Latest / We Are More: Sisters Talk Faith & Feminism / Ep. 117: I Am a C

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Ep. 117: I Am a C · We Are More: Sisters Talk Faith & Feminism

• 0:12
  Speaker 1: To the We Are More Pod cast. My name is Alyssa. And my
• 0:15
  Speaker 2: name is Bree. We're two sisters passionate about all things faith and feminism. We believe
• 0:21
  Speaker 1: that Jesus trusted, respected, and encouraged women to teach and preach his word. And apparently, that's controversial. Get comfy. Hello, world. Wow.
• 0:33
  I love popcorn. Yeah. Be glad. I made her stop chewing before we started recording. I feel like I
• 0:39
  Speaker 2: could have a cough, though.
• 0:41
  Speaker 1: Oh, good. That'll be fun.
• 0:45
  Speaker 2: Now, I wish we
• 0:46
  Speaker 1: were recording today's episode live on location in Disney, but I don't think they would appreciate that.
• 0:51
  Speaker 2: But doesn't that remind you of the Full House episode where they were in Disney? Yes. And Joey and Jesse? Right? Those were their names.
• 0:59
  J and J recorded, like, in the seas with Nemo. Mhmm.
• 1:03
  Speaker 1: And I just wanna know what kind of radio show was this? How popular were they that Disney was like, cool. Yeah. Go record in a bubble. That'll be fun.
• 1:11
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Dive down. You're surrounded by sharks. You're in this bubble. And we'll have a dramatic moment.
• 1:17
  Speaker 1: I would love at this moment to say, now Disney, reach out to us and we'll come and we'll record there. But here's the thing. I am deeply claustrophobic, so I am not about to be recording in a bubble under the sea. Why would we agree to that? Because it's Disney.
• 1:32
  Speaker 2: I don't know. I would agree to recording in
• 1:34
  Speaker 1: the castle. I'm in for that. Any Disney listeners out there, because I know clearly that the CEO of Disney is listening to this podcast on a regular basis. What's up, CEO? We would love to record in Cinderella's castle.
• 1:48
  We will give you so much free advertising, and you really need it.
• 1:51
  Speaker 2: Yeah. We already are giving you a lot of free advertising. You just have no idea.
• 1:55
  Speaker 1: We'll even record ourselves with a video camera that time. I'll be in
• 1:59
  Speaker 2: a princess dress. I'll do it. We'll hire someone to record us. And we'll go to the Bippity Boppity boutique.
• 2:05
  Speaker 1: I don't think they'd take people our age.
• 2:07
  Speaker 2: I think they would find a way.
• 2:09
  Speaker 1: When I'm very short. I could pretend. I could be 13. What's the age limit? 13, I think?
• 2:14
  I don't know.
• 2:15
  Speaker 2: Alright. Well, now we have a plan. The reason we went on that side note is because while you're listening
• 2:23
  Speaker 1: to this, we are either in Disney or we're right back from Disney. I'm not entirely sure.
• 2:28
  Speaker 2: As we're recording this, we are a day away from leaving for vacation. And I am so excited to just have a vacation. -Mm -Just to be away from work, be away from real life. I'm ready to have some kind of tropical beverage by a pool and think about reading, but maybe not actually reading.
• 2:47
  Speaker 1: I know I've got, like, three books I wanna pack, and I'm like, you're not gonna get through these books. What's wrong with you? But I'm a pack them.
• 2:53
  Speaker 2: Oh, yeah. It's a must.
• 2:56
  Speaker 1: And in case you were wondering, they're stupid romances.
• 3:00
  Speaker 2: See, you like a romance, like a silly, goofy romance Mhmm. On vacation, that would drive me up a wall. I want something that's like murder.
• 3:10
  Speaker 1: See, I just I want something easy. I would not have to focus on it. And if I miss a page or two, it's like, meh.
• 3:17
  Speaker 2: A thriller can you can miss a page or two because you'll be surprised either way. They're like, that wasn't intentionally a surprise, but I guess that's a surprise to you. There you go. I remember last year, right before vacation
• 3:33
  Speaker 1: Mhmm.
• 3:34
  Speaker 2: We had an early flight. And I stayed up until probably 03:30 or 4AM, finishing a book. And I don't know why. It wasn't even that good of a book. It was the third book of the Housemaids series from Freda McVadden.
• 3:51
  That's just a side note. You made bad choices.
• 3:53
  Speaker 1: I don't know what to tell you. Yeah. You do this all the time. This isn't like a new thing.
• 3:58
  Speaker 2: That's another note for you out there in the world. Brianna equals bad choices often.
• 4:04
  Speaker 1: I think they got that.
• 4:05
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 4:06
  Speaker 1: They already knew. Yeah. Speaking of bad choices, I don't really know how to transition into this, so that's what you get. Brie, make my transition song.
• 4:16
  Speaker 2: Today, we're talking about what makes you a Christian.
• 4:21
  Speaker 1: This one is super interesting to me because it seems like such an obvious question. Right? It's so easy. Mhmm. But we have put so many walls around what being a Christian means, and so many walls around who gets to be a Christian.
• 4:39
  Speaker 2: And there's so many stereotypes in our world today about what Christians look like and how they act. And I think it's time we just define it. Mhmm.
• 4:49
  Speaker 1: After a 100 and some odd episodes.
• 4:52
  Speaker 2: Yes. I remember being a kid growing up in junior church, and there was always a segment towards the end that it was like, all right, we're gonna close our eyes and pray. And if you haven't accepted the Lord as your savior, please raise your hand, and someone will bring you into a hallway and talk to you about, like, how, you know, the salvation story. I did that so many times. Now, my personal belief is it's one and done.
• 5:21
  You're saved and you can't be unsaved. But for some reason, was like, well, double check. Let's just cross our t's and dot our i's here. Plus, then you get to go in the hallway.
• 5:33
  Speaker 1: Yeah. And it's like exclusive. We are very different people because I remember that segment. And I always got upset because I got saved when I was like four years old at home. And I was like, I wanna be able to raise my hand.
• 5:45
  I wanna know what goes on in the hallway. Just do it.
• 5:49
  Speaker 2: I was not going to do that
• 5:51
  Speaker 1: because it would have been dishonest.
• 5:53
  Speaker 2: And I am the good sister. And I'm the bad sister. That's not at all true, but we can pretend.
• 6:03
  Speaker 1: And if people saw us in real life, it would be very flipped.
• 6:07
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Also, like our book tastes. You like a silly little rom com? I would lean more thriller horror. And if you look at us, we don't look that way.
• 6:17
  We don't look that way.
• 6:18
  Speaker 1: Brie likes to dress in neutrals. She's in, like, sage green shorts right now. Her hair is blonde. My hair is pink and black. And I wear all black all the time.
• 6:29
  Speaker 2: Yeah. We're just Alyssa's the outward manifestation of my soul.
• 6:38
  Speaker 1: And vice versa. There we go. Yes. Now you know.
• 6:41
  Speaker 2: And now you know because it's Mike's super short show. Exactly. What makes you a Christian, Alyssa? That's to the Lord. So from the outside, stereotypically, when you're looking at a quote unquote Christian, there's certain boxes that they check.
• 6:57
  So I'm thinking like, okay, a Christian person goes to church on Sundays. Maybe more than just Sundays. Maybe they're part of youth groups and small groups, etcetera. They're watching their mouth. Maybe they're not swearing as much.
• 7:10
  They're not making dirty jokes like I do. Maybe they vote a certain way. And maybe they don't drink in public. In public. And maybe they outwardly oppose certain sins.
• 7:27
  And maybe they read their bible. And they pray enough. And they have Christian friends. And they listen to Christian music. But which one of those things did Jesus say makes you a Christian, Alyssa?
• 7:41
  None of the above? Pretty much none of them.
• 7:44
  Speaker 1: I'm thinking of like a scantron, and e was always none of the above. I
• 7:50
  Speaker 2: hated scantrons. The word Christian itself didn't appear in the Bible very often. It appeared like three times. And it was a slang word for Jesus followers or Christ followers. You'll see that in Acts eleven twenty six.
• 8:06
  But the way that Jesus actually referred to his followers were disciples, followers, those who abide in me, and children of God. Mhmm.
• 8:19
  Speaker 1: So. It's a different vibe.
• 8:21
  Speaker 2: It's a different vibe.
• 8:22
  Speaker 1: It's a different meaning. I think that's really interesting because when you look at it like that, it feels much less like a club. You know, I think the word Christian makes it feel a little bit more exclusive almost. Whereas disciple or follower is more of a job description, if that makes sense.
• 8:46
  Speaker 2: I also feel like it's just easier when people say, oh, what's your faith? What's your religion? I'm just a Christian. But if they said, well, I'm a child of God, and I'm a follower of Jesus, and I'm a disciple, I'm a whatever. It you have to explain it a little bit more.
• 9:03
  Speaker 1: Yeah. It opens a conversation. And I think maybe that's what Jesus was doing on purpose. Because your job as a Christ follower, as a disciple, as a follower of God, is to have those conversations. Right?
• 9:18
  Mhmm. And that's not always easy. I'm sitting here from my very introverted place saying, that's not easy. But it is your job description. Mhmm.
• 9:27
  Whereas Christian can just mean you've checked all those boxes. Mhmm.
• 9:31
  Speaker 2: And I also think about tracts. Mhmm. It's like a little pamphlet that basically explains the story of salvation. And you hand it out to people if you don't want to have a conversation with them. Or if you want to have a conversation with them and then you hand them a pamphlet as a follow-up.
• 9:48
  But they have all kinds of different designs. And some of them look like money. And some of them look like the gates of hell. And some of them look like, I don't know, pick your flavor. But I would collect them because they were free.
• 10:04
  At church. And I thought they were, oh, those are fun to keep. But I think about it like a Christian is kind of just like attracted, you know? You just, just hand it out, don't want to have a conversation. But if you're gonna open up a real conversation with someone and say, I'm a Christ follower.
• 10:22
  What does that mean? Right.
• 10:25
  Speaker 1: I also think we've this is a little bit of a side note, but we've kind of taken the word disciple and screwed it up too. Because I think of when usually men at church will say, well, I'm discipling this person. They usually mean, I get together with this other man once a week for coffee, and we sort of maybe discuss the sermon.
• 10:48
  Speaker 2: Or it's like a mentorship.
• 10:49
  Speaker 1: Right. But it's not usually with someone who didn't walk into church on their own to begin with. Mhmm. It's not someone from outside of your general people group. It's someone you happened to see at church.
• 11:03
  Speaker 2: Would you say they're subordinate? Would you? Just someone lower status than them.
• 11:10
  Speaker 1: Oh, yeah. I think that's a big part of it, is is a superiority thing. Mhmm. And and that is what we've turned discipleship into often. Because I'm thinking back to we had a couple at our church years and years ago, and they wanted to mentor my husband and I because we were a younger married couple.
• 11:29
  And apparently, that's a thing that church people do. I don't know. And they clearly really liked this idea of feeling superior to us. Because when we did these marriage quizzes and stuff from all the Christian marriage books, and my husband and I would score really well, And they would score not so well. Suddenly, didn't want to mentor us anymore.
• 11:51
  Speaker 2: I'm thinking back to last week, the not to compare them to the Pharisees, but I think back to what we were talking about last week and how they weren't necessarily bad people, the pharisees, but they did have a tendency towards wanting that clout, that power, that control, that superiority to people. Mhmm.
• 12:15
  Speaker 1: And isn't that what the world thinks of Christians?
• 12:19
  Speaker 2: Yes.
• 12:21
  Speaker 1: It's what we do outside of the walls of our church, and it's what we do inside of the walls of our churches too. We check all the boxes so that we can stand up every Sunday in the front row of the Baptist church and say, look at me. Mhmm.
• 12:37
  Speaker 2: And you can see this in a lot of ways. Just from my personal experience growing up in the church, there's the people who are the radical givers. Right? But they're not doing that anonymously. They want that to be known.
• 12:49
  Or you're right, sitting in the front row of the church. Or are you hosting the small group? Are you doing all of these things? But who are you doing it for? And I think that's what Jesus really was harping on and what we talked about last week is it's not just your outward appearance.
• 13:07
  It's your heart. Is your heart in it? And if you had all of that acknowledgment taken away, would you still do it? Mhmm. And it's super addictive.
• 13:21
  Speaker 1: I think that's a big part of why you see so many pastors thinking of themselves as God because it feels good. It feels good to be superior to other people.
• 13:33
  Speaker 2: Or from our personal experience, both you and I were very involved in a bigger church. And to walk into that church and have the higher up people know who you are or just have other people see like, oh, people know who that person is. Right. That feels good. It does.
• 13:52
  Speaker 1: And you can see this in every aspect of life, not just in religion, but at work, at school, with friends. I think we all like that feeling of I'm doing better
• 14:03
  Speaker 2: Mhmm.
• 14:04
  Speaker 1: Than you. But particularly in our faith, we're supposed to be set apart from that. It is a natural human thing. I certainly do it. Not that it's a good thing, but I certainly do.
• 14:15
  But Jesus is saying, this is what you're supposed to be set apart from. Mhmm. Not going to bad movies, not listening to the right music, be set apart from the people who are only Christians on the outside. Right.
• 14:33
  Speaker 2: Last week, we talked about Matthew 23, and that teaching was one of the harshest teachings that Jesus gave to his people. It was all about the hypocrisy in the church And the leaders who, from the outside, looked like they had everything going on. And he made a comparison in that chapter. He says, you clean the outside of the cup and dish, but inside they're full of greed and self indulgence. Now I'd like to give you a little analogy.
• 15:04
  I'm ready. You have a Stanley cup. Oh, dear. It's new. It looks good on the outside.
• 15:10
  Maybe you washed it. Good for you. You fill it full of coffee and a healthy dose of milk. Because that's the way I take my coffee. And you have it in your car and you take it to work and you don't drink the whole thing.
• 15:25
  And now you've left it in your car and through a series of unfortunate circumstances, it has stayed in your car. For days. For days and days and days. From the outside, I mean, it's sealed and stuff. The outside looks fine.
• 15:39
  Mhmm. But once you crack open that lid, there is an entire ecosystem inside. I liked that analogy. That was a good one. Thank you.
• 15:50
  In this analogy, Jesus isn't condemning morality. Morality is good. He's condemning performative morality. And it's easy to slip into, but that's why he's so harsh with it. He's saying, this is the worst.
• 16:07
  Yeah. Please stop. Because as much as you think that you can hide the little things that you're doing in your life, everything seems to bubble to the surface. And as much as you think that from the outside nobody knows what's going on, we'll find out.
• 16:27
  Speaker 1: And even think maybe it's not a direct sin. Maybe it's not, oh, she murdered someone. Oops. But like for the pharisees, they were performative faith people. Right?
• 16:42
  Mhmm. Performative religious people. And they seemed okay. We don't know about their individual sins. It's not like Jesus is interviewing them and being like, oh, okay.
• 16:52
  You lied today. You stole today. Whatever. That's not what's happening. But where we see it break is in their relationship with Jesus.
• 17:01
  Speaker 2: Mhmm.
• 17:02
  Speaker 1: And we can see that. We see that they don't have real faith because when Jesus says, love me and love others, they can't. Mhmm. And that's their fruit.
• 17:17
  Speaker 2: Wow. What a good transition. Thank you. Right into the next segment. I'm prepared.
• 17:26
  Like we said, Jesus was asked what the most important commandment was. And they asked him this to try to trap him Mhmm. Into saying the wrong thing so they could do with Jesus what they would. But Jesus responded simply with love God and love others. And then he talks about how a tree is known by its fruit.
• 17:46
  Not by its leaves, not by its bark, not by the label someone gave it, but by the good fruit that it produces. And in other words, he's talking about what naturally grows out of your life. And if your life, people experience you through kindness and through mercy and patience and honesty and generosity, Not just of financial, but of your time and of your heart. That's a good Christian. That's good fruit.
• 18:18
  But do people experience you through fear, judgment, anger, self righteousness? That's not good fruit. That might be one of those stinky fruits that people try to avoid. Like durian. That's the word I was looking for.
• 18:34
  So in other words, if your Christianity isn't changing the way that you love people, Jesus would probably question whether we're connected to that vine at all. Mhmm.
• 18:44
  Speaker 1: I think a good litmus test of this is how do if you are someone that goes to church, how do the people inside your church see you? They might see you as kind, loving, and generous. But how do the people outside of your church see you? How do the people at work see you? How do the people that live next door see you?
• 19:05
  Because those are the people that matter. Not that I'm not trying to say that
• 19:12
  Speaker 2: the people within the walls of
• 19:13
  Speaker 1: the church don't matter. But the people that we are supposed to be having dinner with, as Jesus had dinner with
• 19:20
  Speaker 2: Mhmm.
• 19:22
  Speaker 1: Are not the people in your church.
• 19:24
  Speaker 2: And do they know that you're a Christian simply because, oh, Alyssa goes to church, Alyssa reads her bible at lunch, and Alyssa prays before she eats. Mhmm. Is that why they know that you're a Christian? Or do they know that Alyssa's a Christian because she's generous with her time, because she's loving towards others, because she's kind in situations where she doesn't need to be kind.
• 19:51
  Speaker 1: I almost think that think of that scenario in two different ways. If you start off with, hey, I'm a Christian. Oh, I have a metaphor. Are you ready? I've come up with it just now.
• 20:04
  Speaker 2: Yes. We're really good with metaphors lately.
• 20:07
  Speaker 1: So
• 20:07
  Speaker 2: good. Except I'm pretty sure it's a smiley, but it's fine then. What's the difference?
• 20:12
  Speaker 1: The word like or as. So I think I've actually used this before. But I was a creative writing major in college. And one of the things that we talked about was you never want to start writing a story with an intentional message in mind. So if you start off a story trying to say, okay, my message is lying is bad, and I'm gonna write a story to illustrate that, then it's always gonna feel fake.
• 20:39
  Mhmm. Whereas if you write a story, and you write the story, and at the end of it, the lesson happens to be lying is bad, then it feels authentic. I think it's the same thing with being a Christian. If you lead with, hello. My name is Alyssa, I'm a Christian.
• 20:55
  Speaker 2: And my purpose is to convert you.
• 20:57
  Speaker 1: Exactly. Everything after that feels fake. You could be actually generous. You could be actually kind. But it feels performative.
• 21:08
  Because you started off with this mission. I'm gonna convert you. Hello. Come to church. Whereas if you start off with, hey, my name's Alyssa.
• 21:19
  What can I do for you? What do you need? And you show them that kindness and love and caring. And then over time, maybe people discover your faith. Maybe you talk about it because they had a question or something like that, but it comes up naturally.
• 21:37
  That is discipling someone. That is witnessing someone. That is showing someone the love of God in a way that's actually gonna impact their lives. It's building relationships.
• 21:49
  Speaker 2: And not just temporary relationships, which is, at least my experience within the church community. I've had several really strong, what I thought was really strong relationships with various people within churches. And the second that you step out of line or you step away, boom, those relationships are gone. We are not texting. We are not calling.
• 22:16
  We're pretending you never existed. Yep. And that's not how Jesus lived his life. And next I wanna go into examples of what love actually is. Mhmm.
• 22:27
  Because I do think the Christian community has a habit, and we've talked about this before, of rebranding love. I love you so much that I need to point out your sin. Mhmm. I love you so much that I need to call you out and judge you. That's not how Jesus loved people.
• 22:47
  He loved people first, and then everything came later. So first example of that would be when Jesus touched the man with leprosy. Mhmm. And you'll find this story in Mark one forty through 45, if you wanna pull out your Bibles or your apps. So a man with leprosy was in the town.
• 23:09
  He said to Jesus, if you're willing, you can make me clean. And Jesus approached the man, but before he healed him, he touched him. And that is significant because in the first century Judaism, people with leprosy were seen as unclean, and they had to live apart from society. They weren't allowed to be touched by people because then they would be unclean, and they were probably very lonely. They lived their life isolated and alone.
• 23:44
  And Jesus went to this man and didn't say like, I'm gonna heal you first and then I'm gonna touch you. He touched him first.
• 23:50
  Speaker 1: And
• 23:52
  Speaker 2: can you imagine how that felt for this man who probably hasn't been touched in forever? Right. Just even a hand on the shoulder or a pat on the head. That probably, in and of itself, was significant to this man. And then he was healed by Jesus.
• 24:09
  I just can't imagine that. Being so isolated and so alone, and then all of a sudden being able to reenter society and being considered clean again and you get to restart your life. That's a miracle. And think about how much more that man was willing to follow Jesus Mhmm. Because Jesus loved him first.
• 24:29
  Speaker 1: Right. It reminds me of the story, and you might have this one too, but the story of the woman with the bleeding disorder.
• 24:37
  Speaker 2: Oh, yeah. Yeah.
• 24:38
  Speaker 1: And we've talked about her before, but if you're not familiar with the story, she had a bleeding disorder. They don't really go into what it is, but think like a period that never ends is kind of what people tend to believe. And so she was also considered unclean. She couldn't enter the temple. She couldn't be touched.
• 24:59
  She couldn't sleep in the same bed as her husband, etcetera, etcetera. And she'd tried everything to be healed. And so she goes up to Jesus and just touches his robe without even communicating with him, just touches his robe. And he chooses to heal her. And, yes, he doesn't interact with her immediately, but, you know, he chose
• 25:20
  Speaker 2: Mhmm.
• 25:20
  Speaker 1: To heal her. And hadn't had any sort of conversation about and what's your sin like?
• 25:28
  Speaker 2: Mhmm.
• 25:28
  Speaker 1: How many times did you sin yesterday? Did you lie yesterday? Did you scream at someone yesterday? Like, no. There was no caveats Mhmm.
• 25:37
  To the way that Jesus loved.
• 25:39
  Speaker 2: Generous.
• 25:40
  Speaker 1: Mhmm.
• 25:42
  Speaker 2: The next example that I have is when Jesus defended the woman who everyone else was condemning. Mhmm. She was supposedly caught in adultery. And so the people drag her into the streets and in front of Jesus. And again, they're trying to trap Jesus here.
• 25:58
  And they were like, this woman was caught in sin? Our reaction and the right thing to do is stone her. Right, Jesus? And Jesus looked around and said, if anyone is without sin here, they can be the first one to cast the stone. And Jesus was without sin.
• 26:19
  So Jesus could have, but nobody could stone her Mhmm. Because they all had sin. And so Jesus's response is, neither do I condemn you. Go now and leave your life of sin. Mhmm.
• 26:31
  So we've talked about her story before. We don't necessarily think that maybe she was consensual in what was happening to her just based on what life of women was like in that time. But Jesus does acknowledge her sin. He doesn't say nothing about it. But his first reaction is love.
• 26:53
  To offer her freedom. To offer her her life again. To not be stoned.
• 26:59
  Speaker 1: We are really attached to judgment. We like to weaponize people's sins. So we have a post up on TikTok. And I asked why when people of the LGBTQ community tell us that they've been hurt by the church? Why our first response is to defend the church?
• 27:28
  I didn't even go into, is this sinful or is it not? I didn't even have that conversation in that post. It was just, why do we react with defense of an institution instead of love for a person? And the sheer amount of people saying, no, we should judge. Just flat out.
• 27:55
  Well, Jesus judged people. Well, Jesus may have eaten with sinners, but he didn't condone their sin. Blah blah blah. On and on and on. And, I mean, there's 88 comments on it saying the same thing.
• 28:08
  Well, no, we should judge. We should judge. That's that's what we're supposed to do as Christians. We're not supposed to condone sin. And me telling someone about their sin is loving them because I love because I love them so much.
• 28:22
  We're so attached to the ability to judge others that we've turned the ability to judge others into love because it justifies it. Right? Jesus said love God and love others. And if we've decided that judgment means love, then, oh, boy, it's a loophole. But here's what Jesus says in Matthew seven verse one.
• 28:43
  He says, do not judge others and you will not be judged, for you will be treated as you treat others. The standard you use in judging is the standard by which you will be judged. So a lot of people will quote that first bit, that first verse. Do not judge others and you will not be judged. But going into that second verse, for you will be treated as you treat others.
• 29:05
  So you can redefine love if you want. But if you are judging others in a way that makes them feel less than, in a way that makes them feel othered on the outside, like they don't have a place in God's kingdom, then you will be treated the same way. That's what he's saying. So you can redefine it all you want. You can pretend all you want that that's loving.
• 29:34
  But the way you make that person feel, that's what's important. Their feelings are important, whether you like it or not. Their feelings matter? Their feelings matter.
• 29:47
  Speaker 2: What a weird thing to think and say.
• 29:48
  Speaker 1: Their hurt matters. It doesn't matter if you agree with their lifestyle or not. They are God's children, loved as much by our Lord as you are.
• 30:03
  Speaker 2: No matter how different from you they are, you're right. Jesus died on the cross for them. And whether you agree with that or not Mhmm. It's not up to you.
• 30:14
  Speaker 1: It's not up to you. Can we, like, like, underline that? It's not up to you. And Jesus so distinctly says, don't do these things. He goes on to say, why worry about the speck in your friend's eye when you have a log in your own?
• 30:30
  How can you think of saying to your friend, let me help you get rid of the speck in your eye when you can't see past the log in your eye? Hypocrite. First, get rid of the log in your own eye, then you will see well enough to deal with the speck in your friend's eye. I love when Jesus calls people names. It makes me happy inside.
• 30:48
  Speaker 2: He's like, hey, dumb butt.
• 30:52
  Speaker 1: We love to judge. And it doesn't matter how many times Jesus says, no. We're like, but but judge.
• 31:01
  Speaker 2: No. But judge. Jesus, didn't you flip a table? But Jesus, didn't you judge people? But Jesus, how can I excuse my hate?
• 31:11
  Mhmm. Is what we're constantly asking. Then Jesus is saying a few cuss words maybe
• 31:20
  Speaker 1: at us. He's like, no. Live how I lived. For example, Zacchaeus. He was a wee little man.
• 31:28
  Speaker 2: He was a wee little man. And a wee little man was he. You'll find his story in Luke nineteen one through 10. And yes, there is a whole song about it. If you're a little Baptist kid, you probably know it.
• 31:40
  But Zacchaeus was a corrupt tax collector. He became wealthy by exploiting his own people. And that's how he gained all his wealth. And Jesus invited himself over to his house.
• 31:54
  Speaker 1: Mhmm.
• 31:56
  Speaker 2: Because you'll remember in the song, Zacchaeus climbed up a tree because he heard that Jesus was passing through and he wanted to see him. But Zacchaeus was a wee little man and couldn't see past the crowd. Imagine that being what you're known for. Just a tiny little dude. Just a tiny little dude.
• 32:13
  And Jesus walked past and he was like, Zacchaeus, I'm coming over for dinner. Guess what? Make something. Hope you're prepared. Hope you're ready.
• 32:23
  People were mad at Jesus for doing this. They said, he's gone to be a guest of a sinner. Aren't we all, though? And Jesus' acceptance led Zacchaeus to voluntarily repay those he had cheated and give away half of his possessions. Just by Jesus saying, I'm coming over to your house, bestie.
• 32:49
  Better prepare yourself. Just that acceptance and that love first. Jesus didn't go and ask him to give away half of his possessions. He didn't go over to his house saying, I'll go over to your house if you change your ways. He said, I'm on my way.
• 33:10
  Prepare the goat.
• 33:14
  Speaker 1: And you've got to wonder what the conversations were over dinner too. Because I strongly doubt that anyone I mean, in life now, how often are people encouraged to live differently if you say if you come over for dinner and you're like, actually, this is all the stuff you're doing wrong.
• 33:34
  Speaker 2: Mhmm.
• 33:35
  Speaker 1: Jesus probably didn't come over and say, Zacchaeus, I've got a list for you. Fix this, this, this, this, and this, and then you can come into heaven. But that's what we wanna do. It's what we wanna tell people. And it's usually our list, not God's list.
• 33:51
  Do this, this, this, and this. And then you can walk into the walls of the church. And then I'll invite you over for dinner. And then you can lead the small group. But Jesus didn't do that.
• 34:02
  At the church that Brie and I went to that we apparently just reference all the time now, there were all kinds of rules about who could serve in different capacities. And I remember that there was a woman who was living with a man. They weren't married. And she was allowed to serve in the general children's church, but she couldn't have a leadership position. Because they said, well, she's living in sin.
• 34:30
  In sin. And so we can't allow her to have a leadership position because the optics of that aren't good. Jesus wasn't doing that. And I'm not arguing about whether, you know, sin or not, but Jesus wasn't saying, be this before you can follow me. Be this before you can be a leader.
• 34:50
  Be this before you can be a disciple. He was saying, be a disciple, and what comes out of your life will be good. You will just automatically produce good fruit because it's who you are as a person. Brie and I both zeroed in on another section of Matthew seven, and that's Matthew seven twenty one. And I would say this is possibly one of the most difficult verses in the Bible for existing Christ followers.
• 35:19
  Mhmm. He says, not everyone who calls out to me, Lord, Lord, will enter the kingdom of heaven. Only those who actually do the will of my father in heaven will enter. On judgment day, many will say to me, Lord, Lord, we prophesied in your name and cast out demons in your name and performed many miracles in your name. But I will reply, I never knew you.
• 35:40
  Get away from me, you who break God's laws. He is not talking to nonreligious people here. He is talking to religious people. This would be the sermon Jesus would give if he was on stage in your church. Picture that with me, will you?
• 36:05
  Jesus is on stage, and this is what he has to say to you and your church. Not the people outside. The people inside.
• 36:16
  Speaker 2: Your faith is not a resume. Mhmm. Your faith is a relationship. And the quote unquote Christian people like to say, like, our faith isn't work based. All you have to do is accept the Lord Jesus Christ into your heart, know that you're a sinner, and pray the sinner's prayer, and you're a Christian.
• 36:41
  But what does that look like? Because once you become a Christian, you should be seeking out a relationship with Jesus. If a celebrity I was giving Elisa this analogy before. Let me know if it doesn't make sense. But we all know celebrities.
• 37:05
  Let's take who's your favorite celebrity?
• 37:08
  Speaker 1: Oh, I was in love with Chris Pine as a child.
• 37:11
  Speaker 2: Chris Pine. Alyssa, as a young child, obsessed with Chris Pine. She found all of the Chris Pine fun facts on his IMDB page. And she found his memoir. She read And the went onto his social medias and followed people that he was following.
• 37:30
  And all of Alyssa stalked Chris Pine. Nope. Didn't do that. She knows everything. About Chris Now Alyssa is randomly, in California?
• 37:42
  Question mark? Sure. Where Chris Pine probably lives. Probably. And she was walking past him on the street.
• 37:46
  She knows everything about Chris Pine. And she said, hey, Chris. And he's like, ah, I don't know you. That's how I think about the relationship with Jesus. Right?
• 38:01
  We can know everything about him. Think about the pharisees. They knew all of the theology. They knew all of the Bible fun facts. They knew all of the laws.
• 38:10
  They knew all of the laws around the laws. But they didn't seek out a relationship
• 38:17
  Speaker 1: Mhmm.
• 38:18
  Speaker 2: With Jesus. They didn't seek to know the character of who Christ was and how to live their lives in a way similar to how Jesus was.
• 38:27
  Speaker 1: Yeah. So do you know Jesus from afar? Or do you know him up close and personal? Are you Jesus' bestie?
• 38:35
  Speaker 2: Are you Jesus' bestie? Because if you are, you're naturally going to be, like we said before, generous and kind and loving, and it's not gonna be fake. Mhmm.
• 38:44
  Speaker 1: People will know you that way. And I think of, like I mean, you guys know my personality by this point. I'm not a social person. And so this can be difficult for me. And I'm not about to say like, oh, and look at me.
• 38:59
  I'm so good. But like, people know me as someone who's really friendly, as someone who's really bubbly and personable when you get to know me, as someone who will help you if you need help. Because that's what I want people to know. I want people to know Jesus through me. And so at least at my good moments, I'm gonna try to exemplify that.
• 39:29
  Speaker 2: Being the hands and feet of Jesus on earth means that we have to walk, talk, think, and act like Jesus would.
• 39:37
  Speaker 1: Mhmm.
• 39:39
  Speaker 2: It's not just, oh, I'm a Christian, so I'm a do my own thing here.
• 39:44
  Speaker 1: And that shouldn't be a list of chores. The list Bree read at the beginning, go to church, lead a small group, Volunteer in kids ministry. Eat the little communion crackers all the time. Like Yeah. None of that is it.
• 40:03
  We're not giving you a list of to dos. We're saying if you create a relationship with Jesus, which is how you become a part of the Jesus follower club, then all of those things just are who you are.
• 40:18
  Speaker 2: You become a product of the five people you spend the most time with. Mhmm. Unfortunately for me, that's I'm very similar to Alyssa at
• 40:27
  Speaker 1: this point. In another section of Matthew, Jesus is telling parables. Jesus loves to tell parables. This is his favorite thing. And he's talking about a man who has two sons.
• 40:39
  The first son gets told, go and work in the vineyard. And the son says, no. But then changes his mind. Then the father goes to the other son, and he says, I will. But then he doesn't.
• 40:54
  And Jesus asks which of the two did what his father wanted. One said he wouldn't, but did. And one said he would, but didn't. And so everybody said, well, the first. Right?
• 41:09
  And Jesus said to them, truly I tell you, the tax collectors and the prostitutes are entering the kingdom of God ahead of you. Ahead of you. Again, he's talking to the religious people, and he's talking about people who are known for sin within their communities. These are people who are on the outskirts of society, people who are despised by the religious. And he's talking to the religious people.
• 41:37
  And he's not doing a caveat and saying, well, as long as long as they repent, they will enter heaven ahead of you. As long as they do what I want, they'll enter heaven ahead of you. He's saying these people who you hate, who you think of as sinners, will enter heaven ahead of you, religious people. So pick apart your own life. Who's entering heaven ahead of you?
• 42:04
  Because it might not be who you expect. And when you find that person, you can say, what are they doing in their lives that I should be doing more of? What can I take from that? Jesus loves and wants to be around the people that we don't usually want to be around.
• 42:29
  Speaker 2: So go touch a leper. That's the message here today.
• 42:35
  Speaker 1: Actually, preferably don't because it's widely curable and you'll get it. So maybe don't be like Jesus in that particular instance.
• 42:49
  Speaker 2: Love like Jesus. Laugh like Jesus.
• 42:52
  Speaker 1: Don't touch lepers like Jesus.
• 42:56
  Speaker 2: Take the leper to the hospital. Yeah. Good call. Good call.
• 42:59
  Speaker 1: Be the friend that takes the leper to the hospital.
• 43:03
  Speaker 2: So many good messages in the episode today. So many good ones.
• 43:06
  Speaker 1: Just a wonderful time. Yes. So next week, we are gonna talk on kind of a jump off from this episode too about the parables of Jesus. Jesus loved a story. He was a storyteller.
• 43:19
  And I love that because I'm not a storyteller, but I love people who are. They're a great time.
• 43:25
  Speaker 2: Well, I think it's a really great way to learn Mhmm. Through story, through understand and it's a way to remember those teachings
• 43:34
  Speaker 1: Oh, yeah.
• 43:34
  Speaker 2: Through that story. And kind of like how we talked about Judith and how some people believe that her story was a story. Mhmm. We're gonna learn how Jesus spoke and how he taught through stories. Mhmm.
• 43:50
  Speaker 1: It was a fun way to teach. I've gotta think that people weren't used to that either. And I don't think that they were necessarily sitting through, like, hour long sermons. But when you're used to religious people being kinda dry and dull Mhmm. And then Jesus comes along, he's like, oh, boy, oh, boy.
• 44:09
  Do I have a story for you?
• 44:10
  Speaker 2: Well, it wasn't like, here's the rule. Follow it, you freaking nerd. Yeah. It was, let me lead you to the correct answer.
• 44:18
  Speaker 1: In a super understandable, accessible way. Mhmm. Which is something that Jesus was very, very talented at doing. Mhmm. Bringing hard concepts to normal people
• 44:29
  Speaker 2: Mhmm.
• 44:29
  Speaker 1: And saying, this is for you, just as much as it is for the highly academic Pharisees. Mhmm. So we're gonna talk about that next week. We might be a little depressed because we're back from Disney, so excuse that if we are.
• 44:42
  Speaker 2: You've been through that with us before.
• 44:43
  Speaker 1: Yeah. A couple times, I think. Okay. Alright. Well, we will talk to you in a little while.
• 44:50
  We hope you enjoy your week. Follow us on social media. If you don't, we're
• 44:53
  Speaker 2: on TikTok and Instagram. Live, laugh, love.
• 44:55
  Speaker 1: Do that too. Love you.
• 44:57
  Speaker 2: Bye. Bye.