don't tithe. And
you know, at this point, I'mlike the Michael Jackson. I'm
like eating popcorn. I'm like,my dad's eating popcorn. Man,
I'm just like, This is not mychurch. I'm leaving in the
morning. I don't live here. I'mgoing back to Texas. You know,
(30:47):
these Deacons in St Louis arecold blooded. Man, this is, this
is fascinating. And so DeaconMike, you know, heard the man
say, No, I don't tithe. And hesaid that, I can't pray for you,
he said, because there's noamount of prayer that I could
provide that can undo the chaosthat you've brought on your own
life by rejecting God's orderfor your finances. God has and I
(31:10):
know Christians land differentlyon on tithing. They said at our
church, like we teach that thefirst 10% belongs to the Lord,
and that is God's order for yourfinances. So no, I won't pray
for you. And he did not pray forthe guy. And I was like, wow.
Like, Man, I don't know if Iwould have taken that approach,
(31:35):
but like, essentially, what hewas saying was, like, you can't
leave by promise when you denyby principle. Like, I can't have
faith that God is gonna, youknow, Bippity, boppity boo me
out of some scenario when Ireally don't agree with the
order that God has and and so Ibegin to realize, if I can get
(32:00):
people to fall in love withorder which they naturally
don't, people don't naturallylove authority. They don't
naturally love budgeting. Theydon't naturally love abstinence
while they're single. Peopledon't love that stuff. People
don't like sabbathing. Theydon't like not overworking. They
you know, people don't like thatstuff, but they will still find
(32:21):
themselves at the altar cryingout to God for peace. And I
don't know, man, I feel like aspiritual chiropractor, just
like, hey, if we could crack youinto order, I promise like that
knee pain would go away, butI've got to crack your neck,
like I like, you gotta let mecrack your neck, because it's
(32:42):
gonna have this ripple effect.
So, yeah, that's the correlationthat I see in the Scriptures
between order and peace. If
Joshua Johnson (32:51):
order happens and there's different there's
rhythms and sequence and thesedifferent types of of order, and
we often don't want that, right?
As humans, we don't want it.
Americans don't want it. Butwhat we do, we're trying to get
happy, right? Happiness is ourtop order. Oh yeah, because
that's what we say in ourConstitution, we have the right
(33:14):
to happiness. Oh yeah, and wewant everything to do about
ourselves. What we're hyperindividual like it is just about
me, and so I'm gonna findeverything I need inside of
myself. That's where myhappiness will come from. Yeah,
that's where my good work isgonna come from. It's all about
(33:35):
me. How does this help usactually finding what true
happiness is, what truecommunity is, what true life is.
How does this help us becomehuman again? Yeah, yeah.
Unknown (33:49):
Okay, I'll say two things. First, this whole idea
of of order and peace, we couldsee it in Genesis, because as
long as there's chaos, Goddoesn't rest in the chaos, but
he does hover over it andcommand it into order. And once
it's ordered, one of the bestverses in scripture is that he
rests in the Garden of Eden. SoGod goes from hovering to
(34:13):
resting once things have beenput into order. So number one,
if order is difficult for anyonewatching or listening, I just
want to remind you of a promiseof scripture that God does go
from hovering above your lifetrying to speak order into it,
to resting with you if you givehim a temple that's ordered and
(34:34):
your body is a temple of theHoly Spirit, but he won't Rest
in chaos. He will speak to thechaos and get it to line up, but
you have to yield. You got tosurrender and obey so that you
could be an order temple for HisHoly Spirit, so that just a
promise like and a challenge.
Second, one of the things that.
(35:00):
What I think I do a decent jobof in the book is talking about
the chaos that ensues with hyperindividual a hyper
individualistic society. So thereality is that as independence
and individuality go up, anxietyalso goes up. So you know, to
(35:23):
anyone listening who's just sofocused on themselves and their
goals and their life, like Iwould say, Yo, you are fueling
your your problems with yourselfishness. Like, at some point
you have to realize that thebest thing you can do with your
life is not hoard it or keep it,but give it away. I got this
(35:47):
really dope speaking opportunitycouple years ago, I think, like
2019 I was so nervous, like thespeaking engagement came via
email, and my admin told me, andshe was so excited to tell me,
and I immediately was nervous.
Well, I was excited initially,and then as I began to think
about I just got nervous, andthe nerves turned into anxiety,
and the anxiety turned intooverthinking. And, you know, all
(36:10):
my thoughts were, what am Igonna preach? This could open
doors, you know, if the rightpeople hear me, and it's such a
big platform, and what if I tripwhen I'm walking up to the
stage? What if I stutter? Whatif I what am I gonna wear? What
am I gonna say? Blah, blah. Soit's like weeks before this
event, and by this point, I'mnot as nervous, I'm not as
(36:33):
overthinking. I mean, every timeI think about this speaking
engagement, my stomach's just inknots, like I don't even want to
think about the fact that I havethis speaking engagement coming
up. I'm dreading it. I'mdreading it. This is a this is
good news, like, I finally gotasked to be on this major
(36:54):
platform, and I'm dreading it.
So I'm praying one day, and theHoly Spirit says, Do you want to
know why you're anxious? And I'mlike, Duh, yeah, I'd love to
know why I'm anxious, you know,like, if you could shed some
light here on why I'm anxious,like, that'd be good. And the
Holy Spirit said, you're anxiousbecause you're selfish. He goes,
(37:17):
let's just think about whatyou've thought about so far,
your sermon, your skills, youroutfit, your ministry, your
reputation. You've only thoughtabout you have you thought about
the couple on the brink ofdivorce who's going to be in the
room? Have you thought about thesingle mom who's bringing her 13
(37:38):
year old son to that service?
Have you thought about, youknow, the person who just got a
cancer diagnosis who's going tobe in church that day. Have you
thought, have you for one momentthought about the pastor who
invited you and how stressed outthey may be and how you are
lifting a burden for them onthis particular Sunday? Have you
stopped to consider any of thepeople that I've actually called
(38:02):
you to go preach to that day andwar. Know what's crazy as soon
as I stop thinking about mysermon, my words, my outfit, my
tripping or not tripping, mystuttering or not stuttering,
and just thought about thepeople that God had called me to
minister to that day, all myanxiety actually went away, and
(38:25):
it turned into righteous anger,and I began to pray for all the
people and all of the scenariosand all of the weight or burdens
that people will be carryingwith them in the church. And my
anxiety went away. All myanxiety around that speaking
engagement went away becausethey were all rooted in
selfishness. And I think we haveto ask ourselves a question, am
(38:46):
I even anxious about anythingthat has to do with God or
others or community, like, am Ianxious about anybody else's
kids or just my kids? Am Ianxious about anybody else's,
you know, health, or just myhealth, and life is fullest when
you live it in service to otherpeople. That's not just like a
(39:09):
cliche feel good thing that nolike it's the antidote for
anxiety and God didn't createyou to just live for yourself.
He created you to care, to mournwith those who mourn, to rejoice
with those who rejoice, toreally take other people's
burdens on. And it's funny howwhen we do that, our anxiety
(39:29):
really does get turned on itshead. So okay, that's my counter
cultural take on selfishness andindividualism and anxiety. I
think that it's hard to embracethe community in the group. I
think we're all scared we'regonna lose ourselves. But the
(39:51):
reality is that, what if losingyourself is the best thing that
ever happened? I remembersomeone told. Me couple years
ago, they were scared to getmarried because they were scared
to lose themselves. And I said,Well, let me tell you the good
news and the bad news. I said,the good news is, I did lose
myself when I got married. Idid. I'm not who I was. I said,
that is the bad news. Let metell you bad news first, I did
(40:14):
lose myself when I got married.
I'm not who I was. I said, nowlet me tell you the good news.
I'm better now than I was then.
I lost that version of Manny,only to finally become the
version of Manny that God alwayswanted to to be in existence.
You will lose yourself. I'm notgonna lie to you and tell you
(40:35):
like, No, you're gonna getmarried or you're not gonna lose
yourself. No, how about this,get over yourself. Who told you
you were that awesome to beginwith? Maybe losing yourself
would be a great thing. Andyou're so in love with you,
you're, you're, you're, you'reyour own idol. And maybe losing
yourself is the best thing thatcould ever happen. Not thinking
(40:56):
about my sermon was the bestthing that could happen for that
speaking, that's
Joshua Johnson (41:02):
really helpful for us to think about, okay,
let's give our lives and serviceto others that's gonna help
eliminate some of the anxiety.
But you do talk about, in yourbook, you talk about, there are
cycles of chaos, and thesecycles of chaos just continue on
through the story. Yeah,continue on through the story.
What? What are these cycles ofchaos that we see?
Unknown (41:25):
Okay, so there's a six step cycle throughout the Bible.
I would actually say that thewhole Old Testament is kind of
based on the cycle. First,there's always you get chaos
somewhere in the Scriptures. Andthen after chaos, you get a
flood. And then after the flood,you get wind, so like Ruach, or
like the Spirit of God, and thenafter that, you get the voice of
God. And then after that you getorder, because God's voice
(41:47):
always brings order. And thenafter that, you're always going
to see a test, and then humansare going to fail that test. And
then the cycle repeats itself.
So throughout the book, I justmake the point like, hey,
humanity has moved six stepsforward, and, you know, or five
step forward and six steps back,over and over and over and over
and over again. The first ofthese cycles is creation, and
that failed test is obviouslyAdam and Eve in the garden. The
(42:09):
second of these is actually theflood narrative. There's moral
chaos, and then there's a flood.
And then you get the the wind ofGod, or the Spirit of God in the
form of a dove. And then you getthe voice of God who cries out
to Noah to come out of the ark.
And then you get God bringingorder where there was chaos. And
(42:31):
then you get a test in avineyard, this time, not in a
garden. And then humanity failsthat test. And then the cycle
repeats. And then you get thesame thing. In Egypt, there's
moral chaos, there's slavery. SoGod leads them to the Red Sea,
which is a body of water, andthen a strong east wind pushes
back on the Red Sea so that thepeople can go through it. Once
(42:54):
the people have gone through it,God speaks, and the sea, you
know, swallows up all theEgyptians, and then God gives
order. Okay, God speaks, and nowhe gives order. In the entire
time in the wilderness, God isgiving them instructions for
tabernacle commandments. He'sordering their their lives. But
the the wilderness season is aseason of testing, and we know
(43:17):
that they fail. Joshua'sgeneration isn't even able to go
in to the promised land. We getthis again with the Jordan
River. Okay, Canaan has nowdescended into moral chaos. They
get to the Jordan River. TheBible says that the Ark of the
Covenant is brought out on theriver, and that the river opens
(43:39):
up, and then the voice of Godspeaks. There's order. They
march around Jericho in a veryordered format. But then Achan,
there's a test, one person bythe name of Aiken, takes some of
the plunder as his own when he'snot supposed to fail the test.
And then the cycle repeats andrepeats and repeats. Well, the
(44:02):
only person who breaks thatcycle is a man by the name of
Jesus, who enters into humanitywhen it's most chaotic. Jesus is
then baptized in the Jordan aSpirit, the Spirit descends on
him, a voice from heaven says,This is my son and who I'm well
pleased. You can imagine how foran Old Testament audience who
(44:23):
knows this cycle, they watchedJesus go out into the wilderness
to get what tested, and they'rewaiting with bated breath to
figure out, is he gonna passthis test. And it's the first
time in the entire biblicalnarrative that we don't owe six
step, six steps forward and thenback. We actually move six steps
(44:44):
forward, and Jesus breaks thecycle. And as Christ followers,
we now have the power to breakthe cycle of chaos. I don't have
to live in My great grandpa.
Chaos, or my grandparents chaos,or my parents chaos, or the
chaos of my life five years ago,I can make the decision as a
(45:09):
follower of Jesus to break anykind of generational cycle or
any kind of cyclical habitualpattern and to follow Christ
into freedom. But if we don'tknow that that cycle is even
there, then we don't realize thesignificance of Jesus getting
(45:32):
out of the water and immediatelygoing to get tested out in the
wilderness. And then, of course,the scriptures say that he's
successful out in thewilderness. And of course, he
The Greek word is ekbalo. He'sdriven out into the wilderness.
And that same Greek word is thesame Greek word that's used for
Adam and Eve. They're echoloedOut of Eden. They're cast out.
(45:56):
It's the great reversal. Adamand Eve were cast out of the
wilderness, sorry, into thewilderness and Jesus cast out so
that we can get brought back in.
Is God treating him who wasperfect like a sinner, so that
he could treat sinners likewe're perfect? Um, this the
scandalous reversal of of thegospel. So, yeah, that's, that's
(46:17):
the cycle of chaos.
Joshua Johnson (46:21):
Because Jesus broke that cycle, we're able to
live in true freedom. We'retrying to again, like Americans,
everybody. We're trying tofigure out what freedom actually
looks like, but Jesus brings andhelps us bring true freedom. For
you, just briefly, we don't havea ton of time left. So what is
(46:43):
true freedom? That's
Unknown (46:44):
great. I think in America we define freedom as
independence, because, you know,we have a whole day of
independence, July 4, and wecelebrate independence, and
unfortunately, we then useindependence and freedom as like
synonyms. We use theminterchangeably, but they're not
the same. Adam and Eve wanted tolive independent of God's order
(47:06):
in his commands, independence isactually not a great thing. It's
good for a nation to beindependent of another
colonizing power, awesome.
However, with every peoplegroup, you have to realize that
there are rights andresponsibilities, and anytime
any group of people focuses moreon their rights than on their
(47:29):
responsibilities, that group ofpeople is on the verge of
turmoil, and our democracy isreally not just built on our
rights, but it's built on ourresponsibility to our neighbor
and our fellow man, and we'vegot to kind of get back to a
place of freedom. Is not whatI'm free to do, but what I've
(47:51):
been freed from because of thepower of Jesus. And I'm not free
to smoke. I'm free from smoking.
I'm not free to party and havesex with whoever I want. I'm
free from the need to do thosethings. I'm not free to I'm free
from and I've been freed, and Ialways love to use Harriet
(48:13):
Tubman as a great example ofwhat it means to be a believer.
You have this enslaved woman whogot free and didn't just see her
freedom as something to beenjoyed, but kept going back to
the south, freeing other people.
And my whole job is to not justenjoy my freedom, but to say,
Man, I want as many people toget free as possible, and I'll
(48:36):
use my freedom in service to thepeople that are around me so
they can get free as well, notjust so that we can enjoy and
hoard, but so that we can sothat we can spread freedom, true
freedom, biblical freedom. Yeah.
God's command to Adam is, youare free. I love that you are
free to eat of any tree in thegarden except the tree in the
(49:00):
middle of the garden. So Godstarts the command with freedom,
that this rule will keep youfree. A lot of times we think
that rules inhibit our freedom,but really they they don't. They
don't prohibit our freedom. Theythey actually create freedom
because a train is most freewhen it's on the tracks, not
(49:22):
off,
Joshua Johnson (49:23):
that's so good.
This has been a fantasticconversation so far. I have a
couple of quick questions at theend I like to ask one, yeah, if
you go back to your 21 year oldself, what advice would you get?
Oh,
Unknown (49:35):
21 Mary, Tia man, we got married when I was 26 and it
would have been really good tomarry her when I was 21 we knew
each other. Yeah, marry Tia.
That if I could go back to my 21year old self, I'd just be like,
Hey, man, marry Tia. Yeah, yeah,if I go back in time right now.
(49:57):
I'd married. I'd marry my wife.
For anyone who doesn't know mycurrent wife, her name is Tia.
Is my current wife, my onlywife, the only woman I'll ever
marry forever. You know, anyway,yeah, that that'd be what I do
that. And I'd buy you, I'd buysome crypto. I'd buy bitcoin.
(50:18):
Yes,
Joshua Johnson (50:19):
that too, yeah, too. That would be worth a lot
of money right now, be but itwould be worth Bitcoin
Unknown (50:26):
was out when I was 20, I know, but I'd find some. I'd
buy all of it. I could,
Joshua Johnson (50:32):
that's right, that's right. Anything you've
been reading or watching lately,you could recommend,
Unknown (50:37):
oh my gosh, Wheel of Time on Amazon Prime. I love it.
It's, it's fantasy. It's kind oflike, I don't know, it's like,
Lord of the Rings, plus Game ofThrones, plus, I like fantasy.
So I like world building, soWheel of Time. Well, how could
people
Joshua Johnson (50:56):
go out then Manny and get crushing chaos,
which is a fantastic book.
Everybody should go and read itand just dig into it. You could
just see lots of dragons in themiddle of it. So if you love
fantasy, you're gonna getdragons. You're gonna get all
sorts of incredible things. Ohyeah, we got so where can people
get it? And then where elsewould you like to point people
(51:17):
to? You can go
Unknown (51:19):
to crushing chaos.com, or you can go anywhere where you
like to buy books, if you're inaudiobooks. I did read the
audiobook myself, and I knowthat it is available on Audible,
but it's on Amazon. Barnes andNoble all kinds of book
retailers have crushed andchaos. So you can go to crushing
(51:41):
chaos.com or you can go whereverit's convenient. But, yeah, grab
a copy of the book. I honestlythink that, uh, that the book is
helpful, that it's eye opening,that it's life changing. I think
it is practical enough and nerdyenough that'll scratch multiple
itches at the same time. Yes,
Joshua Johnson (51:58):
it is nerdy. It is practical. I love the book. I
really, I really enjoyed digginginto it, reading it, it's, it's
a lot of fun, and it's reallyhelpful. It's man eye opening
for a lot of things. And so Ireally recommend crushing chaos.
And so Manny, thank you for thisconversation. Oh, thank you for
bringing some order into ourlives. Hey, we could crush
(52:21):
chaos. Seriously, you
Unknown (52:23):
have no idea. Thank you.
Thanks. You.
As Christ followers, we now have the power
(00:04):
to break the cycle of chaos. Idon't have to live in my great
grandparents chaos, or mygrandparents chaos, or my
parents chaos, or the chaos ofmy life five years ago, I can
make the decision as a followerof Jesus to break any kind of
generational cycle or any kindof cyclical habitual pattern,
(00:30):
and to follow Christ intofreedom, you
Joshua Johnson (00:40):
Joshua, hello and welcome to the shifting
culture podcast. And once wehave conversations about the
culture we create and the impactwe could make, we long to see
the body of Christ look likeJesus. I'm your host. Joshua
Johnson, you know, chaos isn'tjust a word, it's the underlying
(01:01):
current of our human experience.
Today, we're diving deep, withmany Arango into the biblical
roots of disorder, exploring howchaos existed before sin, and
how God's design always intendedfor humans to bring order to the
wild. We'll unpack the six stepcycle of chaos in Scripture.
Examine why peace isn'tsomething we pray for, but
something we create throughintentional living. And
(01:23):
challenge our American notion offreedom as mere independence,
from generational patterns topersonal anxiety, from the
dragons in Genesis to thetransformative power of Jesus,
this conversation cuts throughsurface level spirituality.
We're asking hard questions, howdo we break cycles of chaos?
What does true freedom actuallylook like, and how can we move
(01:43):
from a self centered living to alife of radical service? So join
us as we crush chaos. Here is myconversation with Manny Arango.
Manny, welcome to shiftingculture. So excited to have you
on. This is gonna be a fun one.
So thanks for coming.
Unknown (02:02):
Oh, thank you for inviting me super, super excited
to be with
Joshua Johnson (02:06):
you. Yeah, it's going to be good. We're going to
crush some chaos today. So as wecrush chaos, we want to know why
this like as you, you worked onthis for a long time. You were,
you were studying this, you weregoing in there. Why is chaos
something that you started tosay, oh, I want to, I want to
dig into chaos. Okay.
Unknown (02:25):
Well, first of all, I was a youth pastor for 10 years.
Well, there you go, yeah, yeah,yeah. And, you know, I so from
2009 to 2019 I served multiplechurches as young adult pastor,
youth pastor, and then I wouldsay, in the last six years, have
focused, you know, on adults,adult ministry, I begin to
(02:48):
realize that sometimes inchurch, if all we have is a
hammer, everything becomes anail. And so what typically
starts to happen is the onlyquestion we ask is like, Oh,
does someone have sin in theirlife. So then, if the answer is
yes or no, sin is just the onlyit's like the only equation we
know how to solve for. Thereality is that anxiety is not a
(03:11):
sin issue, but it is a chaosissue. Dysfunctional
relationships may not be sinissues, but they are chaos
issues. You know, I know thatdifferent denominations may
disagree on whether or notdrinking alcohol, for instance,
right is a sin issue. I wouldnot say it's a sin issue. I know
there are other brothers andsisters in Christ who would say
it is a sin issue. What I thinkwe can definitely all agree on
(03:35):
is, man, it's got the potentialto create chaos, and it could be
a chaos issue, and so after justman it, I feel old saying this,
but almost 20 years of like justbeing in the trenches doing
ministry with people, you beginto realize your job as a pastor
is not just addressing the sinthat's in people's lives, but
(03:58):
addressing The chaos that's inpeople's lives. You are trying
to bring order to people'schaos, and that may not always
present itself like sin.
Sometimes that is so for me, mydad was addicted to drugs for
for for decades, and my motherwas a teenage mom, and I got
(04:19):
diagnosed by a therapist withsurrogate spouse syndrome, like
my mom essentially had spousalor spouse level expectations of
me, even though I was not herspouse, right? I was her son,
but that's because my daddropped the ball in so many
areas that my mom then wasdepending on me to pay bills
(04:39):
when I was 15 years old and bethe man of the house. And those
things aren't sinful, but man,were they damaging? Were they
dysfunctional? Were theychaotic? That was chaotic, and
living in the home of an addictwas chaotic, and sometimes, if
all we address is sin is. Youknow, it's funny. You know,
(05:00):
after doing ministry for a longtime, you begin to realize that
sin and there's nothing wordwith the wrong there's nothing
wrong with the word sin. I wantto preface that. It's a good
word. It's it's in the Bible.
Anywhere that's in the Bible, Isay, let's use it. Let's keep
it. However, the goal isn't justto talk, it's to communicate,
(05:21):
and communication requires thatI know how words affect other
people. I've just realized,after doing ministry for a long
time, the moment you say theword sin, people's defense
mechanisms go up. And it'salmost like their guilt and
shame triggers. It's like theirguilt and shame alarms just
start going off. But you knowwhat's funny? Like, I've talked
(05:44):
to non Christians who will justadmit there's chaos in my life.
Like you don't even have to tellthem their sin in their life.
They will just admit to you thatmy life's chaotic, my life's all
over the place, my life'sdysfunctional, my life's this or
that. And so I just began to askthe question meant, is there
chaos in the Bible? And and Iwas shocked to find out that the
(06:08):
answer is absolutely yes. It'sjust that the Bible talks about
chaos in ways that are deeplysymbolic, and that the themes of
chaos are very much so prevalentin the scriptures. But the we
don't see the word in the sameway that we don't see the word
trinity. That doesn't mean thatthe Trinity is not there, just
means that word isn't present.
So that, that is what got me onthis whole journey, is honestly
(06:30):
a pastoral heart and a nerdybrain. So once I began to
realize that the theme for chaosthroughout the scriptures, or
the main symbol for chaos outthe scriptures was a dragon.
Man. It was on. It was on andpopping for me. I was like,
yeah, if you're telling methere's anything Game of Thrones
ask in the Bible, help me in I'minterested.
Joshua Johnson (06:56):
All right, we're going to talk about dragons, and
we're going to talk about chaos.
But I want to say one of thethings that what you're doing, I
think, is trying to get behindwhatever the sin issue is,
there's something behind it,right? There's something that is
actually aggravating it. There'ssomething that is going on
beneath the surface that wedon't usually address. We
usually address, what is surfacelevel? Oh, you're going deeper
(07:18):
than surface level. How doesthat work? And how have you seen
that in ministry when youactually go deeper underneath
the surface? What happens therefor us
Unknown (07:30):
two things, a people, a hate it, or people embrace it
and they're forever grateful. Soeither, either one, people hate
it and would rather just sellfor behavior modification, or
people really embrace the idea.
So I'll, I'll tell you somethingthat really like helped me a
lot. And as an author, there'sthese, there are these moments,
(07:53):
you know, you have this thought,especially doing a lot of
interviews, I have thesethoughts, and I go, dang it. I
wish I'd written that in thebook. You know, all these
moments of like, I wish I hadsaid it that way. I practice
confession. I think it's a goodbiblical practice. And so I said
to a mentor of mine, to a pastorthis couple years ago, I said, I
have a pornography problem,like, I mean, I was just kind of
(08:16):
at the end of my ropes and justreally overwhelmed. And and I
remember saying, like, justconfessing, like a moment of
vulnerability, like, I have apornography problem. And he
looked at me, and he said, No,you don't you have a pornography
solution. Said Your problem isnot porn. He said, The way
you're solving your problem ispornography. He said, and our
job is to figure out what youractual problem really is,
(08:40):
because your actual problem maybe insecurity, your actual
problem may be a lack ofintimacy, your actual problem
could be whatever. And I thinkthere's a lot of people who they
settle for sobriety when Godreally wants to offer them real
freedom and lasting freedom. AndI think there's a lot of people
(09:00):
who think, if my behaviorschanged, we're good. And the
reality is that you could changebehaviors. Muslims can change
behaviors. Buddhists can changebehaviors that that's not like
distinctly Christian to just beable to like change behaviors,
but to change mindsets, tochange the driving factor that's
(09:21):
that's causing sin in your life.
Anytime I've preached about thischaracter in the Bible named
Samson, I always like to letpeople know that sin is how we
as humans try or attempt topacify our own pain. And so the
(09:44):
real question is, okay, what amI pacifying? And underneath the
surface of the sin what? Whatthe sin problem, or the sin
issue, is typically chaos. Andtheologically, I'm making the
argument, or crush on chaos thatthere was. Chaos in the cosmos
before there was ever sin, andthat that's not a design flaw,
(10:06):
that that's a design feature,and we have to learn how to
navigate chaos if we're gonnalearn what it means to be truly
human. But yes, sin, whetherwhether it's a habit or a
behavior or a mindset orwhatever, whatever the behavior
is that's that's causing guiltor shame or whatever. It's just
(10:27):
the tip of the iceberg.
Underneath that iceberg are allkinds of identity, foundational
beliefs that have to actuallyget worked out, and what begins
to happen, or what I begin to, Ihope, unpack in the book, is
that when I begin to put my lifein order, there are certain
things like anxiety that justfix itself, not magic, not like
(10:50):
it just magically goes away. Butwhen I focus on fixing anxiety,
it's funny, I only become moreanxious. But when I focus on
ordering my life, it's likeanxiety begins to get solved at
Joshua Johnson (11:06):
the root level.
There's so much in there. Let'sgo back into where chaos began.
If you said it was in thecosmos, where was chaos? What is
chaos and why is it presentbefore sin showed up in the
world?
Unknown (11:19):
That's great. Fantastic question. Okay, there's four
main forms of chaos that we findactually in either in Genesis,
chapter one, verse one, two orthree, or Genesis, chapter one,
verse 21 but before we get outof the first chapter of the
Bible, all four forms of chaosare there? Ironically enough,
(11:42):
they all start with D, which ishelpful for
Joshua Johnson (11:44):
me as a community. It is helpful for a
pastor loves, oh
Unknown (11:47):
yeah, if we don't have alliteration, it's not anointed,
you know, which, ironicallyenough, is an alliterated
statement. So, okay, the firstform of chaos is the deep. So
the Bible says that in thebeginning, God created the
heavens and the earth, and theearth was formless and void and
darkness was over the surface ofthe deep. The Spirit of God
hovered above the waters. Okay,so the first form of chaos that
(12:10):
we have is the deep. That wordin Hebrew is to home. That would
get translated as primevalabyss. So the deep would be like
the ocean depths that, like willcrush you if you try to get down
there, like the furthest reachesof the of the of the oceans that
(12:32):
you can imagine. And I know thata lot of time as Westerners, we
think about creation, especiallyGenesis, one as the account of
God turning nothing intosomething. However, Genesis,
chapter one, verse two, actuallysuggests that God isn't turning
nothing into something, but thathe's turning chaos into order,
(12:55):
because we have the deep isthere. The Deep is in verse two,
and then the waters would belike the seas. Okay, so the deep
is that underlying that belly ofthe beast. It's the thing that
every ancient person was themost scared of the second form
of chaos is darkness. So, sodarkness is present in verse
(13:16):
two, the third, which isactually interesting, that word
formless and void in verse two,the Hebrew, there is Tohu vavo
Who the NIV translates that asformless and void, which makes
us think of nothingness.
However, in Isaiah, that thatsame verse, that same word, is
used Tohu vavohu, and it meanschaos and desolation, or chaos
(13:36):
and confusion.
And so the image that we'reactually supposed to have is of
a desert, of a desertwilderness. So the deep
darkness, desert. And thenGenesis, chapter one, verse 21
God made the great sea creaturesin Hebrew. That word is tiny,
(13:59):
and that gets translated asDragon. There are dragons in
Genesis, chapter one. Now Iwould say that the scriptures
and not this. I don't think thisis like a evil thing or a
malicious thing, but thescriptures have been
intentionally demythologized bymodern translations. And by
(14:21):
demythologize, I just mean we inour modern world are trying to
solve a problem that ancientauthors and ancient audiences
are not trying to solve. So forthe modern translator or for the
modern Western individual, we'rereally trying to prove that
evolution is wrong and thateverything that God made was
(14:42):
created by him. So we have acreationist agenda which causes
us to read the Bible a certainway. I'm all about God created
everything. So I have no issueswith that. The only problem with
that is that the ancientaudience wasn't trying to prove
that you. They didn't live in aworld where there were atheists.
(15:03):
There were no atheists, therewere no evolutionists running
around Ancient Egypt or ancientMesopotamia. That's not even
remotely a thing. However, therewere polytheists, and what Moses
is doing in the book of Genesisis not trying to prove that
evolution's wrong. He's actuallytrying to prove that God is
(15:25):
unlike ra that God is unlikeMarduk, that God is unlike Baal,
that that is what Moses is upto. And at some point we have to
realize the Bible is written forus, but not to us, and get back
to okay, but so what was in theoriginal mind of the original
audience, and what would havebeen in their mind, for the
(15:46):
forefront of their mind, is thatany god, any good God, is able
to take chaos and create orderout of it, which is why, during
the plagues, what does Yahwehdo? He proves that the gods that
the Egyptians worship are notable to sustain the order of
creation, which is why you get areturn to darkness, which is why
(16:10):
the Nile that was worshipedturns to blood. He's proving,
Yahweh is actually proving yourgods don't have the power to
sustain the order of the cosmosthat without me, everything goes
back to chaos, because I didn'tstart from nothing and make
something. I started from chaosand I made order. And if you're
(16:32):
not going to worship me as theGod that brings things from
chaos to order, then you won'tbe able to enjoy the order that
I've blessed you with. So, okay,all four forms of chaos. So what
does God do? God now does notcompletely eradicate those four
forms of chaos. However, hecreates boundaries for all of
(16:55):
them, so he doesn't eliminatedarkness. He says that darkness
can happen at night, and that,that's its boundary. It has a
time boundary, okay? And it hasstars and a moon to govern the
chaos which is in the ancientworld. This would have been
thought of as angelic beings, asas the host of heaven, okay.
(17:18):
Number two, the the to home, thedeep gets boundaries. God
creates land and he creates theoceans, and he doesn't. There is
no word for create that, thatHebrew word bara is not used of
the seas, because Genesis one,verse two, tells us that it's
already there, the deep and thewaters are there. But God
(17:40):
separated water from water, andhe caused dry ground to appear.
So the thing that gets made isdry ground. And there's a
boundary for the desert and forthe wilderness. The boundary is
the Garden of Eden. So now Edenis a place of order and the
wilderness is a place of chaos,a nerdy nugget. Adam doesn't get
(18:03):
made from the soil of Eden. Hegets made from the soil of the
wilderness, which is why humanswill never find order or
discipline or commandments ofGod to feel natural. So this
idolization of authenticity isis really hard, because for the
(18:24):
Christian, we're saying, no, no,no, no, no, you weren't even
taken from ordered soil. Youwere taken from chaotic soil.
And order has to be imposed onus. And so none of the order
that I've had to learn as ahuman, comes naturally. None of
it. You want to know what comesnaturally. Lying comes
(18:45):
naturally. Chaos comesnaturally, sin comes naturally.
Man, I don't have to try likethat. Stuff comes really easily,
hiding, shame, guilt, like thesethings come very, very
naturally. Okay? And then theonly thing that's not given a
boundary is the dragon, and Godallows the dragon to be in the
(19:08):
garden. Which gets us to ourlast question, why I would
propose there are multipleanswers to that question. I'll
tell you. The answer that I putforward in the book crush on
chaos is that most of us assume,and I would say that we
incorrectly assume that when Godcreates the world, he made it
(19:28):
perfect. I think that we hearthat in church a lot, the Garden
of Eden was perfect. God made aperfect world, and then Adam and
Eve jacked it up with sin. Andthe reality is that there isn't
one time in Genesis, chapterone, two or three, where the
creation is described asperfect. Never God never called
(19:48):
it perfect. He called it good.
And a good garden has anadversary, because good, unlike
perfect. Means that it is doingwhat it is designed to do, and
in the same way that Yahwehcreates boundaries for chaos,
Adam and Eve are commissioned tosubdue and rule. Subdue and
(20:12):
rule. What if they're in aperfect world, there's nothing
to subdue or rule. They'recalled to subdue and rule,
because there is chaos in thegarden, and they have to learn
how to subdue and rule so theycan grow the garden to overtake
the wilderness. So a dragonwants the humans to be an agent
(20:33):
of chaos. God wants the humansto be an agent of order, or
agents of order. Obviously, theymade their decision to be agents
of chaos, which is why they thenget banished into the realm of
chaos. Okay, so, and think aboutthe assumptions where you bring
in a marriage. Most people arehoping that God would give them
(20:54):
a perfect spouse, and Goddoesn't give a perfect spouse.
He gives a good one, a good oneat best. And you know, you know,
I have a couple of employees, ahandful of employees, and God,
doesn't give perfect employees.
He gives good ones. He doesn'tgive us a perfect church. He
gives us a good church. Hedoesn't give us a perfect
(21:15):
business or a perfect podcast,or a perfect anything. He gives
us good good. And we turn goodinto great, and then we turn
great into fruitful and andthat's our job. So a perfect
garden would have made Adam andEve lazy, but God put them in a
garden and allowed a dragon ofchaos to be in there with them,
so that they could learn how togive boundaries to chaos, just
(21:39):
like the God that they follow?
Has given boundaries to chaos.
They were supposed to do whatthey saw their father do, which
is, provide boundaries for thedarkness, provide boundaries for
the deep, provide boundaries forthe desert. They were supposed
to put the dragon in his place.
Last nerdy detail is that inevery creation myth outside of
the Bible, it is the god figure,or the creator figure, or the
(22:03):
deity that conquers the chaos.
So Marduk conquers this dragonnamed Tiamat Ra, the sun god Ra,
in Egyptian folklore, conquersthe chaos dragon named Apep. Or,
you know, in the in theCanaanite story, Baal, or Baal
(22:24):
from the Old Testament, actuallyconquers a chaos dragon named
lOTAN. But God is not like theseother gods. He's not like Baal
or Marduk or RA he will notdishonor himself by confronting
anything face to face, even inRevelation, when the dragon gets
kicked out of heaven, Michaelgoes to do it because God has no
(22:47):
rival. He has no equal, and hewon't fight anything like it's
an equal of his. He literallyjust sends Michael. So the devil
is such a non issue for God thatMichael, hey, you got some
errands today. Man, go fight. Gofight the dragon and cast them
out of heaven. So the dragon isin the garden because he is Adam
(23:10):
and Eve's adversary, not God'sadversary. Obviously, they fail.
Jesus comes as a human to dowhat Adam and Eve were unable to
do. In Jesus, fully divine andfully human, actually conquers
the dragon. And so, okay, myvery long winded answer to your
fantastic question is that Ithink a lot of times we assume
(23:33):
perfection, when God justdoesn't. There's no place that
says it's perfect, but he saysit's good. And I think that we
have to begin to see work asgood. Oh, wow. Adam and Eve had
work to do. Yeah, it's good,man, that work is good. An enemy
is good, an adversary is good, astruggle is good. That stuff's
good, and it's and is designedto be in there, in the garden
(23:56):
for a good reason. All
Joshua Johnson (23:58):
right. Well, we'll get back to some nerdy
Bible stuff in just a second.
But guys, let's go intosomething like your anxiety,
where there's, there's chaos.
You're feeling chaos. There's,there's a lot of chaos.
Oftentimes, I would think thatif I'm anxious, I want peace,
but what God does is He createsorder out of chaos. Yes. So what
(24:20):
is, then the difference betweenorder and peace in our in our
lives. And what does order bringthat we think peace may
Unknown (24:28):
Fantastic question, thanks for throwing me a
softball that this is, this isamazing. You're welcome just
lobbing softballs for me, Iwould say that peace is a fruit.
So if you even think of thefruit of the Spirit, love, joy,
peace, patience, kindness,goodness, gentleness, self
control. So peace, then, is nota seed or root. It's fruit. It
(24:51):
is the natural byproduct whenthere's order in my life. So I
used to tell the kids in myyouth group all the time for.
The first five years of youthministry. Man, I would pray for
them to have peace, you know,they would leave Wednesday night
service full of peace, and thenI'd see them on Wednesday, on,
you know, Wednesday, we'd haveyouth service. Then I'd see them
(25:12):
on the weekends, and their peacetank was at 50% and they'd be
back the next Wednesday, theirpeace tanks at 0% anxiety is
back, and I just felt like I'm ahamster on a wheel. Every week
they run out of peace. I feltlike Chick fil A just free
refills of peace every week,just given more peace and and,
you know, they would find peacein all kinds of things, in the
(25:33):
worship, in the sermon, in theministry, time at the altar,
they'd find peace in all kindsof things. But then I remember
five years in going, you knowwhat? Instead of teaching on
peace, I really need to teach onorder, because if I teach them
order, they'll they'll be ableto sustain the peace that that
(25:54):
we preach about. So let's takeorder in in I kind of unpack
tons of or different forms oforder through the book, but one
of them is sequence. Right. Justsequence. I could have all the
right ingredients for a cake,but if I do it in the wrong
order, I'm not going to get acake. I'm going to get a miss.
So sequence matters. Simplestuff. I wasn't teaching them
(26:17):
anything profound, just simplestuff, like sex goes after
marriage. That's the sequencemarriage then sets. If you put
it before, it's not that God'sGod hates you or you're gross or
disgusting, or any of that, likewe don't, we don't have to be
offensive to people, but man,sex creates this possessive
(26:41):
nature that's healthy inmarriage, but that's really
unhealthy outside of it. And Icould pray for you to have peace
all you want, but if you're in adysfunctional relationship with
your boyfriend and you've letsex enter into the relationship,
then there's going to be acertain amount of anxiety that
(27:03):
you're going to have about thatrelationship. Because the
reality is that that it's built,it's not built on anything
stable, like you're just playinga really risky game. Another
easy one is fathers, like whenyou just start looking at
fatherhood stats, like whenthere's an active present dad in
(27:24):
the home, anxiety rates go downwhen there's an active present
dad in the home, like thesuicide, teen suicide goes down.
Depression goes down, povertyand incarceration and all this
stuff goes down. Well, duh. Imean, dads are a part of God's
(27:45):
order. This is order. And so Iremember being honest with the
kids in my youth group andsaying, like, hey, my dad, my
father, took me to a crack housefor the first time when I was
five. So I hated male authority,and it wasn't until I forgave my
father and and started to allowsome spiritual dads to exert
(28:09):
authority in my life thatcertain forms of anxiety went
away. And it's not that I neededto pray more, it's that I
couldn't rebel against order,and think I was still eligible
for God's peace. It just doesn'twork that way. Actually, by
accepting God's order andsurrendering to the order that
(28:32):
he has for my life, I begin torealize that peace fixed itself,
that peace is this naturalbyproduct of order, and that
whenever there's order in mylife, peace thrives. Same with
like, let's say rhythm. So like,I'd say sequence is one form of
order. I would say hierarchy isanother form of order, and dads
(28:54):
fall into a hierarchy that Godintends for the family and for
society. I'd say rhythm isanother form of order. So if I'm
working seven days and restingzero, I'm out of rhythm. I'm out
of sleep with the rhythm thatGod created me for. And so of
course, I'm going to be anxiousbecause I'm tired, I'm burnt
out, whereas when I work six andrest one, work six, rest one,
(29:19):
I'm now back in rhythm, whichmeans I'm in sync with God's
order, and when I embrace hisorder, even when I take a
Sabbath, when I know there'swork that needs to be done, it's
almost like that anxiety aroundwork begins to go away, and my
identity isn't just what Iproduce, but I begin to enjoy
(29:43):
God's rest. And so I may think,no, if I could just get
everything on my to do listdone, then I can rest. And God
says, No, you embrace rest, evenwhen there are things on the to
do list. I was at a church in StLouis, and one of the deacons
at. Church walked me out togreet people in the lobby. And
on the way, one of thecongregants, I didn't know that
(30:06):
the guy was a deacon. X, I justthought he was part of the
security or safety team. And hesaid, Hey, Deacon, Mike, can you
pray for me? Deacon Mike said,Yeah, I can pray for you. Like,
gotta make it quick, so I gottaget pastor Manny out to the
lobby. And he said, he said,What do you need prayer for? And
the guy said, all my finances.
Like, I need prayer for myfinances. Deacon Mike was just
about to pray for the guy, andthen he said, before I pray for
(30:27):
you, do you tithe? Like? Are youdo you give like? Are you
generous? Do you tithe? And hesaid, No, no, I don't tithe. And
you know, at this point, I'mlike the Michael Jackson. I'm
like eating popcorn. I'm like,my dad's eating popcorn. Man,
I'm just like, This is not mychurch. I'm leaving in the
morning. I don't live here. I'mgoing back to Texas. You know,
(30:47):
these Deacons in St Louis arecold blooded. Man, this is, this
is fascinating. And so DeaconMike, you know, heard the man
say, No, I don't tithe. And hesaid that, I can't pray for you,
he said, because there's noamount of prayer that I could
provide that can undo the chaosthat you've brought on your own
life by rejecting God's orderfor your finances. God has and I
(31:10):
know Christians land differentlyon on tithing. They said at our
church, like we teach that thefirst 10% belongs to the Lord,
and that is God's order for yourfinances. So no, I won't pray
for you. And he did not pray forthe guy. And I was like, wow.
Like, Man, I don't know if Iwould have taken that approach,
(31:35):
but like, essentially, what hewas saying was, like, you can't
leave by promise when you denyby principle. Like, I can't have
faith that God is gonna, youknow, Bippity, boppity boo me
out of some scenario when Ireally don't agree with the
order that God has and and so Ibegin to realize, if I can get
(32:00):
people to fall in love withorder which they naturally
don't, people don't naturallylove authority. They don't
naturally love budgeting. Theydon't naturally love abstinence
while they're single. Peopledon't love that stuff. People
don't like sabbathing. Theydon't like not overworking. They
you know, people don't like thatstuff, but they will still find
(32:21):
themselves at the altar cryingout to God for peace. And I
don't know, man, I feel like aspiritual chiropractor, just
like, hey, if we could crack youinto order, I promise like that
knee pain would go away, butI've got to crack your neck,
like I like, you gotta let mecrack your neck, because it's
(32:42):
gonna have this ripple effect.
So, yeah, that's the correlationthat I see in the Scriptures
between order and peace. If
Joshua Johnson (32:51):
order happens and there's different there's
rhythms and sequence and thesedifferent types of of order, and
we often don't want that, right?
As humans, we don't want it.
Americans don't want it. Butwhat we do, we're trying to get
happy, right? Happiness is ourtop order. Oh yeah, because
that's what we say in ourConstitution, we have the right
(33:14):
to happiness. Oh yeah, and wewant everything to do about
ourselves. What we're hyperindividual like it is just about
me, and so I'm gonna findeverything I need inside of
myself. That's where myhappiness will come from. Yeah,
that's where my good work isgonna come from. It's all about
(33:35):
me. How does this help usactually finding what true
happiness is, what truecommunity is, what true life is.
How does this help us becomehuman again? Yeah, yeah.
Unknown (33:49):
Okay, I'll say two things. First, this whole idea
of of order and peace, we couldsee it in Genesis, because as
long as there's chaos, Goddoesn't rest in the chaos, but
he does hover over it andcommand it into order. And once
it's ordered, one of the bestverses in scripture is that he
rests in the Garden of Eden. SoGod goes from hovering to
(34:13):
resting once things have beenput into order. So number one,
if order is difficult for anyonewatching or listening, I just
want to remind you of a promiseof scripture that God does go
from hovering above your lifetrying to speak order into it,
to resting with you if you givehim a temple that's ordered and
(34:34):
your body is a temple of theHoly Spirit, but he won't Rest
in chaos. He will speak to thechaos and get it to line up, but
you have to yield. You got tosurrender and obey so that you
could be an order temple for HisHoly Spirit, so that just a
promise like and a challenge.
Second, one of the things that.
(35:00):
What I think I do a decent jobof in the book is talking about
the chaos that ensues with hyperindividual a hyper
individualistic society. So thereality is that as independence
and individuality go up, anxietyalso goes up. So you know, to
(35:23):
anyone listening who's just sofocused on themselves and their
goals and their life, like Iwould say, Yo, you are fueling
your your problems with yourselfishness. Like, at some point
you have to realize that thebest thing you can do with your
life is not hoard it or keep it,but give it away. I got this
(35:47):
really dope speaking opportunitycouple years ago, I think, like
2019 I was so nervous, like thespeaking engagement came via
email, and my admin told me, andshe was so excited to tell me,
and I immediately was nervous.
Well, I was excited initially,and then as I began to think
about I just got nervous, andthe nerves turned into anxiety,
and the anxiety turned intooverthinking. And, you know, all
(36:10):
my thoughts were, what am Igonna preach? This could open
doors, you know, if the rightpeople hear me, and it's such a
big platform, and what if I tripwhen I'm walking up to the
stage? What if I stutter? Whatif I what am I gonna wear? What
am I gonna say? Blah, blah. Soit's like weeks before this
event, and by this point, I'mnot as nervous, I'm not as
(36:33):
overthinking. I mean, every timeI think about this speaking
engagement, my stomach's just inknots, like I don't even want to
think about the fact that I havethis speaking engagement coming
up. I'm dreading it. I'mdreading it. This is a this is
good news, like, I finally gotasked to be on this major
(36:54):
platform, and I'm dreading it.
So I'm praying one day, and theHoly Spirit says, Do you want to
know why you're anxious? And I'mlike, Duh, yeah, I'd love to
know why I'm anxious, you know,like, if you could shed some
light here on why I'm anxious,like, that'd be good. And the
Holy Spirit said, you're anxiousbecause you're selfish. He goes,
(37:17):
let's just think about whatyou've thought about so far,
your sermon, your skills, youroutfit, your ministry, your
reputation. You've only thoughtabout you have you thought about
the couple on the brink ofdivorce who's going to be in the
room? Have you thought about thesingle mom who's bringing her 13
(37:38):
year old son to that service?
Have you thought about, youknow, the person who just got a
cancer diagnosis who's going tobe in church that day. Have you
thought, have you for one momentthought about the pastor who
invited you and how stressed outthey may be and how you are
lifting a burden for them onthis particular Sunday? Have you
stopped to consider any of thepeople that I've actually called
(38:02):
you to go preach to that day andwar. Know what's crazy as soon
as I stop thinking about mysermon, my words, my outfit, my
tripping or not tripping, mystuttering or not stuttering,
and just thought about thepeople that God had called me to
minister to that day, all myanxiety actually went away, and
(38:25):
it turned into righteous anger,and I began to pray for all the
people and all of the scenariosand all of the weight or burdens
that people will be carryingwith them in the church. And my
anxiety went away. All myanxiety around that speaking
engagement went away becausethey were all rooted in
selfishness. And I think we haveto ask ourselves a question, am
(38:46):
I even anxious about anythingthat has to do with God or
others or community, like, am Ianxious about anybody else's
kids or just my kids? Am Ianxious about anybody else's,
you know, health, or just myhealth, and life is fullest when
you live it in service to otherpeople. That's not just like a
(39:09):
cliche feel good thing that nolike it's the antidote for
anxiety and God didn't createyou to just live for yourself.
He created you to care, to mournwith those who mourn, to rejoice
with those who rejoice, toreally take other people's
burdens on. And it's funny howwhen we do that, our anxiety
(39:29):
really does get turned on itshead. So okay, that's my counter
cultural take on selfishness andindividualism and anxiety. I
think that it's hard to embracethe community in the group. I
think we're all scared we'regonna lose ourselves. But the
(39:51):
reality is that, what if losingyourself is the best thing that
ever happened? I remembersomeone told. Me couple years
ago, they were scared to getmarried because they were scared
to lose themselves. And I said,Well, let me tell you the good
news and the bad news. I said,the good news is, I did lose
myself when I got married. Idid. I'm not who I was. I said,
that is the bad news. Let metell you bad news first, I did
(40:14):
lose myself when I got married.
I'm not who I was. I said, nowlet me tell you the good news.
I'm better now than I was then.
I lost that version of Manny,only to finally become the
version of Manny that God alwayswanted to to be in existence.
You will lose yourself. I'm notgonna lie to you and tell you
(40:35):
like, No, you're gonna getmarried or you're not gonna lose
yourself. No, how about this,get over yourself. Who told you
you were that awesome to beginwith? Maybe losing yourself
would be a great thing. Andyou're so in love with you,
you're, you're, you're, you'reyour own idol. And maybe losing
yourself is the best thing thatcould ever happen. Not thinking
(40:56):
about my sermon was the bestthing that could happen for that
speaking, that's
Joshua Johnson (41:02):
really helpful for us to think about, okay,
let's give our lives and serviceto others that's gonna help
eliminate some of the anxiety.
But you do talk about, in yourbook, you talk about, there are
cycles of chaos, and thesecycles of chaos just continue on
through the story. Yeah,continue on through the story.
What? What are these cycles ofchaos that we see?
Unknown (41:25):
Okay, so there's a six step cycle throughout the Bible.
I would actually say that thewhole Old Testament is kind of
based on the cycle. First,there's always you get chaos
somewhere in the Scriptures. Andthen after chaos, you get a
flood. And then after the flood,you get wind, so like Ruach, or
like the Spirit of God, and thenafter that, you get the voice of
God. And then after that you getorder, because God's voice
(41:47):
always brings order. And thenafter that, you're always going
to see a test, and then humansare going to fail that test. And
then the cycle repeats itself.
So throughout the book, I justmake the point like, hey,
humanity has moved six stepsforward, and, you know, or five
step forward and six steps back,over and over and over and over
and over again. The first ofthese cycles is creation, and
that failed test is obviouslyAdam and Eve in the garden. The
(42:09):
second of these is actually theflood narrative. There's moral
chaos, and then there's a flood.
And then you get the the wind ofGod, or the Spirit of God in the
form of a dove. And then you getthe voice of God who cries out
to Noah to come out of the ark.
And then you get God bringingorder where there was chaos. And
(42:31):
then you get a test in avineyard, this time, not in a
garden. And then humanity failsthat test. And then the cycle
repeats. And then you get thesame thing. In Egypt, there's
moral chaos, there's slavery. SoGod leads them to the Red Sea,
which is a body of water, andthen a strong east wind pushes
back on the Red Sea so that thepeople can go through it. Once
(42:54):
the people have gone through it,God speaks, and the sea, you
know, swallows up all theEgyptians, and then God gives
order. Okay, God speaks, and nowhe gives order. In the entire
time in the wilderness, God isgiving them instructions for
tabernacle commandments. He'sordering their their lives. But
the the wilderness season is aseason of testing, and we know
(43:17):
that they fail. Joshua'sgeneration isn't even able to go
in to the promised land. We getthis again with the Jordan
River. Okay, Canaan has nowdescended into moral chaos. They
get to the Jordan River. TheBible says that the Ark of the
Covenant is brought out on theriver, and that the river opens
(43:39):
up, and then the voice of Godspeaks. There's order. They
march around Jericho in a veryordered format. But then Achan,
there's a test, one person bythe name of Aiken, takes some of
the plunder as his own when he'snot supposed to fail the test.
And then the cycle repeats andrepeats and repeats. Well, the
(44:02):
only person who breaks thatcycle is a man by the name of
Jesus, who enters into humanitywhen it's most chaotic. Jesus is
then baptized in the Jordan aSpirit, the Spirit descends on
him, a voice from heaven says,This is my son and who I'm well
pleased. You can imagine how foran Old Testament audience who
(44:23):
knows this cycle, they watchedJesus go out into the wilderness
to get what tested, and they'rewaiting with bated breath to
figure out, is he gonna passthis test. And it's the first
time in the entire biblicalnarrative that we don't owe six
step, six steps forward and thenback. We actually move six steps
(44:44):
forward, and Jesus breaks thecycle. And as Christ followers,
we now have the power to breakthe cycle of chaos. I don't have
to live in My great grandpa.
Chaos, or my grandparents chaos,or my parents chaos, or the
chaos of my life five years ago,I can make the decision as a
(45:09):
follower of Jesus to break anykind of generational cycle or
any kind of cyclical habitualpattern and to follow Christ
into freedom. But if we don'tknow that that cycle is even
there, then we don't realize thesignificance of Jesus getting
(45:32):
out of the water and immediatelygoing to get tested out in the
wilderness. And then, of course,the scriptures say that he's
successful out in thewilderness. And of course, he
The Greek word is ekbalo. He'sdriven out into the wilderness.
And that same Greek word is thesame Greek word that's used for
Adam and Eve. They're echoloedOut of Eden. They're cast out.
(45:56):
It's the great reversal. Adamand Eve were cast out of the
wilderness, sorry, into thewilderness and Jesus cast out so
that we can get brought back in.
Is God treating him who wasperfect like a sinner, so that
he could treat sinners likewe're perfect? Um, this the
scandalous reversal of of thegospel. So, yeah, that's, that's
(46:17):
the cycle of chaos.
Joshua Johnson (46:21):
Because Jesus broke that cycle, we're able to
live in true freedom. We'retrying to again, like Americans,
everybody. We're trying tofigure out what freedom actually
looks like, but Jesus brings andhelps us bring true freedom. For
you, just briefly, we don't havea ton of time left. So what is
(46:43):
true freedom? That's
Unknown (46:44):
great. I think in America we define freedom as
independence, because, you know,we have a whole day of
independence, July 4, and wecelebrate independence, and
unfortunately, we then useindependence and freedom as like
synonyms. We use theminterchangeably, but they're not
the same. Adam and Eve wanted tolive independent of God's order
(47:06):
in his commands, independence isactually not a great thing. It's
good for a nation to beindependent of another
colonizing power, awesome.
However, with every peoplegroup, you have to realize that
there are rights andresponsibilities, and anytime
any group of people focuses moreon their rights than on their
(47:29):
responsibilities, that group ofpeople is on the verge of
turmoil, and our democracy isreally not just built on our
rights, but it's built on ourresponsibility to our neighbor
and our fellow man, and we'vegot to kind of get back to a
place of freedom. Is not whatI'm free to do, but what I've
(47:51):
been freed from because of thepower of Jesus. And I'm not free
to smoke. I'm free from smoking.
I'm not free to party and havesex with whoever I want. I'm
free from the need to do thosethings. I'm not free to I'm free
from and I've been freed, and Ialways love to use Harriet
(48:13):
Tubman as a great example ofwhat it means to be a believer.
You have this enslaved woman whogot free and didn't just see her
freedom as something to beenjoyed, but kept going back to
the south, freeing other people.
And my whole job is to not justenjoy my freedom, but to say,
Man, I want as many people toget free as possible, and I'll
(48:36):
use my freedom in service to thepeople that are around me so
they can get free as well, notjust so that we can enjoy and
hoard, but so that we can sothat we can spread freedom, true
freedom, biblical freedom. Yeah.
God's command to Adam is, youare free. I love that you are
free to eat of any tree in thegarden except the tree in the
(49:00):
middle of the garden. So Godstarts the command with freedom,
that this rule will keep youfree. A lot of times we think
that rules inhibit our freedom,but really they they don't. They
don't prohibit our freedom. Theythey actually create freedom
because a train is most freewhen it's on the tracks, not
(49:22):
off,
Joshua Johnson (49:23):
that's so good.
This has been a fantasticconversation so far. I have a
couple of quick questions at theend I like to ask one, yeah, if
you go back to your 21 year oldself, what advice would you get?
Oh,
Unknown (49:35):
21 Mary, Tia man, we got married when I was 26 and it
would have been really good tomarry her when I was 21 we knew
each other. Yeah, marry Tia.
That if I could go back to my 21year old self, I'd just be like,
Hey, man, marry Tia. Yeah, yeah,if I go back in time right now.
(49:57):
I'd married. I'd marry my wife.
For anyone who doesn't know mycurrent wife, her name is Tia.
Is my current wife, my onlywife, the only woman I'll ever
marry forever. You know, anyway,yeah, that that'd be what I do
that. And I'd buy you, I'd buysome crypto. I'd buy bitcoin.
(50:18):
Yes,
Joshua Johnson (50:19):
that too, yeah, too. That would be worth a lot
of money right now, be but itwould be worth Bitcoin
Unknown (50:26):
was out when I was 20, I know, but I'd find some. I'd
buy all of it. I could,
Joshua Johnson (50:32):
that's right, that's right. Anything you've
been reading or watching lately,you could recommend,
Unknown (50:37):
oh my gosh, Wheel of Time on Amazon Prime. I love it.
It's, it's fantasy. It's kind oflike, I don't know, it's like,
Lord of the Rings, plus Game ofThrones, plus, I like fantasy.
So I like world building, soWheel of Time. Well, how could
people
Joshua Johnson (50:56):
go out then Manny and get crushing chaos,
which is a fantastic book.
Everybody should go and read itand just dig into it. You could
just see lots of dragons in themiddle of it. So if you love
fantasy, you're gonna getdragons. You're gonna get all
sorts of incredible things. Ohyeah, we got so where can people
get it? And then where elsewould you like to point people
(51:17):
to? You can go
Unknown (51:19):
to crushing chaos.com, or you can go anywhere where you
like to buy books, if you're inaudiobooks. I did read the
audiobook myself, and I knowthat it is available on Audible,
but it's on Amazon. Barnes andNoble all kinds of book
retailers have crushed andchaos. So you can go to crushing
(51:41):
chaos.com or you can go whereverit's convenient. But, yeah, grab
a copy of the book. I honestlythink that, uh, that the book is
helpful, that it's eye opening,that it's life changing. I think
it is practical enough and nerdyenough that'll scratch multiple
itches at the same time. Yes,
Joshua Johnson (51:58):
it is nerdy. It is practical. I love the book. I
really, I really enjoyed digginginto it, reading it, it's, it's
a lot of fun, and it's reallyhelpful. It's man eye opening
for a lot of things. And so Ireally recommend crushing chaos.
And so Manny, thank you for thisconversation. Oh, thank you for
bringing some order into ourlives. Hey, we could crush
(52:21):
chaos. Seriously, you
Unknown (52:23):
have no idea. Thank you.
Thanks. You.
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