Latest / Deep-Grace Diving with Tim Wright and Terey Summers / Episode #1: Whatever Happened to Amazing Grace?

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Episode #1: Whatever Happened to Amazing Grace? · Deep-Grace Diving with Tim Wright and Terey Summers

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_00: Hey everyone,
• 0:01
  SPEAKER_00: my name is Tim Wright and I am here along with my good friend Terry Summers and
• 0:05
  SPEAKER_00: this is our very first episode of the Deep Grace Diving Podcast with Tim Wright and
• 0:12
  SPEAKER_00: Terry Summers,
• 0:12
  SPEAKER_00: so it'd be good that it's Tim Wright and Terry Summers here with you.
• 0:16
  SPEAKER_00: And for those of you who maybe aren't yet aware,
• 0:20
  SPEAKER_00: this is growing out of a Substack writing that I do called Reckless Grace.
• 0:27
  SPEAKER_00: And it's recklessgrace.substack.com.
• 0:30
  SPEAKER_00: And so if you want kind of some writing stuff to go along with what we're going to
• 0:34
  SPEAKER_00: talk about in this podcast,
• 0:35
  SPEAKER_00: I encourage you to head on over there.
• 0:38
  SPEAKER_00: Terry and I have been friends for a long, long time.
• 0:41
  SPEAKER_00: We've worked together in ministry for a long, long time.
• 0:44
  SPEAKER_00: And we've wanted to do something together.
• 0:47
  SPEAKER_00: And this kind of is it.
• 0:50
  SPEAKER_00: We're both really passionate about this topic for a lot of reasons.
• 0:54
  SPEAKER_00: And Terry, first of all, I'll let you say hi to everybody.
• 0:56
  SPEAKER_01: Hello, everybody.
• 0:58
  SPEAKER_01: I'm honored to be here with you, Tim, as you know.
• 1:01
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 1:03
  SPEAKER_00: So Terry, for every good podcast needs some sort of musical opening.
• 1:10
  SPEAKER_00: So I want to give you and our audience a couple of choices.
• 1:12
  SPEAKER_00: Now this first one here, this is pretty subtle.
• 1:15
  SPEAKER_00: So I want to see if you can figure this out.
• 1:16
  SPEAKER_00: All right.
• 1:16
  SPEAKER_00: This is subtle.
• 1:20
  Okay.
• 1:26
  SPEAKER_00: You got it.
• 1:27
  SPEAKER_00: Got to guess.
• 1:29
  SPEAKER_02: I don't.
• 1:30
  SPEAKER_02: Is it Morse code?
• 1:31
  SPEAKER_00: It's Morse code.
• 1:32
  SPEAKER_00: It's grace in Morse code.
• 1:34
  SPEAKER_02: For real?
• 1:35
  SPEAKER_00: For real.
• 1:36
  SPEAKER_00: Yep.
• 1:38
  SPEAKER_00: Yep.
• 1:39
  SPEAKER_00: I stole the idea from one of my absolute favorite British mysteries.
• 1:42
  SPEAKER_00: It's called inspector Morse and their theme song uses Morse in, in Morse code.
• 1:49
  SPEAKER_01: Oh my gosh.
• 1:50
  SPEAKER_01: I love it.
• 1:51
  SPEAKER_00: So here's the other one.
• 1:52
  SPEAKER_00: This is, this is a bit more probably your, your style.
• 2:03
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 2:03
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 2:04
  SPEAKER_02: From my hard rock days.
• 2:05
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 2:06
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 2:07
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 2:07
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, you grew up on the hard stuff.
• 2:09
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 2:10
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 2:13
  SPEAKER_00: So, so I've got some other options.
• 2:15
  SPEAKER_00: We'll maybe go through those the next few weeks, but, but so we'll start with the rock and roll.
• 2:19
  SPEAKER_00: All right.
• 2:19
  SPEAKER_00: So let's start from the beginning.
• 2:21
  SPEAKER_00: So here we go.
• 2:28
  SPEAKER_00: You are listening live to the Deep Grace Diving Podcast with Tim Wright and Terry Summers.
• 2:34
  SPEAKER_00: And Terry Summers.
• 2:36
  SPEAKER_00: All righty.
• 2:38
  SPEAKER_00: So, Terry, let me start out.
• 2:39
  SPEAKER_00: I want to read a story for you.
• 2:40
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 2:41
  SPEAKER_00: That when I read this, I was really deeply moved by it.
• 2:46
  SPEAKER_00: And I shared it with my congregation a couple times.
• 2:50
  SPEAKER_00: And I want to read it.
• 2:51
  SPEAKER_00: This is sort of set the stage for what this podcast is about.
• 2:54
  SPEAKER_00: Our topic today, Whatever Happened to Amazing Grace?
• 2:57
  SPEAKER_00: This is from a book called Curveball.
• 2:59
  SPEAKER_00: It's written by a theologian named Peter Enns.
• 3:02
  SPEAKER_00: I'm a big fan of his.
• 3:04
  SPEAKER_00: And here's the story.
• 3:05
  SPEAKER_00: I'm going to read for you a quote.
• 3:07
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 3:08
  SPEAKER_00: When one of my teenage children was in recovery from anxiety and depression,
• 3:12
  SPEAKER_00: she was very self-critical and felt that her continued struggles were due to some
• 3:17
  SPEAKER_00: defect that made her unworthy of love,
• 3:20
  SPEAKER_00: especially her own.
• 3:22
  SPEAKER_00: Her mentor, a therapist in his 50s and not himself a Christian, at least not as far as I could tell,
• 3:28
  SPEAKER_00: stopped her short and asked, you believe in God, right?
• 3:32
  SPEAKER_00: Don't you know that you are of unconditional worth?
• 3:37
  SPEAKER_00: That was an expression of love that let my daughter see God differently.
• 3:41
  SPEAKER_00: It also almost instantly cleared away a lot of the perfectionistic,
• 3:46
  SPEAKER_00: God is disappointed in you if you have bad doctrine,
• 3:49
  SPEAKER_00: internal rhetoric that had enmeshed itself in my own heart and soul,
• 3:54
  SPEAKER_00: instead to see god as someone who is not out to get me what a crazy idea who'd have
• 4:00
  SPEAKER_00: thought and then another thought entered my mind that day some 15 years ago i'm 47
• 4:07
  SPEAKER_00: years old why am i hearing this now for the first time in fact why i have why have
• 4:14
  SPEAKER_00: i never heard this in a sermon or anywhere in church
• 4:19
  SPEAKER_00: And instead was fed a diet of why we are right,
• 4:21
  SPEAKER_00: the people out there are wrong,
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  SPEAKER_00: and let's make sure we keep it that way.
• 4:26
  SPEAKER_00: This just broke my heart.
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  SPEAKER_00: And I thought nobody should ever leave a Christian worship service without hearing
• 4:35
  SPEAKER_00: loudly and clearly that God loves them.
• 4:37
  SPEAKER_01: Wow.
• 4:39
  SPEAKER_00: And no human being should ever have to go through life without hearing that God
• 4:43
  SPEAKER_00: loves them,
• 4:44
  SPEAKER_00: that God is for them.
• 4:50
  SPEAKER_02: that in a very similar way has choked me up.
• 4:53
  SPEAKER_02: And I,
• 4:53
  SPEAKER_02: I'm,
• 4:54
  SPEAKER_02: I'm immediately flashing back to what felt like a loving rearing that I'm super
• 5:01
  SPEAKER_02: grateful for,
• 5:01
  SPEAKER_02: um,
• 5:03
  SPEAKER_02: in a,
• 5:03
  SPEAKER_02: in a conservative Christian home.
• 5:05
  SPEAKER_02: Um, and, uh,
• 5:09
  SPEAKER_02: And I'm not,
• 5:10
  SPEAKER_02: I mean,
• 5:10
  SPEAKER_02: I know this is our first episode,
• 5:12
  SPEAKER_02: but I need to say this to you,
• 5:13
  SPEAKER_02: and I have on other occasions,
• 5:15
  SPEAKER_02: that it wasn't until I met you and started working for you in a creative realm and
• 5:24
  SPEAKER_02: attending your church that I heard those things.
• 5:28
  SPEAKER_02: And I remember feeling very separated from...
• 5:33
  SPEAKER_02: my faith and it freaked me out because it's not like I thought anyone lied to me,
• 5:41
  SPEAKER_02: but by omission,
• 5:43
  SPEAKER_02: maybe I,
• 5:46
  SPEAKER_02: and I,
• 5:47
  SPEAKER_02: I,
• 5:48
  SPEAKER_02: I gratefully,
• 5:49
  SPEAKER_02: I,
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  SPEAKER_02: I didn't see God in the manners that some do where they are challenged with
• 5:59
  SPEAKER_02: with buying into he's a loving God.
• 6:01
  SPEAKER_02: I don't believe I necessarily struggled in that kind of way,
• 6:05
  SPEAKER_02: but where it left me,
• 6:07
  SPEAKER_02: there was just a blank ending that I was surviving with in my faith until I heard
• 6:14
  SPEAKER_02: you say those things.
• 6:16
  SPEAKER_02: and i asked the same question that your author did that you just read from why am i
• 6:24
  SPEAKER_02: and i was i was in my 20s but why am i just hearing this when i was really
• 6:32
  SPEAKER_02: entrenched in a christian environment um baptist um by denominational affiliation
• 6:38
  SPEAKER_02: but
• 6:39
  SPEAKER_02: Wow, I resonate in so many ways with that reaction that you had and also the reaction of the author.
• 6:48
  SPEAKER_02: How about you?
• 6:50
  SPEAKER_02: Your grace experience is different than mine.
• 6:52
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, so my experience is different, although we share a lot of similarities.
• 6:59
  SPEAKER_00: I grew up in a Lutheran home and Lutherans theologically hang their hat on grace.
• 7:07
  SPEAKER_00: And let me just say as an aside,
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  SPEAKER_00: What makes Christianity different from every other religion and ideology is this
• 7:15
  SPEAKER_00: concept of grace,
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  SPEAKER_00: this unconditional,
• 7:18
  SPEAKER_00: lavish,
• 7:19
  SPEAKER_00: relentless grace of God that is freely offered to everyone.
• 7:24
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 7:26
  SPEAKER_00: And yet we hear so little of it, as your story suggests, the story I just read.
• 7:31
  SPEAKER_00: If you were to ask anybody on the street, Christian or non-Christian, what's the essence of Christianity?
• 7:37
  SPEAKER_00: Grace probably wouldn't be the first word you would hear.
• 7:40
  SPEAKER_00: You might hear anger, you might hear judgment, condemnation, fear, whatever.
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  SPEAKER_00: So I grew up in a Lutheran home,
• 7:47
  SPEAKER_00: which,
• 7:49
  SPEAKER_00: you know,
• 7:50
  SPEAKER_00: Lutherans,
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  SPEAKER_00: I think,
• 7:51
  SPEAKER_00: have really been able to articulate this grace well.
• 7:55
  SPEAKER_00: But my Lutheran upbringing was shaped by a lot of more conservative evangelical concepts and language.
• 8:05
  SPEAKER_00: And part of that...
• 8:08
  SPEAKER_00: is because I was raised in a Lutheran setting where my grandfather was a preacher,
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  SPEAKER_00: a pastor,
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  SPEAKER_00: and he believed his mission,
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  SPEAKER_00: rightfully so,
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  SPEAKER_00: was to help Lutherans really come to what he called an assurance of faith.
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  SPEAKER_00: Because he had worked so long with Lutherans who, if you ask them, do you know God loves you?
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  SPEAKER_00: They didn't really know.
• 8:34
  SPEAKER_00: And so he wanted to bring an assurance of faith.
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  SPEAKER_00: And so that,
• 8:38
  SPEAKER_00: for the kind of preaching that he did,
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  SPEAKER_00: it oftentimes looked like a Baptist service where there would be altar calls and
• 8:45
  SPEAKER_00: stuff that Lutherans don't do.
• 8:47
  SPEAKER_00: The other thing that led to a more conservative mindset was I was raised in 70s,
• 8:53
  SPEAKER_00: 80s Christian music,
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  SPEAKER_00: actually starting in the late 60s,
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  SPEAKER_00: the Jesus movement and Jesus music movement.
• 9:00
  SPEAKER_00: And I just read this great book recently, God Gave Rock and Roll to You,
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  SPEAKER_00: and it's written about the theological...
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  SPEAKER_00: underpinnings of the contemporary Christian music movement,
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  SPEAKER_00: which is mainly Baptist and Pentecostal charismatic,
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  SPEAKER_00: which has a certain theological bent to it.
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  SPEAKER_00: And this author teases out a lot of the things.
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  SPEAKER_00: It was about holiness code,
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  SPEAKER_00: the purity movement,
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  SPEAKER_00: all of these things that were wrapped into this musical scene,
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  SPEAKER_00: which can tend not to have a lot of grace to it.
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  SPEAKER_00: And so that was sort of my growing up years.
• 9:43
  SPEAKER_00: And so as a Lutheran,
• 9:46
  SPEAKER_00: a young Lutheran pastor,
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  SPEAKER_00: 40 some years ago,
• 9:50
  SPEAKER_00: a lot of my sermons,
• 9:51
  SPEAKER_00: especially,
• 9:52
  SPEAKER_00: you know,
• 9:52
  SPEAKER_00: being at the church we were at where we were reaching a lot of people who'd never
• 9:55
  SPEAKER_00: been to church before.
• 9:56
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 9:58
  SPEAKER_00: There was a need to sort of invite people to Jesus.
• 10:02
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 10:04
  SPEAKER_00: But as I continued on in ministry and kept studying the Bible and studying the
• 10:10
  SPEAKER_00: theologians and really digging into grace,
• 10:15
  SPEAKER_00: uh,
• 10:16
  SPEAKER_00: I discovered it was far more expansive than I could ever have imagined.
• 10:21
  SPEAKER_00: And every time I went a little deeper, it just sort of changed everything.
• 10:27
  SPEAKER_00: Um,
• 10:28
  SPEAKER_00: and,
• 10:29
  SPEAKER_00: uh,
• 10:29
  SPEAKER_00: uh,
• 10:29
  SPEAKER_00: you know,
• 10:30
  SPEAKER_00: it's,
• 10:30
  SPEAKER_00: it starts to impact your view of,
• 10:33
  SPEAKER_00: for me,
• 10:34
  SPEAKER_00: things like hell,
• 10:35
  SPEAKER_00: uh,
• 10:36
  SPEAKER_00: how does salvation work?
• 10:38
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and,
• 10:39
  SPEAKER_00: And are their powers greater than God's grace?
• 10:43
  SPEAKER_00: Does hell win?
• 10:44
  SPEAKER_00: It sure sounds like it in a lot of Christian theologies we get, right?
• 10:50
  SPEAKER_00: If you don't make the right decision, hell wins.
• 10:53
  SPEAKER_00: So hell's stronger than God.
• 10:56
  SPEAKER_00: And so I just found myself drawn deeper and deeper and deeper into this love and grace.
• 11:05
  SPEAKER_00: And for a guy who is a firstborn,
• 11:09
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 11:10
  SPEAKER_00: We're perfectionistic.
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  SPEAKER_00: That was a lot of what shaped my early years as a Christian.
• 11:15
  SPEAKER_00: Am I doing it right?
• 11:16
  SPEAKER_00: And if I failed, okay, God, give me a week to make it back up to you.
• 11:20
  SPEAKER_00: All of that kind of stuff.
• 11:21
  SPEAKER_02: Right, right.
• 11:23
  SPEAKER_00: I was the stereotypical older brother from the father and the prodigal son.
• 11:27
  SPEAKER_00: I was the older brother.
• 11:28
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah.
• 11:29
  SPEAKER_00: So grace didn't come easily for me and doesn't come easily for me.
• 11:33
  SPEAKER_02: Interesting.
• 11:34
  SPEAKER_00: And so I think that's why I'm so drawn to it is because it is so radical for a guy
• 11:40
  SPEAKER_00: who believes he can save himself.
• 11:42
  SPEAKER_02: And that was one of the things that I wanted to ask you,
• 11:45
  SPEAKER_02: and I thought I would save it for this episode,
• 11:47
  SPEAKER_02: is what are you,
• 11:49
  SPEAKER_02: and this is your idea,
• 11:52
  SPEAKER_02: and I meant it sincerely.
• 11:54
  SPEAKER_02: I'm so grateful you brought me along.
• 11:57
  SPEAKER_02: I do have such a fondness for you and a respect because of the impact that your
• 12:02
  SPEAKER_02: ministry has had on my life.
• 12:03
  SPEAKER_02: That being said,
• 12:04
  SPEAKER_02: I would love to hear the link on what it is that you would like to see come from
• 12:11
  SPEAKER_02: this podcast.
• 12:12
  SPEAKER_02: And as its importance has played out in your life,
• 12:17
  SPEAKER_02: what might you anticipate from someone listening in right now?
• 12:21
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 12:22
  SPEAKER_00: First thing I would say is this.
• 12:24
  SPEAKER_00: I want to make sure that once people have listened to every single podcast,
• 12:30
  SPEAKER_00: they have heard loudly and clearly that God loves them and that God is for them.
• 12:33
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 12:35
  SPEAKER_00: And to kind of like the process the two of us have been through.
• 12:39
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 12:40
  SPEAKER_00: Let that grace sort of begin to remove the calluses of perfectionism,
• 12:51
  SPEAKER_00: trying to be good enough,
• 12:52
  SPEAKER_00: earning God's love.
• 12:54
  SPEAKER_00: All of these theologies that says that God is angry at us.
• 12:57
  SPEAKER_00: We've got to make certain behavioral decisions.
• 13:00
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 13:02
  SPEAKER_00: And I know that this has been at least a 40-year journey for me, actually 66 years.
• 13:06
  SPEAKER_00: But I'll give myself a little credit that I thought more about it the last 40 years maybe.
• 13:14
  SPEAKER_00: So I don't expect that within one podcast, everybody's going to have this big light bulb moment.
• 13:19
  SPEAKER_00: But I do hope that they have little moments along the way where, wow, God just loves me?
• 13:25
  SPEAKER_01: That's it?
• 13:26
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 13:29
  SPEAKER_00: And it's so simple, but it's so radical and transformative.
• 13:34
  SPEAKER_00: I just think if Christian people lived like God loved them, the world would be very different today.
• 13:40
  SPEAKER_02: Wow.
• 13:40
  SPEAKER_02: Right?
• 13:41
  SPEAKER_00: Instead, we live like God's angry at everybody, and we've got to go convert them.
• 13:46
  SPEAKER_02: Right.
• 13:46
  SPEAKER_02: And, you know, I...
• 13:50
  SPEAKER_02: as I'm listening to you,
• 13:52
  SPEAKER_02: so I have this,
• 13:53
  SPEAKER_02: this platform of history of,
• 13:56
  SPEAKER_02: um,
• 13:57
  SPEAKER_02: of other than grace,
• 14:00
  SPEAKER_02: uh,
• 14:00
  SPEAKER_02: influences the other than the,
• 14:02
  SPEAKER_02: the,
• 14:02
  SPEAKER_02: uh,
• 14:04
  SPEAKER_02: um,
• 14:05
  SPEAKER_02: law and,
• 14:07
  SPEAKER_02: and,
• 14:07
  SPEAKER_02: and,
• 14:08
  SPEAKER_02: um,
• 14:09
  SPEAKER_02: the balancing out.
• 14:11
  SPEAKER_02: It always feels like it never really balanced out even in their,
• 14:15
  SPEAKER_02: in,
• 14:16
  SPEAKER_02: I mean,
• 14:16
  SPEAKER_02: their favor referring to my past.
• 14:18
  SPEAKER_02: But we had this gentleman come into our home two days ago that was brought along
• 14:27
  SPEAKER_02: with a handyman that was putting up some shelves and what have you.
• 14:32
  SPEAKER_02: And he knew us through that handyman or was meeting us through that handyman.
• 14:37
  SPEAKER_02: And the handyman is somebody that we know in our circles of friends that are Jesus lovers and followers.
• 14:44
  SPEAKER_02: But he...
• 14:48
  SPEAKER_02: opened up like in a crazy manner and immediately i thought about this podcast
• 14:54
  SPEAKER_02: because he was almost a little angry like like saying um that's not a god of love
• 15:03
  SPEAKER_02: that's not a you know like he was saying exactly what what you've just said and i
• 15:08
  SPEAKER_02: was sitting there in my like in my living room thinking oh my goodness who else
• 15:16
  SPEAKER_02: is right now needing to hear this.
• 15:19
  SPEAKER_02: And when I say needing to, I didn't know that I needed to, but once I heard it, I knew I needed it.
• 15:25
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 15:26
  SPEAKER_02: And
• 15:29
  SPEAKER_02: I mean,
• 15:29
  SPEAKER_02: there's a mission that we can look at and take on with this podcast,
• 15:33
  SPEAKER_02: but I even feel like sitting back from that.
• 15:36
  SPEAKER_02: I am too a firstborn.
• 15:37
  SPEAKER_02: I think you and I share a lot of similarities that way and that getting things right.
• 15:44
  SPEAKER_02: And all these years,
• 15:46
  SPEAKER_02: I have sensed that weight on my shoulders,
• 15:49
  SPEAKER_02: even though I struggle sometimes letting go of some of those do's and don'ts.
• 15:55
  SPEAKER_02: And I wonder why it's so hard for us.
• 15:59
  SPEAKER_02: Us being under the umbrella of believers, Christ followers, to embrace grace.
• 16:08
  SPEAKER_02: Like,
• 16:08
  SPEAKER_02: I feel like I'm still sort of clenching behind my back,
• 16:12
  SPEAKER_02: the tether,
• 16:13
  SPEAKER_02: to a lot of other things,
• 16:14
  SPEAKER_02: just in case.
• 16:15
  SPEAKER_02: You know?
• 16:15
  SPEAKER_02: Do you get me?
• 16:17
  SPEAKER_00: I do.
• 16:17
  SPEAKER_00: And, you know, when you think about the history of humanity and their gods and religions...
• 16:28
  SPEAKER_00: Every single religion,
• 16:30
  SPEAKER_00: every single religious system,
• 16:32
  SPEAKER_00: every single political system,
• 16:34
  SPEAKER_00: every single ideology,
• 16:35
  SPEAKER_00: every single one of them puts the onus on the human beings and what we need to do
• 16:43
  SPEAKER_00: to get the gods to love us,
• 16:45
  SPEAKER_00: to get the gods to do what we want to do,
• 16:47
  SPEAKER_00: whether it was,
• 16:47
  SPEAKER_00: you know,
• 16:47
  SPEAKER_00: in ancient times,
• 16:48
  SPEAKER_00: it was making sacrifices.
• 16:51
  SPEAKER_00: And the grass sacrifice, that worked for a while, but now it doesn't work anymore.
• 16:55
  SPEAKER_00: So now I'm going to do an animal and then that doesn't work.
• 16:57
  SPEAKER_00: So now I'm going to do my kid.
• 17:00
  SPEAKER_00: We always have this natural tendency as human beings to think we've got to do something.
• 17:06
  SPEAKER_00: And that's why the message of Christianity is so radical and so hard for people to
• 17:13
  SPEAKER_00: get their brains around because everything around us says we have to earn it.
• 17:18
  SPEAKER_00: We've got to be good enough.
• 17:20
  SPEAKER_00: And along comes this message of Christianity.
• 17:22
  SPEAKER_00: He said, nope, nope, God's taking care of it.
• 17:24
  SPEAKER_00: It's not about your behavior.
• 17:25
  SPEAKER_00: It's about God's behavior.
• 17:27
  SPEAKER_00: And God is a God who goes to the cross for you in the person of Jesus.
• 17:31
  SPEAKER_00: So just sit back and enjoy it.
• 17:33
  SPEAKER_00: Well, we just can't get our brain.
• 17:36
  SPEAKER_00: No, certainly there's got to be a catch somewhere.
• 17:38
  SPEAKER_00: Like you said, I'm hedging my bet just a little bit.
• 17:43
  SPEAKER_00: If I need be,
• 17:44
  SPEAKER_00: I'm going to just out of my back pocket,
• 17:46
  SPEAKER_00: I'm going to pull out this little bit of sacrifice just to let God know that I
• 17:49
  SPEAKER_00: really do love him.
• 17:51
  SPEAKER_00: I'm really in.
• 17:52
  SPEAKER_00: And God said, no, I don't need that.
• 17:56
  SPEAKER_00: I just want to love you.
• 17:58
  SPEAKER_00: And then that love, of course, transforms us to live lives of mission and compassion and loving neighbor.
• 18:04
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 18:05
  SPEAKER_00: I think it's just...
• 18:08
  SPEAKER_00: From the moment we come out of the womb, we're trying to earn something.
• 18:10
  SPEAKER_00: We've got to earn our grades in school.
• 18:12
  SPEAKER_00: We've got to earn our diplomas.
• 18:14
  SPEAKER_00: We've got to earn our jobs.
• 18:16
  SPEAKER_00: We've got to earn our pay.
• 18:18
  SPEAKER_00: We've got to earn God's love.
• 18:19
  SPEAKER_00: And it's very, very difficult for us.
• 18:23
  SPEAKER_00: And let's face it.
• 18:25
  SPEAKER_00: Ultimately, the reason why Jesus was crucified was because grace is too dangerous.
• 18:31
  SPEAKER_00: If people are graced, the people in power lose all their power.
• 18:36
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 18:37
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 18:38
  SPEAKER_00: Religious leaders can't control us anymore if it's about God's grace.
• 18:43
  SPEAKER_00: And that's scary in a,
• 18:46
  SPEAKER_00: you know,
• 18:47
  SPEAKER_00: a world where religious systems are about power oftentimes rather than about
• 18:52
  SPEAKER_00: mission and grace.
• 18:53
  SPEAKER_00: That's not true of all of them.
• 18:54
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 18:55
  SPEAKER_01: No, of course.
• 18:55
  SPEAKER_00: It can be true of far too many of them.
• 18:59
  SPEAKER_00: Sorry, go ahead.
• 19:00
  SPEAKER_00: Nope.
• 19:01
  SPEAKER_00: Nope.
• 19:01
  SPEAKER_00: It's good.
• 19:02
  SPEAKER_02: Does, does within the context of grace, is there anything asked of us?
• 19:12
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, well, yeah, yeah.
• 19:17
  SPEAKER_00: So, um, think of grace relationally.
• 19:22
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 19:24
  SPEAKER_00: So I'll use the example of, of my marriage.
• 19:28
  SPEAKER_00: I love Jan.
• 19:29
  SPEAKER_00: Jan loves me.
• 19:32
  SPEAKER_00: Um, she just loves me.
• 19:36
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 19:37
  SPEAKER_00: I just love her.
• 19:38
  SPEAKER_00: No expectations.
• 19:39
  SPEAKER_00: We just love each other.
• 19:41
  SPEAKER_00: But because we're in a relationship with each other,
• 19:45
  SPEAKER_00: I want to make sure that I respond to that love in ways that are,
• 19:51
  SPEAKER_00: of course,
• 19:52
  SPEAKER_00: respectful,
• 19:52
  SPEAKER_00: loving,
• 19:52
  SPEAKER_00: kind,
• 19:54
  SPEAKER_00: not to earn her love,
• 19:55
  SPEAKER_00: but because I have her love.
• 19:59
  SPEAKER_00: And that's a big difference.
• 20:01
  SPEAKER_00: And so when it comes to our relationship with God, I,
• 20:07
  SPEAKER_00: I don't want to use the word expect.
• 20:09
  SPEAKER_00: God's love compels us to love others, to love our neighbors.
• 20:16
  SPEAKER_00: We love ourselves because that's what love does.
• 20:21
  SPEAKER_00: Love just always gives itself away.
• 20:22
  SPEAKER_00: And I don't love my neighbor so that God will love me.
• 20:26
  SPEAKER_00: I love my neighbor because God loves me.
• 20:29
  SPEAKER_00: And so let me go really deep theologically and give you a deep theological concept here.
• 20:34
  SPEAKER_00: You ready?
• 20:35
  SPEAKER_02: I'm ready.
• 20:37
  SPEAKER_00: If then versus because therefore.
• 20:44
  SPEAKER_02: I'm writing that down, brother.
• 20:45
  SPEAKER_02: Just a second.
• 20:47
  SPEAKER_02: If then versus.
• 20:49
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 20:49
  SPEAKER_00: Because therefore.
• 20:52
  SPEAKER_00: So most of us, let's just talk about Christians.
• 20:56
  SPEAKER_00: We get caught up in if then.
• 20:59
  SPEAKER_00: If I do this, then God will do that.
• 21:02
  SPEAKER_00: If I confess my sins, then God will forgive me.
• 21:05
  SPEAKER_00: If I pray hard enough, then God will answer my prayer.
• 21:07
  SPEAKER_00: If I believe enough, then God will heal me.
• 21:10
  SPEAKER_00: If I do something, then God will respond.
• 21:13
  SPEAKER_00: It's all about me.
• 21:15
  SPEAKER_00: The gospel turns that all around and says it's because therefore.
• 21:19
  SPEAKER_00: Because God forgives me, I can confess.
• 21:23
  SPEAKER_00: Because God loves me, I can love my neighbor.
• 21:27
  SPEAKER_00: Because God is for me, I can be for others.
• 21:31
  SPEAKER_00: And so it's never about me doing something so that God will love me more.
• 21:36
  SPEAKER_00: It's about me responding to this immense love in highly flawed ways and to live out
• 21:44
  SPEAKER_00: that love because that's what love does,
• 21:47
  SPEAKER_00: right?
• 21:48
  SPEAKER_00: That's what love does.
• 21:49
  SPEAKER_00: To live and breathe, love gives itself away, right?
• 21:53
  SPEAKER_00: And if God is love,
• 21:55
  SPEAKER_00: which means at the essence of God is generosity and compassion and grace,
• 21:59
  SPEAKER_00: then that flows through me to others.
• 22:02
  SPEAKER_00: Not to earn God's love, not to be good enough, but because I'm loved.
• 22:06
  SPEAKER_00: And I think part of the challenge for many of us is being able,
• 22:10
  SPEAKER_00: like this young girl in this story,
• 22:12
  SPEAKER_00: this pastor,
• 22:13
  SPEAKER_00: you,
• 22:14
  SPEAKER_00: the same for me,
• 22:15
  SPEAKER_00: to just take a breath, to breathe in God's love and say, God just loves me, period.
• 22:21
  SPEAKER_00: God is for me, period.
• 22:22
  SPEAKER_00: I'm God's beloved son.
• 22:23
  SPEAKER_00: You're God's beloved daughter.
• 22:25
  SPEAKER_00: Cherishes us.
• 22:26
  SPEAKER_00: Nothing will ever change that.
• 22:29
  SPEAKER_00: There's nothing we can do to make God love us more.
• 22:31
  SPEAKER_00: There's nothing we can do to make God love us less.
• 22:35
  SPEAKER_00: So I think we really, that's sort of the heart and soul, I think, of what we want to talk about.
• 22:40
  SPEAKER_00: For sure.
• 22:42
  SPEAKER_00: Now, when grace is your starting point, of course, then all of your other,
• 22:46
  SPEAKER_00: theological life thoughts and ideologies then need to be rethought.
• 22:57
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 22:59
  SPEAKER_00: And those are some of the things that we'll be talking about in the podcast to come.
• 23:02
  SPEAKER_00: All right.
• 23:02
  SPEAKER_00: Well, if grace is true, well, what about this?
• 23:05
  SPEAKER_01: Right.
• 23:06
  SPEAKER_00: If grace is true, what about that?
• 23:09
  SPEAKER_00: And we'll keep coming back to this stuff over and over again to let people know
• 23:15
  SPEAKER_00: that yeah we do wrestle with this but god's love is yours it's there and you ain't
• 23:24
  SPEAKER_02: got to do nothing to experience it uh the thing the thing that i feel for my own
• 23:30
  SPEAKER_02: self like in listening to you um i am running it through my own sieve um in my
• 23:37
  SPEAKER_02: humanity how can i uh
• 23:41
  SPEAKER_02: remember that,
• 23:42
  SPEAKER_02: you know,
• 23:42
  SPEAKER_02: like there,
• 23:43
  SPEAKER_02: there,
• 23:43
  SPEAKER_02: the muscle,
• 23:45
  SPEAKER_02: the muscle in me is so inclined to run this direction,
• 23:49
  SPEAKER_02: you know,
• 23:49
  SPEAKER_02: and how,
• 23:51
  SPEAKER_02: you know,
• 23:51
  SPEAKER_02: in a tangible way,
• 23:53
  SPEAKER_02: um,
• 23:55
  SPEAKER_02: how can I begin to practice to remember,
• 23:59
  SPEAKER_02: you know,
• 23:59
  SPEAKER_02: even just,
• 24:00
  SPEAKER_02: just saying that out loud,
• 24:02
  SPEAKER_02: like I'm hearing you say it and I'm trying to,
• 24:04
  SPEAKER_02: it even still,
• 24:06
  SPEAKER_02: Tim,
• 24:06
  SPEAKER_02: it feels like I'm trying to fit my shoulders into the confines of a,
• 24:10
  SPEAKER_02: of a piece of something.
• 24:11
  SPEAKER_02: And I don't have to do that.
• 24:12
  SPEAKER_02: And my mind says, no, no, he just said, you know what I mean?
• 24:15
  SPEAKER_02: Like even in this moment.
• 24:17
  SPEAKER_02: So I, I feel like I,
• 24:22
  SPEAKER_02: Um,
• 24:23
  SPEAKER_02: speaking about it is,
• 24:25
  SPEAKER_02: uh,
• 24:26
  SPEAKER_02: opening up a door to some crazy,
• 24:29
  SPEAKER_02: cool,
• 24:32
  SPEAKER_02: um,
• 24:33
  SPEAKER_02: life giving ways of,
• 24:39
  SPEAKER_02: of existing,
• 24:40
  SPEAKER_02: of live,
• 24:40
  SPEAKER_02: of being that gives life to think about grace in a,
• 24:45
  SPEAKER_02: um,
• 24:46
  SPEAKER_02: Whereas with restriction, it feels like it's pulling that life.
• 24:51
  SPEAKER_02: I hate to say it that way, but you know what I mean?
• 24:53
  SPEAKER_02: It pulls from you rather than gives.
• 24:55
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 24:56
  SPEAKER_00: It suffocates us.
• 24:57
  SPEAKER_02: Suffocates us.
• 25:00
  SPEAKER_00: So this is a good one to end on.
• 25:02
  SPEAKER_00: So you said, how do I get that muscle memory?
• 25:06
  SPEAKER_00: And again, I'll go back to my marriage with Jan.
• 25:09
  SPEAKER_00: We say to each other all the time.
• 25:11
  SPEAKER_00: We've been married 45 years.
• 25:12
  SPEAKER_00: We say to each other all the time, I love you.
• 25:15
  SPEAKER_00: Now, we don't need to say that, but it's obvious.
• 25:19
  SPEAKER_00: We love each other in our commitment to each other, the things that we do.
• 25:23
  SPEAKER_00: But the continual saying of it is that affirmation.
• 25:30
  SPEAKER_00: As I said before, we never want someone to walk away from this podcast without hearing God loves them.
• 25:36
  SPEAKER_00: And I don't want to walk out the door of my house without saying, hey, Jan, I love you.
• 25:42
  SPEAKER_00: And one of the ways that there are several ways I think that God says I love you to us.
• 25:47
  SPEAKER_00: One is through corporate worship times in churches where the message is grace.
• 25:57
  SPEAKER_00: So you hear through the music,
• 25:59
  SPEAKER_00: you hear through the message,
• 26:00
  SPEAKER_00: you hear through the sacraments of communion,
• 26:03
  SPEAKER_00: baptism.
• 26:04
  SPEAKER_00: This God is for you.
• 26:05
  SPEAKER_00: This God loves you.
• 26:07
  SPEAKER_00: Now, you can go to some churches and you'll never hear that message, as we've already discussed.
• 26:10
  SPEAKER_00: But to find a church where grace is the message and everyone is welcome.
• 26:17
  SPEAKER_00: I think that God affirms that love for us through Scripture.
• 26:22
  SPEAKER_00: Now that can be a little dicey because some of that scripture doesn't always sound all that loving.
• 26:26
  SPEAKER_00: Those will be topics we talk about in the weeks and months to come.
• 26:31
  SPEAKER_00: But the story of Jesus is the story of God's passionate love for us and read that over and over again.
• 26:40
  SPEAKER_00: um for some of us just being outside and standing in the the beauty of the day you
• 26:47
  SPEAKER_00: know whatever the day is throwing to us here we get a lot of sun but whether it's
• 26:50
  SPEAKER_00: rain whatever um to just sit to be still and know that god is god so i think those
• 26:57
  SPEAKER_00: are some of the ways that god keeps us reminded of his love
• 27:04
  SPEAKER_00: hopefully this podcast will do it.
• 27:07
  SPEAKER_00: Reading the stuff I'm writing, recklessgrace.substack.com, recklessgrace.substack.com.
• 27:13
  SPEAKER_00: So those are different ways.
• 27:14
  SPEAKER_00: And we'll continue to dive into that.
• 27:18
  SPEAKER_00: So our question for today was, whatever happened to Amazing Grace?
• 27:22
  SPEAKER_00: It's been there all along.
• 27:24
  SPEAKER_00: And we want you to know,
• 27:25
  SPEAKER_00: if you're listening today,
• 27:27
  SPEAKER_00: we want you to know you are the object of God's affection,
• 27:31
  SPEAKER_01: period.
• 27:32
  SPEAKER_00: And I encourage you to live by that today.
• 27:34
  SPEAKER_00: Hey, Terry, thank you so much.
• 27:36
  SPEAKER_00: Tim, thank you.
• 27:38
  SPEAKER_02: What a ride it's been, and I look forward to more.
• 27:41
  SPEAKER_00: All righty.
• 27:41
  SPEAKER_00: So here's how we're going to close out the show.
• 27:43
  SPEAKER_00: Thanks, everyone.
• 27:45
  Bye, y'all.