Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Well, we're back. Grant.
[00:00:02] Speaker B: We are back. Finally. It's been, it's been a time.
[00:00:05] Speaker A: It's been a time. Grant. Grand Papa.
[00:00:08] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah.
[00:00:08] Speaker A: Grant. Mama.
[00:00:10] Speaker B: Yeah, I've been called that.
[00:00:11] Speaker A: Yeah, I'm sure.
Grant Cracker.
[00:00:14] Speaker C: Grant.
[00:00:15] Speaker B: I have not heard that one.
[00:00:17] Speaker A: Grant Cracker. Yeah, let's make that happen in life. I would like for that to be shouted out. Whatever. Sunday after this releases when he walks on stage.
[00:00:26] Speaker C: Lead worship.
[00:00:27] Speaker A: Grand Cracker.
Yeah, it's been a while.
[00:00:30] Speaker B: It has been a while.
[00:00:33] Speaker A: Yeah, it's been a while. And I feel like I need to give a public service announcement because I brought my very clean and sanitary hand washed every day. That looks very clean Waffle House mug.
[00:00:45] Speaker B: You need a darker mug, then you can't see the.
That's probably the problem.
[00:00:50] Speaker A: But it's fitting for Waffle House. Oh, for sure. And I need, I need to say, if you're from Wyoming, you've never been to a Waffle House, then the next time you get time off, you need to drive south. So you hit about Oklahoma.
[00:01:01] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:01:01] Speaker A: You need to stop at the first Waffle House you see. You need to go there at about 10am you need to go there for dinner, and then you need to go there at about 3am really, you will.
[00:01:13] Speaker B: Have those three times.
[00:01:14] Speaker A: You'll have three wildly different experiences. It's open 24 hours.
[00:01:16] Speaker B: What's your preference?
[00:01:18] Speaker A: I would say food wise, late evening best.
[00:01:24] Speaker C: Okay.
[00:01:25] Speaker A: People watching wise, 3:00am 3:00am oh, yeah, for sure. If you just want to see. If you want to see the best version of humanity that you can see. Waffle House at 3am and I need to say, like all you foodies and snobs, lower your expectations.
[00:01:39] Speaker C: All right?
[00:01:39] Speaker A: I'm not asking you to go to a Michelin starred restaurant. I'm asking you to go to a restaurant where like an old woman's gonna ash into your eggs and it's gonna be delicious. Yeah.
[00:01:47] Speaker C: So just.
[00:01:47] Speaker B: Yeah, it's the whole experience.
[00:01:48] Speaker A: Exactly.
[00:01:49] Speaker B: You know, it's not just about the food.
[00:01:51] Speaker A: That's Americana, actually.
[00:01:51] Speaker B: Probably very little about the food. But it's more about everything else.
[00:01:55] Speaker A: Yes. I mean, where else can you get frozen hash browns with just a Craft single melted into them, covered in mushrooms and gravy and, you know, a couple.
[00:02:05] Speaker B: Dashes of Tabasco and you're ready to go. You're ready to devour it.
[00:02:08] Speaker A: It's so good.
[00:02:09] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:02:09] Speaker B: I don't think I've ever been.
[00:02:10] Speaker A: You need to. I've been hundreds of times. I bought this mug under the table?
[00:02:16] Speaker B: Really?
[00:02:17] Speaker A: At a Waffle House?
[00:02:17] Speaker B: You didn't steal it?
[00:02:18] Speaker A: Yeah, I did not seal it. I paid for it. I paid in cash. I asked the waitress, how can I buy one of these mugs? And she said, I need to go ask my manager. And then she came back and said, 5 bucks cash and you can have a look.
[00:02:28] Speaker B: So he might not have put that in the till, but I don't know where it went.
[00:02:31] Speaker A: I did my part.
[00:02:32] Speaker B: Your part was fine.
[00:02:33] Speaker A: I am.
[00:02:34] Speaker B: You didn't steal it.
[00:02:34] Speaker A: Morally excused.
[00:02:36] Speaker B: Exactly.
[00:02:36] Speaker A: For this. Yeah.
[00:02:37] Speaker C: Yes. Yes. Yep.
[00:02:40] Speaker A: All right. So ecosystem.
[00:02:42] Speaker B: Yes.
[00:02:43] Speaker A: We're back talking about the why and the bigger picture behind our sermon series.
And part of the reason why it's been a long time since we've done last one is because we did at the movies. And I don't know if our viewers know this, but while Mike and I are the ones on screen, everything else that happens at the movies, Grant does.
So True Films edits, eqs, does everything for all of those and leads Worship. So, yeah, a little busy that month. Little, little bit busy. So we figured it'd be good to kick the ecosystem can down the road for a little bit so that he doesn't know, have a meltdown in the office. And. Yeah, you know, I appreciate it.
[00:03:22] Speaker B: I'm sure everyone else does too.
[00:03:24] Speaker A: Yes, we all do.
[00:03:25] Speaker C: We all do.
[00:03:26] Speaker B: So there is a correlation, Right, between the ones we missed?
[00:03:29] Speaker A: Yes. Yeah. So we're doing. We're going to talk about the Gravity series and our at the movie series. And there's an interesting correlation here because in Gravity, we looked at the world around us and we said there are these kind of gravitational pulls. We borrowed John Mark Comer's language when he talks about the gravitational pull of culture.
[00:03:49] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:03:50] Speaker A: And basically said there specific ideas or storylines buried in our culture that are going to cause that pull away from the story of Jesus. But they're subtle. Yeah, they're usually. They're usually not obvious enough for us to just notice them and say no to them. Yeah, they're subtle things like gravity. If we don't notice it, it's going to pull us away from the way of Jesus.
But then we looked at the movies where we literally engage with the storylines of culture.
[00:04:20] Speaker C: Yeah. Right.
[00:04:22] Speaker A: And in, in that series what we say is that even in these movies we can see something that points us to Jesus. So in the world around us, we have these subtle storylines or that are pulling us away from the gospel, while at the same time, really, most of those storylines are some attempt at Getting back to the gospel, they're looking for the thing that Jesus offers, but they don't have the answer of Jesus, so they find the answer they're looking for in a usually dangerous or damaging place.
[00:05:01] Speaker C: Yeah, right.
[00:05:02] Speaker A: For sure. So.
Yeah.
What do you think about that? Have you noticed that?
[00:05:08] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah.
[00:05:13] Speaker B: It's very. I mean, like, talking about more like that, the movies noticing, like, they almost get to the point of, like.
[00:05:23] Speaker C: They.
[00:05:23] Speaker B: Almost get to Jesus, but just. They try to fill it in with something else.
[00:05:27] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:05:28] Speaker B: I mean, I see that.
You see that all over the place, but Hollywood's pretty good at storytelling and doing that.
But I think even, like. Even like in a larger, Larger thing, like governmental. You can love it or hate it, but the subsidies and the handouts and stuff like that, it touches on being charitable and seeing the least of these and helping them. But it, but it's missing the Jesus point of view and it's missing even the interaction of personal to. It's not transformative to us because we're a collective doing it.
[00:06:01] Speaker A: Sure.
[00:06:01] Speaker B: And I. I mean, they can do great things. You can love it or hate it, whatever. I don't care. But it is missing the aspect of why we do this, why we are helping the widow, why are we helping the orphan.
[00:06:12] Speaker A: Yeah. And it.
[00:06:13] Speaker B: And it also eliminates me as an individual doing that and seeing, Seeing the response and. And helping that person be very powerful.
[00:06:22] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:06:22] Speaker A: That's really interesting.
It's.
[00:06:26] Speaker C: It.
[00:06:26] Speaker A: It's in a lot of places on either side. Politically.
You could say that we identify problems in the world and then we feel like we're doing something by posting on social media, by, you know, voting a specific way, which you should vote. You know, be a responsible citizen, Go out and vote. Vote your conscience. John Wesley said, vote your conscience and don't judge anyone else for voting their conscience. Where Wesleyans. I think that's good advice to follow for sure.
But.
But there's a degree to which if. If that's all we do, if that's our civic engagement.
[00:06:59] Speaker C: Right.
[00:07:00] Speaker A: Then we haven't done anything.
[00:07:02] Speaker C: Right.
[00:07:03] Speaker A: Our taxes are taken out of our paychecks. That's not generosity. That's not, you know.
[00:07:08] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:07:08] Speaker A: Whether. No matter what, it's going to. But if we can convince ourselves that, you know, we did it, but we didn't have to do it. We're divorcing ourselves from the actual.
[00:07:18] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:07:19] Speaker A: Instructions of Jesus.
[00:07:20] Speaker C: Yeah. Yeah.
[00:07:21] Speaker A: That's interesting.
[00:07:22] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:07:23] Speaker A: I think you see this, like, there, There's.
We could point to longings that are in our Culture.
[00:07:31] Speaker C: Right.
[00:07:32] Speaker A: So in. If you're on social media right now, you see the competing hustle culture and burnout conversations. You know, you see the guy, we probably talked about him before, but who's like, if you have one day in a day, you're messing up. My first day starts at 6am and goes until noon. By the end of the day, I've got three days, you know, which is ridiculous. But.
But then on the other side of it, there's, you know, like, there's all these conversations about burnout and about overworking and, you know, l. Losing your family.
I actually, I was listening to a podcast called Bear Grease Rep the Movement.
[00:08:12] Speaker C: There you go.
[00:08:14] Speaker A: Yesterday. And the podcaster was interviewing.
Oh, I'm gonna. I'm gonna blank on his name.
I can't remember his name. He's one of the most iconic journalists in American history. He's in his 80s now. He interviewed every major American president from Nixon until Trump's first administration.
He was the first. Probably the first journalist, but definitely the first American or Western journalist to interview Putin. He interviewed Gorbachev. He interviewed, like, everybody. He's covered, like, every war since Vietnam.
Big deal.
[00:08:50] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:08:50] Speaker A: But anyway, one of the things he was saying in.
In their conversation was that if he could go back and do it again, he would have said no to so many of those interviews, really, as he wasn't able to be a dad. Oh, yeah. You know, his mom raised his wife, raised his kids.
[00:09:05] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:09:06] Speaker A: And he didn't when they were young.
I thought that was really interesting. Like the most accomplished, objectively, the most accomplished person in his field that is alive right now saying, if I could go back and do it different, I. I wouldn't do that.
But if you look at that on both sides, what you see is this longing.
There's something about being human that says I'm supposed to matter. My life is supposed to matter.
[00:09:32] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:09:34] Speaker A: And there's something about being human that says I'm not only my work, I have to be more than my work, you know, so you got people that work jobs that don't seem to matter and they feel taken advantage of by their boss and they want to just give up and cash out of the system, or they pursue purpose. That doesn't.
Doesn't help, doesn't provide the satisfaction for a long time, and they burn out.
And then you've got other people who are getting up at 4am every morning to work three jobs, you know, or to work a side hustle, and.
Because they feel like they have to matter.
[00:10:09] Speaker C: Yeah. You Know. Yeah.
[00:10:10] Speaker A: And I think we would look at Genesis 2 and say, God put the man into the garden to work it, intend it. And we would say we were created to work. But then we would also look at Genesis 1 and say, on the Sabbath day, God rested and saw that what he did was good. And we would say, but you are not a production machine, you know?
[00:10:29] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:10:30] Speaker A: So there's a storyline in our culture that points us to the gospel.
[00:10:38] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:10:39] Speaker A: C.S. lewis talks about how every longing or talked about every longing in the human heart has a fulfillment. So we have. If we're hungry, we can eat. You know, if we're lonely, we can find people.
And that because humans have a spiritual longing, the only rational thing is to believe that there is a spiritual fulfillment to our spiritual longing. If humans look at the universe, person feel like there has to be something more and they feel a desperation to connect to it.
[00:11:09] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:11:10] Speaker A: Then, you know, it's only consistent to assume that it's there. And I think we see that.
[00:11:14] Speaker C: Yeah. Yeah.
[00:11:16] Speaker A: I think you can look at.
[00:11:19] Speaker C: You.
[00:11:19] Speaker A: Know, the hypersexualization of our culture and the identity confusion in our culture, and you can say that a human longs to know who they are and know their place in the world and to find that place through intimacy and real connection, not necessarily through sexuality or sexual intimacy, but through, you know, being known and being loved.
And I think we would once again go back to Genesis 1 and we would say, God made man in his image, male and female. He created them. Right. And we would say, we, because we originally have an identity and a place in the world that now we are trying to find that again, you know, and. But. But chasing it through the wrong thing.
[00:12:06] Speaker C: Yeah, exactly. So, yeah, yeah, yeah.
[00:12:12] Speaker A: So the goal of this conversation, we were talking about this before we started recording, is so that we, as followers of Jesus can look. Look to scripture and the world around us and learn to be both critical thinkers and empathetic and compassionate people so that we neither get pulled by the gravity of the world around us or divorce ourselves from the world and start seeing all of the world as evil.
[00:12:48] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:12:49] Speaker A: You know, Jesus is the friend of sinners.
[00:12:52] Speaker C: Right.
[00:12:52] Speaker A: So if we get to the point where all we're doing is pointing fingers at the world around us, demonizing, I think we've seen very clearly with what's going on with, you know, Charlie Kirk's assassination and all of the other violence in the world right now. The second we start, you know, with the ice detention center shooting with, I mean, all over the globe, there's Violence. Those are tiny pieces of the violence going on all over the world.
[00:13:15] Speaker C: Yes.
[00:13:16] Speaker A: Anytime we start taking a group of people and saying, you are the enemy, you're the threat, then dangerous things happen.
[00:13:25] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:13:25] Speaker A: Which is why Jesus says in Ephesians, our battle is not against flesh and blood. I just feel like I should say this as a Christian. I can't have a human enemy.
Doesn't work. Jesus died for his enemies. If I am to take on the name of Jesus, then there. Who. Who forgave his murderers while being murdered, then I cannot identify a human that is my enemy.
[00:13:51] Speaker C: Right.
[00:13:51] Speaker A: Because once again, our battle is not against flesh and blood, but against powers and principalities that rule this dark world. Yeah, that's Ephesians 5, I think.
[00:14:00] Speaker C: Yeah, 6.
[00:14:03] Speaker A: So.
So we have to learn. We have to learn to stand in the middle of that. As Paul would say, to be in the world, but not of the world. You have to be here paying attention, critically thinking, examining, caring. You know, Hebrew says that it's God's desire that none should perish, which means we have to be connected to the world, inviting people out of, you know, the destruction of sin.
And we have to resist the urge to then become of the world and become like the world, to resist gravity while noticing the story and pointing to Jesus.
[00:14:38] Speaker C: Yeah.
Yeah.
[00:14:39] Speaker B: I was listening to one of the Bible projects podcasts about exile and, like, the theme of exile in the. In the Bible and how basically since the Fall, all the writers of the Bible have been viewing everything through the lens of being exiled and not into the promised land or not into wherever Israel or wherever it may be, out of the garden, always exiled. And they talked a lot about Daniel and. But. But Abraham had that, and the. The Jews in Egypt and then going in back to the promised land.
So I find, like. And I was listening to him, like, yeah, that we're always in exile. And they would even narrow it down to, like, even.
Even as we're exiles, even into our own body, our own mind. Because. Because of the Fall and sin, even. We're not.
[00:15:28] Speaker A: We're not.
[00:15:28] Speaker B: We're not actually living the. The. The life that was designed for. For who we are. And I was thinking about Daniel, like, that's what a great example of, like, being in Babylon exile, but also living and being kind of a part of assimilating. He was forced into assimilation, but assimilated. But there were still lines in, throughout his life of where he would say, no, I'm actually not going to do that thing, but I will do other things. I will Assimilate to. To culture. But there's a certain line, and I think that's the wisdom of biblical wisdom of knowing, okay, yeah, we can assimilate, we can do things, worldly things, but there has to be a line in the sand. I'm like, no, I'm not gonna. I'm not gonna do something different than what the Bible calls. What Jesus calls me to do.
[00:16:12] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:16:12] Speaker A: Wow, that's really interesting because. Because you've got Daniel who works in the king's courts.
[00:16:17] Speaker C: Right.
[00:16:17] Speaker A: Like, he's an advisor to the king, but he refuses to stop praying. He refuses to pray to the king.
[00:16:23] Speaker C: Yeah. Right.
[00:16:24] Speaker A: Won't bow down to the idol, you know, will. Will still follow the, the dietary laws of his people, but also works for the king.
[00:16:33] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah.
[00:16:33] Speaker A: And you know, if that's true, then versus, like, I think it's.
It's not Jeremiah 29:11.
It's in Jeremiah, though. I can't remember the chapter and verse, but where it says, work for the peace of the city that you. That you go to. Right. So Jeremiah, the whole book is. Is really written to the people who are going into exile. And the instruction then is make the place better.
[00:17:00] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:17:01] Speaker A: Wherever you are, don't just wait to escape back home. You know, that's what we want.
[00:17:06] Speaker C: Oh, yeah.
[00:17:07] Speaker A: But make it better while you're there.
So that would then be the instruction to us if we are doing the same thing. Yeah. Make it better.
[00:17:16] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:17:17] Speaker A: But don't. Don't make it home.
[00:17:21] Speaker C: Yeah. Yeah.
[00:17:22] Speaker A: So when you're thinking about the, the world around us, we talked about some of the gravitational pulls, you know, in our series, but is there anything that you would say that's a. That's a gravitational force that's dangerous that we need to. We need to pay attention to?
And then in your mind, what's the biblical answer to that?
[00:17:46] Speaker B: I mean, I could.
I think maybe it's controversial, but the whole idea of. And I think it's actually not as prominent as it has been, but the idea of people saying this is my truth, which maybe it comes across as my opinion, but when you, when you're using the word truth, to me, it's more black and white. And sure, if we're always just going to say our opinions and never base it on actual truth, it. Everything just gets watered down. Truth gets watered down.
And I think that's dangerous. I think it's okay to, to just say that's my opinion. And maybe it's just semantics, I don't know. But I think it is Dangerous to say, this is my truth and I'm going to live that way. It's like, no, there is a truth. And as Christians, we know where we can find the truth. We can seek truth.
And I just. Yeah, I just feel like that's pretty dangerous.
[00:18:34] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, that makes sense.
N.T. wright, theologian, wrote a book. I think it was the Challenge of Jesus. He wrote it in the 90s. So this was really the beginning of the rise of postmodern thinking in popular culture.
And one of the things he talks about in that is that what led to the rise of postmodernism, which is the philosophical term effectively for the my truth. There is no real truth. You can't tell me we all get to decide sort of movement. And it's very big oversimplification of postmodernism.
[00:19:09] Speaker C: But.
[00:19:11] Speaker A: Part of the rise of that was in pre. Post modernism was modernism. And in modernism was a movement defined by science and rationality.
[00:19:22] Speaker C: Right.
[00:19:24] Speaker A: And it was out of modernism that you got the fundamentalist Christian movement. So think like Westboro Baptist. Think like just whatever far fundamentalists don't wear, you know, women have to wear skirts and bonnets and buns. And you, you know, you can't trust any scientist or anything like that.
But the reason for that was you had science claiming a truth that they believed was objective. And then you had Christians saying, no, what we believe is true, this is objective, and they can't both be true.
[00:19:58] Speaker C: Right. Yeah.
[00:19:59] Speaker A: Um, but you didn't just have that, you know, so basically at that time, Christians, like totally certain parts of Christianity totally rejected science.
[00:20:09] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:20:09] Speaker A: You know, just divorced from the whole thing. And that's where you get hyper fundamentalism. Right.
But in modernism, you had all of these different groups of people saying, here's the facts, we did the research. This is objectively true. You have to believe it. And then you'd have somebody else saying, no, we did the research.
This is objectively true. Here's the facts. You have to believe it.
[00:20:31] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:20:31] Speaker A: And it basically, once again, oversimplified, basically led to a point where culture said, well, it can't all be true.
[00:20:38] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:20:40] Speaker A: So maybe none of it's true, you know, or maybe I think really postmodernism doesn't say there is no objective truth, but it says a human cannot determine objective truth from our limited perspective, so we should quit trying to make anything objective or to project any opinion on anyone else, because none of us can actually, actually perceive what is truly right.
So then into right in his book says it makes sense. When you look back historically how we got there, but that's not any better.
[00:21:09] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:21:10] Speaker A: You know what I mean?
But we can see even in that, this biblical longing to find truth, this biblical longing to resist, you know, lies that are projected. You know, you can see a little bit of like Israel and Egypt, you know, when some, when one version is saying, this is the only way to think, this is the only way to be. And Israel is saying, no, like we are, we are kind of oppressed in that.
[00:21:41] Speaker C: Right. Yeah.
[00:21:42] Speaker A: We have to leave, Leave that, go out into the wilderness. You can see that longing.
Sure. You know, you can kind of see Rome or the religious systems of the day saying there everything is black and white. And then you can say Jesus saying the kingdom of God is like a farmer throwing out seeds, you know, which is much less black and white.
[00:22:03] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:22:03] Speaker A: Much more ambiguous.
So you can see that the longing for Christ in postmodernism. But we can say postmodernism didn't find it.
[00:22:12] Speaker C: Right. Yeah.
[00:22:13] Speaker A: Saying, well, it's my truth. This is my truth. You have your truth, this is my truth. Doesn't. That doesn't help. Yeah, but we can see the longing. You know, just like in modernism, we can see the longing to have like the sovereignty of God proven to have clear direction, Ten commandments, morality, you know, some things are black and white.
[00:22:32] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
[00:22:33] Speaker A: For sure. Yeah. Anything else that comes another one.
[00:22:37] Speaker B: I think the, the culture is saying, you can be whatever you want to be.
[00:22:43] Speaker C: Sure.
[00:22:44] Speaker B: And maybe that's like.
Or maybe. Or you can be whatever you want to be. You can do whatever you want it. Like, you can have any career you want to have, like, somewhat. Yeah, that's true. Like, especially in our country, like, you have a lot of opportunity, you can do a lot of things. But I think that's just a false sense of reality of like, no, you, you can't, you can't really. I cannot be a very successful basketball player.
I mean, I'm short, maybe, but also I'm not that athletics. But I cannot do that. And that's fine.
And I do have purpose in my life. Everyone has purpose in life. Everyone's created for a purpose.
And you can find purpose in a lot of things. It can be very menial tasks that you could find purpose in. And yeah, it's fine. You can. And it can be very complex things. It could be very high end, high, high thinking things. It doesn't matter. But just to say that you can be whatever you want, you can. And that can be. And maybe that could be also like gender fluid fluidity. And stuff like that.
[00:23:40] Speaker C: But.
[00:23:41] Speaker B: But yeah, I think that is. That's dangerous. That's a dangerous, rare.
[00:23:44] Speaker C: For sure.
[00:23:44] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. Well, it's similar to what you were saying before, because our, our culture right now, you know, we are extremely individualistic.
So the, like, the psychological term would be expressive individualism for our culture right now.
We talked about it in the Gravity series a little bit, that the very short version is that for most of human history, you had to find identity in your people because you had to have people to survive.
Mass information was not available.
Changing locations was extremely difficult. Only the extremely wealthy had the ability to change their station in life in really any meaningful way.
So you found identity by staying connected to your community. And now we have the opposite. Mass information is available. You can find people who agree with anything that you think, right. Do you want to be a vegan, pacifist, member of isis? Then you can find those online, you know, yeah, you find anything online and people who will affirm it. And then you can get on an airplane and go there, or you can, you know, join a Reddit chain and, you know, that can be your community.
So rather than moving our inside, historically, what we would have denied the inside to match the outside. Now we deny the outside or change the outside to match the inside. Both of those have negatives.
[00:25:12] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah.
[00:25:14] Speaker A: You know, once again, we talked about it in the Gravity series, but it used to be a lot harder to preach the gospel because you go into a Muslim country who's going to change their mind.
[00:25:22] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:25:23] Speaker A: You know, they have changed their inside to match their outside. Their identity is found in their culture.
[00:25:28] Speaker C: Right.
[00:25:29] Speaker A: Like, the odds of someone breaking ranks is very, very low now. The odds of someone breaking ranks is very, very high.
[00:25:36] Speaker C: Yeah, right.
[00:25:37] Speaker A: It's, it's creating fertile soil for the gospel all over the world, but it's also creating fertile soil for dangerous ideas too. Right.
So, yeah, that's true.
[00:25:49] Speaker B: Yeah, I think, I think that's a wild, like, dichotomy of, like, even biblically, like, we are an individual.
God created us as an individual, but also, we're not just an individual. We're also part of the body of Christ. We're also, we actually don't. We mean a lot. We also don't mean that much. Like, on the grand scheme of, like, we're. We work together, we're a community.
And so, yes, we do matter. We have value, intrinsic value, because we are created by the Creator.
[00:26:16] Speaker C: But.
[00:26:16] Speaker B: But also, we're not. We shouldn't think that highly of ourselves either.
[00:26:21] Speaker A: I don't know, it's just a weird.
[00:26:22] Speaker B: Weird balancing act, I guess.
[00:26:24] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. It's a.
I think a way you could say it is Biblically, we are each uniquely named and identified, but we don't name ourselves.
[00:26:36] Speaker C: Yeah, right. Yeah.
[00:26:38] Speaker A: God names us and I, you know, in the prophecies about new heaven and new Earth, you know, there's. Each person has a new name given to them where it's like, no, this is who you are. And all of that wasn't who you are. This is who you are.
[00:26:51] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah.
[00:26:53] Speaker A: So now we want to name ourselves. We want to say, no, I get to decide.
[00:26:56] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:26:56] Speaker A: Which is a response to the longing, the biblical the normal human longing that says, I need an identity.
[00:27:03] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:27:04] Speaker A: I am a person, I am an individual.
[00:27:05] Speaker C: Right.
[00:27:06] Speaker A: That is good and godly. And we should say when you look at a gender fluid teenager who's desperate to find identity, the longing for identity is good and normal.
[00:27:19] Speaker C: Yes. Right.
[00:27:19] Speaker A: The longing to say, I don't know who I am, I have to find who I am.
[00:27:24] Speaker C: Right.
[00:27:25] Speaker A: That's good and normal. And for us as Christians to just say stop it is to shut down a normal, natural human longing that every human experiences. For sure.
Finding that by attempting to change or reject your biological gender is not healthy or biblical.
[00:27:45] Speaker C: Right.
[00:27:47] Speaker A: Because we don't go far, go so far as to say that you can now name your own identity.
[00:27:53] Speaker C: Right.
[00:27:54] Speaker A: We would say, no, you have to let God give you your identity.
[00:27:58] Speaker C: Right. Yeah.
[00:27:59] Speaker A: God is the one who defines you. But the longing to be defined is normal.
[00:28:03] Speaker C: Right.
[00:28:03] Speaker A: So once again, this is how we become compassionate people. When you look at someone who, like is. Is diametrically opposed to you politically.
[00:28:14] Speaker C: Right.
[00:28:14] Speaker A: So if you're on the right and you look at someone on the left and you look at someone on the left who's pro Palestine or who's.
Yeah. Pro, like pro immigration or what, Whatever it is, whatever hot button issue that makes you angry, you. We have to be able to look at that and say, Jesus cares about people. The Bible talks about caring for immigrants and foreigners all the time, all throughout it. You can't read it without seeing that the Bible cares about suffering people, you know?
So you have to be able to look at. If you're on the right, you have to be able to look at somebody on the left and say, I don't agree with the conclusion you came to.
[00:28:52] Speaker C: Yep.
[00:28:52] Speaker A: But I see the Jesus longing that you have.
[00:28:57] Speaker C: Right.
[00:28:57] Speaker A: If you're on the left and you look at people on the right and whatever thing that you can't stand, you know, you know, gun ownership or, you know, free market capitalism or what, whatever it is, if you're on the left, that, that makes you angry and you don't understand. I've got friends on both sides. I see their social media posts all the time.
They're very opposed to one another. But you have to be able to look at that and you have to be able to see God created humans with drive and desire to change the world.
[00:29:25] Speaker C: Right? Yeah.
[00:29:27] Speaker A: So the desire to, you know, make something of yourself and make a life that makes an impact, that's very capitalistic in nature. You have to be. Even if you don't agree, you have to be able to see the longing in there. You have to be able to see the.
The desire for safety and protection and peace at any means necessary. You have to be able to see that as a Christ, like, you know, as a longing that is normal and true and, and biblical.
You know, you have to be able to see the pro life, even if you don't like it. You have to be able to see caring for life. If you're on the left and you're like, well, then why don't you care about death row inmates? You still have to be able to see the care for life.
[00:30:09] Speaker B: There's still care for life.
[00:30:09] Speaker A: Because if you can't see that, the human longing that is connected to a, to a biblical longing, then the other person becomes an enemy.
[00:30:19] Speaker C: Right.
[00:30:20] Speaker A: And we lose compassion and we lose communication.
[00:30:22] Speaker C: Right.
[00:30:23] Speaker A: So I am not telling anybody listening what side of the political spectrum they should be on.
[00:30:29] Speaker C: Right.
That.
[00:30:31] Speaker A: That is not a major concern of mine as a pastor. A major concern of mine is that there are a few things we align biblically on. You know, I believe we have to be pro life, but I don't really, like, I know people on each side of the aisle who are pro life. Right.
I believe, you know, I believe biblically we define gender and marriage in a specific way. I know people on both sides of the aisle who believe that.
So I'm not concerned with politically where someone is. What I am concerned with is can we see the image of God in one another, see one another as brothers and sisters in Christ first, you know, and if not brothers and sisters in Christ because they're not a believer as someone God is desperately trying to adopt into his family.
[00:31:17] Speaker C: Yes. Right. Yeah.
[00:31:19] Speaker A: No human can be our enemy.
[00:31:21] Speaker C: Right. Exactly. Yeah.
[00:31:24] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:31:25] Speaker B: Do you have any?
[00:31:27] Speaker A: Yeah, I mean, I agree with you. I think those are dangerous.
I think, you know, we live in a culture of, of a lot of entitlement right now. A lot of kind of, I deserve this, I deserve to be treated this way. I deserve to be treated that way.
And that's, that's sticky because I believe in the dignity of every human being. It is, I believe every human being deserves to be respected for sure. But I also, from what I understand of Jesus, I have a hard time imagining Jesus then using his deserving as a way to force other people to treat him a specific way.
[00:32:07] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:32:08] Speaker A: You know what I mean?
[00:32:08] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:32:10] Speaker A: I, I believe that God created a world in which we are, we are saved by, by the free gift of grace.
But we have to work with God to become who we were created to be. You know, God transforms our hearts not because we earn transformation, but he has created things for us to do that facilitate the transformation that he does in our heart.
[00:32:35] Speaker C: Right.
[00:32:35] Speaker A: The theological word here is means of grace.
You know, John Wesley or lots of theologians would say that reading your Bible is a means of grace.
You do, you put in the effort to do it. The Lord ministers grace to you while you do it.
[00:32:54] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:32:54] Speaker A: Prayer is a means of grace.
Serving is a means of grace.
[00:32:58] Speaker C: Right.
[00:32:59] Speaker A: Worship is a means of grace. I have to put in the effort to do the thing and the Lord meets me and, and gives me grace and the grace changes my heart.
[00:33:09] Speaker C: Right.
[00:33:11] Speaker A: So I, I, I would say the same thing in kind of every area of life. If I want my family to thrive, I will have to put an effort as mother, father, cousin, grandparent, whatever.
[00:33:22] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:33:23] Speaker A: I will have to put in ever. If I want my career to thrive. I'm going to have to at some point quit saying this is what I deserve and start saying this is what I have.
[00:33:33] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:33:35] Speaker A: And I have to do something about it, you know, and that, that is not a commentary on whether you deserve more or not, because most people do deserve more. Being made in the image of God.
It's not a commentary on whether, you know, the work culture at your office is horrible, you know, or whether the system is corrupt or anything like that. It certainly possibly could be. And we should work to bring the values of the kingdom into every system we can influence. But we can't blame the brokenness of a system on our situation without, you know, working to bring about change in that, you know, kind of like the.
[00:34:14] Speaker B: Idea of like instant gratification as well, a little bit like I think for like my generate our generation and the even younger. But I've seen a lot of people my age trying, especially like probably early 20s maybe, but living, trying to live the Same way their parents lived or the, the generation before them.
And they want it. They want that stuff now. And where they don't realize that generation worked however many decades before to get where they're at currently, but they want it now. The instant gratification. And I deserve this, I'm entitled to this.
But on the flip side also, maybe the way that generation got to that, that place was not healthy. They abandoned their family by just putting them. Putting everything into work.
[00:35:05] Speaker C: Sure.
[00:35:05] Speaker B: And so, like, how they got there, maybe that isn't the end goal. Maybe that's the wrong end goal of having what my parents had. That's not the right goal, you know?
[00:35:13] Speaker A: Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. Yes, it is. It's true. It's harder to buy a house in the world today than it was 50 years ago. Absolutely true. It's true, you know, that the job market is different. It's true that the likelihood of someone being able to stay in the same company and work their way up for 40 years is significantly more difficult than it was before. But also, maybe those aren't the goal.
[00:35:34] Speaker B: Maybe that's not the goal.
[00:35:35] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:35:36] Speaker A: But also, you know, with that is the. The system might. Might be broken. It might. And we're not trying to make some political commentary right here.
Please don't email me about that.
What I'm saying is, like, it might be.
We should expect it to be because the world is sinful and broken. It should not surprise us that people look out for themselves and their own people. It shouldn't surprise us when people prefer to take care of the people that are most comfortable to them or most close to them. Like, we shouldn't be shocked if Elon Musk is not a super generous guy. You know what I mean? He might be. I don't know him personally, but the biblical story would tell us that, like, the love of money is the root of all kinds of evil, you know, so we shouldn't be surprised when we see money and corruption go together. I don't know if Musk is corrupt or not. Like, that's not the commentary. But we shouldn't be surprised by any of that. We shouldn't be surprised when we go into a workplace that's more interested in productivity than people.
The question we have to ask then is how do I as an individual make the most of the situation that I in? I'm in? How do I bring the gospel into that situation? How do I protect my family, protect my identity as a follower of Christ and work hard in that without looking at the system and saying the system owes me change.
[00:37:03] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:37:04] Speaker A: You know, no, I have to change things. If I want it to be different, I have to change things.
[00:37:09] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:37:10] Speaker A: You know, I have a friend who works in the school system and he was in a different city and he was so frustrated by the way the students were getting treated by where the families were getting treated in the school system that he worked at. By the way the school system is hiring and firing teachers and so he's getting a doctorate so that he can become a school administrator. Basically. Like he wants to sit on the boards that are making the decisions. He wants to work, work his way up in that system so that he can make a difference.
[00:37:47] Speaker C: Right.
[00:37:47] Speaker A: Which is how we should view things. You know what I mean? If, if we're looking at the world around us and saying, I, I can't stand this, we shouldn't say, then it has, then someone should change it. We have to say, then I will change it.
[00:38:01] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah.
[00:38:03] Speaker A: So once again, the gravitational pull says, I will post about it on social media.
[00:38:08] Speaker C: Yep. Right.
[00:38:09] Speaker A: The longing is, is normal and good.
We should look at injustice in any system and say it should be fixed. But we can't just say, someone fix it for me.
[00:38:22] Speaker C: Right. Yeah.
[00:38:23] Speaker A: We have to say, then let's do something about it.
[00:38:25] Speaker C: Right.
[00:38:26] Speaker A: Let's, let's bring about the change that we wish to see in the world. You know, to quote a non Christian Gandhi.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, what else? Other questions I've written down below my chair.
[00:38:39] Speaker C: Yeah, check it out.
[00:38:41] Speaker A: So how do you think Grant.
Gosh.
[00:38:45] Speaker C: Grant cracker. Grant cracker.
[00:38:48] Speaker A: How do, how do we resist as an individual, as a follower of Jesus? How do I resist being shaped by the world around me while still embracing the kindness and mercy to be compassionate and empathetic to the world around me, to the people around me?
[00:39:04] Speaker B: Yeah, I mean the only, the, the. We have to have the right, we have to have the correct foundation, of course. I mean, we have to be actively pursuing Jesus in a relationship with Jesus and other followers of Jesus to learn from them, but have a biblical sense of wisdom in order to engage culture, I think.
But also even you can have all that knowledge and you can bunker and just be in your own world and not engage culture and you're going to fail. So you really have to do both.
And that can be hard, that can be difficult, but you have to, you have to have disciplines in place in life, you have to have time of reading the Bible, you have to have time of prayer. You have to have those things active in your life or you're not gonna. You're not gonna gain that biblical wisdom in order to engage culture. And that can be hard. That can be super difficult.
[00:40:10] Speaker A: Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. That's great. And I would add to that. I heard. I've heard a couple of pastors. I'm sure they all stole it from each other. But say, never forget how lost felt.
Never forget how it felt to be lost.
[00:40:24] Speaker C: Right.
[00:40:24] Speaker A: When. When we look at someone that we disagree with, that we would naturally abuse an enemy, we have to be willing to remember what it was like to be lonely and trying to find some sort of meaning so that we can imagine why someone might feel that way.
[00:40:39] Speaker C: Yeah, right.
[00:40:40] Speaker A: We also have to be willing to imagine we might be wrong about things. We serve Jesus, not our opinions and not our, you know, perspectives about the world.
So we have to be willing to change our minds about anything that comes to come into closer alignment with Jesus.
[00:40:55] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:40:56] Speaker A: But also, we just have to. We have to constantly remember that, you know, when you look at a teenager who's, you know, confused about their identity or who's making mistakes, please remember being a teenager.
[00:41:10] Speaker C: Yes.
[00:41:10] Speaker A: Because I made a lot of stupid mistakes when I was a teenager because I was trying to find some semblance of myself in the world, you know, and looking in bad places to do it.
[00:41:22] Speaker C: Right.
[00:41:23] Speaker A: When you look at someone who, you know, just stands against what you believe in in the world, we have to learn to say, I wonder what it's.
[00:41:33] Speaker C: Like to be there.
[00:41:38] Speaker A: Then I would just add to all of that, like, it's great to listen to podcasts and news and public figures. All that's fine. All that's great. Don't listen to too much of it. It'll just cause anxiety, stress you out, make you angry, put a time limit on it every day. Don't do it before bed, whatever.
But also make sure everything, every input is balanced with scripture.
[00:42:05] Speaker C: Right.
[00:42:05] Speaker A: Listen to Joe Rogan. It's fine. He's entertaining some interesting stuff, some crazy stuff. Listen to Joe Rogan.
Balance it with scripture.
[00:42:14] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:42:15] Speaker A: If. If. If you hear something on Rogan that you're like, oh, man, that's really cool. Go to scripture or go to a, you know, a theologian.
Go listen to the Bible Project. Go listen to Preston Sprinkle. Go listen to Slow Theology with Nijay Gupta and AJ Swoboda.
See what they say about it.
[00:42:34] Speaker C: Yeah, Right.
[00:42:37] Speaker A: If you would listen to Jordan Peterson.
[00:42:39] Speaker C: Great.
[00:42:39] Speaker A: That's great. Balance it with scripture.
[00:42:41] Speaker C: Right.
[00:42:42] Speaker A: He is not the Bible.
He's. I don't even know where he Stands biblically in terms of his faith. Balance it with the Bible, whatever input that you have, you know, if you listen to cnn, balance it with the Bible. Like, do whatever. Make sure that you're doing that.
And the last thing I would say is listen, listen, engage with people from the other side of whatever issue it is.
Listen to a podcast from people who disagree with you. Make friends with people who disagree with.
[00:43:17] Speaker C: You.
[00:43:19] Speaker A: And you don't have to be open to their. To the ideas of someone that you disagree with to see the humanity of someone that you disagree with and to try to empathize with where they're coming from.
So whichever. Whichever person that causes the most fear in your heart, you know, try. Listen to their perspective.
Learn to see them as a human.
[00:43:46] Speaker C: Yeah, right.
[00:43:48] Speaker A: One of my. I mentioned him just a minute ago. Preston Sprinkle talks a lot about Steel Manning, the argument of people that you disagree with instead of straw manning. You know, so straw Manning is like when you take the worst, most like, ridiculous version of their argument.
[00:44:06] Speaker C: Right.
[00:44:07] Speaker A: So if we're arguing against an atheist, it's the. You believe all this came from nothing.
You know, like it's, you know, taking the worst version of you. They've never found a missing link. You know what I mean? Like this. The. The lowest hanging fruit and then arguing against that, you know, throwing that back in their face. So he talks about Steel Manning. Find the best argument, the most compelling argument from the version you disagree with and build your opinion against that.
Not against the lowest hanging fruit.
[00:44:42] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:44:42] Speaker A: You know, make your. Make the people you disagree with look as good as you can and then still. Still be able to prove your point.
[00:44:50] Speaker C: Right.
[00:44:52] Speaker A: That's compassionate, it's kind, it's empathetic. It's not saying, how could you be such a moron? It's saying, wow, I could really. This is a really compelling thing that you say and that you believe. And I think it's really, really interesting.
And even though.
Even though I think it's interesting, I still disagree with it and this is why.
[00:45:08] Speaker C: Right. Yeah.
[00:45:08] Speaker A: Way better way to have a conversation, for sure.
[00:45:11] Speaker C: Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
[00:45:13] Speaker A: I think we accidentally covered all the questions, even though we didn't. We didn't go through them.
[00:45:18] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:45:18] Speaker A: So.
[00:45:18] Speaker B: So, yeah.
[00:45:19] Speaker A: Feel good about it.
[00:45:20] Speaker B: I do. That was good. It's good conversation.
[00:45:22] Speaker A: Oh, yeah, absolutely.
[00:45:24] Speaker B: I. I think humanizing people instead of putting them in another category, actually getting to know somebody as a person.
[00:45:36] Speaker A: Is huge.
[00:45:37] Speaker C: Yeah.
[00:45:37] Speaker A: Instead of making them the enemy, I mean.
[00:45:41] Speaker C: Yeah. Yeah.
[00:45:43] Speaker A: Maybe to put a. Put the exclamation Point on this. When you look at the people Jesus spent time with, you've got Simon the Zealot, which is basically a like, violent, far right organization politically in the ancient world.
[00:45:59] Speaker C: Right.
[00:46:00] Speaker A: So where people who were ready to fight a Roman anytime because Rome was their oppressors.
[00:46:05] Speaker C: Right.
[00:46:06] Speaker A: And then you've got the tax collector, Matthew, who is basically like, would have been viewed as a trader sellout. These are his far opposites as you can get politically as possible.
And you've got the Pharisees and Sadducees, which I realize are painted as Jesus opponents in scripture, but you have to notice he spends a lot of time with them. They're in almost every story. They're around all the time. For people that couldn't stand each other, Jesus eats at their house a lot because he's doing what was normal in that time, which is engaging in debate, public debate of different ideas. But Pharisees and Sadducees, that. That is the ancient equivalent of right and left divide.
Right Pharisees were very conservative. Sadducees were very liberal for their time.
You've got prostitutes, you've got thieves, you've got Roman guards.
[00:47:00] Speaker C: Right.
[00:47:01] Speaker A: Working for the enemy. That would be the equivalent of like, I don't know, sitting down with like, Putin's head of security right now or sitting down with like, whatever, whatever military that you think is ruining the world right now. Like Jesus healing a Roman centurion's daughter is the equivalent of that, hanging out with that person.
[00:47:23] Speaker C: Right.
[00:47:24] Speaker A: So Jesus has individual interactions with these people who are from every different petty criminals, morally corrupt, morally bankrupt, different political perspectives.
He talks with Nicodemus, who's a Pharisee leader. At night in John 3, he has personal relationships with all of these people.
[00:47:47] Speaker C: People.
[00:47:47] Speaker A: He was known as the friend of sinners. It wasn't a compliment. It was his reputation, though.
So you just. To put an exclamation point on what you were saying, we have to humanize people.
[00:47:58] Speaker C: We do.
[00:47:59] Speaker A: That's what Jesus did.
We cannot go around saying this type of person is the enemy. People who think this way are the enemy.
We have to go around saying every person is made in the image of God and being invited into adoption. Yes, the family of God for sure.
[00:48:16] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah.
[00:48:17] Speaker B: It's good stuff.
[00:48:18] Speaker A: Yeah. So humanize people and go to Waffle House.
[00:48:20] Speaker B: There you go.
[00:48:21] Speaker A: That's what.
[00:48:21] Speaker B: That's what I've learned out of this.
[00:48:22] Speaker A: Absolutely. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Humanize the people in Waffle House.
[00:48:25] Speaker B: Do that for sure.
[00:48:26] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah. All right.
[00:48:28] Speaker A: Well, until next time when we recap the Becoming Series.
We need a good exit line.
[00:48:33] Speaker C: We do.
[00:48:34] Speaker A: We don't really. We don't have one. Deuces.
[00:48:41] Speaker C: Sam.
