Latest / The Speak Life Podcast / Ask Glen Scrivener Anything - December 2024 || SLP556

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Ask Glen Scrivener Anything - December 2024 || SLP556 · The Speak Life Podcast

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_03: Have you ever thought about how your bank uses your savings?
• 0:03
  SPEAKER_03: What if I told you there's a fully regulated Christian bank that aligns your money with your faith?
• 0:07
  SPEAKER_03: When you open a Kingdom Bank savings account, you help to provide vital mortgages for churches, Christian ministries, and gospel workers who might struggle to secure one elsewhere.
• 0:16
  SPEAKER_03: Whether saving for yourself or on behalf of your church, your savings will support Christian ministries across the UK.
• 0:21
  SPEAKER_03: And when you're ready to take your money out, you get it back with interest.
• 0:25
  SPEAKER_03: If your spending and giving reflect your faith, shouldn't your savings as well?
• 0:28
  SPEAKER_03: Open a savings account with Kingdom Bank today and put your money where your heart is.
• 0:33
  SPEAKER_03: Visit kingdom.bankslash speaklife.
• 0:36
  SPEAKER_03: Kingdom Bank is a member of the FSCS and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority and the Prudential Regulation Authority.
• 0:43
  SPEAKER_00: People question it.
• 0:44
  SPEAKER_00: I wasn't a Christian two years ago.
• 0:46
  SPEAKER_00: I was an atheist.
• 0:47
  SPEAKER_00: I'm now a Christian.
• 0:48
  SPEAKER_00: I believe in Jesus Christ.
• 0:49
  SPEAKER_02: I have a question probably millions ask.
• 0:52
  SPEAKER_02: Why cancer and dementia something that happens to innocent people?
• 0:56
  SPEAKER_03: We all have questions.
• 0:57
  SPEAKER_03: 321 is a course where you bring your questions and we look at Jesus' answers.
• 1:02
  SPEAKER_03: In eight videos, you are given a vision for life according to Jesus.
• 1:06
  SPEAKER_03: 16,000 people have begun the course online, 5,000 people have done the course in person in over 300 churches.
• 1:13
  SPEAKER_03: And one of the real differences with 321 is that you can ask the author of the course, me, any question you like about the faith.
• 1:21
  SPEAKER_03: Every day in our community, people are asking questions and I'm answering them.
• 1:24
  SPEAKER_03: And once a term, we do a live event.
• 1:27
  SPEAKER_03: People join online, and on this occasion, people also showed up in person to ask Glenn anything.
• 1:33
  SPEAKER_03: If you haven't signed up for 321, why don't you go to 321Course.com, start an account, it's totally free, and you can start asking your questions and finding answers in Jesus.
• 1:43
  SPEAKER_03: You're right, that is the question that millions ask, billions ask.
• 1:46
  SPEAKER_03: We're always asking why.
• 1:48
  SPEAKER_03: One of the real tricks with the problem of evil is to make sure that it's a problem.
• 1:53
  SPEAKER_03: Here are the highlights from our latest Ask Glenn Anything, and it's hosted by 321's very own Matthea Hart.
• 1:59
  SPEAKER_02: Good evening.
• 2:00
  SPEAKER_02: Welcome to Ask Glenn Anything Live.
• 2:02
  SPEAKER_02: My name is Matthea, and I am, of course, joined by Glenn Scrivener.
• 2:05
  SPEAKER_03: Hello, everybody, but it's not just you and me, Matthias.
• 2:08
  SPEAKER_02: No, not just us in the room.
• 2:09
  SPEAKER_02: This evening we are joined by some in-person guests joining us from All Souls Church in Eastbourne.
• 2:15
  SPEAKER_02: Wave hello, everybody.
• 2:18
  SPEAKER_03: Some people are in shot, some people are out of shot, some people are deliberately out of shot.
• 2:24
  SPEAKER_02: But you're also welcome here.
• 2:25
  SPEAKER_02: Thank you very much for joining us.
• 2:27
  SPEAKER_02: Um, these guys have just finished their 321 course recently at All Souls, so they decided that they would pop in and join us in person.
• 2:33
  SPEAKER_02: So we've got some questions coming from the room tonight.
• 2:36
  SPEAKER_02: We've got some pre-submitted questions from online.
• 2:39
  SPEAKER_02: And as always, we would love it if you would put your questions in chat.
• 2:42
  SPEAKER_02: There's that little speech bubble in the top right hand corner.
• 2:45
  SPEAKER_02: Um, just click on that and a little chat box will appear.
• 2:47
  SPEAKER_02: So please do pop your questions in.
• 2:49
  SPEAKER_02: If you've got any follow-up questions from something Glenn answers, um then please feel free to pop those questions in there.
• 2:55
  SPEAKER_02: But without further ado, shall we get started with our first question?
• 2:58
  SPEAKER_03: Okay, let's do it.
• 2:59
  SPEAKER_02: Okay, this one comes from Julie.
• 3:01
  SPEAKER_02: Julie, thank you so much for submitting this earlier.
• 3:03
  SPEAKER_02: Um, she says, I appreciated the way you described Jesus' baptism.
• 3:08
  SPEAKER_02: Given that Jesus didn't need to be baptized, but that he was doing so to identify with us in our brokenness what was actually going on?
• 3:15
  SPEAKER_02: Was he setting an example?
• 3:16
  SPEAKER_02: Did something spiritual occur for our benefit?
• 3:19
  SPEAKER_02: And how would things have been different if Jesus hadn't been baptized?
• 3:23
  SPEAKER_03: Wow, Julie, that's that's quite a few questions there, to be fair.
• 3:26
  SPEAKER_03: Um, but they all revolve around baptism.
• 3:29
  SPEAKER_03: What is going on, especially with Jesus' baptism?
• 3:31
  SPEAKER_03: Well, baptism is a sacrament.
• 3:33
  SPEAKER_03: What is a sacrament?
• 3:34
  SPEAKER_03: A sacrament is um Augustine, this great African theologian from about 1600 years ago, he said uh the sacraments are these visible words, they're they're ways of saying stuff um with matter, ways of saying stuff with water and wheat and wine.
• 3:53
  SPEAKER_03: And so there's a sacrament of baptism where you get washed, and that is communicating things to you.
• 3:59
  SPEAKER_03: It's a visible word, and there is the sacrum sacrament of, well, sometimes it's called communion, sometimes it's called Mass, sometimes it's called the Eucharist, um, sometimes it's called the Lord's Supper, where you have bread and wine.
• 4:12
  SPEAKER_03: And Christians believe that even though it's a very physical thing, it is preaching to you.
• 4:17
  SPEAKER_03: And so the sacrament of baptism is a sacrament of union, and the sacrament of um bread and wine is a sacrament of communion.
• 4:28
  SPEAKER_03: The sacrament of baptism is a once-off thing that proclaims your union, um, your union with Jesus.
• 4:35
  SPEAKER_03: And the sacrament of bread and wine is an ongoing thing where you enjoy your communion with Jesus, enjoy that fellowship, having a meal with him.
• 4:45
  SPEAKER_03: So, what is going on when Jesus gets baptized?
• 4:48
  SPEAKER_03: Well, it is his one-off sacrament of union with us, and it's basically proclaiming the solidarity that Jesus has with us.
• 4:57
  SPEAKER_03: He is one with us forever, and he's shouldering our burdens.
• 5:02
  SPEAKER_03: He says in Matthew 3, verse 15, that he's doing it to fulfill all righteousness.
• 5:07
  SPEAKER_03: And it seems like there are Old Testament scriptures in the background, like Isaiah 53, where it says that 700 BC, Isaiah says, He will be numbered with the transgressors, which means Christ will come and be countered alongside all the other messy people.
• 5:22
  SPEAKER_03: He will join us in our sinful condition.
• 5:24
  SPEAKER_03: He's not a sinner at all, but in solidarity with us, he joins us, and that baptism is saying he's one with us, and then when you want to be one with Jesus, well, you get baptized, and that's you saying you want to be one with him.
• 5:39
  SPEAKER_03: The analogy I always use for the baptism of Jesus is he's like the footballer who comes into your team, and the day that the footballer joins your team, he usually puts on the kit and he he wears the uniform and he's basically saying, I'm with you guys from now on.
• 5:52
  SPEAKER_03: Every goal I score will be your goal, every victory I win will be your victory.
• 5:56
  SPEAKER_03: And what Jesus is doing is he's joining Team Adam.
• 6:00
  SPEAKER_03: Team Adam is a failing team, we're headed for relegation, but he's the star player who comes into the team.
• 6:06
  SPEAKER_03: And the baptism is like the press conference, he kind of shakes hands with the manager.
• 6:10
  SPEAKER_03: You know, God the Father says, You are my son who I love with you, I'm well pleased.
• 6:13
  SPEAKER_03: And Jesus is wearing our humanity and saying, I'm with you.
• 6:18
  SPEAKER_03: Everything I do now, I do for you because baptism is a sacrament of union.
• 6:23
  SPEAKER_02: Let's move on to our next question then.
• 6:25
  SPEAKER_02: We've got um Andrea who asked, Um, I have a question probably millions ask.
• 6:33
  SPEAKER_02: Why is uh cancer and dementia something that happens to innocent people?
• 6:37
  SPEAKER_02: Um, she's speaking from personal experience, her mom's a loving, generous person and has been diagnosed with dementia.
• 6:43
  SPEAKER_02: And another family member is a young innocent child with cancer.
• 6:47
  SPEAKER_03: You're right, that is the question that millions ask, billions ask.
• 6:51
  SPEAKER_03: We're always asking why.
• 6:53
  SPEAKER_03: Um the Bible is continually asking why.
• 6:56
  SPEAKER_03: Um you might know about the book of Job.
• 6:58
  SPEAKER_03: Um it might be the oldest written-down book in the Bible, and it's it's a man who goes through intolerable suffering for chapter after chapter after chapter.
• 7:09
  SPEAKER_03: He asks the question, why 20 times?
• 7:12
  SPEAKER_03: Or you go to the next book in the Bible, the book of Psalms, which are like songs and poems, prayers to God, and they ask the why the why question even more, to the point where you have these psalms where where people of God are just saying, Why, why, my God, have you forsaken me?
• 7:30
  SPEAKER_03: My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?
• 7:32
  SPEAKER_03: These are the sorts of things that Christians ask all the time, because we are very aware that the world is not as it should be.
• 7:41
  SPEAKER_03: And I think one of the real tricks with the problem of evil is to make sure that it's a problem.
• 7:47
  SPEAKER_03: The the most horrible answer I could give to this question is, oh, yeah, there's there's horrible things that happen in the world and cancer and dementia.
• 7:54
  SPEAKER_03: Um, but here's the answer: um, because of X, Y, and Z, that justifies cancer and dementia.
• 8:01
  SPEAKER_03: That would be like not just an unsatisfying answer.
• 8:04
  SPEAKER_03: I think that would be a morally wrong answer for me to say, here are some truths that totally counterbalance suffering and mean that suffering in the end is okay.
• 8:16
  SPEAKER_03: I don't think the Bible does that.
• 8:18
  SPEAKER_03: What the Bible does is tell a story.
• 8:20
  SPEAKER_03: And it's a true story, but it's a story in which God enters into suffering and suffers the most and plums the depths of our suffering and evil on that cross in order to rise again and offer us a future that is beyond that suffering.
• 8:37
  SPEAKER_03: But what God doesn't do is from heaven just shout down advice or say it's not that bad, or just cling on not long till heaven now.
• 8:47
  SPEAKER_03: Um, there's this amazing story of Jesus showing up at a funeral.
• 8:51
  SPEAKER_03: His best friend has just died called Lazarus, and his sisters give word to him, and bafflingly, Jesus hears about when Lazarus is ill and he delays and he doesn't come to Lazarus, and actually, in that delay, Lazarus dies.
• 9:07
  SPEAKER_03: And so instead of Jesus going to heal the sick man, which is what everybody wanted him to do, he shows up at a funeral for the dead man.
• 9:16
  SPEAKER_03: And it's the most baffling thing, it's like God shows up late to the funeral, and then he cries.
• 9:25
  SPEAKER_03: In fact, he cries so much that he outcries every other Middle Eastern mourner, and all the other Middle Eastern mourners are like, look at how much he loved him.
• 9:34
  SPEAKER_03: It's the most stunning story.
• 9:35
  SPEAKER_03: God shows up late to a funeral, outcries everybody else, and then raises Lazarus.
• 9:41
  SPEAKER_03: It's the most extraordinary thing.
• 9:43
  SPEAKER_03: The story of the gospel is the story of God coming into suffering in the person of Jesus, suffering far more than we would ever have imagined, and then raising us up far higher than we had ever dreamed.
• 9:57
  SPEAKER_03: What does that mean for for you in your suffering, Andrea?
• 10:02
  SPEAKER_03: Um it means it doesn't mean that the suffering goes away, and I'm sorry.
• 10:10
  SPEAKER_03: But it does mean that there is a God who enters into that suffering with you and can walk with you through the valley of the shadow of death, a God who has experienced suffering himself, a God who has plumbed the depths of all our darkness and come out the other side, and can be trusted to bring us through the valley of the shadow of death.
• 10:31
  SPEAKER_03: That's what Psalm 23 says.
• 10:33
  SPEAKER_03: Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, we don't get to be beamed up out of the valley of the shadow.
• 10:40
  SPEAKER_03: Not even the Son of God is beamed up out of the valley.
• 10:43
  SPEAKER_03: We all go through.
• 10:46
  SPEAKER_03: But we go through with Jesus at our head and as our shepherd.
• 10:49
  SPEAKER_03: And if you can put your hand into his hand, I think you will start to say what Christians, millions of Christians down through the ages, have said, which which is that I never knew Jesus is all I needed until Jesus is all I had.
• 11:04
  SPEAKER_03: And in the middle of that suffering, I I knew him in a deeper way.
• 11:10
  SPEAKER_03: That doesn't answer every question that we have, but in a sense, I don't want to answer every question that we have because we still need to have a a category for evil that is just evil.
• 11:20
  SPEAKER_03: But what we really need is friendship in the darkness, and we need a future beyond it.
• 11:27
  SPEAKER_03: And I think that's exactly what Jesus offers.
• 11:30
  SPEAKER_02: That story you mentioned of Lazarus is actually one of my favourite Bible stories.
• 11:34
  SPEAKER_02: I just love the fact that Jesus did have all the answers.
• 11:38
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 11:38
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, like all the times I try and comfort someone who's suffering, and I don't have the answers for them.
• 11:43
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 11:43
  SPEAKER_02: I still try and find some to give them.
• 11:45
  SPEAKER_03: Yes.
• 11:46
  SPEAKER_02: And Jesus literally did have the answers, and he still wept.
• 11:48
  SPEAKER_03: And he just cried.
• 11:49
  SPEAKER_02: He still met them in their grief.
• 11:53
  SPEAKER_02: And I just I just love that.
• 11:54
  SPEAKER_02: I just think that's beautiful.
• 11:55
  SPEAKER_02: And such a lesson to us of how to walk with others through grief and suffering.
• 11:59
  SPEAKER_03: Right, right, yeah.
• 12:00
  SPEAKER_03: Because Mary is distraught and all he does is not well, you need to understand A, B, and C.
• 12:05
  SPEAKER_03: It's like he he just weeps and then raises Lesbus.
• 12:08
  SPEAKER_03: You know, so he plums a depth deeper than we would have imagined and then raises him to a height that you you you couldn't have dreamed.
• 12:15
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, it's amazing.
• 12:17
  SPEAKER_02: So one asks quite simply, what should we be asking or looking for when trying to find a church to join?
• 12:23
  SPEAKER_03: It's a great question.
• 12:24
  SPEAKER_03: I think church is really important.
• 12:26
  SPEAKER_03: Uh when you do 3-2-1, you get to the final session and it's all about your oneness with Jesus.
• 12:31
  SPEAKER_03: And if you say yes to oneness with Jesus and you get baptized, for instance, and you have that sort of sacrament of union, you're also one now with everybody else who's one with Jesus.
• 12:41
  SPEAKER_03: So welcome to the family.
• 12:42
  SPEAKER_03: And there is no such thing as solo Christianity.
• 12:44
  SPEAKER_03: It's definitely a team sport.
• 12:46
  SPEAKER_03: So figuring out what that means for church participation is very important for everyone who wants to follow Jesus.
• 12:53
  SPEAKER_03: I say in episode eight of 321, um, if you want to find a church, find a church that loves Jesus, loves people, loves the Bible.
• 13:03
  SPEAKER_03: Have you ever thought about how your bank uses your savings?
• 13:06
  SPEAKER_03: What if I told you there's a fully regulated Christian bank that aligns your money with your faith?
• 13:11
  SPEAKER_03: When you open a Kingdom Bank savings account, you help to provide vital mortgages for churches, Christian ministries, and gospel workers who might struggle to secure one elsewhere.
• 13:19
  SPEAKER_03: Whether saving for yourself or on behalf of your church, your savings will support Christian ministries across the UK.
• 13:24
  SPEAKER_03: And when you're ready to take your money out, you get it back with interest.
• 13:28
  SPEAKER_03: If your spending and giving reflect your faith, shouldn't your savings as well?
• 13:32
  SPEAKER_03: Open a savings account with Kingdom Bank today and put your money where your heart is.
• 13:36
  SPEAKER_03: Visit kingdom.bankslash speaklife.
• 13:39
  SPEAKER_03: Kingdom Bank is a member of the FSCS and regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority and the Prudential Regulation Authority.
• 13:46
  SPEAKER_02: Dave Robo has put a question in chat for us.
• 13:49
  SPEAKER_02: Thank you so much, Dave.
• 13:51
  SPEAKER_02: He says, It seems that the number of people who struggle with anxiety is increasing rapidly.
• 13:56
  SPEAKER_02: Most of the Christians I know who struggle with anxiety know that the Bible teaches, don't worry, God's good and he's in control.
• 14:03
  SPEAKER_02: But that truth doesn't seem to connect with their day-to-day lives.
• 14:06
  SPEAKER_02: How would you begin helping this truth move from head to heart in those afflicted with anxiety?
• 14:14
  SPEAKER_03: I've I've just kind of brought up Philippians chapter four.
• 14:18
  SPEAKER_03: Um, and let me just read from verses four to nine, because I think here is ancient wisdom for anxious people.
• 14:24
  SPEAKER_03: It says, Rejoice in the Lord always.
• 14:26
  SPEAKER_03: Again I will say it, rejoice.
• 14:28
  SPEAKER_03: Let your gentleness be evident to all.
• 14:30
  SPEAKER_03: The Lord is near.
• 14:32
  SPEAKER_03: Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything but in every situation, by prayer and petition with thanksgiving, present your requests to God, and the peace of God which transcends all understanding will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus.
• 14:46
  SPEAKER_03: Then it says, Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable, if anything is excellent or praiseworthy, think about such things.
• 14:58
  SPEAKER_03: Whatever you've learnt or received or heard from me or seen in me, put it into practice, and the God of peace will be with you.
• 15:05
  SPEAKER_03: Couple of things to notice about this.
• 15:07
  SPEAKER_03: First is it seems like the answer to anxiety is prayer in the first few verses here.
• 15:14
  SPEAKER_03: And I I kind of phrase it like this often our anxieties are basically prayers that we don't direct towards God.
• 15:22
  SPEAKER_03: Or to put it another way, prayer is kind of worrying upwards.
• 15:26
  SPEAKER_03: And if you're not going to worry upwards, what usually happens is you address those requests to yourself.
• 15:32
  SPEAKER_03: So I'm full of a whole bunch of requests.
• 15:35
  SPEAKER_03: Um, life needs to happen like this, this, and this.
• 15:40
  SPEAKER_03: If I'm not actually directing those anxieties upwards, if I'm not by prayer and petition with Thanksgiving presenting those requests to God, I'll either present them to myself, and I am not omnipotent, I'm not, you know, I am not the loving, almighty God who can answer those prayers, or I'll just start shooting those, you know, requests out to everybody else, and nobody else is God, nobody else can help me like that.
• 16:04
  SPEAKER_03: So figuring out what a prayer life looks like for you is key, actually, to having peace and fighting anxiety.
• 16:12
  SPEAKER_03: Um, a couple of practices that that I do just to center myself if I'm feeling anxious, there's the Jesus prayer, which is an ancient thing, and the Eastern Orthodox and the Catholics, you know, use this a lot as well.
• 16:25
  SPEAKER_03: It's um Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner.
• 16:31
  SPEAKER_03: And you can even you can even sort of breathe in, Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner.
• 16:36
  SPEAKER_03: Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner.
• 16:39
  SPEAKER_03: You can center yourself in that kind of practice, or sometimes I just go over Psalm 46, verse 10.
• 16:46
  SPEAKER_03: Um, be still and know that I am God.
• 16:48
  SPEAKER_03: So it's it's a proclamation from Scripture where the Lord says, Be still and know that I am God.
• 16:53
  SPEAKER_03: And sometimes I just say to myself, Be still and know that I am God.
• 16:58
  SPEAKER_03: And then I knock off the last word, be still and know that I am.
• 17:01
  SPEAKER_03: And then I knock off the last two words.
• 17:03
  SPEAKER_03: Be still and know.
• 17:05
  SPEAKER_03: Be still.
• 17:06
  SPEAKER_03: Be.
• 17:07
  SPEAKER_03: And then I build it up again.
• 17:08
  SPEAKER_03: Be.
• 17:09
  SPEAKER_03: Be still.
• 17:10
  SPEAKER_03: Be still and know.
• 17:11
  SPEAKER_03: Be still and know that I am.
• 17:13
  SPEAKER_03: Be still and know that I am God.
• 17:14
  SPEAKER_03: And I kind of repeat that until I've properly centered myself.
• 17:17
  SPEAKER_03: And prayer is at the heart, I think, of this.
• 17:20
  SPEAKER_03: Here's a here's a practice that you can take on.
• 17:23
  SPEAKER_03: Don't worry internally, worry upwards.
• 17:27
  SPEAKER_03: There's the prayer thing.
• 17:28
  SPEAKER_03: And then you'll have noticed when I read out the last couple of verses are actually about whatever is true, think about such things.
• 17:34
  SPEAKER_03: Whatever is good and noble and worth thinking about.
• 17:37
  SPEAKER_03: Think about such things.
• 17:38
  SPEAKER_03: And and actually having a good kind of mental diet is really important.
• 17:45
  SPEAKER_03: There's there's such a thing as junk food when it comes to your thought life.
• 17:50
  SPEAKER_03: And your device that sits in your pocket, it's it's full of it.
• 17:54
  SPEAKER_03: It's full of it.
• 17:55
  SPEAKER_03: It's like drive-thru for junk food, right?
• 17:58
  SPEAKER_03: And it's really delicious and it's really tasty, and you can doom scroll forever.
• 18:02
  SPEAKER_03: And guess what?
• 18:02
  SPEAKER_03: When you doom scroll for long enough, you start having doom-filled thoughts.
• 18:07
  SPEAKER_03: Um, and and this is all about actually, you know, do we have a some mental hygiene, uh, mental good diets, mental good practices, to to just not give ourselves to that which will fragment our attention and make us more anxious?
• 18:22
  SPEAKER_03: Are there are there good things that we can think about that will really change, actually, whether we're anxious or not, whether we feel God's peace or not?
• 18:30
  SPEAKER_02: It sounds so basic, doesn't it?
• 18:32
  SPEAKER_02: But it's true, what you what you fill your mind with and what you center yourself on is gonna come out eventually.
• 18:40
  SPEAKER_02: And I noticed that that prayer that you said, it sounds very similar to the kind of techniques that I was taught back when I was having panic attacks.
• 18:48
  SPEAKER_02: Like it's this kind of thing where you have to um, you know, the one that I was taught was um name five things you can touch, four things you can see, three things you can hear, two things, and it's like you go five, four, three, two, one.
• 18:59
  SPEAKER_02: And it's like the whole idea is it's meant to snap you out of your panic.
• 19:03
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, even doing that is really hard when you're in the midst of a panic attack.
• 19:07
  SPEAKER_04: Right.
• 19:08
  SPEAKER_02: So we're not saying this is easy, but there is something about the whole time you're in the midst of a panic attack, there is just this rebound reverb of all these requests and worries that are firing around inside yourself.
• 19:19
  SPEAKER_02: Yes.
• 19:20
  SPEAKER_02: And if you can draw yourself to be still and start pointing all of that energy upwards, it is very centering and very rooting, not in yourself, because the 54321 method is all stuff that's around you.
• 19:34
  SPEAKER_02: Yes, that's not actually doing anything about the thing that's caused your panic attack.
• 19:38
  SPEAKER_04: Yes.
• 19:38
  SPEAKER_02: Whereas putting it into a prayer that goes up, be still, be, be still that.
• 19:43
  SPEAKER_02: And all of that is immediately sending all of that energy in the correct direction.
• 19:48
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 19:48
  SPEAKER_03: What's good about 54321 as well is that it's embodied.
• 19:52
  SPEAKER_02: Yes.
• 19:52
  SPEAKER_03: It's no coincidence that on social media you're constantly being told to go and touch grass, go outside, touch grass, go outside, be embodied, live in your body.
• 20:01
  SPEAKER_03: Because if you just live in your head doom scrolling, the anxieties just build up and build up and build up.
• 20:07
  SPEAKER_03: Um so try and have an embodied faith practice as well.
• 20:10
  SPEAKER_03: That will really help.
• 20:11
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, amazing.
• 20:13
  SPEAKER_02: Um great.
• 20:15
  SPEAKER_02: Any more questions from the room?
• 20:16
  SPEAKER_02: Anyone got a quick burning question they want to ask Len?
• 20:22
  SPEAKER_01: Um on the uh topic of uh prayer.
• 20:24
  SPEAKER_01: Um, do you recommend like a sort of um someone who's trying to get into it, so when you do it like a routine or something like that, you know, which they can do daily?
• 20:33
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, great question.
• 20:34
  SPEAKER_03: Um I think on on the topic of prayer, I I love in when Jesus teaches his people this the the Lord's prayer, um, the background to it is written in Luke chapter 11, and Jesus is on a mountainside and he's praying to his father, and he's spending time with his father, and the disciples see that and they want in on it, and they come to Jesus and they say, Will you teach us to pray?
• 21:02
  SPEAKER_03: Because it looks amazing.
• 21:03
  SPEAKER_03: And so, what does Jesus teach them to pray?
• 21:06
  SPEAKER_03: He teaches them to pray, our Father, our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name.
• 21:10
  SPEAKER_03: And what I love about that is like what is prayer?
• 21:14
  SPEAKER_03: Most essentially, prayer is actually the Son of God communing with his father by the Spirit, and it's amazing, and it's awesome, and it's this is the life that was there before the world began.
• 21:24
  SPEAKER_03: This is this is the love that predated and produced the universe.
• 21:29
  SPEAKER_03: The disciples see that communion and they're like, Can we come in on this?
• 21:34
  SPEAKER_03: And Jesus is like, Oh yeah, sure.
• 21:37
  SPEAKER_03: And essentially, what Jesus has been doing for all eternity is saying, My Father, my father, my father.
• 21:43
  SPEAKER_03: And then we come and we say, Can we join in?
• 21:45
  SPEAKER_03: He says, Yeah, sure.
• 21:46
  SPEAKER_03: Now you just pray, our father, our father, our father.
• 21:50
  SPEAKER_03: And so that's why Christians pray in the name of Jesus, because one with him, we are brought before a father, and we can start to put words to our worries, we can start.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_03: Start to put words to our hopes and our dreams, we can start to put words to our sins and our faults, we can start to put words to the things we're so thankful for in life that we don't really know where to put.
• 22:11
  SPEAKER_03: And all of a sudden, we are in on this communion.
• 22:14
  SPEAKER_03: So the Lord's Prayer, I think, was given to us as a pattern for prayer.
• 22:20
  SPEAKER_03: Interestingly, in Matthew chapter 6, when Jesus lays out the Lord's Prayer, he says, When you pray, go into your room and pray this.
• 22:32
  SPEAKER_03: And it's it's it's actually quite a specific way of phrasing it.
• 22:36
  SPEAKER_03: He doesn't even say, pray similar words to this.
• 22:39
  SPEAKER_03: You know, this is this is the gist, and you can kind of embellish it upon it.
• 22:43
  SPEAKER_03: Christians do embellish upon it, and I'm I'm about to advise that that we do that.
• 22:47
  SPEAKER_03: But he actually gives you a framework.
• 22:49
  SPEAKER_03: He actually says, just go into your go into your room, shut the door.
• 22:52
  SPEAKER_03: He literally says, Go into your room, shut the door.
• 22:54
  SPEAKER_03: So like space matters, lack of distraction matters.
• 22:59
  SPEAKER_03: Pray to your father who is unseen and say this, our father in heaven.
• 23:03
  SPEAKER_03: And so the way I pray is to pray through the Lord's Prayer, our Father in Heaven.
• 23:08
  SPEAKER_03: And I and I might spend 10 minutes on that first line because I'm thinking, Oh gosh, you're my father, and you're in heaven.
• 23:16
  SPEAKER_03: So that means you really, really love me, and you're really, really powerful.
• 23:20
  SPEAKER_03: Um and you can spend a whole heap of time just meditating on our Father in Heaven.
• 23:25
  SPEAKER_03: And then when you're ready, you can go on to hallowed be your name.
• 23:28
  SPEAKER_03: That means that the character of God, his name, should be hallowed, should be set apart in my heart as holy, should be set apart as something special.
• 23:36
  SPEAKER_03: And so it probably isn't.
• 23:37
  SPEAKER_03: I'm probably forgetful of the things of God.
• 23:39
  SPEAKER_03: So I just say, Will you set apart in my heart your name, your character?
• 23:44
  SPEAKER_03: Will that be the uppermost thought and attention of my heart?
• 23:50
  SPEAKER_03: And then, hallowed be your name, your kingdom come, your will be done.
• 23:53
  SPEAKER_03: And so you can start talking about, you can start praying for really big things, your kingdom come, your will be done.
• 23:59
  SPEAKER_03: And then it gets really specific, doesn't it?
• 24:01
  SPEAKER_03: Give us today our daily bread.
• 24:02
  SPEAKER_03: You go from the kingdom, where you might pray about Syria, and you might pray about Ukraine, and you might pray about, you know, all sorts of matters, the the church and how it's going out in the world, but then you pray, give us today our daily bread, which couldn't be more specific, could it?
• 24:18
  SPEAKER_03: And and at that point you can start talking about the worries that that Philippians 4 was talking about.
• 24:23
  SPEAKER_03: And are there people you need to forgive?
• 24:25
  SPEAKER_03: Forgive us our sins as we forgive those who sin against us.
• 24:27
  SPEAKER_03: I so I I think C.S.
• 24:29
  SPEAKER_03: Lewis said that the Lord's Prayer is a bit like a Christmas tree.
• 24:32
  SPEAKER_03: It has the branches, the the lines are the branches, and what we do is just put decorations on the branches.
• 24:37
  SPEAKER_03: So I I highly recommend going into your room, closing the door, finding that dedicated time and space.
• 24:45
  SPEAKER_03: It can take from any anything from three minutes to 30 minutes to go through the Lord's Prayer in that kind of way.
• 24:51
  SPEAKER_03: But start small, start at three minutes, um, and you might actually find that you start really, really enjoying it.
• 24:58
  SPEAKER_02: So Noelle actually asked a very similar question in one of our uh pre-submitted uh lists.
• 25:03
  SPEAKER_02: She asked about being consistent with prayer.
• 25:06
  SPEAKER_02: She said sometimes she's ha got days where they're filled with um praying and filled with spiritual practice.
• 25:12
  SPEAKER_02: Sometimes it's just a quick hey Jesus type of prayer.
• 25:14
  SPEAKER_02: What's your advice about being consistent in prayer?
• 25:19
  SPEAKER_03: Spurgeon was a great preacher back in the 19th century in in London.
• 25:24
  SPEAKER_03: And he shocked everybody because um he said, I I probably I probably don't really pray for longer than 15 minutes in the day.
• 25:34
  SPEAKER_03: And people were like really shocked because he's like this spiritual giant, and you know, some people boast of being able to pray for hours and hours, and I probably don't pray for more than 15 minutes.
• 25:41
  SPEAKER_03: But then he said, Um, but rarely do I go 15 minutes without praying.
• 25:47
  SPEAKER_03: Um and there's there's that interesting balance between, yeah, there's the there's the one-off time of here's my special time that I'm gonna shut the door and and pray the Lord's Prayer or whatever I'm gonna pray.
• 25:59
  SPEAKER_03: But then there's just the constant arrow prayers that you just send up throughout the day.
• 26:05
  SPEAKER_03: And interestingly, the the Bible um talks about going into your room and and doing the one-off, but it also talks about pray continually.
• 26:12
  SPEAKER_03: Like, how do you pray continually?
• 26:14
  SPEAKER_03: Well, I think it's it's largely turning those anxieties over to the Lord.
• 26:20
  SPEAKER_03: So you can still kind of you can still, in a sense, worry about, oh gosh, what am I gonna do tomorrow because the thing is due and it's not ready.
• 26:29
  SPEAKER_03: Um it doesn't take much to turn that into what are we gonna do, Lord?
• 26:35
  SPEAKER_03: Because the thing is due tomorrow, and I need your help.
• 26:38
  SPEAKER_03: I need your help, and um and in a sense it's it's just turning your thought life over to God, knowing knowing that there is someone who is in on this, it's it's not you fretfully ruminating, there is someone else listening in, and that someone else can really help.
• 26:59
  SPEAKER_03: Um so there's a way of training your thought life really, of just if you're having a thought, just add the word Lord at the beginning of it.
• 27:10
  SPEAKER_03: And that's the way you start to pray continually.
• 27:13
  SPEAKER_02: I find that's much easier to do if I have started my day with 15 minutes.
• 27:17
  SPEAKER_03: Right.
• 27:17
  SPEAKER_02: Like if I set my day up by inviting God into the conversation, I find by the end of the day I've had much more of a day that's filled with that kind of thought process.
• 27:27
  SPEAKER_02: And the days I don't start with 15 minutes, I'm like, I'll get to the end of the day.
• 27:31
  SPEAKER_02: Oh hi God, I've kind of forgot you were there.
• 27:34
  SPEAKER_02: Like it's it's amazing how how you start the day really does matter.
• 27:39
  SPEAKER_02: And I know that's difficult for some people.
• 27:41
  SPEAKER_02: You might be waking up with three kids to get ready out the door, but if you can, that 15 minutes really sets you up well.
• 27:48
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah, and and it's good, it's it's genuinely really enjoyable.
• 27:52
  SPEAKER_03: It's a blessing, yeah.
• 27:54
  SPEAKER_03: We get to pray.
• 27:54
  SPEAKER_02: We don't have to pray, we get to pray.
• 27:56
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I love that.
• 27:57
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, someone else asked, Is it unreasonable to hope for a Damascan conversion?
• 28:03
  SPEAKER_03: Damascing conversion, a road to Damascus, conversion like the Apostle Paul had.
• 28:07
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, suddenly everything changes in an instant.
• 28:10
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and someone else saying that they struggle to feel truly convinced or feel like they're convinced enough to feel truly convinced.
• 28:18
  SPEAKER_02: Um, how do I get to the point where I know, I believe.
• 28:22
  SPEAKER_02: Um has anyone else had a moment where their mindset has shifted to feeling truly convinced?
• 28:27
  SPEAKER_02: They've dwelt on that for many years.
• 28:29
  SPEAKER_03: So these are great questions, aren't they?
• 28:32
  SPEAKER_03: Um so the road to Damascus, I think it is unreasonable for anyone to have a road to Damascus experience except the Apostle Paul.
• 28:39
  SPEAKER_03: So the Apostle Paul, um, he was an enemy of um the early church, and he was dragging people off to prison, and he was complicit in the the basically the judicial murder of Stephen in Acts chapter six, and then the Lord Jesus meets him on the road to Damascus and turns him around from being a great enemy of the church to being the guy who writes half the New Testament and he's sort of the greatest Christian.
• 29:06
  SPEAKER_03: We're going from the greatest enemy of Christ to the greatest friend of the church that that they had.
• 29:12
  SPEAKER_03: And that is a unique, that is the creation of an apostle.
• 29:16
  SPEAKER_03: That is the creation of this this um this apostle to the Gentiles.
• 29:23
  SPEAKER_03: Um and so the road to Damascus, really, only one person ever traveled that road, and it was the Apostle Paul.
• 29:29
  SPEAKER_03: Uh but it's become a sort of a shorthand for oh, there's the there's gonna be a bright shining light, I'm gonna be knocked off my horse, and the ray knocked off my horse.
• 29:39
  SPEAKER_03: And the scales from my eyes will fall, and people talk in in those sorts of terms.
• 29:44
  SPEAKER_03: I think um mostly how conversion happens is the road to Emmaus.
• 29:49
  SPEAKER_03: Now, the road to Emmaus was in Luke chapter 24, it was Easter Sunday, and there's a couple who had followed Jesus all the way to the cross.
• 29:57
  SPEAKER_03: They'd seen him get crucified, and they were absolutely distraught.
• 30:01
  SPEAKER_03: And this is the worst weekend of their lives.
• 30:04
  SPEAKER_03: They're moping home from Jerusalem on their way to Emmaus, where they live, but it's Easter Sunday, and who should join them on the road except Jesus?
• 30:13
  SPEAKER_03: But don't you just love Jesus?
• 30:15
  SPEAKER_03: He's incognita, right?
• 30:16
  SPEAKER_03: And and he he's kind of like, I don't know, I don't know how he does it, but you know, I just sort of imagine him just you know sidling up to them and having this conversation.
• 30:23
  SPEAKER_03: So, what are you guys talking about?
• 30:25
  SPEAKER_03: And and they say, Well, are you just a visitor to Jerusalem?
• 30:29
  SPEAKER_03: You don't know what's happened?
• 30:30
  SPEAKER_03: No, what what things says Jesus?
• 30:32
  SPEAKER_03: And they're like, Well, is this Jesus of Nazareth?
• 30:34
  SPEAKER_03: Didn't you know what Jesus did?
• 30:36
  SPEAKER_03: And and Jesus kind of like keeps the conversation going, and he's this incognito friend on the road.
• 30:46
  SPEAKER_03: And then what Jesus does is he says, Um, didn't you realize this had to happen?
• 30:51
  SPEAKER_03: And then he opens their minds to the scriptures, and so he kind of reframes their whole perception of this weekend.
• 30:57
  SPEAKER_03: He's who's just like, Well, surely, don't you understand from the Old Testament that the Messiah had to suffer and then be glorified?
• 31:02
  SPEAKER_03: This is all written in the story.
• 31:04
  SPEAKER_03: You need to reframe how you've seen life in the light of the scriptures, and they still don't get it.
• 31:11
  SPEAKER_03: And so then he basically invites himself to their place in Emmaus, and they break bread together.
• 31:17
  SPEAKER_03: Sacraments! We're back to sacraments again.
• 31:19
  SPEAKER_03: They break bread together, and as Jesus takes bread and he gives thanks and he breaks it and he gives it to them in this act that's so much like communion, that they're basically having a miniature church service, and then their eyes are opened, and then he disappears, right?
• 31:35
  SPEAKER_03: And and I think the road to Emmaus is how most people actually come to faith.
• 31:40
  SPEAKER_03: There's this sense of incognito Jesus with you.
• 31:42
  SPEAKER_03: There's this sense of the, you know, I've been doing life and there's somebody else with me, and there's a the dawning realization.
• 31:49
  SPEAKER_03: There's the scriptures that come come to bear on your life, and you kind of reframe your view of the world through scripture.
• 31:58
  SPEAKER_03: But it's interesting that that's not enough in the road to Emmaus.
• 32:01
  SPEAKER_03: It's it's you know, it's not just that they have a Bible study and they say, Oh, right, got it.
• 32:05
  SPEAKER_03: The Messiah must suffer and die.
• 32:07
  SPEAKER_03: Great.
• 32:07
  SPEAKER_03: Um, they actually have to be in communion with Jesus, and so they have this miniature church service and they take the sacraments, as it were, and they and they are in this embodied way encountering Jesus.
• 32:20
  SPEAKER_03: And at that point, their eyes open.
• 32:22
  SPEAKER_03: So I think that's the thing to pursue.
• 32:24
  SPEAKER_03: If you don't know whether you know Jesus or not, do not stop short of anything less than a personal knowing of Jesus.
• 32:31
  SPEAKER_03: Do not stop short of anything less than that.
• 32:34
  SPEAKER_03: The way to do that is to have your eyes open to the way that Jesus is in your life already, perhaps incognito.
• 32:40
  SPEAKER_03: The way to do that is to open up the scriptures and let the scriptures reframe your view of the world, your view of yourself.
• 32:46
  SPEAKER_03: And it's to dive in with both feet to church and sacraments and this embodied communal walk with Jesus.
• 32:55
  SPEAKER_03: And I think in that context, the penny starts to drop and you start to figure out that Jesus is the one.
• 33:01
  SPEAKER_03: That doesn't mean that all your questions are answered.
• 33:03
  SPEAKER_03: That doesn't mean that you never have a doubt again.
• 33:06
  SPEAKER_03: Um, when I got married to my wife, did we know everything about one another on the day that we got married?
• 33:12
  SPEAKER_03: No, which is why the first year of marriage is just so very interesting, isn't it?
• 33:15
  SPEAKER_03: And you you spend that first year saying, Who raised you?
• 33:19
  SPEAKER_03: What were you thinking?
• 33:20
  SPEAKER_03: Like, and you do not know everything about your spouse when you get married to them, but you know enough to say, all right, you got me.
• 33:28
  SPEAKER_03: You know, you don't have to necessarily even have the this burning sensation in your heart that no one in the history of humanity could ever be a better match than you and I.
• 33:37
  SPEAKER_03: We are star-crossed lovers, and you don't even need that, do you?
• 33:39
  SPEAKER_03: Like to get married.
• 33:40
  SPEAKER_03: You just like, I think, I think we should be together, right?
• 33:44
  SPEAKER_02: I I choose you.
• 33:46
  SPEAKER_03: I choose you.
• 33:46
  SPEAKER_03: You choose me.
• 33:47
  SPEAKER_03: I'm I I've I've looked at the vows.
• 33:50
  SPEAKER_03: They say, till death to us part, you know, the doors are locked, no one gets out of this thing alive.
• 33:55
  SPEAKER_03: And I reckon you're the sort of person I can do that with.
• 33:58
  SPEAKER_03: So let's do it, right?
• 34:00
  SPEAKER_03: Um how do you get to that point?
• 34:03
  SPEAKER_03: It's the incognito Jesus thing, it's the scripture thing, it's the church and and sacrament thing.
• 34:07
  SPEAKER_02: I think it's really helpful what you said there, that it's not like we never have doubts again.
• 34:12
  SPEAKER_02: And I think to try and base your salvation on the idea that you're gonna get to a point where you're truly convinced, or you're never gonna question it again, or you're never gonna wonder if God's there.
• 34:22
  SPEAKER_02: I I don't think that's a thing.
• 34:23
  SPEAKER_02: In the same way that when you get married, you never have that moment where you go, Whew gosh.
• 34:28
  SPEAKER_03: That's when the questions really begin.
• 34:30
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, but it's it is that thing of going, No, I chose you, and you chose me, and I'm gonna work this out, and we're gonna work this out together.
• 34:38
  SPEAKER_02: And that God can help you.
• 34:39
  SPEAKER_02: I was having a conversation with a friend just just yesterday, and that they are a relatively new Christian and saying these sorts of things like, I'm just struggling.
• 34:47
  SPEAKER_02: I thought I believed, and now I'm struggling.
• 34:49
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 34:50
  SPEAKER_02: And it's like, okay, but you you made a choice.
• 34:52
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 34:53
  SPEAKER_02: Now you get to ask God to help you work through this.
• 34:56
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 34:56
  SPEAKER_02: You get to invite God to help you have faith.
• 34:59
  SPEAKER_02: You get to invite God to help you work through your doubts.
• 35:02
  SPEAKER_03: And I just love, and someone can look it up for me, but um in in Mark's gospel, um, where Jesus says to the father of the the the demon-possessed boy, and the father says to Jesus, I do believe, help my unbelief.
• 35:14
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 35:14
  SPEAKER_03: And that that is like the Christian testimony, isn't it?
• 35:17
  SPEAKER_03: Like, do you believe in Jesus?
• 35:18
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 35:19
  SPEAKER_03: Do you disbelieve Jesus?
• 35:20
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 35:21
  SPEAKER_03: You know?
• 35:22
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 35:22
  SPEAKER_03: And of course I of course I lack trust in Jesus.
• 35:26
  SPEAKER_03: That that's what explains the messes that I make of my life in all sorts of ways.
• 35:29
  SPEAKER_03: Of course, I'm I'm full of mistrust.
• 35:32
  SPEAKER_03: But yeah, the I think the the you are not called to have a burning in the chest that um is continually uh resistant to all doubt.
• 35:46
  SPEAKER_03: Um you're just called to, yeah, I do believe, help me with my unbelief.
• 35:50
  SPEAKER_03: And that you think to yourself, ah, Jesus is the person I can trust with all the stuff I don't understand.
• 35:57
  SPEAKER_03: And even if I never understand at this side of heaven, I can still trust him with all the stuff that I don't understand.
• 36:02
  SPEAKER_02: Great.
• 36:02
  SPEAKER_02: We're gonna go back to the chat, then we've got a few in here.
• 36:05
  SPEAKER_02: Um Mark asks, what's the best way to focus on godly ambition rather than self-focused pride in your career/slash life?
• 36:14
  SPEAKER_02: What is the best way to focus on Jesus in a stressful workplace?
• 36:17
  SPEAKER_02: And similarly, Bernadette asks, how did you work out what God was calling you to do when it comes to career?
• 36:25
  SPEAKER_03: I love so Proverbs is another kind of literature in the Bible, another kind of like genre.
• 36:31
  SPEAKER_03: After you got Job and his epic poem and Psalms and the songbook, Proverbs are kind of like um these little aphorisms, this sort of wisdom.
• 36:41
  SPEAKER_03: And in Proverbs chapter three, it says, Um, trust in the Lord with all your heart, don't lean on your own understanding, but in all your ways, acknowledge him, and he will direct your steps.
• 36:52
  SPEAKER_03: And it's a great verse about guidance because it does acknowledge that you have ways, and ways plural, in all your ways.
• 37:00
  SPEAKER_03: So it doesn't say, it doesn't say there's only one tightrope, and if you put a foot wrong, then you have missed God's will for your life, and that's that's you done.
• 37:08
  SPEAKER_03: Which is uh the way a lot of people think of God's will for their life.
• 37:10
  SPEAKER_03: Like it's just a tightrope.
• 37:12
  SPEAKER_03: Um, but it's not just a wide open plane, and you can go anywhere, it doesn't matter, right?
• 37:16
  SPEAKER_03: There's no out of bounds, anything goes.
• 37:19
  SPEAKER_03: It's it's more a walking side by side with somebody.
• 37:23
  SPEAKER_03: Um, in all your ways, acknowledge him, or you could translate that, know him, and he will direct your steps.
• 37:29
  SPEAKER_03: So um take the job, don't take the job, like marry this person, marry that person.
• 37:34
  SPEAKER_03: Um, go to that town, go to this town.
• 37:37
  SPEAKER_03: Um you genuinely are free.
• 37:40
  SPEAKER_03: There are genuinely ways that you can take.
• 37:43
  SPEAKER_03: Um, but the big question to ask is, will I know Jesus better in that in that choice?
• 37:51
  SPEAKER_03: Um the the point is is relationship with him, closeness with him.
• 37:57
  SPEAKER_03: Um and that that interestingly, I think with the help of a lot of different advisors and friends who can counsel you, um, I think that that resolves so many different questions about should I marry this person or not?
• 38:09
  SPEAKER_03: Should I go to this town or should I not?
• 38:11
  SPEAKER_03: Um, is is this a place where I can know Christ?
• 38:15
  SPEAKER_03: Um and if it's not, then well that simplifies things, doesn't it?
• 38:18
  SPEAKER_02: Um how does that play into focusing on godly ambition rather than self-focused pride in your career?
• 38:24
  SPEAKER_03: Um the Bible does talk about ambition, and in fact, it talks about you can you if you want to um if you have the ambition to be a church leader, for instance, that's a godly ambition, and you can pursue that.
• 38:36
  SPEAKER_03: Jesus tells these stories multiple times in which servants are given sums of money and they are told to go and invest it and get a return on your investment.
• 38:46
  SPEAKER_03: Be ambitious with this money, take what's been given to you and use it.
• 38:50
  SPEAKER_03: And what you're not to do with the stuff that you're given by God is to bury it and um hide your light under a bushel and all that sort of sort of stuff that Jesus teaches.
• 39:01
  SPEAKER_03: So um absolutely use everything that Jesus has given you um in order to develop yourself, develop the gifts that you've been given, fan into flame the gifts that you've been given.
• 39:13
  SPEAKER_03: That's an another thing that's that's in the New Testament.
• 39:15
  SPEAKER_03: But it's all for the po for the purpose of, and you need other people to test you on this, but is it for the purpose of I can serve others?
• 39:23
  SPEAKER_03: If I if I build this platform, you know, this is this is a very relevant question for Speak Life, you know.
• 39:29
  SPEAKER_03: Here we are on social media and we want to build a platform.
• 39:33
  SPEAKER_03: Why do we want to build a platform?
• 39:34
  SPEAKER_03: Why do we want to use our ambition in order to um get more subscribers?
• 39:41
  SPEAKER_03: Right?
• 39:41
  SPEAKER_03: Why why why do we want to do that?
• 39:43
  SPEAKER_03: Is is it just so that we are greater?
• 39:46
  SPEAKER_03: Uh or is it so that we can reach more people with liberating good news?
• 39:50
  SPEAKER_03: Um and this is why I say you've got to check with other people, because other people who actually know you can call you on this when you say, Oh, it's for it's really for Jesus.
• 40:02
  SPEAKER_03: And that's why you need friends who can pull you to one side and say, Is it though?
• 40:07
  SPEAKER_03: Is it for Jesus or is it for you?
• 40:09
  SPEAKER_03: But I think in in community with one another, if we call one another to account on these things, the Bible actually calls us to um to really go for it in lots of different ways.
• 40:19
  SPEAKER_03: You've been given talents, then invest them.
• 40:23
  SPEAKER_03: You've been given a gift, fan it into flame.
• 40:25
  SPEAKER_03: Godly ambition is is a wonderful thing, um, but do not underestimate the ability of the human heart to deceive yourself because what you really want to build is your own little throne rather than a platform to proclaim Christ from.
• 40:42
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 40:43
  SPEAKER_02: You know, uh someone uh someone once told me the the name for friends like that who can call you out on that stuff is your Muppet friend, who can just pull you to one side and be like, You're being a Muppet.
• 40:55
  SPEAKER_03: They can name the Muppet within you.
• 40:57
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I think I love that phrase.
• 40:58
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 40:58
  SPEAKER_02: Right, let's finish with uh one last question from our list, and then I think we will have got to all the pre-submitted questions that we have selected.
• 41:06
  SPEAKER_03: Matthias does like to tick off a list.
• 41:08
  SPEAKER_02: I do, especially when I've emailed these people and said, Hey, we've picked your question.
• 41:12
  SPEAKER_02: We hope we'll have time to answer it.
• 41:14
  SPEAKER_02: Um so Sue asks, and this is a nice quick one.
• 41:19
  SPEAKER_02: Is God ruled by logic?
• 41:21
  SPEAKER_03: Oh, is God ruled by logic?
• 41:23
  SPEAKER_03: No.
• 41:23
  SPEAKER_02: No, great.
• 41:24
  SPEAKER_02: On that note, we're done.
• 41:26
  SPEAKER_02: Thanks so much for coming.
• 41:28
  SPEAKER_03: Um so it's it's not as though nobody has a gun to God's head and say the law of non-con contradiction, you can't, you know.
• 41:35
  SPEAKER_03: But what is like I think logic is reliable because logic is an expression of the self-consistency of the triune God.
• 41:44
  SPEAKER_03: Okay.
• 41:44
  SPEAKER_03: So in the beginning was the word.
• 41:46
  SPEAKER_03: That's how John's Gospel begins.
• 41:48
  SPEAKER_03: And the word for word is the word logos, from which we get logic, right?
• 41:52
  SPEAKER_03: In the beginning, there was logic, right?
• 41:54
  SPEAKER_03: But logic is a person in John's Gospel.
• 41:57
  SPEAKER_03: That's that's a title for Christ, the second person of the Trinity.
• 42:01
  SPEAKER_03: And so God, God is logical, not because there's this pre-existing thing called logic, and God has to fit into it, but that the self-consistency in the God of truth is what gives rise to the laws of logic.
• 42:16
  SPEAKER_03: And what we what we describe as the laws of logic is our appreciation of the logical nature of the self-consistent triune God.
• 42:27
  SPEAKER_03: And we write those down as logical laws, but that's not a logic that precedes and predates God and um and limits him.
• 42:37
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 42:38
  SPEAKER_02: Amazing.
• 42:39
  SPEAKER_03: There you go.
• 42:39
  SPEAKER_02: I think that feeds back to the code.
• 42:40
  SPEAKER_02: Kind of a weird nerdy question to finish on, but I mean it feeds back into Jacqueline's question earlier, doesn't it?
• 42:45
  SPEAKER_02: As well.
• 42:46
  SPEAKER_02: Like, is God ruled by logic?
• 42:47
  SPEAKER_02: No, God created everything.
• 42:50
  SPEAKER_02: And ultimately, that's that's the root of Genesis, isn't it?
• 42:53
  SPEAKER_02: God created in the beginning, God.
• 42:56
  SPEAKER_03: And we're reflecting back on his being.
• 42:58
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 42:59
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 43:00
  SPEAKER_03: And we can name that as things like logic, and we can name it as things like like music and all that.
• 43:04
  SPEAKER_03: That's that's also a reflection back on the self-consistency of the triumph God.
• 43:08
  SPEAKER_03: Um, but the there are not there are not these pre-existing things that then limit God.
• 43:12
  SPEAKER_03: No.
• 43:13
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, exactly.
• 43:14
  SPEAKER_02: Great.
• 43:14
  SPEAKER_02: We've covered a lot tonight.
• 43:16
  SPEAKER_02: We've covered joining a church, we've covered your prayer life and how to pray well, we've covered Genesis 1.
• 43:23
  SPEAKER_02: Any highlights for you, Glenn?
• 43:25
  SPEAKER_02: What's been your favorite question tonight?
• 43:27
  SPEAKER_03: I I really liked actually the anxiety question.
• 43:29
  SPEAKER_03: And getting into getting into it's really actually very practical.
• 43:34
  SPEAKER_03: Faith is actually really very practical.
• 43:36
  SPEAKER_03: And it and it really genuinely answers the questions that people have nowadays.
• 43:40
  SPEAKER_03: Um yeah, so good to good.
• 43:42
  SPEAKER_03: We went back to a 2,000-year-old scripture and it answers the questions of 2024.
• 43:47
  SPEAKER_02: So and we learnt how to pray when you're having a panic, panic attack.
• 43:50
  SPEAKER_02: Be still and know that I am God.
• 43:51
  SPEAKER_03: That's it.
• 43:51
  SPEAKER_02: I love that.
• 43:52
  SPEAKER_02: I'm gonna I'm gonna practice that one.
• 43:54
  SPEAKER_02: I hopefully won't need it, but I'll practice it if I do.
• 43:56
  SPEAKER_04: Good.
• 43:57
  SPEAKER_02: Thank you so much for joining us uh online in Discord.
• 44:00
  SPEAKER_02: Thank you so much to our room of guests as well for joining us in person.
• 44:03
  SPEAKER_02: We will be doing these termally, is what we're aiming for.
• 44:06
  SPEAKER_02: Um sorry we were a little bit late on this one, uh, but we are aiming to do them termally.
• 44:10
  SPEAKER_02: So please um keep going to 321cour.com, go to the AskLenAnything activity in 321 and submit your questions there.
• 44:18
  SPEAKER_02: I'm so sorry if we didn't get to your question.
• 44:20
  SPEAKER_02: I know that there's so many more submitted, um, but please also use the chat as well.
• 44:24
  SPEAKER_02: We have a whole channel that's set aside for AskLen Anything.
• 44:27
  SPEAKER_02: Glenn is always tapping away on his laptop and answering those questions over there as well.
• 44:31
  SPEAKER_02: Um, so thank you so much for joining us.
• 44:33
  SPEAKER_02: Thank you, Glenn, for handling all these questions.
• 44:35
  SPEAKER_02: Thank you, Matthew.
• 44:36
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and yeah, we just pray that God blesses you and all the questions that you keep bringing to our Lord and to this community.
• 44:43
  SPEAKER_02: Thank you so much for being here.
• 44:48
  SPEAKER_03: For the full video of that Ask Glenn Anything for access to the 321 course and for access to the chat community where you can get in and ask your questions to me directly.
• 44:59
  SPEAKER_03: Go to 321course.com.
• 45:01
  SPEAKER_03: We'd love to see you there.