Latest / #Faith4TodayPodcast / Episode 33 – Pools of Grace: Do You Want to Be Made Well?

Transcript

Episode 33 – Pools of Grace: Do You Want to Be Made Well? · #Faith4TodayPodcast

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  Where we confuse the practice of our faith as a as an identifier
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  of our holiness rather than a means by which God is making us
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  holy. So the practice of our faith
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  aren't a means by which we achieve something for God.
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  Rather they're, they're an opportunity for God to grow as
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  shape us, form us, change us, transform us and fill us.
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  They're they are the avenue through which we experience the
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  channel of God's grace to us. And welcome to another episode
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  of the Faith for Today podcast. Today is episode 33.
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  We're talking about Pools of Grace.
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  Listen, it is great to be back with you.
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  My name's Matthew, I'm your host today.
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  And we're here with a fresh episode.
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  We've, we've had a couple weeks off, somewhat unplanned to be
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  honest. We went on a missions trip to
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  Guatemala and I intended to come back and get a recording in, but
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  when I got back, I was kind of sick.
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  So I kind of took an extra week off.
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  And so man, today we're going to answer some questions from the
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  last three Sunday messages that we've had where we cover John
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  chapter 3-4 and five. But the primary element of our
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  recap and our bonus content is going to come from our most
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  recent message on August 3rd, where we talked about pools of
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  grace out of John Chapter 5. Listen on the Faith for Today
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  podcast. We want to help you have faith
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  for today, inspired through the word on Sunday, but integrating
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  the truths to your life even on a Thursday so that we're walking
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  out our loyalty to Jesus. So let's get into a recap.
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  Today. We're looking at John chapter 5
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  specifically, and a sermon that we called Pools of Grace.
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  We're diving into the third sign recorded in the Gospel of John.
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  It's where Jesus healed a man who had been lame and sick for
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  38 years. And the story at the Pool of
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  Bethesda, we're reminded that the miracles Jesus performed
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  weren't just about physical healing.
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  They were also signs pointing to His divine deity and identity as
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  the Son of God. Jesus asks A piercing question
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  to this man. Do you want to be made well?
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  The same question echoes into our lives today.
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  Wholeness and transformation aren't forced on us though.
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  Through the gentleness of the Holy Spirit, we're invited into
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  a grace filled process of becoming fully alive, reordering
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  our identity and values around Jesus instead of orienting our
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  values and our life and our identity from the world system.
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  In this specific message, we're going to explore more how grace
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  doesn't just cancel out practice, it actually empowers
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  our spiritual practice. In fact, the tension between
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  Sabbath law and Jesus healing reveal that true transformation
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  isn't earned by works, but it is experienced through them.
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  We don't practice our faith to gain merit, rather we practice
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  in order to position ourselves to receive the grace we so
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  desperately need. Like the man at the pool, we're
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  often more conditioned to kind of maybe wait passively than to
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  respond actively to Jesus invitation.
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  But he is still asking us, do you want to be made well?
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  As we lean into practices of spiritual formation and we walk
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  in step with the Spirit, we want to step into a deeply formed
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  life that reflects not only the healing and wholeness, but also
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  the very presence and power of Christ becoming the radiance of
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  Christ in the world all around us.
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  All right, let's get to a little bonus content.
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  Listen, the the man that was healed at the pool, 38 years
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  sick. He was about to experience a
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  radical change in his life. In fact, think about this.
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  This man had only really known begging, begging for alms, that
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  the only way he was surviving was the generosity of others
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  that he or called on, that he asked for.
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  So this, his whole life, his whole profession if you will,
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  was about to change. He was now going to have to face
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  a new set of insecurities, unknowns, no longer being able
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  to be identified by his ailment, losing his source of income as
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  he used to beg and ask for alms. Now this man was at faced with a
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  new identity, a better identity. But it was noon and the less and
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  and this change in his life actually led to unknowns and
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  uncertainties. And, and often I think when we
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  in our lives are experiencing change, transition, new
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  circumstances arise, ailments in our lives, just different
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  seasons or stages of life. We're faced with new
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  complexities. We're faith, we we often are
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  confronting our own insecurities that maybe we've been able to
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  compensate for for a long time, But but our identity gets shaken
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  often times when our circumstances or our situation
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  changes. And for this man, it was no
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  different. Here he was.
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  He was a man 38 years laying in a similar spot.
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  New context, new place, new people.
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  Anytime there's a change like that in our lives, it it can
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  create unknowns. I I know many people who have
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  come to know Jesus. They've had an encounter with
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  the grace of the Spirit and man that they're forced with.
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  Like now I don't have the same friends that I used to have.
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  I don't know how to act. I've seen some recent Tik Toks
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  where people who are trendy transitioning from dressing kind
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  of in the opposite sex or having self identified as a female,
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  even though there were a biological male at birth.
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  And those kinds of things where, where they're finding Jesus and
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  having to walk out a new identity, a new life as as God
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  had intended, how they were born and created to be.
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  And, and here they are having to walk out new, the newness of
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  Christ and the walk out. And and while it's a beautiful
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  thing and a wonderful thing, it certainly still comes with
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  insecurity, certainly comes with new set of challenges.
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  And when Jesus asked this man, do you want to be made?
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  Well, I think it's packed within it.
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  Just this whole idea of do you really want to see your life
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  altered and changed? Do you really want to find new
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  friends? Do you really want to find a new
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  way of living? Like like your livelihood is now
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  going to be changed? Like you don't just get to sit
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  and beg. There's not a reason for you to
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  sit and beg anymore. So now he's got to find new
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  skills and find a job and find a place to live.
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  And like a whole new set of circumstances all of a sudden
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  are created. And whether people experience
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  this because of job loss, maybe people experience this because
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  they, they move to a new community or a new state or, or
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  maybe something radical, God gets a hold of their heart in a
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  radical way. And their old life of sin, their
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  old way of living, their old relationships, men, they're
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  called out of those things into a whole new set of
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  circumstances. And here they are having to
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  navigate all of that. That can be a little
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  intimidating to say the least. And our identity is often
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  wrapped up in our circumstance. It's often wrapped up in our
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  context. And those things are forming and
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  shaping who we often are. Now I have on many occasions in
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  the last year talked about 3 components to living a life of
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  purpose. 3 components, if you will, that really play into
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  every human heart. Things like identity calling and
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  assignment. These three kind of components
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  make up a life that is fulfilled, a life full of
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  purpose. And it's interesting because
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  often we, we confuse, use the order of these things we we
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  think. In other words, let me say it
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  correctly, your identity shaped by Christ informs your calling,
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  which leads you to specific assignments.
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  But often times what we do is we flip that around.
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  We feel like we have a certain assignment that is now Our
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  Calling and Our Calling becomes our identity.
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  And so we wrap up our identity because of our assignment or the
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  context that we live along with Our Calling and and those things
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  ought not be the case. In fact, our identity is shaped
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  and formed by Christ, who He says He is, who we are redeemed
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  based on the truth, our life and the truth of how He made us and
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  who He's created us. That informs Our Calling and
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  that calling is is universal to every believer.
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  We are ambassadors who represent Christ radiance in our world.
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  That is the calling of every believer, our identity, shaped
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  by God's voice, shaped and informed by the Father,
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  impressed on us as sons and daughters of royal priesthood,
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  which is Our Calling to be an ambassador, to represent him, to
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  minister and to be agents of reconciliation in our world.
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  Well, then that shows up in our assignments or in our context.
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  And our context or our assignment is where we live out
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  Our Calling as sons and daughters of God as we live out
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  our identity. So our identity informs what Our
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  Calling is, and Our Calling is what we bring into what we do in
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  this world. Our assignment and our
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  assignment is best understood as temporary.
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  You are not going to be in this current season of assignment
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  forever. There will come a day when I
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  stop being senior pastor. There will come a day when I
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  stop being the the role of parent drastically changes in my
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  life. There there's going to make
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  coming a day when you stop being a teacher, when you stop driving
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  a truck, when when you stop being a banker, when you stop
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  being a business owner, that there there's going to be a
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  transition season. And often in those transitions
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  of life, we lose a sense of identity simply because our
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  identity is wrapped up in our assignment rather than being
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  shaped by the voice of God in our life.
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  So we need our identity first and foremost shaped by God's
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  voice. As sons and daughters in royal
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  priesthood, Our Calling is universal.
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  To be an ambassador or represent Christ.
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  That's the large purpose for our life.
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  But our assignment is the place in which we fulfill that calling
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  as sons and daughters of God. And in your context, it may
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  change, but your assignment is going to be where your
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  personality, your skill, your gifting, your experience, your
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  passion, and the opportunities present themselves and they all
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  kind of intersect. That becomes your assignment.
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  Your assignment may change. It may change sooner than what
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  you think, but when your assignment changes, that doesn't
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  change your identity and it doesn't change your calling.
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  It just changes the context where you live out your calling
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  and where you show up in your identity as a son and daughter
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  of God. You know, our identity formation
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  is often skewed without Jesus. In fact, I think our identity is
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  something that we don't discover on our own.
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  I think identity is best bestowed or imparted to us by
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  others, especially by others like our Father.
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  The voice of a father has a huge role in shaping our identity,
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  calling out the purposes of God, calling out the identity
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  identity of God, calling out who God has made us to be.
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  It's a voice that matters. And that's how Jesus had his
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  identity shaped, which through the voice and the will of the
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  Father. We, we, we, we see it multiple
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  times in Scripture. Heaven's open.
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  This is my son, beloved. In him, I am well pleased like
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  that is shaping some of the identity, the the assurance our
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  identity is who we are seen and known to be.
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  And that is something that others help speak into us to
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  help shape, help call out, help bestow on us.
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  And you know, it's probably not until the age of enlightenment
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  where we really started trying to identify our own identity, if
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  you will. And I think we've got to get
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  back to this understanding of often identity of who we are is
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  shaped in us. We're given a name.
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  We, we, we are given a gender at birth.
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  And I'm not trying to open up that can of worms necessarily,
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  but man, we're we're identity has spoken over us all through
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  scripture. You see a father speaking
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  blessing over his children, blessing them, calling them
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  something, naming them something.
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  And I think that's a, a proper biblical framework for bestowing
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  and helping those things be seen and experienced in in our lives.
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  We all have people who have been influential in our lives that
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  have helped shape who we are. That's what I'm talking about.
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  That's what this looks like. And I think the voice of God and
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  the truth that he speaks to us is is over.
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  Part of our gifting does help illuminate our identity.
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  I'm not my sole identity isn't wrapped up in a gifting, but it
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  does help former or speak into many things like the
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  uniquenesses of who we uniquenesses of who who we are.
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  We, we talk about this idea of how formation occurs in our
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  life, that Jesus lives in your heart, but grandpa lives in your
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  bones. That there are certain patterns
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  and ways of living that we've adopted and had ingrained into
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  us and are deeply recessed and rooted in who we are simply
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  because our family of, of origin and, and Jesus redeems and sets
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  us free. And Jesus saves us through the
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  work of a spirit in our lives, regenerating and giving us a new
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  heart and a new spirit, making us born again.
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  But we still have this physical reality that we're living out
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  and, and that is been deeply ingrained in us, our DNA.
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  It's shaped in us. There's certain patterns of
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  behavior, patterns of living that often times aren't holy,
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  aren't of God, and are broken at best.
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  And those are the things God wants to heal, shape and reform
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  in us through the renewing of our of our minds.
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  You know, there are mentalities that are shaped communally and
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  there are mentalities and value systems shaped really based on
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  location of where we grow up, certain values we grow up with
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  because of the environment we are in.
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  Whether you realize it or not, we are all shaped by our
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  environment. We are all being shaped by our
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  culture. The question isn't are you being
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  formed? The question is who or what is
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  forming you? Who are What is shaping your
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  mind? Who or what is shaping your
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  identity? Who or what is shaping your
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  pattern of living? You are already being conformed.
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  We want to be transformed into the renewing of our mind or by
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  the renewing of our minds so that we can then discern and
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  live out God's good, pleasing and perfect will in our lives
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  rather than living out the script of the values of the
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  worldly system that the secularism of our day that is
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  already deeply ingrained in who we are.
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  And, and we're shaped by our culture.
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  We're shaped by the, the political system with which
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  we're living in. We are shaped by the people that
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  are around us. We are shaped by our habits and
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  our practices and our patterns of living.
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  You know, during the, the message I used the illustration
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  of or talked about how we have a different word.
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  We use the word grace, but the word grace we use in a lot of
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  different ways. Like we say grace, but we really
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  need need to say mercy, see, or we say grace, but we really mean
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  forgiveness or we say, would you say grace?
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  And what we really mean is will you pray for or bless the food?
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  And I use that illustration that we meant if you ever ask me to
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  your house and you say, hey, pastor, will you say grace for
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  the food? I'm just going to just just belt
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  out grace. And then that's what I'm going
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  to do because that's what you asked me to do.
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  You didn't ask me to pray for the food.
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  You asked me to say grace. So I going to say grace and we
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  had some fun with it in the message and it was kind of a a
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  moment of levity more than a serious moment.
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  But I two different people text me clips from movies where
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  people are yelling grace either at a person or trying to get
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  them to say grace for the meal. And both of them, that they're
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  like, this is what came to my mind when you said that, which I
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  thought was so poignant to the reality that we are culturally
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  formed and shaped like I say the word grace and immediately what
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  pops into our mind is a clip from a movie.
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  Sometimes people say things or do things and something that
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  automatically shows up in your mind is a song lyric or a funny
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  memory or a movie clip. What?
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  Why is that? Well, because we've been shaped
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  and impressed upon by culture, by things around us, we are
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  being impressed and influenced. And so we are indeed being
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  formed and conditioned to a perspective based on our
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  culture. We are already deeply formed.
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  But is that formation truly redemptive?
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  That's the question. And Romans comes Paul saying
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  you've got to no longer be conformed to this age, to the
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  secularism in which you are born into.
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  No, no, But you need to be transformed by the renewing of
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  your mind so that you may discern what is the good,
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  pleasing and perfect will of God.
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  That that we have a formation and identity formation, a
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  reality of who we are. And it is skewed already One
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  Direction towards secularism and we must have it redemptively
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  formed in us so that we are transformed to the image and
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  nature and likeness of Christ. That requires great
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  intentionality, the very practices of our faith.
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  We said in the message, help us live out the words of Jesus when
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  he warns the the man later on in the passage, don't go back to
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  sinning or something else worse may come on you.
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  In other words, the deeply formed life is not going to be
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  possible without an intentional reordering of our lives.
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  In other words, here you are, you've been healed.
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  This lame man now can walk and Jesus is warning him.
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  Don't go to a life of sin like intentionally reorder your life
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  in a new way, under a new paradigm, under a new truth.
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  Otherwise, you're going to go back into that and it's going to
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  be worse than it was before. And I shared in one of the
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  services how how often I see this.
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  People find themselves in crisis and they turn to God sincerely
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  and out of desperation they turn to God.
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  And as life begins to improve, as they start to experiencing
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  the flourishing life, I've got the pressure of the situation
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  that was negative seems to be alleviated.
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  And because they have not really created new grooves of living
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  new pattern of living, they they easily drift back into old ways
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  of living and they easy to compromise what once was in the
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  moment of crisis. It's non negotiable.
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  We're seeking God. We're going to get in the Bible
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  every day. It's a non negotiable.
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  We're going to be at church. Doesn't matter.
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  We're reordering our lives, but it does not continue to be a
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  pattern of life. It was a temporary thing to get
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  out of a of a problem in their life, and they find themselves
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  back into the addiction, back into trouble.
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  Their marriage falls back into troubled waters, not because
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  they weren't sincere, not because God wasn't really
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  helping to do them, but because they never closed the gaps in
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  their life and the enemy gained access into their life.
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  I don't think Jesus was saying, hey buddy, you were sick because
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  you were a Sinner, therefore don't go back to this life of
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  sin, blah, blah blah. I think what Jesus was saying
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  was giving him a warning, saying, hey, listen, don't let
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  the enemy have any more room in your life. close the door on it.
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  Intentionally reorder your life. Listen, the life of following
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  Jesus is a life that is not where you don't just add in a
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  little Jesus. We're called to reorder our
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  lives to follow Him. If following Jesus requires us
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  renouncing all other priorities in our life so that we can
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  follow His priorities in our life, it requires us letting go,
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  letting laying aside every weight and sense so that we
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  could walk and run after Him like the cost of following
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  Jesus. There is one, and that's the
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  invitation of Jesus all through scripture.
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  It wasn't come and be forgiven. It wasn't come and let me wash
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  away your sins. The invitation of Jesus over and
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  over and over again. And scripture was come and die.
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  Deny yourself, take up your cross and follow after.
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  Be my apprentice, be my disciple.
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  And the practices of our faith help us intentionally reorder
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  our lives so that we don't go back to the old ways.
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  We don't go back to darkness. We don't go back to empty wells
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  and cisterns that are toxic and poisonous.
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  We don't go back because we don't want to see the enemy come
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  in more and more. In fact, Jesus tells another
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  parable of what good does it do if you bind the strong man, if
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  you clean out the house and you rebuke the enemy, you get him
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  out of there and the enemy comes back with seven of his friends
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  and he finds, finds the house swept and kept in order.
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  But you never really put new locks on the door.
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  You never really filled the house with anything.
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  In other words, the whatever is empty will be filled.
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  You can have it filled with the life of God, or you can have it
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  filled with the life of the flesh.
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  You can walk in the ways of God, or you can walk in the ways of
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  the enemy. It takes an intentional
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  reordering of our life and God gives us His Holy Spirit to
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  empower us to reorder our lives according to the priority and
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  the value system of heaven. In the book, The Deeply Formed
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  Life by Pastor Rich Velottis, he says this towards the end of the
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  book. He says, I want to say this
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  about the he's talking about the practices of our faith.
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  He says, first know this, the practices of our faith do not
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  save us or make God love us more.
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  And I would say Amen, That is so true.
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  We are saved by God's free and faithful love in Christ.
• 24:40
  God's love is steadfast, meaning there is nothing we can do to
• 24:43
  make him love us more, and there's nothing we can do to
• 24:45
  make him love us less. Rather, these practices are
• 24:49
  meant to help us receive and express God's love in deeply
• 24:54
  formed ways. In other words, the practices of
• 24:57
  our faith, the spiritual practices that we do are an
• 25:01
  intentional reordering of our lives to move in the direction
• 25:04
  of God, to walk in relationship with God again.
• 25:08
  When you fall in love with your spouse, there are many things in
• 25:12
  your life that become reordered and you reorder them on purpose.
• 25:16
  Priorities change, habits shift and move.
• 25:20
  Why? Because you are in love and are
• 25:23
  receiving love and you are willing to continue to do that,
• 25:26
  so that love be because that love is so being formed and made
• 25:31
  alive inside of you. Same is true that relationship
• 25:33
  with God, these practices of our faith, reading the scriptures,
• 25:38
  silence and solitude, fasting, prayer, worship, gathering with
• 25:42
  the people of God, being generous, opening our home in
• 25:45
  hospitality, walking in obedience, loving our and these
• 25:50
  practices of our faith, the way of Jesus that we want to live
• 25:53
  out. These are not meant to earn love
• 25:57
  or be a merit of God's grace. Rather they are a means, an Ave.
• 26:03
  They are meant to help us experience, express and be
• 26:08
  formed by the love of God, the presence of the Spirit and the
• 26:11
  work of Christ in our lives. So they are not a means to an
• 26:16
  end that they they, nor are they an end to themselves.
• 26:21
  They are simply a conduit, the avenue, the way in which we get
• 26:26
  to experience and encounter the love of guys.
• 26:28
  That's what we talked about with works and grace.
• 26:31
  Like, like works and grace aren't incompatible with each
• 26:35
  other. Works of the law, as Paul talked
• 26:38
  about, that's not how the Spirit comes.
• 26:41
  And the Pharisees were having this, this struggle with the
• 26:46
  morality and legality. They were having this tension
• 26:49
  between God doing something grace and merciful in the midst
• 26:54
  of not abiding by the Sabbath. Like how is this possible?
• 26:57
  And where we confuse the practice of our faith as a as an
• 27:03
  identifier of our holiness rather than a means by which God
• 27:08
  is making us holy. So the practice of our faith
• 27:11
  aren't a means by which we achieve something for God.
• 27:15
  Rather, they're, they're an opportunity for God to grow as
• 27:19
  shape us, form us, change us, transform us and fill us.
• 27:23
  They're they are the avenue through which we experienced the
• 27:26
  channel of God's grace to us. And then it says this in the
• 27:31
  book. It says the practices have
• 27:33
  personal and communal elements to them.
• 27:36
  Some practices don't require the involvement of other people, but
• 27:40
  each practice is strengthened by the presence of others on the
• 27:44
  journey. And this is kind of where I want
• 27:46
  to just kind of wrap up is the man at the pool of Bethesda.
• 27:51
  He had no friends. No one was there to help him
• 27:54
  along in his journey. And I believe in our lives as we
• 27:59
  come to Christ and we begin to practice our faith, walking with
• 28:03
  God, living like God, becoming more like the radiance of Christ
• 28:06
  in our lives. It's a work of the Spirit in us
• 28:09
  that occurs and, and, and, and, and is something we experience
• 28:14
  as we walk in these practices. You can definitely read the
• 28:17
  Bible on your own 100%. However, there is something
• 28:21
  profound and strengthening that happens when you study the
• 28:25
  scripture with others. You absolutely can pray on your
• 28:29
  own, but when you gather and pray with other believers, the
• 28:34
  communal element adds a a point of strength to the practice in
• 28:39
  the formation. You could, I mean you could have
• 28:45
  a meal all by yourself, but something happens differently
• 28:49
  when you share that meal with other people.
• 28:52
  So. So while there are personal
• 28:55
  elements of our faith, they are by and large strengthened and
• 29:01
  more potent when we practice them in community or in a
• 29:05
  communal element with other people.
• 29:08
  The the life of following Jesus cannot really be done by your
• 29:12
  own. It's meant to be done with
• 29:15
  others, strengthened with others.
• 29:17
  And we are deeply formed, not just on our own, but with
• 29:22
  others. And that's a powerful element
• 29:24
  for all of us to lean into. In other words, if you find
• 29:28
  yourself having been touched by God's grace, he's changing your
• 29:31
  life, and you don't want to go back to your old ways, get
• 29:36
  around other people who have intentionally reordered their
• 29:40
  life around Jesus and hang with them.
• 29:45
  And the strength of that together will move you in other
• 29:50
  directions. And I can't tell you the number
• 29:52
  of times I have seen again and again and again, Not only have
• 29:55
  people encountered Jesus, but because they didn't reorder
• 29:59
  their lives, they fell away. When people started isolating,
• 30:05
  they began to fall away too. Those are the two things that I
• 30:09
  have seen again and again that have caused people to not heed
• 30:13
  the warning of Jesus. Don't go back that way or
• 30:16
  something worse will happen. Something worse will happen in
• 30:19
  your heart. Something worse is going to
• 30:21
  you're going to experience profoundly in your life that
• 30:24
  warning. I've seen so many people walk
• 30:28
  right into that, that trap of the enemy because they didn't
• 30:31
  reorder their lives and they didn't reorder their lives with
• 30:35
  other people and they isolated instead of lived in community
• 30:39
  with others. So don't do that.
• 30:41
  Reorder it. Practice in your faith and be
• 30:44
  formed in the ways of Jesus and do it with other people.
• 30:50
  Alright, let's get to some question and response.
• 30:52
  There are several questions we're going to look at today
• 30:55
  from several weeks now and I'm do my best to answer them, give
• 30:59
  some context for them and then go, go from there.
• 31:03
  Alright, here's here's the first question.
• 31:05
  How is the Kingdom of heaven displayed in the earth?
• 31:08
  This comes back from a couple weeks ago where we talked about
• 31:11
  you can't see the Kingdom unless you were born of the spirit.
• 31:15
  The question is how? How do you even see the Kingdom
• 31:17
  of heaven on on the earth? So the Bible, I think it's in
• 31:21
  Romans, Paul says the Kingdom is not eating and drinking, but
• 31:27
  rather the Kingdom of God is righteousness, peace and joy in
• 31:31
  the Holy Spirit says the Kingdom of heaven, I believe is breaking
• 31:36
  in all around us. I think the Kingdom is seen when
• 31:40
  we work for restoration, when forgiveness is is encountered,
• 31:44
  when healing are seen when wholeness of our soul, when we
• 31:50
  are being made whole inside and out.
• 31:52
  I think that's the Kingdom of heaven breaking into our earth.
• 31:55
  The Kingdom is the life of Jesus and the teachings of Jesus
• 32:00
  accurately embodied. So when we accurately embody the
• 32:04
  life and the teachings of Jesus, well, I think the Kingdom is
• 32:08
  breaking in because he modeled the Kingdom life and the Kingdom
• 32:12
  perspective all around us or, or that's what he did.
• 32:16
  And so when we do that, man, the Kingdom of Heaven is is breaking
• 32:20
  in. I think the Kingdom of Heaven is
• 32:24
  the embodiment of the Sermon on the Mount.
• 32:27
  The Sermon on the Mount was like the new law that he was giving
• 32:32
  for the new covenant. There's so many parallels on the
• 32:36
  Sermon on the Mount. Jesus goes up on the mountain
• 32:38
  just like Moses went up on the mountain.
• 32:40
  Jesus came and gave them new commands.
• 32:43
  Moses sat on the mountain roading on the tablets, bringing
• 32:47
  down new commands to the people. Like, like there's so many
• 32:51
  parallels of what Jesus was doing with the Sermon on the
• 32:53
  Mount that are just profound. And I think it's important that
• 32:58
  the Kingdom of God, the Kingdom of heaven that Jesus pronounced
• 33:01
  is here and now is breaking in. Now Jesus demonstrated and lived
• 33:07
  those ways. But the teaching on the Sermon
• 33:09
  on the Mount, when we enact those, when we live those, when
• 33:13
  we embody those, we're bringing faith to life.
• 33:15
  We're bringing the Kingdom to life to bear.
• 33:18
  And so we become representatives of the Kingdom.
• 33:23
  If people want to know what the Kingdom of heaven is like, they
• 33:27
  should be able to look at the life of a follower of Jesus and
• 33:31
  be like, wow, that that feels like heaven on earth.
• 33:35
  Like they're kind and they're patient and they're joyful.
• 33:37
  When we're living with the fruit of the Spirit, people are able
• 33:40
  to taste the Kingdom and see that the Kingdom of heaven is
• 33:43
  good. This is what we're meant to do,
• 33:45
  to work towards those things, righteousness, peace and joy.
• 33:49
  And so how is the Kingdom of heaven displayed in the earth?
• 33:52
  Well, primarily it's displayed through the people of God, the
• 33:55
  ambassadors and representatives of the Kingdom of God.
• 33:59
  Those who bear the King's name ought to bear the Kingdom with
• 34:05
  them wherever, wherever they go. Here's the next question.
• 34:09
  How do I walk in a curse free life?
• 34:12
  We we talked in John 3 about those who believe in Jesus are
• 34:20
  blessed, but those who don't believe in Jesus remain cursed.
• 34:25
  Jesus talks about this explicitly in John 3.
• 34:28
  And so we talked about how everything God created, he
• 34:31
  blessed and when sin came in, it was covered by a curse.
• 34:36
  And then when Jesus died and we put our faith in him, our
• 34:40
  allegiance goes to King Jesus will he lifts the curse from us,
• 34:44
  allowing the blessing to now freely flow.
• 34:48
  So how do we walk in a curse free life on?
• 34:52
  I want to be really clear. The world is still under a curse
• 34:57
  because Christ has not fully restored, bored, or renewed all
• 35:05
  of the earth. So there are things in our
• 35:08
  natural world that do not look blessed, but look more cursed.
• 35:14
  And the earth itself, Roman says, is groaning for the day
• 35:21
  when God fully is revealed. We're beginning that process
• 35:25
  now. We're beginning the work of
• 35:27
  renewal on the earth now through the Spirit empowering us as his
• 35:32
  agents of reconciliation. So there are elements of our
• 35:38
  life that, let me say it this way, I'm not so sure that it's
• 35:48
  possible for a life on this earth to live never getting
• 35:52
  sick, never to being without, without, with everything always
• 35:57
  being up and to the right, like getting better, getting better,
• 36:00
  getting better, getting better. I think that we're going to
• 36:02
  experience setbacks in this life like they're just broken
• 36:05
  realities of our world. It doesn't mean that our
• 36:09
  salvation is broken or what God has done is insufficient being
• 36:14
  worked out in our midst. And there is brokenness all
• 36:17
  around. And sometimes that brokenness
• 36:20
  gets on the children of God and the people of God.
• 36:24
  At the end of the day, as an individual, my life doesn't need
• 36:30
  to be cursed. I want to walk in a blessed
• 36:33
  life. Blessed is the man who walks not
• 36:35
  in the council of the ungodly, nor stands in the seat of the
• 36:38
  sinful. Jesus says it's blessed are the
• 36:41
  poor. The Sermon on the Mount, right?
• 36:43
  He's giving us a list of what the blessed life looks like.
• 36:47
  Blessed happy fortune is the man.
• 36:49
  Blessed are the poor. Best are the meek.
• 36:51
  But, but, but blessed are those who the hunger and thirst for
• 36:54
  righteousness. Well, those are the antithesis
• 36:56
  of what does a cursed life look like.
• 36:58
  Jesus is kind of giving a paradoxical understanding of a
• 37:02
  blessed life versus a cursed life.
• 37:04
  A life under the curse of Satan, under the curse of sin.
• 37:08
  Well, we aren't under that curse.
• 37:10
  We aren't slaves to sin anymore. I think a lot of it starts with
• 37:13
  repentance and renouncing all ways of living.
• 37:16
  We we no longer that's kind of what it means to come to Jesus,
• 37:19
  to repent, to turn to him. We're we're announcing things in
• 37:23
  our life that we used to give prominence, but we don't give
• 37:26
  prominence anymore. We used to, you know, worship
• 37:30
  greed, but we're going to worship God instead, right?
• 37:33
  Like this, This is where it starts.
• 37:35
  It's choosing, I think also like, you know, kind of in our
• 37:38
  lives, kind of moving a life more of blessing where blessing
• 37:43
  is expanding in our life rather than cursing, expanding in our
• 37:46
  life. If I can use that kind of word
• 37:48
  picture for a second, I think it's choosing not to speak
• 37:51
  curses like not slandering, not gossiping, not being, not not
• 37:55
  using backbiting things. Let's not speak cursing with our
• 38:00
  our words. I think choosing to walk in love
• 38:04
  helps spread the life of God and the blessing of God.
• 38:07
  According to First Corinthians 13, choosing to walk in the
• 38:10
  Spirit and not walk in the flesh allows me to reap the benefit of
• 38:15
  the presence and the blessing of God rather than the curses of
• 38:18
  our world. In fact, Galatians is really
• 38:20
  clear. If you walk in the flesh, here's
• 38:22
  what you're going to find, and it's all sorts of chaotic curses
• 38:26
  of brokenness. But if we walk in the spirit, we
• 38:30
  experience something different, righteousness.
• 38:32
  We experience love and joy and peace and kindness and
• 38:35
  faithfulness and patience and good.
• 38:37
  There's all these things, these benefits, these blessing of
• 38:43
  walking in the spirit versus walking in the flesh, which
• 38:45
  creates more chaos and cursed living.
• 38:49
  They remaining in Christ and not living as a slave to sin is a
• 38:53
  key part of of that as well. So how do I walk in a curse free
• 38:59
  life? Well, I don't know that that by
• 39:01
  curse free we get to mean perfect and we definitely don't
• 39:04
  mean without brokenness or without failure.
• 39:06
  But if you're walking under what God has blessed, no man can
• 39:12
  curse because if God is for you there is nothing that can be
• 39:16
  against you. It doesn't mean weapons aren't
• 39:19
  formed, it just that weapons aren't formed and going to
• 39:23
  prosper in its entirety. And by prosper meaning destroy
• 39:28
  us or eradicate us from the family of of God.
• 39:33
  How do I walk in a curse free life?
• 39:35
  I I I think we walk in the the beauty and the abundance and the
• 39:40
  blessing of who God is his joy, his delight, his love, his
• 39:46
  forgiveness in that way. Again, that doesn't mean that
• 39:50
  life is always up and to the right.
• 39:51
  It doesn't mean a life without suffering.
• 39:56
  Those things exist because the world is still under the curse,
• 39:59
  because Christ has not come to renew all things in this earth.
• 40:04
  He has the right to, He's paid the price for it.
• 40:08
  It just has not yet fully come. So we live in what theologians
• 40:12
  call the now, but not yet. So there are some things we
• 40:16
  experience now and some things that we experience not yet.
• 40:21
  And so there is that tension that we live in, but.
• 40:24
  Choosing to not speak the language of curse, slander,
• 40:28
  gossip, backbiting, choosing to walk in love, choosing to walk
• 40:33
  in the Spirit, not walking in the flesh.
• 40:36
  I think those are the things that allow the life and the
• 40:39
  flourishing like of Christ to continue to grow in us and we
• 40:43
  see the blessing as opposed to the product of sinfulness in our
• 40:49
  life. Here's the next question.
• 40:52
  It says. Is 1/2 and half Christian just
• 40:55
  as miserable as an unbeliever? We were talking a little bit
• 40:58
  about living wholehearted in this particular message, and so
• 41:04
  is the question like, is 1/2 hearted Christian just as
• 41:07
  miserable as an unbeliever? Here's what I'm going to say.
• 41:11
  You know, again, the Bible really doesn't give this
• 41:13
  category necessarily to where we are are like we're half saved or
• 41:22
  we're half unsaved. Like it's it's not really a real
• 41:25
  category, but I understand what we're saying.
• 41:28
  And so here's what I would say. I actually think that kind of a
• 41:33
  person is worse off than an unbeliever.
• 41:35
  Here's why, because they're living partially deceived.
• 41:41
  Many will say to me on that day, Lord, Lord, we did all of these
• 41:44
  things in your name and I will say depart from me.
• 41:48
  I never knew you to think you know God and God knows you in
• 41:53
  that relationship, but you don't really have that relationship.
• 41:57
  You're living deceived. And so living deceived is really
• 42:01
  dangerous. And so I would say it's more
• 42:05
  dangerous. It's going to feel more
• 42:07
  disheartening and disappointing. Unbelievers.
• 42:10
  They pretty much know they're like bound.
• 42:13
  They're they're, they've rejected God, great.
• 42:16
  But people who think they're in, but they're not, that's a
• 42:20
  dangerous thing. And those are some of the
• 42:23
  warnings the New Testament gives us.
• 42:26
  Those are some of the things Jesus has to say.
• 42:29
  I think well intended people, even the Pharisees thought they
• 42:33
  were doing and I think in their hearts sincerely wanted to honor
• 42:38
  God and keep God first and bring the nation to God, but but they
• 42:44
  missed God in the process. There was some deception.
• 42:48
  There was a the, the, the, the yeast of the Phariseed had
• 42:52
  gotten into their hearts and brought some corruption.
• 42:57
  And that that can be dangerous because it's hard to see those
• 43:00
  things. You can't see that in yourself.
• 43:03
  And unless the Holy Spirit convicts us and we repent, we
• 43:07
  are living deceived. That's that's a dangerous thing.
• 43:12
  James talks about looking in the mirror, but then forgetting
• 43:16
  hearing the word but not doing it.
• 43:17
  We deceive ourselves and I think it's miserable to live thinking
• 43:24
  one way but having deceived yourself all along.
• 43:28
  And I know many, I have had many conversations with many people
• 43:32
  who were self deceived on some things and that's troubling and
• 43:37
  this is heartening. And I pray that God opens their
• 43:39
  eyes and that they have an awakening in their heart that
• 43:43
  helps them see the truth. Here's the next.
• 43:47
  Question. Revelation Chapter.
• 43:48
  Three and verse 16, Jesus talks about hot, cold and lukewarm.
• 43:52
  Is lukewarm the same as someone with a divided heart between the
• 43:56
  world and God? Sort of, but not really.
• 44:01
  Let me define lukewarm. You know, Jesus uses this term
• 44:04
  lukewarm in Revelation 315 and 16, and he's describing the
• 44:10
  spiritual condition of the church in Laodicea.
• 44:12
  This metaphor is kind of derived from the local water supply in
• 44:17
  the the Lucas Valley, where Laodiceas Luke warm water was
• 44:22
  neither refreshing like Colossus cold water, nor was it
• 44:26
  therapeutic like Heropolis Hot Springs.
• 44:30
  Jesus was stating that he would prefer the church to either be
• 44:34
  hot and therapeutic or cold and refreshing rather than lukewarm,
• 44:39
  indicating that their current state is almost palatable to
• 44:44
  him. The term lukewarm in this
• 44:46
  context doesn't refer to 1/2 hearted or mediocre faith, but
• 44:51
  rather to ineffectiveness and a lack of spiritual fruit.
• 44:56
  This lukewarm condition is characterized by worldly wealth,
• 45:01
  maybe distracting believers from spiritual values, self
• 45:04
  satisfaction, and a lack of passion for advancing God's
• 45:08
  Kingdom. Jesus warns that he would spit
• 45:11
  out or vomit the lukewarm, emphasizing the severity of the
• 45:15
  spiritual state. Now, some interpretation
• 45:18
  suggests that being lukewarm refers to those who pretend to
• 45:22
  be Christians but are not genuine believers, while others
• 45:25
  view it as a declining faith that is becoming spiritually
• 45:29
  ineffective. So that's kind of what some of
• 45:33
  the commentary is around being lukewarm.
• 45:37
  I think it's better to understand a divided heart or a
• 45:42
  lack of a whole heart with an impure heart where we are mixing
• 45:47
  other affections in our lives. And so I think that metaphor
• 45:52
  holds better. An impure heart is a a divided
• 45:58
  heart or a divided loyalty in love rather than one that is
• 46:02
  wholehearted, devoted, surrendered, and passion for
• 46:05
  Jesus. When Jesus is talking to the
• 46:09
  church in Laodicea, it's more about their effectiveness.
• 46:12
  They're kind of just neither. They're not being refreshing to
• 46:16
  anyone and they're not being this.
• 46:18
  So it's more of a passivity than it is a divided, distracted
• 46:24
  nature. At least that's some of how I
• 46:26
  see what Jesus is saying. So it's similar, but I don't
• 46:30
  know that I would say it's the same thing.
• 46:34
  Regardless, I don't want to have a divided heart, nor do I want
• 46:38
  to have a lukewarm faith. My allegiance needs to be
• 46:44
  refreshing and helpful and I want my heart for Jesus to not
• 46:50
  be polluted, to not be divided, to not have other affections and
• 46:56
  loves competing for my my my trust in Him.
• 47:01
  Great question though. Here's another one.
• 47:05
  Do you think some people identify themselves with their
• 47:08
  illness, their bad past etcetera to the point they don't really
• 47:13
  want to get well? Do you think some rather enjoy
• 47:18
  the attention they get? So this is this is obviously a
• 47:24
  case by case basis, but if we're talking in generalities, I think
• 47:29
  generally speaking, people who continually identify themselves
• 47:35
  as sinners often keep saying what we're all sinners.
• 47:39
  Well, you know, we're all sinners.
• 47:41
  They really have not really made a decision to stop being that
• 47:47
  they have not really had a new identity in Christ and and
• 47:51
  perhaps they would rather normalize their sin rather than
• 47:58
  intentionally create patterns of holiness in their life.
• 48:05
  Do I think people? Who always talking about playing
• 48:09
  the victim card are doing so maybe for attention.
• 48:13
  I think that's some of it. I think, you know, it's always
• 48:18
  easier to blame someone else or play the victim than it is to
• 48:22
  take responsibility for our own lives.
• 48:24
  I think that's pretty generally true.
• 48:28
  I think the blame game feels good to our broken soul.
• 48:32
  Like it feels good to blame someone else rather than owning
• 48:36
  up to our own thing. Like I'd rather blame.
• 48:41
  I'd rather blame the church rather than get vulnerable with
• 48:44
  my own insecurities. I'd rather blame my wife for not
• 48:50
  caring rather than risking actually asking her to meet a
• 48:56
  need. So I think the blame game always
• 49:01
  feels good because we're trying to not look at our own soul and
• 49:07
  not look at our own pain and not look at our own brokenness.
• 49:12
  I think that's always easier and it feels good in the moment, but
• 49:16
  it doesn't bring us healing, it doesn't bring us restoration and
• 49:20
  I think people that have. I think people who have a.
• 49:28
  Certain victim mentality, people who are always blaming others,
• 49:37
  people who are always kind of throwing away other things or
• 49:43
  making it sometimes people are always just looking for a reason
• 49:46
  to walk away from a relationship because they're.
• 49:50
  Still hurt. They're wounded.
• 49:52
  I think in the midst of all of those things, I have found that
• 49:55
  wounds like that still need to be healed with care.
• 49:59
  I think people need to be seen and need to be heard, and
• 50:04
  everyone needs someone to champion them towards
• 50:07
  restoration. And that's.
• 50:10
  Hard work that's not easy. Work.
• 50:12
  That's a lot of patience. It's frustrating.
• 50:16
  I think it's one of the things that is the most rewarding and
• 50:23
  the most draining for me as a pastor, if I'm being honest.
• 50:27
  Being vulnerable is sitting with people again and again, just
• 50:31
  seeing people, hearing them, helping them, championing them
• 50:35
  towards restoration. But oftentimes people will grow
• 50:39
  and they'll be healed to to some degree, but then something will
• 50:41
  come up and they don't really want to keep growing towards
• 50:44
  healing and they'd rather just distance themselves and they'll
• 50:46
  blame you or they'll blame this, or that's hard.
• 50:51
  It's not easy. So I think there are some people
• 50:53
  who enjoy attention, right? They'd rather have negative
• 50:56
  attention than no attention. I think that's that's true for
• 50:59
  some personalities and some people, but just it really
• 51:03
  indicates immaturity and some areas of brokenness that need to
• 51:07
  be healed. And so even though people would
• 51:10
  rather identify themselves as those things, I think it's an
• 51:14
  indication of brokenness, of insecurity, of wounds that need
• 51:18
  to be healed, that need loving presence to help people be seen
• 51:23
  and heard and championing them towards restoration.
• 51:26
  So it may be true, but the remedy is still they need
• 51:30
  restoration by Jesus. They need somebody to hear them,
• 51:33
  see them and championing them towards that restoration.
• 51:39
  Next question is this. What do you think Jesus would
• 51:42
  have done if the man had replied that he didn't want to get well?
• 51:47
  Would he have just walked away and said have fun in hell?
• 51:50
  Lol this made me laugh when I read it, partly because I did
• 51:55
  say that in one of the messages I was being kind of talking
• 51:59
  about this idea and just said, you know, basically you make a
• 52:04
  choice to not let Jesus make you whole.
• 52:07
  You may as it's like have fun in hell with that.
• 52:10
  And I meant it as a joke, and I think it came out a little
• 52:12
  harsher than maybe some had heard it.
• 52:16
  This person was having fun with it, I think.
• 52:18
  And so that's OK. The question remains, what do
• 52:23
  you think Jesus would have done if the man replied He didn't
• 52:26
  want to get well, to to be honest, you know, but the
• 52:29
  Scripture really doesn't deal with hypothetical scenarios.
• 52:33
  That's not really the point of Scripture.
• 52:35
  However, for the sake of our conversation, anytime we're
• 52:38
  faced with a hypothetical like this, I think we have to look at
• 52:44
  other times when something similar happened and how did
• 52:46
  Jesus respond? So think about the rich young
• 52:49
  ruler. Jesus didn't.
• 52:51
  Lower the standard. Nor did he force the rich young
• 52:55
  rich young ruler to follow him. And yet the rich young ruler
• 52:59
  walked away from Jesus dejected in that moment.
• 53:03
  Now we don't know what. Happened with rich young you.
• 53:04
  Later. Did he eventually repent, come
• 53:06
  back? We don't know.
• 53:06
  That's, again, that that wasn't the point.
• 53:09
  That wasn't what the Scripture was trying to reveal to us.
• 53:12
  So based on that one case study, to be honest, I think Jesus
• 53:18
  would have let him be. I think Jesus maybe he wouldn't
• 53:22
  have even asked. He would have known what the guy
• 53:24
  would have said. And so that's why Jesus asked.
• 53:26
  But I think there was a point Jesus was making.
• 53:30
  I think it was some things Jesus was after and, and, and, and
• 53:34
  Jesus knew really what was in this man's heart.
• 53:36
  And so it was just giving him an opportunity to give voice to
• 53:41
  what Jesus already knew in his heart.
• 53:44
  But the question is, would Jesus have still done that if the man
• 53:50
  was like, no, I don't want to get well, personally.
• 53:54
  Again, in this hypothetical scenario, I don't think Jesus
• 53:57
  would have lowered the standard. I don't think Jesus would have
• 54:01
  forced it. I think Jesus would have let it
• 54:04
  be. And if the man ever changed his
• 54:06
  mind, I think Jesus would have healed him then.
• 54:09
  Very interesting question for sure.
• 54:13
  The next one I. Understand that the.
• 54:14
  Pool didn't hold special powers, but weren't people healed when
• 54:18
  they entered it? Why else would they have gone?
• 54:23
  So I think it's possible that people would have at least
• 54:27
  gotten better or something would have happened.
• 54:28
  Now you have to think when the bubbles went off, you had to be
• 54:34
  pretty physically capable to get into the water first.
• 54:37
  So it's probably cutting out most of the blind people and
• 54:42
  most of the lame people. And that would have maybe left
• 54:44
  just people with some skin diseases, some things like along
• 54:48
  those lines, perhaps. So realistically, again, the
• 54:53
  Bible doesn't say that there are lots of things.
• 54:56
  I mean, think about our own culture.
• 54:58
  Folklore is a possibility, right?
• 55:00
  We we often follow what people say, even if it's not the truth
• 55:04
  all the time, right? You've got the placebo effect,
• 55:09
  not to get into crystals and oils.
• 55:13
  OK, next subject, right? Like we've got all of these
• 55:17
  remedies and here's this health remedy and this works and that
• 55:19
  works and this thing works and people say all sorts of things
• 55:23
  that may have had some truth for them, but it's not like true all
• 55:26
  the time or in every case or XY and Z.
• 55:30
  So I think folklore is a possibility to why people would
• 55:34
  stick around to this pool. I think though, personally, my
• 55:40
  hypothesis is that it's more likely that the water was maybe
• 55:45
  a hot spring of sorts that had some therapeutic properties.
• 55:52
  Maybe it was like a salt bath or like sulfur in the water has
• 55:58
  some therapeutic benefits to our physical being, right?
• 56:02
  Like I think sulfur and, and, and even salt, salt baths can
• 56:06
  have help with your skin, help with muscle and joints, things
• 56:11
  of that nature. So maybe people who had some
• 56:14
  ailments, but not like a broken leg, but just like a sore leg or
• 56:17
  a swollen leg, if they got into that water and it was a, a hot
• 56:22
  sulfur bath bubbling a little bit.
• 56:24
  Well, that by nature, the chemicals in the water would
• 56:28
  bring and produce some, some healing, make make some
• 56:32
  remedies. So I think that's more likely
• 56:34
  what what, what the pool of Bethesda really was.
• 56:38
  That's my guess based on just some things we don't really know
• 56:42
  for certain. So again, we're kind of dealing
• 56:45
  with some hypotheticals. But I tend to think maybe it had
• 56:48
  more of like a salt bath, hot water, sulfur spring to it.
• 56:53
  And that has some, you know, healing capacities or
• 56:57
  therapeutic remedies that are applicable.
• 57:02
  And and likely that's how people were being made well by this
• 57:07
  water. The pool is what they knew.
• 57:12
  But when a better way came, Jesus specifically, many didn't
• 57:16
  recognize it. How can one imagine of life made
• 57:21
  whole? If I'm understanding this
• 57:24
  question right, that the question is like men, they miss
• 57:27
  Jesus and they it was right in front of them.
• 57:29
  They're seeing these things, but yet their eyes weren't really
• 57:32
  open to to what it was. I'm going to take this in two
• 57:36
  parts. Number one on.
• 57:38
  On one level, no one comes to God unless the Holy Spirit draws
• 57:42
  them. Scripture seems to hint that we
• 57:47
  are blind to the things of God. We have blinders on because
• 57:52
  Satan has blinded our eyes to see the hope of Christ, and it
• 57:58
  takes the Holy Spirit to open our eyes so that we can see
• 58:03
  Jesus. No one comes to the Father
• 58:05
  unless the Spirit draws him, the Scripture says so that's one way
• 58:10
  that we recognize God, opens our eyes sovereignly.
• 58:13
  I think that if we can't recognize what a life made whole
• 58:17
  looks like, how will we know there's a better way?
• 58:20
  I think that's a fair question. I think sometimes all we know is
• 58:25
  all that we know, and that can be frustrating.
• 58:28
  I think this is one of the reasons why Jesus came as a
• 58:32
  physical, embodied example of eternal life, of abundant life.
• 58:37
  It's not that everyone didn't recognize him.
• 58:40
  There were some who did recognize him.
• 58:43
  So those who had eyes to see, those who had ears to hear,
• 58:47
  Jesus said let him hear. So Jesus came as an embodiment,
• 58:53
  as an incarnation of God, of what abundant eternal life with
• 58:58
  God looked like. So Jesus came as the example.
• 59:02
  So how can we recognize it? Well, we read the Scriptures to
• 59:06
  see the life of Jesus as the example of a rich, eternal,
• 59:12
  abundant life with God and how that it looks.
• 59:16
  I also think This is why we, as the people of God, want to
• 59:21
  become an accurate reflection of the radiant image of Christ, so
• 59:26
  that the world around us, those close to us, might taste and see
• 59:32
  that God is good. How can we help people imagine a
• 59:38
  life made whole? We bring that to life for them
• 59:44
  through the work of the Spirit and our own life.
• 59:48
  We're a witness. We're the one that they get to
• 59:52
  see, and they can see it in the Scriptures as well.
• 59:57
  If my identity is shaped like Jesus, what does that look like?
• 1:00:03
  You know, we talked again. A.
• 1:00:03
  Lot about identity. And I mentioned it earlier, but
• 1:00:07
  our identity is sons and daughters of God adopted
• 1:00:14
  belonging. Bible says that we are heirs and
• 1:00:17
  Co heirs with Christ calls us a royal priesthood, a holy nation,
• 1:00:23
  a peculiar people called out of darkness into his marvelous
• 1:00:29
  light. Peter says so.
• 1:00:32
  Our identity shaped like Jesus looks like Jesus.
• 1:00:37
  It's the truth we live out based on the scriptures and the
• 1:00:42
  realizations of of God's gifting and uniqueness in our life.
• 1:00:47
  That's that's who we are. We are becoming more like him.
• 1:00:52
  This is why what who we're becoming is more important than
• 1:00:57
  what we are doing for God. And we have to live from this
• 1:01:01
  place of identity. Identity is accepted.
• 1:01:04
  Identity is called. Our identity is chosen.
• 1:01:08
  Our identity is holy. Our identity is son and
• 1:01:11
  daughter. Our identity is loved by God.
• 1:01:16
  We are not working for love. We are working from a place of
• 1:01:20
  love. He has already given us His
• 1:01:23
  favor. He favors you because he's given
• 1:01:26
  you his spirit. Think that's an identity shaped
• 1:01:30
  by Jesus versus an identity shaped by the world that says
• 1:01:35
  you are what you do, you are what you produce.
• 1:01:37
  You are your value, Prove your value and will value you.
• 1:01:42
  Jesus says I'm proving your value by what I paid for you.
• 1:01:47
  And I think that's a big part of why our identity is shaped by
• 1:01:51
  the voice of God, His affirmation in our life.
• 1:01:55
  We are not working to be affirmed.
• 1:01:57
  We've already been affirmed by God.
• 1:02:02
  If Jesus healed the man because it was an opportunity to reveal
• 1:02:06
  himself as God, where does the love come in?
• 1:02:09
  Why does Jesus leave before the man could point him out?
• 1:02:14
  Yeah, this is an interesting thing, right?
• 1:02:16
  A little subtlety in the Scripture.
• 1:02:17
  Jesus, like, snuck away before the man could really understand
• 1:02:22
  who he was. Why would Jesus do all of those
• 1:02:25
  things? So.
• 1:02:28
  So one thing I think is important is to remember that
• 1:02:30
  Jesus knew the Father's timing. Again, he said things like in
• 1:02:35
  John 2, my hour hasn't come, right?
• 1:02:37
  It's not time for me to do the things that are going to cause a
• 1:02:42
  huge stir in the temple. In other words, Jesus had more
• 1:02:46
  ministry to do in other regions. And at this point in time in the
• 1:02:50
  narrative, it wasn't time for Jesus to go to the cross yet.
• 1:02:54
  So Jesus ready wasn't ready to create that climactic tipping
• 1:02:58
  point where maybe the Pharisees would be enraged and fully
• 1:03:03
  angered and like Jesus was was moving and edging in that
• 1:03:07
  direction. He was kind of like, you know,
• 1:03:09
  kind of showing up a little bit, but it wasn't quite time to take
• 1:03:13
  it all the way there just yet. It wasn't the last lap.
• 1:03:17
  And so he's holding some back still.
• 1:03:19
  So I think Jesus knew the Father's timing and knew it
• 1:03:23
  wasn't time to go full on, you know, couldn't confrontation
• 1:03:30
  make them mad and want to kill him?
• 1:03:32
  Yet they weren't happy with him. No doubt they were kind of
• 1:03:37
  disturbed by it, but it was just the beginning of the stirring
• 1:03:42
  and the boiling point that was coming.
• 1:03:45
  I think you have to remember love is always the motivation of
• 1:03:48
  Jesus, even when revealing His true nature.
• 1:03:53
  It's an act of love. So the fact that it was an
• 1:03:55
  opportunity for for him to do, to reveal his divine God like
• 1:04:00
  nature, his God like nature is loving.
• 1:04:05
  So it's not mutually exclusive. Part of I think our hang up with
• 1:04:12
  this is like we think loving emotional things rather than the
• 1:04:17
  full context of love. Like everything God does is from
• 1:04:21
  a place of of love and holiness, right?
• 1:04:24
  Like this is an element of him. This is kind of who his
• 1:04:27
  character and his nature is. His motivation is never self
• 1:04:32
  aggrandizing for arrogance sake, right?
• 1:04:36
  Like everything Jesus does is motivated with humility.
• 1:04:41
  It's never rooted in hubris in an attempt to become celebrity.
• 1:04:47
  Jesus wasn't trying to like, stir the crowds to like, shout
• 1:04:54
  hosanna, right? Like that wasn't something Jesus
• 1:04:56
  stirred up. That time was coming.
• 1:04:59
  It would be a prophetic act for sure.
• 1:05:02
  But that time wasn't here yet. And even in that it wasn't Jesus
• 1:05:06
  stirring it up just for celebrity sake and building a
• 1:05:10
  platform or becoming famous, Jesus was doing these things
• 1:05:14
  intentionally because he saw the Father do them and he knew it
• 1:05:18
  was the Father's desire for him to do them.
• 1:05:21
  And so because Jesus loved the Father and the Father loved
• 1:05:25
  Jesus, Jesus did what the Father wanted him to do.
• 1:05:28
  Jesus is obedience to the Father, even in his timing, was
• 1:05:33
  an act of love. And so those two things aren't
• 1:05:36
  mutually exclusive. They are linked together.
• 1:05:39
  So those two things are the same.
• 1:05:41
  Jesus can have the opportunity in healing to be a sign that
• 1:05:46
  points to His divinity, which also is a loving nature.
• 1:05:50
  His divinity is a loving, divine nature, and those two things are
• 1:05:55
  compatible together in John. Chapter 5 The.
• 1:05:59
  Pharisees responded with self righteousness when Jesus healed
• 1:06:02
  a man on the Sabbath. What's the difference between
• 1:06:06
  self righteousness and the kind of righteousness God desires for
• 1:06:11
  our for our lives? This is a really great question
• 1:06:17
  right to to think about the difference between righteousness
• 1:06:19
  and self righteousness. Righteousness that we have is
• 1:06:24
  actually Jesus's. It's Jesus's righteousness that
• 1:06:27
  he gives to us. We are in Christ, so we are
• 1:06:30
  covered by his righteousness. In other words, we don't own
• 1:06:34
  righteousness. It's something that God has
• 1:06:36
  given to Jesus because of what he's done.
• 1:06:39
  He imputes his righteousness. The scripture actually says to
• 1:06:42
  us, which is an account an an accounting term, self
• 1:06:49
  righteousness is selfish. It's full of hubris.
• 1:06:52
  It's justifying its own actions with its own reasoning and
• 1:06:56
  logic. Self righteousness isn't really
• 1:06:59
  submitted to the Father. It actually is self glorifying
• 1:07:03
  rather than God glorifying. Self righteousness is often
• 1:07:06
  snobby, looking down in a critical ways on others.
• 1:07:11
  This is the self righteousness that that many have.
• 1:07:15
  So there is a a big difference between self righteousness and
• 1:07:18
  and righteousness. In fact our own attempts to be
• 1:07:23
  righteous aren't really of God because our our trust in that
• 1:07:30
  moment is in the action rather than our trust being in God.
• 1:07:35
  And so many times the Pharisees lived with a self righteousness
• 1:07:40
  thinking that their actions justified them and in other
• 1:07:44
  words their trust was in the action.
• 1:07:47
  Their trust wasn't in Yahweh, and so our trust belongs to
• 1:07:52
  Yahweh, not to our our actions. In this passage of John 5.
• 1:07:59
  It's relatively easy to distinguish between morality and
• 1:08:02
  legality, but that's not always the case in our lives.
• 1:08:06
  How can we become more aware of moments when our choices or
• 1:08:09
  attitudes are are even rooted in this self righteousness rather
• 1:08:13
  than in God's heart like in John 544?
• 1:08:16
  Jesus said. How Can you believe since you
• 1:08:18
  accept glory from one another, but don't seek the glory that
• 1:08:22
  comes from the only God. Does this passage answer the
• 1:08:27
  that that question? Who am I trying to glorify?
• 1:08:32
  So I'm going to take all of this together.
• 1:08:34
  It it does kind of answer it. Yeah.
• 1:08:37
  When we do good works to be seen by others and recognized by
• 1:08:41
  others. Jesus said there's your reward,
• 1:08:45
  no reward from God for that. You people congratulated you.
• 1:08:48
  You don't need God's blessing. Now Jesus is kind of using some
• 1:08:53
  tongue in cheek there. You seek glory from each other.
• 1:08:57
  No need to get glory from God, I guess, huh?
• 1:08:59
  You, you got all you need, bud. And so Jesus is kind of kind of
• 1:09:03
  pointing out the fact that like, and you can't even really
• 1:09:06
  believe in God because you believe in yourself more than
• 1:09:09
  you believe in God. It's more of a humanistic self
• 1:09:13
  righteousness rather than a humble trust in Christ's
• 1:09:18
  righteousness. And I think that's important.
• 1:09:21
  Many of us today live with a self realized glory.
• 1:09:30
  You're good enough, you've got what it takes, you're the best
• 1:09:34
  like and these affirmations, I get it.
• 1:09:36
  We're we're trying to wash our mind from AI can't victim to a
• 1:09:41
  positive, I can't outcome. And so I'm not trying to toss
• 1:09:44
  all of that out. But I think we need to be
• 1:09:46
  careful that we're not trusting more in our humanness, that we
• 1:09:51
  forget to rely on God's goodness.
• 1:09:55
  The issue of morality and legality is indeed a fine line
• 1:10:00
  at times. Sometimes it's really clear
• 1:10:02
  because they're aligned together.
• 1:10:04
  Sometimes it's really clear because they're not right.
• 1:10:07
  Like morality, don't murder, legality don't murder like
• 1:10:10
  they're aligned. But sometimes it gets
• 1:10:15
  convoluted. It's similar to the idea of hey,
• 1:10:18
  let's, let's disagree agreeably. In other words, I want to
• 1:10:24
  disagree with this idea and kind of reject this thought.
• 1:10:28
  But it's not a wholesale rejection of you as a person or
• 1:10:31
  our relationship, right? Those are fine, fine lines.
• 1:10:35
  Sometimes we need to do the moral thing, even if it's
• 1:10:38
  illegal, which is why Jesus would use the example of, you
• 1:10:44
  know, which of you Pharisees on the Sabbath, if your donkey gets
• 1:10:48
  lost or falls into a well, would you not help them out?
• 1:10:53
  How much more should you help this brother or sister who's in
• 1:10:58
  need on the Sabbath? It's no less work, it's even
• 1:11:03
  more moral. It's kind of like in our world
• 1:11:07
  today, we see things like many people care more about plastic
• 1:11:14
  straws and saving whales than they do saving unborn babies.
• 1:11:21
  The morality isn't the same. I'm going to we, we don't need
• 1:11:27
  to spend the same amount of money on saving the whales as we
• 1:11:31
  do educational things in our nation, helping people sustain
• 1:11:38
  and get out of hell. But I, I, I think that there
• 1:11:40
  are, there are some causes, while perhaps noble aren't quite
• 1:11:45
  the same level of morality as other causes in our nation.
• 1:11:50
  And I just think we need to be honest about that.
• 1:11:54
  And so man, I think I think that's you know, if it if it
• 1:11:57
  became legal to feed someone elses dog, but it became illegal
• 1:12:05
  to feed someone elses kids or to give somebody to feed a needy
• 1:12:10
  dog is fine, but to feed a needy child is illegal.
• 1:12:13
  Well, the morality of that just doesn't compute.
• 1:12:17
  The math ain't math thing on that right.
• 1:12:19
  So it is hard sometimes to see the line and sometimes it's not
• 1:12:24
  hard to see the line. And sometimes we just get them
• 1:12:27
  flipped and inverted all the time.
• 1:12:29
  And, and we need to be careful with that.
• 1:12:30
  We need to recognize that and our self-righteous attitudes can
• 1:12:35
  get in the way. Our own trust and our own good
• 1:12:37
  works and humanism can get in the way.
• 1:12:41
  And, and now we, we can, we can find, we can easily trick
• 1:12:46
  ourselves. And this is the hard part, that
• 1:12:49
  doing something good for someone else is just for them.
• 1:12:54
  Sometimes doing good for someone else, we do it because it feels
• 1:12:59
  good to us and we want to do it in a way that makes us feel good
• 1:13:03
  rather than in a way that is most beneficial to to them and.
• 1:13:09
  Sometimes that's. A hard one in our hearts and
• 1:13:11
  minds, yeah. I think that's that's that's a.
• 1:13:16
  Hard one. I'll give you an example.
• 1:13:21
  We have a lot of ministry partners.
• 1:13:24
  We have several outreach ministry partners, some locally.
• 1:13:29
  The Beacon is one of our local outreach partners where we
• 1:13:33
  financially give every month to the Beacon to help provide food
• 1:13:39
  to those in our community who need it.
• 1:13:41
  Now could we create our own? Food Bank and.
• 1:13:45
  Always give to people food who need it whenever they need it.
• 1:13:49
  As long as we have it, we, we could do that.
• 1:13:52
  And man, it would be really feel really good to be the ones to
• 1:13:57
  give the food out. Man, it feels good to do that.
• 1:14:01
  But is it any less important? Is it more important that people
• 1:14:06
  get food or that we get to give them the food?
• 1:14:10
  There's the line, but both are morally good to do.
• 1:14:14
  Both are legal to do. The line of self righteousness
• 1:14:18
  comes and I'm doing this and I'm feeling a little bit more glory
• 1:14:21
  because I was hands on in it versus someone else interacted,
• 1:14:26
  gave the food, but we helped fund it.
• 1:14:29
  And so it's kind of like out of sight, out of mind a little bit.
• 1:14:32
  So like, man, we're letting them do that.
• 1:14:34
  They're getting the, the recognition for it.
• 1:14:36
  Nobody knows that we're doing it.
• 1:14:37
  We're like silent partners in that way.
• 1:14:39
  Like how do we feel about that? Well, man, I, I think that's a
• 1:14:43
  hard check, a motive check for all of us.
• 1:14:45
  We're not, we're not trying to do these things to be seen by
• 1:14:47
  men or to be thanked by men or to have a plaque in our name
• 1:14:51
  somewhere. We're doing it because it's the
• 1:14:53
  right thing to do and, and, and we want to be generous in that
• 1:14:56
  way. So our motives of self
• 1:14:59
  righteousness of trying to glory in ourselves versus letting God
• 1:15:03
  be have glory and just being faithful and honoring him and
• 1:15:06
  laws of morality and legality lines of those man.
• 1:15:09
  All of that does indeed kind of crossover.
• 1:15:14
  And it's easy to get the wires crossed and to do it in the
• 1:15:18
  wrong way or in the wrong motives.
• 1:15:19
  And so we always have to just examine that before the Lord and
• 1:15:22
  ask the Holy Spirit to check our hearts in how we go about doing
• 1:15:26
  those those things. Final question is this.
• 1:15:31
  As someone with a very quote, UN quote works based background,
• 1:15:35
  how do we shake that feeling that we have to do this or we
• 1:15:40
  have quote UN quote to do that? Are those feelings convictions
• 1:15:44
  from the Holy Spirit or are they quote UN quote works based
• 1:15:48
  performance thoughts intruding? Such a good question.
• 1:15:53
  And, and while I wouldn't say I grew up in a, in a huge like
• 1:15:56
  works based environment, I have a tendency my personality is to
• 1:16:03
  be very performance oriented, doing things to be, you know, I
• 1:16:09
  want to, I want to be at my, my primal question is, am I
• 1:16:13
  successful? And so external things they say,
• 1:16:15
  oh man, it kind of shouts at my, my own self and who I am.
• 1:16:21
  So I, I, I think it's really important to know this here.
• 1:16:23
  Here's the first thing I'll say. Shame and guilt don't help
• 1:16:28
  produce a life of courage, but performance.
• 1:16:32
  So anytime we're, we're being shamed or guilt tripped into
• 1:16:36
  something, it's not going to produce real courage and
• 1:16:40
  boldness of the Holy Spirit. Rather, just put us on the
• 1:16:43
  treadmill of performance practices of our faith.
• 1:16:50
  These works that we would do, these good works that glorify
• 1:16:54
  our God in heaven as Jesus says on the Sermon on the Mount.
• 1:16:58
  These practices of our faith are an invitation and an opportunity
• 1:17:05
  in relationship and encountering the beauty of God.
• 1:17:10
  Let me say it again, spiritual practices are an invitation into
• 1:17:14
  relationships and into an encounter of the beauty of God
• 1:17:19
  in our lives. So they're not a have to you
• 1:17:25
  have to do this or I'm not going to love you.
• 1:17:28
  That's that's definitely workspace have to quote UN quote
• 1:17:31
  stuff. That's the wrong motive if you
• 1:17:35
  are doing them to feel more loved by God.
• 1:17:39
  We are definitely living from a works based idea and framework.
• 1:17:44
  God has already demonstrated his love towards you in that He made
• 1:17:49
  a way for you to have relationship with Him.
• 1:17:53
  He's already initiated it. We just step into that love.
• 1:17:58
  We step into who He is. We step into His blessing and
• 1:18:01
  His family. This comes from our culture for
• 1:18:05
  sure, where we prioritize and reward doing more than being.
• 1:18:13
  Think about it. You give your kids money for
• 1:18:16
  chores they do. What if instead, you started
• 1:18:20
  giving your kids allowance for characteristics that they
• 1:18:26
  develop? What if you started doing
• 1:18:29
  something that because they learned a new skill, that they
• 1:18:32
  developed something about who they are?
• 1:18:35
  Who they were becoming was growing.
• 1:18:38
  Rather, they just did something that you asked them to do.
• 1:18:42
  Our culture, what what man, we, we, we prize, we pay, we reward,
• 1:18:47
  we give bonuses based on outcomes, based on doing.
• 1:18:52
  I'm not saying it's all wrong. That's the society that we're
• 1:18:55
  operating in. The trouble is, is when we take
• 1:18:58
  the society we live in and superimpose it on the Kingdom of
• 1:19:02
  God that we're born into, they're not the.
• 1:19:06
  Same. Kingdom.
• 1:19:08
  So the goals and the priorities and success of Kingdom of Heaven
• 1:19:13
  is different than the success of earth.
• 1:19:17
  And it's imperative that we understand the difference.
• 1:19:20
  We are not laying the Kingdom of Earth on top of the Kingdom of
• 1:19:24
  Heaven and saying now these things are compatible.
• 1:19:27
  Nor are we laying the Kingdom of Heaven on the Kingdom of earth
• 1:19:29
  and saying, Oh yes, these are the same.
• 1:19:31
  No, they're different kingdoms all together.
• 1:19:35
  There might be some things that are similar or point to or
• 1:19:37
  reference, but they are different kingdoms.
• 1:19:42
  So it's important for us to recognize even in our goal
• 1:19:47
  oriented nature in this life, they really need any goals that
• 1:19:53
  we set, need to really begin with who do we want to become?
• 1:19:59
  Not goals of what do we want to accomplish.
• 1:20:03
  I, I, I, I think James Clear in his book Atomic Habits does a
• 1:20:07
  brilliant job of outlining this for us, that our goals really
• 1:20:14
  should not be I want to achieve XY and Z.
• 1:20:17
  Our goals really should be about who are we becoming and who is
• 1:20:21
  it we want to represent. That's a better way of
• 1:20:25
  approaching our own life, our own formation, our own growth,
• 1:20:30
  our own maturity. As followers of Jesus, our.
• 1:20:34
  Our end goal is to become more reflective of the radiance of
• 1:20:38
  Christ in the message, I said. At the end of the day, we want
• 1:20:41
  to look more like the radiance of Christ and less like our
• 1:20:45
  grandparents. It's not to say our.
• 1:20:48
  Grandparents are bad, that's not.
• 1:20:49
  To say we're not going to actually physically look like
• 1:20:51
  them. Like again, our genetics are our
• 1:20:53
  genetics. We can't help it.
• 1:20:56
  People hear my dad and my brothers and I and all talk and
• 1:20:59
  we're like, Dang, they all sound.
• 1:21:00
  People are like they all sound the same.
• 1:21:01
  Well, we can't help that. That's genetics, right?
• 1:21:06
  There are certain nuances and things that we could change,
• 1:21:09
  mannerisms with great practice and skill and awareness and
• 1:21:12
  intention. Maybe I could change.
• 1:21:14
  But the end of the day, the natural elements of the
• 1:21:17
  physicality of my life are kind of written by the DNA script of
• 1:21:22
  my life. Now, by saying we want to be
• 1:21:26
  more like Christ than we want to be like our grandparents, that's
• 1:21:29
  not, again, not say our grandparents are bad or that
• 1:21:31
  we're not going to be like them or they're not admirable traits
• 1:21:33
  that we want to be. That's not the point.
• 1:21:36
  What I'm trying to say is that our attitude, our posture, our
• 1:21:40
  generosity, our level of patience, our, our, our, our
• 1:21:44
  sensitivity to the Holy Spirit, all of these Kingdom
• 1:21:49
  characteristics, we want them to look more like the radiance of
• 1:21:52
  Christ. I want to point people to Jesus.
• 1:21:56
  I don't, I don't want to just point out myself.
• 1:21:58
  The end of the day when I die, I want people to say that was
• 1:22:02
  someone who loved Jesus well and loved like Jesus.
• 1:22:07
  That's what I want people to say about me.
• 1:22:09
  The end of the day, I want my life to be kind of like Peter
• 1:22:13
  and John, where people are like, man, that was an ordinary
• 1:22:16
  unschooled dude, but he spent time with Jesus and it shows.
• 1:22:21
  That's what I want. I want people.
• 1:22:25
  I want Jesus to rub off on me, off off me to others.
• 1:22:30
  That's when I'm at WE. Want to become more?
• 1:22:32
  Reflective of the radiance of of Christ.
• 1:22:35
  And so remember, we are we. We live and move and find our
• 1:22:40
  being in the Holy Spirit. We don't live and move and find
• 1:22:43
  our being to earn the Holy Spirit.
• 1:22:47
  We're working from a place of love and adoption and
• 1:22:50
  acceptance. We are not working for a place
• 1:22:53
  of love, adoption, and acceptance.
• 1:22:56
  God has already done those things for us, and we respond in
• 1:23:02
  love and in kind toward Him. Jesus said it like this.
• 1:23:08
  If you love me, you'll keep my commandments.
• 1:23:11
  In other words, the more we spend time loving Jesus and
• 1:23:15
  getting to know Jesus, the more we'll live, obey, and keep the
• 1:23:20
  commands of Jesus. Not because we have to, not
• 1:23:24
  because he's forcing us, not because we've been manipulated,
• 1:23:28
  but because that's what love does.
• 1:23:31
  Love reciprocates love. When I am loving to my wife by
• 1:23:37
  nature, she becomes not only more receptive of my love, but
• 1:23:41
  she returns love naturally because you, you what you sow,
• 1:23:49
  you reap. And so God is sowing His love
• 1:23:53
  towards us and He reaps our love back towards Him.
• 1:23:58
  It's a natural response. And so it's not a have to, it's
• 1:24:02
  not a workspace thing. It's coming back from a place of
• 1:24:06
  being centered in God's love. And from that we live and move
• 1:24:12
  and find our being. It's the Spirit who does that.
• 1:24:15
  We're not earning it, We're not demanding it, we're not meriting
• 1:24:19
  it, but we're living from it nonetheless.
• 1:24:23
  Hey, that's it for today. That was a ton of questions.
• 1:24:27
  I hope you're home with us. And I do really indeed,
• 1:24:30
  sincerely just say thank you for listening for for hanging in
• 1:24:33
  there with us, man. I hope this episode of the Faith
• 1:24:37
  for Today podcast has encouraged you and helped you integrate a
• 1:24:42
  life of faithfulness today. Hope you have faith for today
• 1:24:47
  and every day. I love you guys.
• 1:24:48
  We'll see you next week.