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Have I Done Enough? · Red Couch Theology

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Well, hello, hello and welcome to another episode of the Red
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Couch Theology podcast. This week on our show, we are
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actually exploring Alex's sermon this last week where he talked
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about what parts of our, the branches of our lives, the the
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vines and branches of our lives are supposed to stay.
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And does God invite us to maybe grow fruit that's beyond our
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capacity? Like maybe he made us not just
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to bear fruit, but to bear fruit so that we need him to sustain
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it all. And then we're also going to
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dive into a few questions we received about how do I know if
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I'm saved and how do I know if I've done enough to be in God's
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favor that we came out of the Alpha class and we're going to
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address that for you as well. So without any further ado,
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let's dive right in. Hello everyone, Welcome to the
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Red Couch Theology podcast where we have no idea whether this is
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going to work again. This is the second week in a
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row, Alex, that we have had to do remote podcasts.
1:03
I didn't, this is my first week and I already hate it.
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We may, we may not ever do this again.
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We may this may actually end the podcast.
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Yeah, like how do this is how how do people do?
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This How do people do this? Remotely well.
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Yeah. It does help if you know it's
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coming and you can plan ahead or.
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Maybe they're just people that don't like people.
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Yeah. Teresa just said it's working.
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Yeah, the question mark is how much rambling was on the front
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end of the show. Can Alex be louder?
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What? Can I be louder maybe?
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Do I need to move closer to something?
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Do I need to move this here? No, it's fine.
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I can shut, I can turn myself. Down.
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How about that? No.
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Well, that yes. Brilliant.
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Then I mean, so it doesn't make you louder, but at least it
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makes you both sufficiently soft.
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My translation to that is that Teresa's actually saying Aaron's
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a loudmouth and Alex is soft spoken, which is actually.
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Your internal. That was my internal translation
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too. Well, welcome, Alex.
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You're welcome. Now we've spent however long,
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what feels like a long eternity trying to get this to work.
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What are we talking about? Well, I think maybe I'll just
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give some asterisks. This is not how the show is
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going to be keep going week in and week out, I hope for sure.
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But yes, sorry, we're getting text message from Teresa like
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crazy too. So last week my daughter was
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sick, so we did a remote. This week I am watching my
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daughter because my family's in New York and so I'm watching her
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again. And so here, lo and behold, I
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didn't think I could bring her to the podcast studio and have
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her not interrupt. That might have been difficult,
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although this might have been, that might have been less
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disrupt. Yeah, but in fairness, in
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warning, she may come up to me asking for a snack in the middle
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of the show. So right now she's being baby
3:13
babysat by Bluey, OK? Well, if you yeah, if she gets a
3:18
snack, I'm going to find a way of getting someone to deliver me
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a snack. Perfect.
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So yeah, what are we talking about?
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We did get a couple questions in.
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Well, actually we did a panel on Saturday for Alpha Q&A panel and
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there was 2 questions that didn't make the cut basically
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because we ran out of time, not because they were bad questions,
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but just we were plain ran out of time.
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So we can cover those two questions and, and I don't even
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know what those are. You haven't read them yet.
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Then two, we could just do a quick overview of your of your
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message from Sunday because you actually tied it into Sean's
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message from the previous week, but then sort of with A twist,
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can you describe the? Twist.
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I would argue that Jesus did it, not me, because I think, you
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know, it's like, you know, it's like his brilliance, not mine.
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I'm just like looking for the patterns.
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Perfect. Can you describe that twist to
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us? Well, I, I mean, Sean actually
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just gave this beautiful invite through the start of John 15
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where Jesus says, you know, I, I'm, I'm the vine and my father
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is the vine keeper. And then he talks about branches
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that are dead and have to be cut off.
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But then also he talks about good branches that still need
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pruning, need pieces removed. And so his brilliant question, I
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loved it, was, well, what in your life maybe needs to be
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pruned? Is there something you've been
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holding on to that's really dead?
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And is it time to put that thing down?
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And he just described from his own life this thing that he'd
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been holding on to that now he was like, I feel like this needs
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to be let go of. And I got to have a few
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conversations with people that that was really meaningful for
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like some tears and sense of the dream that now maybe has to be
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let go. And and so then like Jesus does
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this thing where he moves from this preparation language to
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this is what God is doing in you.
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And then, of course, as you expected, Jesus does the and
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therefore you should do this or so this is the thing that you
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are being prepared for. Like preparation isn't
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necessarily just for no reason. It usually comes with a mission,
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a purpose, something to do. And so that that to me was the
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like the interesting thread to pull on because if on one hand
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John 15 is about what needs to be let go, then John 16 becomes
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about the thing that cannot be let go off, the thing that's
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very much alive. But to, like, use the visual
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image of the Peachtree that that grows in my backyard with these
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branches that seem to like, almost collapse under their own
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weight that I'm holding up with odd sticks and like, structures
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to keep them up. Yeah.
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What is it that you're trying to hold up that feels so heavy that
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it might break the whole tree in two if you have to hold it much
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longer? Now, I think on one hand, like
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you might expect, that's like, oh, I'm running this massive
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ministry or I'm, you know, in a high government position, or I
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run a business that just keeps texting regularly and it's now
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grown so big. The whole thing feels like a
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toddler. You know that phase a toddler
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gets to where the head is just bigger than their body and
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they're just kind of like look like they can collapse under
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their own weight at any point? Yeah.
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It might feel like it's those things, and that's very
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possible, but I also think there's a load of things in our
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lives that we think are just everyday things that are
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actually really sacred, carry surprising weight.
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And the assumption that we should carry them by ourselves
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is is actually just on just that, just an assumption.
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And actually, the way God designed life was for us to
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desperately need Him to help us carry those everyday things.
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Yeah. So let me, let me ask you this.
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I agree wholeheartedly, but I guess the question I have is
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what are Is there anything that we're actually capable of
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carrying by ourselves, at least in the way of Jesus?
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So I would say no, but I think the strategies other than God
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that we deploy in order to carry them.
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So like, and the one is that we self medicate.
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Yeah, we find things that make us feel like we can detach from
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it for long enough to survive. The weight doesn't really go in
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actual fact, we're doing incredible harm to our bodies
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and and to our minds and to our relationships with the
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medication. But we actually find ways to
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like to to do that or we just muscle through and pretend that
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it's all working fine, blaming the other people when it doesn't
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fall into place. And so I think this isn't really
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to point at success and how stuff works.
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You know, you can enter into something really well.
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Really. Hello, Clara.
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Really trusting that God is going to is, you know, really
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trusting God and asking him to be present.
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And other people can get in the way of that.
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So he doesn't say this is a predicate for success.
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Yeah. But he does, I think, say that,
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you know, in a roundabout way you need me to be able to bear
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the emotional weight of life. Yeah.
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And so. Like the, the, The funny thing
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about being a human is like we, we're quite capable creatures in
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certain categories, at least in appearance.
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Like humanities built cities and skyscrapers and microchips and
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all of these things. It feels like, wow, we are
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incredibly amazing. You know, the human brain is
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capable of unbelievable things and yet a lot of those things
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have also caused just tremendous amount of destruction to God's
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world, to other human beings, to whatever.
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So like, I guess the reason I asked the question is the way of
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Jesus allows that level of innovation and capitalizing on
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who God made us as creatures, but in such a way that it is
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actually life giving to the cosmos and life giving to other
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human beings and stuff. And so like, you know, you can
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do a whole lot of good stuff or a lot of fascinating stuff
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without God, but it'll it's soul crushing to yourself and it's
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probably damaging something around you if it's not with him.
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Yeah. And I think that's agreed.
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And I think I think it's possible to be successful.
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I think a lot of the things that we grow to keep that analogy
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would have more fruit if we really partnered with God to do
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that well would be less damaging to us because of the weight of
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them. If we really partnered with God
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to do that well. And even some of our assumptions
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about the way life should work. I think partnership with God
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invites you again to look at them and, and, and, and ask the
11:10
questions in new ways. So our like premise might be,
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and this is very true of man as a, as a statistical observation,
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I should be really successful. Like I should work enough to
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like produce. And that's where I get my value.
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I'm just going to drive it, drive it, drive it.
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And actually, if we were to look at that from God's perspective,
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we would hear him say, well, you are equally valuable as a
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parent. In fact, more so that that is
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actually still your great task as as a parent in a household.
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And you might be providing, but there's still that thing that
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you can't run away from by working more hours, you can't
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ignore. And so when we partner with
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Jesus, there's an invite actually to say that's enough,
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which I don't think is language that the world ever really gives
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us. If you get your identity and how
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much fruit your branch grows, you'll always need more.
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And so I think there's ways that we turn metaphors that Jesus
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uses that are organic and beautiful and carry limitations
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to and nudge them in a direction that allows them just to be
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about success and production. And you look at that, we do that
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with everything. Like, yeah, yeah, you know, we
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take a premise like we drink milk and we milk cows to OK,
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we're going to have one guy that owns 20,000 cows and he's going
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to milk them all in this systemic way that allows
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everyone to get milk in bottles. And I'm not saying none of that
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is is like I'm using the the extreme but was so afraid of
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anything that's slow and old and natural.
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Yeah, so I was chatting with a friend of mine who's like a big,
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he does a lot of research around like ecology and like taking
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care of the Earth and all that sort of thing.
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And he was telling me, I feel like humans try to over all the
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time try to over engineer solutions.
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So like they would build a dam, you know, dam up a river and
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then they would, because the fish weren't able to swim
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upstream to spawn, they build these massive fisheries and
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hatchery spaces to try and like replenish.
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And all those fish are like really unhealthy and they don't
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do well and they're sort of toxic or whatever.
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But, and I don't know the details, I'm, I'm grossly
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misrepresenting this situation. But then they found, so they
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spent millions of dollars like with these hatcheries trying to
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like make sure the river stay healthy with fish.
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And they figured out that the fish, if they just let the
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system go like 1 building the dam was one, one challenge.
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But if they just let it go, the fish figured out new places to
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spawn in different side estuaries and so forth.
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And they were actually just still natural and healthy and
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all these stuff. And so do nothing and God's
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world just sort of functions and adjusts to the system.
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But they over engineered it and they should have just let God's
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creation do its thing. Yeah, the same thing happens
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with planting fields and that sort of thing.
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And. But yeah, we we're growing and
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know structure wise that fields produce better when they're
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given fallow years. Yeah.
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But we find it hard to be a society that could allow for
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fallow years that are in our ideal world, everything should
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just keep producing, and that actually includes human beings
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as well. Yeah.
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Like we value human beings based on how much they produce.
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Which is why I loved your illustration of Sabbath.
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Like maybe talk a little bit about Sabbath.
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Almost functions like a fallow day in the life of a believer.
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Well, well, like Sabbath and Sabbath is designed around that
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way like so. So if you think about like the
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group of people that are given Sabbath concretely in history,
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so Sabbath sketched out in Genesis, there's minimal
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language around it through the patriarchs, through, you know,
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up until Exodus. And then this group of people
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that have lived in slavery, in a society that says you must
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produce bricks, and then takes away the straw and says you must
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now produce straw so you can produce bricks.
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You must produce even when the things aren't there to enable
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you to produce. Find a way that society demands
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that you work every day to produce what you need to
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produce. And so then imagine what it is
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for a group of people to hear to live that world, and then to
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move out of Egypt, this land of production, this land of
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demanding structures, and then to come into a wilderness and to
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1 be given food as a grace thing.
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They're not working for it. It just appears and they go and
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pick it up. And then to be told on the 6th
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they pick up twice as much because on the 7th day you can't
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even go and pick up food that lies on the ground for free.
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That's too much like work for what I have planned for you.
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And then to be given this day that says this day has no
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requirements. I mean, I mean, there's very
16:54
little evidence that, you know, we, I don't know about you.
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I grew up in the culture or on the tail end of the culture that
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was like where you go to church and then you come back and then
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you do more church and in between church and church feels
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like pre church. It's not particularly restful,
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It's not particularly enjoyable. It's a It's an awkward
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experience of. Yeah, yeah.
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Of life. Fun wasn't really a part of
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that. Get in your most uncomfortable
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clothes like as a kid, get in your most uncomfortable clothes
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and whatever you do, don't be happy and excited about the day
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because that's. And keep those.
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Yeah, keep those clothes clean and we'll.
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Talk to it, talk about it afterwards.
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OK later. Keep those clothes, keep those
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clothes clean until you go back to church, all those kind of
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things. There's very little evidence
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that the first people to receive Sabbath had to do a lot of
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Church of their kind on that day.
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There's very little requirements of any kind.
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There's a meal that starts it all off.
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There's gathering, the storytelling, the sitting
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around, but there's there's a bunch of things that are just
18:15
very gracious and slow. And so Sabbath actually is this
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weird thing where the one thing you have to do to do yet to be
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able to do Sabbath is set aside producing as the maximal good.
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So at some point you get to this point, you're like, I could make
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more. I'm going to choose to believe
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that enough is enough. And then whatever I lose on that
18:47
7th day, I'm going to trust God to make up the difference, which
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is actually what he does on the 6th day in that original story.
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On that 6th day, he does produce more.
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And that enables them to go into the Sabbath saying everything's
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good. Now for us, that can be more of
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a of a trust thing, I suppose. But I think to me, the practice
19:05
of Sabbath, it's almost like like an antidote, like it's
19:12
almost like a in the face of war, a strange and peaceful
19:19
thing that that that bizarrely then becomes an act of war upon
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war itself, which is very interesting, you know, I think.
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And so like books like Wayne Mueller to me have always been
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beautiful books as they sketch out what it is to live in the
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landscape of Sabbath, like how in in different ways you can
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switch off. And, and of course, his take on
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it, and he says this early on, is that if you don't take
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Sabbath seriously, then the system itself will find a way to
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enforce you to take Sabbath. Now you know.
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Car accidents become Sabbath, sicknesses become Sabbath,
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gallbladder surgeries become Sabbath, broken branches become
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Sabbath. The thing will find a way to
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make you have to stop and heal. Or be completely broken like it.
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Yeah, sure. Yeah.
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Sometimes they there's healing is after the stop and sometimes
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like cancer and God takes you home kind of like it's yeah,
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your body. You have two options.
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You will rest, yeah, or you will self destruct.
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These are the options. And this is this is one of those
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lines where, you know, God said years ago, take Sabbath
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seriously. It's this holy thing and it's
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sacred and it matters and you need it.
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Like Jesus unpacks that in his language.
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Like God didn't make man for the Sabbath.
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He didn't need a Sabbath and say, I'm going to make a guy
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that really is going to honor this thing and make it happen.
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He made Sabbath for us because he knows we need it.
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And now, you know, however many thousands of years later,
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finally science around rest and stress and all those different
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things has got to a point where it's like, oh, yeah, you really
21:11
need to take time off. It's like, yeah, we kind of knew
21:15
that. Our guy has been talking about
21:17
that for a long time. And so that, you know, that's an
21:20
interesting, interesting to see how the narratives align.
21:27
Yeah, well, yeah, I think it's Sunday's message was just a good
21:34
reminder to me for the same, all the same things like.
21:38
So I think I think that to me, that piece was interesting.
21:41
And then to me, like the relationship piece where I
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suspect there's a whole bunch of us that will put a hand up and
21:48
say, you know, some of these really key relationships, I'm
21:52
really just white knuckling these things.
21:54
I'm really just holding on tight and hoping that they make it
21:57
through. You know what, the small group
21:59
of guys I meet with have been talking a lot about what it
22:03
takes to be an intentional father, especially to boys.
22:08
Like, what is it about like the way that guys are wired and not
22:13
all of us have boys, but those of us that have have kind of
22:16
like entered into this conversation maybe a little
22:19
separately, but recognizing like men make up a huge percentage of
22:23
the people in jail. Like only one in five guys in
22:27
jail had a father figure in his life.
22:29
Like what, what is it that we can do to invest in those
22:33
relationships to raise men and not boys as the modern world
22:38
tends to nudge you towards? And so like, I think, you know,
22:41
that's one relationship, you know, parenting in general,
22:44
absolutely. Marriage, just a relationship
22:47
that can't live without another, another person in the middle of
22:52
it, I think not God in the middle of it.
22:54
Living with a roommate and trying to find what it is to
22:57
bring 2 worlds close enough that you don't kill each other.
23:00
Yeah, grandkids, all these different things.
23:03
The art of intentional prayer seems.
23:07
To be. Seriously.
23:09
Like it is possible to be in relationship with someone
23:14
without God's help, but it's not possible.
23:19
It's not possible to be in life giving healthy relationship
23:24
without serious intention, which usually involves the Spirit of
23:29
God. You know, that's not to say the
23:31
people that don't have that don't have God in their lives
23:34
have no good relationships. It just.
23:36
But if they have a healthy relationship, they're working at
23:39
it. You know what?
23:40
You know what? This this is what I'm convinced
23:41
the Jesus story adds to a relationship.
23:44
It's very hard to find in another narrative.
23:48
The Jesus story adds the possibility that you might work
23:51
really hard at a relationship and the other person doesn't,
23:57
because that's what Jesus did for us.
24:00
Yeah. So there's this idea that we're
24:02
all aware of of like, Oh well, we were enemies, God loved us.
24:06
He continued to work at the thing, continued to find ways to
24:09
rebuild relationships when we have no interest whatsoever.
24:12
And when he looks at us, he knows that in the midst of that,
24:16
in our brokenness, our inability to enter into the relationship,
24:19
we are the ones to be pitied. Like he knows that we're but
24:23
dust. He knows, you know?
24:24
And so we've got this background stories as Jesus follow us that
24:28
enables us to say, you know what?
24:32
The other person may not be trying awfully hard right now.
24:35
There may be some broken narrative in them that's just
24:38
speaking really loud. And they almost feel like
24:41
they've given up. And if you don't have that Jesus
24:45
story, I think at that moment you say, well, if they've given
24:47
up, I'm done too. But the Jesus story enables the
24:52
possibility that not only can you keep working and keep
24:56
trying, but that they desperately need your prayers
25:00
and your understanding because of where they are in their
25:03
story. And I think it's, it's hard to
25:06
find that anywhere else. And so I think you're right.
25:08
I think there are some really great marriages out there
25:10
outside of the, the Christian story.
25:12
But I think one that we've got this beautiful story that we can
25:15
enter into as Jesus followers to, to draw strength from.
25:19
And then we've got the prayer piece, which almost requires a
25:23
saying something like if you're coming to counselling and saying
25:28
our marriage is really struggling.
25:31
The first question might be, are you praying for your spouse
25:34
regularly, ideally every day? And if the answer is no, then
25:39
the first step might be OK. Right now you're not really
25:41
trying like, like that's not something you're entering into.
25:47
Like you're missing the most obvious thing to do to nudge
25:53
your spiritual life forward and to help create a great marriage.
25:58
Now, I'm not saying that's just a, well then everything should
26:02
be fixed if I do that right now. No, that's not it.
26:05
But it does seem that that's the first port of call to say OK,
26:09
I'm going to start doing this. Yeah.
26:11
Yeah. And I think what what happens
26:13
over and over again. I remember actually hearing this
26:17
from a husband of a famous female speaker.
26:21
And he just talked about how, like, great she was on stage.
26:24
You know, she was speaking all over the world.
26:27
And what she said was just incredible.
26:29
People's lives were changed. And he said, but I was married
26:33
to her and she was a nightmare. You know, she said the he said,
26:37
the relationship was so messy. And so I just decided I was
26:41
going to pray regularly, not for her, but for me.
26:46
And he said God changed me before he changed her.
26:50
So he said, like what actually changed first was my ability to
26:54
be patient, my ability to to encourage even when I felt like
26:58
I wasn't being encouraged. The change in Hurricane when I
27:02
changed bizarrely. So there's all sorts of like,
27:05
connections here that just kind of make us say, OK, this is
27:08
something we've got to do Now, again, to go back to that
27:13
original story, the other person still has a responsibility to
27:19
obey God's leading, to grow, to change.
27:23
Yeah, yeah. He doesn't seem to allow us to
27:26
subvert someone else's story to be able to say I'm going to
27:30
determine how they respond to the work of God.
27:33
That's unfortunately not just something he gives us.
27:36
Yeah. But he does still, quite kindly
27:39
I think, transform us in the middle of it.
27:43
Yeah, and just as an aside, like this is probably one of the
27:46
reasons why, you know, the Scriptures at least, like, can't
27:51
get this idea of trying to pursue a partner that is a
27:56
follower of Jesus. Right.
27:58
Because it just at least you know that they're, if they're in
28:02
relationship with Jesus, you know that he's doing work with
28:04
them more directly. And then not that not that he
28:08
can't do work in someone who doesn't follow Jesus.
28:10
He does all the time actually, but but it's a more direct
28:14
they're in conversation with God and then you're in conversation.
28:16
I can't tell you how many times in my marriage it's it's one of
28:19
the most comforting things I have when things are difficult
28:24
to know that my wife is so consistent in her prayer.
28:27
Life. Yeah, yeah.
28:30
Yeah. And so I can, I can go to God
28:31
and say, God, you need to talk to her.
28:34
And she's doing the same thing in the other room about, you
28:37
know, God, you need to talk to him.
28:39
And it's deeply comforting to know that the the goodness of a
28:42
God who loves us so much that he would die for us is interacting
28:46
with both parties involved and drawing us forward in their
28:49
chance. That's so comforting.
28:51
Yeah, I think so. And I and I think, you know,
28:53
that that like when you think about how Paul describes love in
28:57
a marriage, like, I mean, he almost has the audacity to say,
29:03
you know, wives obey your husbands.
29:05
I mean, that's a hard 1 to preach.
29:08
You actually preached it, I think one week intentionally
29:11
when you didn't have to, and then crazy.
29:14
Yeah. And I've preached to the
29:16
weddings, which is, you know, a little whatever as well.
29:21
And then at the same time, husbands love your wives as
29:26
Christ loved you. So like, I mean crucifixion?
29:31
What guy wants to put their hands up to that?
29:34
And. Yet he's saying love to that
29:37
depth. So he he kind of speaks like
29:41
about marriage in these soaring terms, like, oh, it reflects
29:45
Jesus love for the church. And when you get down to that
29:50
like and take it away from the beautiful metaphor and get to
29:54
the the point where you know, he was really saying it's about
29:57
death and your willingness to love someone to the very NTH
30:02
degree. Yeah.
30:06
So there's a really big ask that.
30:08
Yeah, well, it was a good reminder for me and I don't have
30:12
an elegant segue to shift gears to some of the alpha questions,
30:16
so just screeching halt. But if unless you have anything
30:20
else you want to say on Sunday. I think the segue is the main
30:24
conversation you guys were having on Saturday was around
30:27
the Holy Spirit and I think this is like all attached to Jesus
30:31
idea from John 14 onwards, the the Holy Spirit works alongside
30:39
you as a follower of Jesus in every single thing we've been
30:44
talking about. He's the one that helps, you
30:46
know, what is a branch to let go of that's been pruned?
30:51
He's the one that helps you hold the thing that feels like it
30:54
can't be held. You know that The creeds, I
30:57
think it's the nice in Creed refers to the Holy Spirit as the
31:01
Lord, the giver of life. Yeah.
31:06
And so I think that's what he does for us.
31:09
But that's the best segue I could come up.
31:12
Well, that's great. We had a great time on Saturday
31:15
talking about the Holy Spirit and the work, the Spirit in our
31:17
lives. And then after lunch we did this
31:20
Q&A panel and we just received questions.
31:23
You know, I sort of stated it this way.
31:25
If you just have dangling questions after this whole
31:28
course that you feel like we haven't fully addressed, just
31:32
ask those questions. So they came in from all over
31:34
the place, like on not just for the Holy Spirit, but all sorts
31:38
of different topics and we covered, you know, heaven and
31:41
hell and why, you know, are they literal and who goes where and
31:45
why and all those sorts of things.
31:47
We covered all sorts of stuff like that.
31:48
We're not going to be able to cover all of those questions in
31:51
this, but we've talked about those things as the years have
31:53
gone by in the Red Caps Theology podcast.
31:56
So if you do have questions about those kinds of things,
31:59
feel free to resubmit them and we will try and ask them again.
32:03
But there were two questions that we didn't get to just
32:06
because of time. And so I thought you and I could
32:08
address them today. The first one was this.
32:12
Why hasn't there been a revival since the Jesus movement?
32:20
What? Well, I think yes.
32:22
And I think the the answer that I would give is probably the has
32:27
that might be an awareness thing rather than a, you know, like
32:31
working around factual data. I mean, I think if you look at
32:35
the history of the church, there's been multiple ways you
32:39
might argue that there's multiple revivals happening
32:41
right now. Like some people have estimated
32:46
the number of underground Christians in China to exceed
32:49
1/5 of the country. Like like when you're talking
32:52
about it in those terms that that's certainly a revival.
32:55
You know, the, the growth of Christian Christianity in
32:58
Africa, or at least parts of it, Latin and South America, like
33:05
plenty of people would describe those things as revival.
33:08
I mean, a really great example is actually is when you look at
33:11
South Korea versus North Korea and, and look at one nation that
33:17
stayed closed and really, you know, is, is very similar to
33:22
what it was quality of life wise as it was 200 years ago.
33:27
And then you look at South Korea, that became like the
33:31
Gospel Center for a while, like just the huge growth of churches
33:37
and the huge levels of turning to Christianity.
33:40
And it's, you know, this incredibly productive nation
33:43
that's respected all over the world.
33:45
That's like, you know, it seems to have changed dramatically.
33:51
Now, again, if you if you come from more of a Luddite
33:53
perspective, you might be like, Oh, well, you know, are those
33:56
changes good changes? But it seems like there's a
34:01
quality of life change and certainly a earning to Jesus
34:05
equation that is huge in South Korea.
34:08
So, so I think you do see that. Why hasn't there been one in
34:11
America? Might.
34:12
Be that might be more what they're.
34:14
Thinking And you know, I think I think people can point to the
34:16
Great Awakening and say that, you know, that late 18th century
34:21
movement in New England would class as a revival at least on
34:26
par with the early church growth.
34:29
I think they said that the Jesus movement, that might actually be
34:32
a reference to like the specific thing coming out of like the
34:37
Calvary Chapel churches or Vineyard churches and stuff like
34:42
the Jesus people. I don't know if that's what
34:51
they're referring to, but it could be.
34:53
Yeah, yeah. And and and I guess that would
35:00
classes of revival, at least under some definitions of it,
35:03
but there's other things that have claimed to be revival since
35:06
then. Again, you might not like their
35:09
definition, but Brownsville was certainly a environment where
35:14
thousands of people travelled to the same location and
35:18
experienced something Toronto like.
35:22
Again, some of the. Outbreaks.
35:24
Of them might seem odd to us, but there's plenty of people
35:28
that I've met and know that had their lives changed by Jesus in
35:32
those moments, in those experiences.
35:36
Yeah. And so I think there's there's
35:38
like this, this, yeah, this weird definition or revival is a
35:45
word that has so many different definitions to us.
35:50
Yeah. In the 80s, seventies revival
35:55
was a thing you did at church every year when for two awful
35:59
weeks as a kid you did church every single night of the week.
36:04
Yeah. And then some I.
36:08
Have a crying baby in the background.
36:09
So yeah, yeah, yeah. Keep talking about this but I'm
36:11
going to make sure she's OK. Sure, sure.
36:13
Yeah, yeah, yeah. And then some revivals are
36:15
centered around, like around dramatic healings around people
36:20
experiencing God in that way or maybe having an experience of
36:24
God that brings some kind of individual transformation.
36:28
And then there's been times where revivals have been
36:31
centered around like huge numbers of conversions, like
36:36
loads of people turning to faith, like the Hebridean
36:39
revival in Scotland was very much like that.
36:41
So I think it's it's so broad, it's hard to give very specific
36:45
answers. Some people would claim there's
36:46
one going on right now amongst young people in colleges.
36:50
Yeah. And so I think that, yeah, that
36:52
that's. Yeah.
36:54
So I think, I think if we were to try and address this, we'd
36:58
probably need a little bit more specificity from the question
37:01
asker, what kind of rival they had in mind.
37:04
But maybe maybe the question that I would rephrase slightly
37:08
would be, or maybe I'm I'm going to make some assumptions and
37:12
forgive me, whoever asked this question because this was
37:14
genuinely anonymous. I don't know if this assumption
37:18
is fair or not, but maybe there's like this hearing about
37:22
some of the great revivals in the past where there were, it
37:25
felt like unbelievable movements of the spirit of conversions,
37:30
like where entire societies were shifted and like the Great
37:36
Awakening, like, you know, some of these kinds of moments or.
37:40
And I think there's in a sense of like almost excitement and
37:43
emotional delight in seeing that level, a revival.
37:49
I remember when I was in Bible college, my first year in Bible
37:52
college, I prayed for a revival a lot.
37:56
Yeah. And I just asked God for a
37:57
revival. And that's what I meant by it.
37:59
When I prayed for it, it was like, I want to see my
38:03
generation and my my peers just rise up and actually take their
38:07
faith seriously and like reach out and show the love of Jesus
38:11
and see thousands of people come to Jesus.
38:14
All these kinds of things. So much so that we did like 24
38:17
hours of prayer where we're the same group of people in the in
38:22
the room. We stayed up all night long
38:23
praying for revival, all these kind of things in my Bible
38:25
college. And that's what I meant by it.
38:28
How come maybe that feeling is so fleeting and hard to even
38:35
though there have been kind of bubbles of it in different
38:38
places, it doesn't feel as miraculous.
38:42
Yeah, and I and I think, I think you know, that the, the
38:46
atmosphere around you, we know on a, on a, on a spiritual level
38:54
effects what happens. Like Jesus actually talks about
38:57
this, you know, Jesus goes to a place and and I think it's Mark
39:02
says he couldn't do many miracles because of their
39:04
unbelief. Like so Jesus says I went to a
39:08
place and I was limited by the environment I went into.
39:12
And I think, you know, that that does affect how ministry works,
39:20
what ministry looks like. You know, I think the way the
39:23
church is seen by the world, there's a cynicism about
39:27
Christianity, about the church as a whole that changes the
39:31
spiritual environment. I watched this video the other
39:35
day and I, I remember watching it thinking kind of like, man,
39:39
this is how people see the church.
39:41
And it's this video of this guy. Do you know what laughing is?
39:45
It's live action role play is you go out and you dress up and
39:50
you do your thing. You like, you have a character,
39:52
you go and you do like, it's pretend fighting.
39:56
Quite often there's like, yeah, yeah.
39:58
Weapons that are made of foam and stuff.
40:01
And it turns out this interacted with an actual crime where
40:06
someone had been killed and their body had been left in the
40:08
woods. And they're interviewing this
40:11
Lapa who's clearly super into this world.
40:15
And he says, you know, yeah, we found this body and, you know, I
40:19
tried to do a necromancer spell because I'm a necromancer.
40:22
And then my friend tried to do this spell and, you know, that
40:27
didn't work because he didn't have a head.
40:29
And, you know, and then it turns out we we contaminated a crime,
40:33
crime scene because one of the spells required a lot of
40:36
glitter. And so this is this guy telling
40:39
this story about this really serious event in this way that
40:45
shows he's so detached from the world that he's entering into.
40:50
And I was watching him and all the quirks that he brought and
40:54
all the oddness of it and the glitter and like, you know, you
40:58
got this mental image. And I'm like, oh, I think this
41:01
is how people see the church at times.
41:04
You know, they say that they, they they see the church as this
41:07
thing that, like, claims all this stuff happens and works and
41:13
they're like, no, no, no, no, no, no, no way.
41:17
Yeah. Now, like, that might seem like
41:20
an odd example, but again, like, the environment that we live in
41:23
matters. And I think the church, yeah, it
41:27
it takes something to work in that environment.
41:30
And I think this actually ties, I think this ties beautifully
41:33
back into the message you gave Sunday.
41:37
I mean, a lot of the examples you just gave around a revival
41:40
where God's doing just unbelievable movements all
41:44
around the world in different places and maybe less palpable,
41:49
less exciting movements here in the Western context.
41:54
And part of the reason is there is, and a lot of these other
41:58
places there is life is hard enough.
42:01
There's enough war tornness, there's enough tension that the
42:04
people in those contexts know their need.
42:08
They need the vine, they need God.
42:12
And so when God, when the gospel shared with them and they're
42:15
like, Oh, the God of the universe, the crate of all
42:18
things is willing to interact with me and provide me support,
42:22
It's like revival breaks out. Whereas one of the biggest
42:26
limitations to revival in the West in the in American context
42:30
or whatever is that we don't think we need him.
42:34
And even Christians, even myself, I struggle to like, I
42:38
just get up and I do my routines and I think I there, there's,
42:42
there's times where I can go weeks where I'm like, just my
42:46
regular rhythms feel sufficient to me.
42:48
Yeah, yeah. And it's, it's usually, it's
42:50
usually when I start getting really unhealthy, when some of
42:53
my closer friends or my spouse says something's not going well.
42:57
And I'm like, Oh yeah, shoot, I really need God because I'm
43:01
damaging my kids or my marriage or my colleagues or whatever.
43:05
And I have to start when I start having to apologize a whole
43:08
bunch. What is when I realized I've
43:09
been living on my own and that's not an environment where revival
43:14
happens. Well, it revival tends to happen
43:16
where where we need we, we have 15 minutes left.
43:19
There's one more question. Sounds like it's going to be
43:22
fun. Can we do it all right?
43:25
Last question is I've struggled to understand the parable of the
43:28
talents. What was Jesus trying to teach
43:31
us? Also, how can I be sure I'm
43:35
saved? Is faith enough or good works
43:38
too? Yeah, that.
43:41
So those are two very different questions.
43:44
Yes, but it's all wrapped up in one questioner.
43:48
The parable of the talents, like is one of those parables that
43:51
you can find multiple interpretations.
43:55
You know, if you went to the South American context where the
43:58
liberation theology crowd have really like noticed some of the
44:02
stuff about the gospel in an environment of poverty in their
44:08
reading, the vineyard owner's the bad guy.
44:11
Oh, sorry, the, the, the, the investor's the bad guy.
44:15
He's like, you know, he always wants production.
44:17
He's never happy just to get back what he invested.
44:20
Like it's always like this thing of like, no, you should have
44:23
done more. You should have done more, you
44:24
should have done more. So they would say, Oh no, it's a
44:27
warning about reading God in those terms.
44:35
It's it's also because of our weird English word play on
44:39
talent. Possible to read it around what
44:42
you do with what you were given. Like the the idea that you know,
44:47
he is given much to work with and and you could pick
44:51
everything from good looks to intelligence to charisma to
44:55
whatever is required to do more with it.
44:58
He's he's given the right social setting.
45:00
He's given this needs to do more with it.
45:03
And then, of course, talent really means money.
45:06
And so it can easily be about what you do with the the
45:11
resources God has given you on a fiscal level and what you do
45:16
with those. And so yeah, take your pick in
45:18
some ways. Well, I, you know, think my vote
45:25
for an interpretation is maybe a little bit close to those
45:31
liberation theologians, but not quite.
45:33
OK. I think I think Jesus is playing
45:36
into the expected interpretation of what God is like.
45:41
Yeah. They, they expect God to behave
45:45
like this character, this owner. And so he says, fine, I'm going
45:54
to, I'm going to put on that character in this parable.
45:58
I'm let God put on that character and then show you how
46:02
you're still grossly failing in this area.
46:07
And then, but the context hints that that it also isn't how God
46:11
behaves. But if it were, this is the
46:15
outcome that should happen, but it isn't.
46:18
And the same outcome of generosity should be come
46:22
because the the his characters actually.
46:25
Well, I think. Much kinder than that, which
46:28
without going line by line and doing some exegesis and stuff,
46:31
it's hard to to describe how that works.
46:34
But I I do think God's trying to mess with his audience a little.
46:38
Bit yeah, Jesus is. Trying to mess with him.
46:40
And I've actually preached it that way as well before that the
46:45
the the real turning point of the of the the parable is when
46:50
the the one man says, I knew you were a hard man reaping way you
46:54
did not solve. And so does does this like
46:58
language of like, well, yeah, if you think God is like that, that
47:01
that might be the God you experience.
47:03
And so there is this like, yeah, language on it.
47:05
It's actually about what they believe about God, not what they
47:08
did. Yeah.
47:10
That that is the central point. And so he's the one that doesn't
47:15
see God as the other two characters do, who see God as
47:19
good and can invest what is they're given without fear that
47:25
they will lose out. And so, yes, I think that, yeah,
47:28
it's a really good interpretation.
47:31
Yeah. What about that second part of
47:32
the question? There's a lot of fear it's I'm
47:37
sensing in the question. Yeah, I think there's definitely
47:39
fear there. And I if I was a good
47:43
Pentecostal, I'd do what good Pentecostals do, which is to
47:48
create another altar call where the person comes out.
47:52
And the promise will be this time you're going to know that
47:55
you know that. You know, I actually think This
47:59
is why I love inviting people to translate the word believe as
48:08
trust, because believe feels like a thing that we're trying
48:14
desperately to do. We're trying to make something
48:16
happen. And you can certainly try and
48:18
turn trust into that as well. But actually, trust is handing
48:25
the responsibility off, so it's giving it to somebody else.
48:32
So trust is really me saying to God, God, I believe you did
48:37
something for me. Everything about your story
48:40
tells me you were trying to make it so that I can be with you.
48:43
And we don't have time to sketch out what that being with him
48:46
looks like. But yeah, sure, like eternal
48:50
life with Jesus. You did the work.
48:56
I'm going to leave that to you. That's not about what I do.
49:00
That's about what you do. And I just am convinced we
49:04
really easily make it a first person thing, not a third person
49:09
thing. And I've talked about this
49:10
probably on the podcast before as well.
49:12
Like that first person is like, well, I believe you should let
49:16
me in. Like I do the good works as well
49:19
or any of those right concoctions.
49:22
I went down to the right altar call.
49:24
I prayed the right prayer. I did all of those things and
49:27
they're still all first person stories, no different to I kept
49:31
the 10 commandments or I did this or I did that.
49:34
And the real answer to the gospel is a third person story,
49:39
which is really why do I know that one day I'll get to spend
49:45
eternity with Jesus because Jesus did this.
49:49
Yeah. And I think security and belief
49:53
only comes from that third person story that has the
49:56
responsibility to him. Yeah, I think, I think there's
50:05
times where it feels like it's more comforting if I get to work
50:10
for it a little. Definitely.
50:13
Because if I, if I could point to a thing I did successfully,
50:17
like I didn't sin for from this time to this time, at least not
50:21
in the areas that I'm tracking, like this list of sins that I'm
50:26
aware of. I, I've tracked them for a month
50:29
and I didn't sin. Now I feel like the love of God
50:33
starts to get more justified in my life.
50:37
And I was weirdly, we'd almost rather have that than
50:41
unconditional love that says I love you prior to that
50:46
initiative. And what is it about us as as
50:52
creatures or as broken people that want to earn love?
50:56
Like it's almost preferable to earn love sometimes.
50:59
Yeah, yeah, I think you're right.
51:01
And fast. Like even even guilt can work
51:06
that way. Yeah, like at least I'm guilty
51:09
enough. At least I feel guilty.
51:12
Like at least that means that I must be somewhere on the right
51:14
track. And you might feel miserable,
51:18
but at least you feel good about feeling miserable.
51:21
Yeah. And so, yeah, I think we are
51:24
wired to feel like we've done something and then we're very
51:28
like, I think we're also wired to be check box people.
51:35
So we like to know we've checked the right box.
51:38
Yeah. Yeah.
51:39
So, you know, we, we go and we even with with mundane tasks,
51:44
it's very hard for us to just hand them off to people and
51:47
trust that the thing got done. But what did you do the thing?
51:52
Did you make the phone call I asked you to make?
51:53
Like, did you, did you post the letter?
51:55
Did you do the whatever? Like just getting to a point of
51:58
saying, well, like I left it with this person.
52:01
It's their responsibility. Now is is actually really hard
52:07
for for us. And I, I think Paul, as he
52:10
writes about it, he's just a big fan of saying like, you know,
52:15
it's really about the son of God who loved me and gave himself
52:17
for me. And I have all the evidence in
52:20
that work he did that he must really love me to do those kind
52:24
of things for me. Yeah.
52:27
And so like, seems like he's taking care of it, Yeah.
52:32
And so having some more faith in, like choosing to trust more
52:37
in what God is doing than what you are doing, and then what God
52:40
has done rather than what you've done feels like an important
52:44
step for this person. Yeah.
52:46
And I think we actually talked about this in Alpha this this
52:50
last night, which we didn't cover any questions on that
52:53
topic, but that's OK. But we talked about God's plan
52:58
for the world. God.
53:00
God has an agenda for humanity, and it's not to get us to be
53:03
good. Yeah.
53:06
It's to be with us, yes, so and and I think that that's where
53:10
some of the breakdown is like I think we get this idea that
53:13
God's primary goal for humans is that we would just be good like
53:19
don't do this, do this. You guys are infuriating to that
53:23
because you won't behave and that's not his agenda.
53:28
His agenda is to be with his creation and be with his people.
53:33
And he knows that all of those sins are preventing us from
53:39
wanting to be with him, preventing us from engaging with
53:42
him in such a way that's healthy, preventing us from
53:46
thriving. And so then if you, if you think
53:48
about it that way, are you saved?
53:51
Well, if you, if you're measuring your success by am I
53:57
doing all the right things? Again, That's not his agenda.
54:01
Yeah. Like, yes, he wants you to grow
54:03
out of these sins because he's they're damaging to you and
54:06
they're not helping you live the, the life that he designed
54:09
you for. Like, that's not his main goal
54:11
anyway. So weirdly, I've had this.
54:14
I remember when I was pretty young in faith, a wiser mentor
54:19
recommended something and I'll just, I'll just even give it
54:22
some specificity around battle with purity and like I like
54:26
pornography or something. He's like, step one is to be OK
54:31
being in the presence of God in the midst of sin.
54:34
Like weird. Like to just say God, I'm.
54:37
I'm struggling right now. Yeah.
54:38
Yeah, yeah. And I, I don't want, I'm like, I
54:41
don't know why there's so much pressure to be in the sin place,
54:44
but like, that's the level of relationship God wants with you.
54:46
He wants to be with you in the struggle of life, guiding you
54:50
out of it because he wants to be with you.
54:53
He's not up there just being like, Oh my gosh, these
54:55
ridiculous people. I just can't get them to do the
54:58
right tasks that I wanted them to do.
55:01
And, and I think there's definitely this theology lurking
55:04
in Paul and in the Gospels where Jesus work makes it possible for
55:09
him to be around sinful people. Yeah, because it's not about
55:13
them. And you know, that their, their
55:16
righteousness, to use that language comes from some other
55:19
source. And so I love taking people back
55:22
to the that Genesis story where Adam and Eve are hiding and God
55:28
comes walking through and and says, where are you?
55:31
And I think I just meet a lot of people that hear that as like,
55:37
where are you? Like you're going to get it,
55:39
Like you. And I actually hear it as oh
55:44
man, where are you you? I really miss you.
55:48
Yeah, like I was excited to spend time with you this.
55:50
Evening and and Jesus work then makes it possible for him to not
55:55
remove us from the garden. Jesus work makes it possible for
56:00
for us to stay even when we're at our most broken.
56:03
So that's that's the good news. Yeah, all right.
56:08
Well, on that note, I've made made Clara wait this whole time
56:12
she made a few cameos. Where'd it go, Clara?
56:15
But I hope that's comforting to whoever wrote that question.
56:17
And thank you all for tuning into the show.
56:19
Hopefully this works sort of OK and recorded.
56:23
If not, we should, God willing, be back in the studio next week
56:30
and receiving your questions there.
56:33
Love it. Any final thoughts, Alex?
56:35
No. All right.
56:37
Well, we'll see you all next time.
56:40
Thanks for tuning. In bye.