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What Does ”Worshipping in Spirit and Truth” Mean? · Red Couch Theology

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Hello, hello and welcome to another episode of the Red Couch
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Theology podcast. This week we are talking about
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the passage where Jesus talks to a woman at the well.
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One, we give a summary of some really interesting
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interpretations of that passage. Two, we talk about what in the
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world does Jesus mean when he says we should worship in spirit
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and truth or the woman at the well should will worship in
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spirit and in truth. And then finally, we talk about
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John's obsession with the topic of water.
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And is that even significant? Should we even be paying
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attention to the topic of water? And if so, what does water
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represent in the book of John? Let's dive right in.
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Well, Alex just said something really strange.
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Oh, I forgot to change your lighting.
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No, I look great. You look, whoa, we're orange.
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We're normal now and I'm wearing a hat so I'm like.
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And I look like I'm in the dark. Whitest shoes and the whitest
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sweater. Alex just said something very
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strange for a pastor right before the show started.
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What would you say? You were trapped by Scripture.
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I wouldn't have said it like that.
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I mean, I did say it that. Is exactly.
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That's literally what you said. What do you mean?
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I wouldn't have said that. Oh, yeah.
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Yeah, yeah, yeah. What I said was this.
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Sometimes when you're talking about one story, like next week,
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I'm talking about the second-half of this story.
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So you have the Jesus encounter with a woman in the world, and
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then you get the week after where she goes back to the town.
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The disciples come back to him and they kind of like
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crisscross, almost like a play going in and out.
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Yeah. And I think what happens to her
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is maybe transformation. But there's other words that I
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might use, renewal, you know, all those kind of like different
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ideas. Lots of them are kind of almost
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synonyms at least. And sometimes I wonder whether
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it's helpful to describe it in another way.
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But when I think about Paul talking about, he uses the word
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morphe. It's like transformation is the
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best translation of that word. And a lot of long words
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beginning in T And so I kind of like feel uncomfortable maybe
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using a different word because it's so like, that's what the
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that's what Paul's talking about.
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Yeah. So that makes sense.
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I guess I'm kind of free to not include that passage of Paul,
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but it feels like that's also a really great passage to connect
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to it. So I don't know, it just feels
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like I, I, I said to Teresa, you know, when it comes director,
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when when I was talking about this, like when I think about
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transformation, I'm so now wired to think about Transformers that
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they almost just picture like blocks moving.
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It's very like, you know, like linear and over, you know,
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prescribed and and then transformation in the Christian
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world is nothing like that. Yeah.
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And strangely like, perhaps quickly.
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And over. Years.
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You know, a good friend, my good friend Ronald Rehlheiser, talks
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about how like, the early transformation seems to be quick
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and surprisingly quick. You know, in a rather succinct
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fashion, Jesus puts your life into some kind of order and you
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start to follow him. And then there's the long years
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of trying to surrender yourself to God, which seems to take.
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Forever. Well, there you go, hot take
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everyone, this podcast where you come and listen to Alex argue
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with Scripture, but he's trapped by scripture.
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All right, So welcome to the Red Couch Theology podcast,
3:43
everyone. This week on the episode, we are
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going to talk about what in the world it means to worship in
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spirit and truth. And we are going to give a
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modern rendition of this particular verse.
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Jesus said in verse 10 John 410 Jesus answered her, if you knew
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the gift of God and who it is that asks you for a drink, you
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would have asked him and he would have murdered your thirst.
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No, all right, sorry. He would have given you a
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living, living water. So Alex is drinking this liquid
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death. Which we've learnt from
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wandering around church with these because they're in the
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staff fridge. They look like beer cans.
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They do I. Was.
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I don't know. Alex was Someone in the church
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was a little concerned that Alex was just like casually wandering
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around on a Wednesday night just pounding a beer.
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Yeah, you. Just is that where you're at
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now? The branding of these things is
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a little bit comical, but one of the things is is like liquid
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death, murdering your thirst. And so we were joking that
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that's what Jesus said he would do for the woman at the well.
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He would murder her thirst. Once cracked open, no thirst is
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safe from Liquid Death after initially dismembering its
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thirst victims. After ritually dismembering its
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thirst victims, this brutal can of water used the seven body
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parts of dead Thirsts to build itself afresh.
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Flesh, which she'd used as AI, can't even keep going, disguised
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to get a job in marketing. But Liquid Death Death never
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took the job, It just murdered a bunch of more Thirsts instead.
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Just very strange. I.
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Mean it's got a little depth. Of plastic logo.
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Is it inappropriate to say that Jesus murdered people's thirst?
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Probably. I think actually your, your,
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your foray into scriptural interpretation is more
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condemning than mine. So you started off accusing me
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of stuff and now now here you are.
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Yeah, with your very loose interpretation of Scripture.
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There you go. All right, so we got a couple
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questions that came in. But before we dive into the
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question of what in the world does it mean to worship in
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spirit in truth? Oh, and we're also gonna talk
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about what why John is so obsessed with water.
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Does he seems to be a little bit like it's like his favorite
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topic for in a couple different, you know, depending on how
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you're looking at it. Yeah, it does seem to.
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It does seem to run pretty heavy through like this passage, John
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Chapter 7. Feel like it comes back again at
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different points. I mean, yeah, I've.
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Got a bunch of them listed here for us, But before we do that,
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just so we can get the lay of the land, like reorient
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ourselves, what in the world do you talk about on Sunday so that
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we can remember which passage and so forth?
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So I I to to speak of water. I, I talked about the passage in
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John chapter 4, one through 26, where Jesus enters into the land
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of Samaria meets a woman that a well, all of it is vastly from a
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Jewish perspective or a pure Jew perspective, someone who's
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ritually clean perspective is vastly inappropriate.
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Like Jesus is in a place he shouldn't be at a time he
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shouldn't be there. Like, I mean the time I guess is
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a little bit like nothing wrong with the time, but it's a crazy
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I mean. The thing that's wrong with the
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time is a woman's there alone, whereas other times of day she
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probably would have been there with a crowd.
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But it's a, it's also like a like, who wants to be out at
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noon in that kind of, you know, there's actually a saying only
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mad dogs and Englishmen because you go to all these places all
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over the world. Like mad dogs are known for like
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if you've been in a culture that has rabies, like dogs with
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rabies tend to be out in the heat, drooling, kind of walking
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strangely. They you know.
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And that's what Englishmen do. And and.
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Then well no, but in in because because England had this huge
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empire. The British Empire was so large
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and reached so many weird places on earth that was that were in
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very different climates to the English climate.
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The locals would always observe that at a time when no seen
8:24
local or negative was out, English people would just be out
8:29
just, you know, catching sunburn or whatever they were doing.
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But yes, so the the phrase mad dogs and Englishmen referred to
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being willing to go out in the the noonday heat of the the heat
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of the day whenever so. Jesus is a Mad Dog.
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Jesus is out in the heat of the day, you know, so, so he's,
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again, it's an unusual setting for him to be out.
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Noon is a weird time for any of these things to be happening.
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So yeah, wrong place, wrong time, wrong person to be talking
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to. So we do all like from a a pure
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due perspective, you're reading this and you're like wrong,
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wrong, wrong. Yeah, wrong, wrong or and or
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wrong risque. Like a little bit like, you
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know, he's alone with this woman.
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Yeah, no one's, no one else is around.
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It's just a little bit. So the setup of the narrative is
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a little bit awkward for the Jewish reader especially.
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And we miss it because we're just like, oh, how nice is
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Jesus? Well, just.
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Overly we talked about this the other week over familiarity,
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right. All of these stories now to us
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are over familiar. So we're outside the cultural
9:39
context and we're, we're just so used to these stories that we
9:42
don't, we don't know what to do with them a lot of the time.
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And so this story sets up in a way that's designed to make us
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think, what on earth is going on here if we could catch the
9:55
cultural climate of it. And then the conversation that
9:59
happens initially presents as one that, if you're a reader of
10:05
the Torah, especially Genesis and Exodus, might point to some
10:10
kind of romantic movement, you know, and, and interestingly,
10:15
Samaritans only read the Torah as well.
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So they're familiar with this so.
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These kind of stories are very familiar to them.
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They're not interested in the prophetic books.
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They've got this first five books that mean everything to
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them. And so these kind of stories are
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like, oh, yeah, absolutely. We we get these kind of stories.
10:33
Moses meets his wife for the well.
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And these are all good people as well.
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They're not bad people. Yeah.
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Like these are the heroes. They're like either this is like
10:41
wrong place, wrong time, or oh, is she just going to find a
10:44
wife? Yeah.
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Yeah, yeah. And actually interestingly, like
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nothing particularly said of the wives like then they're not they
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based on the the time that this is written and often disappear a
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little bit into the background. And so the presentation in
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Genesis and Exodus is a person who's part of a special lineage
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meets someone at a well. And from there, yeah, not
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romance blossoms, but marriage blossoms.
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But marriage is the result. So yeah, all of it presents in
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that way. Like, there's a weird entry, and
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then there's this, like, yeah, like this kind of is.
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This where it's going. This looks.
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Like an old story. Yeah, actually, John, a lot of
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some scholars, at least a lot of other scholars, as we're now
11:36
saying in this context, a lot of, of some scholars talk about
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John using this idea of Ramez, which is like a throwback to an
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old story. And, and some people have
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tracked through like 7 or 8 times that he does this almost
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as frequently as his signs. There's like a throwback to a
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thing that happened. So the first and really obvious
12:00
one is John chapter one, verse one in the beginning.
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Like it's a. Strange choice of words to use
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accidentally, but when you use it intentionally, it's becomes
12:12
this thing called ramaz and and some people think this is like
12:15
one of those passages where he's talking about this thing that
12:18
happened back before. But it's a little bit of a bait
12:22
and switch. Totally a bait and switch, yeah.
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So the, you know, John's John's sort of like set you up to think
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that it's going to be one thing and then he like did twists to a
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different. Direction.
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Well, nothing particularly said about the character of the women
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that are met at Wells by patriarchs and Genesis or by
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Moses and Genesis in in Exodus. The assumption is if nothing is
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said about them, then they're of good character.
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Yeah. Good character's kind of the
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assumption. And unless it's mentioned
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otherwise, yeah. And so then this story's a bait
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and switch because it starts off with all of those kind of ideas
13:04
of like romance, like think about any romantic tropes that
13:08
we have today, like the meet cute of movies, all those
13:12
different things like that or a pick up line or something.
13:15
Yeah, my, my daughter and your daughter are actually at the
13:18
moment are really into dystopian novels, right.
13:24
And so I always tease her. I could write one of those
13:26
novels because the formula's super obvious kind of strange,
13:31
quirky girl who seems to have some kind of extraordinary
13:35
gifting or something, you know, kind of is in this world of
13:40
dystopia where some great leader is weirdly obsessed with her.
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She meets this boy who is somewhat interesting but not
13:49
quite as gifted as her. And he's maybe like a a couple
13:53
of years older. And like, you've got all of
13:55
these tropes that come one after another.
13:56
And like, I'm just going to throw this into ChatGPT and I'm
14:00
going to write the great next dystopian novel.
14:04
So, so like that, that like we start to see quickly the ways
14:09
that in certain movies, things happen in ways that we expect
14:12
them to. Like little clues that there's a
14:14
famous biography of the life of Princess Diana of Wales that
14:20
starts off Once Upon a time there was a Princess.
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Now, if you ask any kid, like, what does it mean when you start
14:26
off? Once Upon a time there was a
14:28
Princess. Well, it's like a fairy tale,
14:30
right? And then this fairy tale ends
14:33
in, you know, a broken marriage, a car crash, like, ends in
14:37
tragedy. So it quickly subverts our
14:40
expectations of the genre. And that's what happens here.
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There's a genre expectation, a, well, meeting, a marriage that
14:48
blossoms from it. And now, suddenly, this woman is
14:52
not the kind of woman that you would imagine someone like Jesus
14:56
marrying. And and it quickly becomes clear
14:59
this isn't about marriage at all.
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Yeah, Jesus sort of cuts off that whole train of thought that
15:05
you're thinking that you're going down as a as a reader of
15:07
the narrative. And he and he and he says,
15:10
where's your husband? And you're like, and then she's
15:13
like, I don't have a husband. And he's like, oh, yeah, that's
15:16
'cause you've had five. And he's.
15:18
And so like any romance is like, boom, romance killer
15:20
instantaneously. And he's like, we're not going
15:22
there. He kind of like, in one sense, I
15:26
think it's actually an act of like, of kindness for Jesus.
15:30
You know, who knows what's gone in this woman's life?
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But regardless of whether she's in the wrong and she's like
15:36
promiscuous or whether she's just had the worst luck ever and
15:41
all of her husbands are dying or leaving her or she's just like
15:46
unlikable by these guys. Regardless, her relationship
15:50
with men is really, really complicated.
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You can actually read it in multiple ways.
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As you said, I think he cuts off the narrative a little earlier
15:58
than that. I think she's clear that he's
16:00
cut off the narrative when she starts to talk about like, give
16:04
me this living water. But like that I, I actually
16:08
think she started to catch some sense of a piece that's missing
16:12
in her world, some sense of longing that that she's not,
16:17
she's still obviously not sure what he's talking about in the
16:22
same way that Nicodemus wasn't sure what he was talking about
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that their stories in terms of the response of the person that
16:30
Jesus is conversing with a weirdly similar like Jesus takes
16:36
metaphors and uses them to talk about a bigger spiritual
16:40
reality. So in John chapter 3 is talking
16:43
about you must be born from above, which is an offend in
16:48
Greek and is the same word for again.
16:50
So Jesus is like, there's a birth from above that's
16:53
different. And Nicodemus is like, wait, how
16:56
can someone be physically born again when they're old?
17:00
Like they can't go back into their mother's womb and and here
17:05
Jesus talks about water and she's like, but the well is deep
17:08
and you have nothing to draw water with.
17:11
They both kind of revert to well.
17:15
Hold on more of the. Physical you must.
17:16
Be talking about some kind of natural story.
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Yeah, yeah. We don't hear anything,
17:21
Nicodemus says in rebuttal. He kind of just fades out of
17:24
that chapter. But she continues to pursue it
17:27
and she doesn't understand it, but her response is whatever it
17:31
is, give me this thing. There's something in her that
17:35
seems to point towards Jesus has what I need.
17:39
It's not the romance piece of the the early part of the
17:42
chapter. It's a, it's, it's some kind of
17:46
gift that's both to her spiritual, but also having
17:51
physical properties of some kind that will enable her not to have
17:55
to keep going through this lonely kind of traipsing that
18:01
she does up to the, to the well to get water on a regular basis.
18:05
Like there's some kind of longing there that seems to be
18:08
produced. And that's when Jesus pushes
18:11
that question on her. And again, you can read it.
18:14
Is she unlucky? Is she bad?
18:17
Is she a victim of the 1st century culture in which women
18:22
were easily divorced and not easily able to divorce.
18:26
You know that the only, the only examples I think that we can
18:29
find of women divorcing men in this culture are rich women.
18:35
And she purely isn't that. Yeah.
18:38
So, so there's like sort of a summary of what's going on in
18:43
this interaction. Now you landed the sort of the
18:46
message on Sunday sort of a little bit separate from where
18:51
the questions that we received landed.
18:53
So like, give us your sort of punchline and then we'll pivot
18:57
to maybe. Yeah, I'm trying to.
19:01
Think if I've actually got the slides here that I can read
19:03
directly from because she enters into this conversation with
19:13
Jesus kind of trying to present a side to herself that is maybe
19:20
not accurate. Like it's, it's a mask in some
19:22
ways. Like, Yep, people in this
19:24
culture very familiar with theatrical masks, even though
19:28
the Jewish people didn't enter into that world.
19:31
There's all these theaters dotted around the the Jewish
19:34
world, influenced by the Greek world, by the Roman world.
19:37
Actually, a lot of writers believe that if Jesus was a
19:40
Carpenter in Nazareth, he probably wasn't working with
19:45
wood but with stone, because the word's the same.
19:48
And he may actually have helped build the the theater at
19:55
Capernaum. Capernaum, Tiberius, one of the
19:57
two. So.
19:58
So there's there's evidence that like, that world is familiar.
20:01
Jesus uses that terminology when he talk, talks about being a
20:04
hypocrite, the one who wears a mask.
20:08
And and that seems to be what she does when she presents
20:10
herself as not having a husband. Yeah.
20:14
And what Jesus does really kindly and beautifully is he
20:19
actually allows her to take off the mask.
20:22
In actually a way that's beautifully gracious, yeah.
20:24
'Cause it sounds kind of like originally, like if you read
20:27
this passage, just one sort of a face value, it almost sounds a
20:31
little bit like, Oh my goodness, like that's could almost sound
20:35
shaming, the fact that he calls her out so abruptly.
20:42
But actually what he does is he says, I know all the things.
20:46
Let's have a real talk. You know, it's actually, it's a
20:49
form of kindness. It's.
20:50
Actually brilliant. And there's only the two of them
20:51
there, like it's not like. And so I think the last phrase
20:55
is the one that to me makes it seem really gracious because he
20:59
says to, you know, well, yeah, you have had five husbands and
21:04
the man you have is not your husband.
21:07
You're you're absolutely right when you say you have no
21:10
husband. Like you almost like concedes
21:13
like a point a little bit while also revealing all of the the
21:18
trauma of her in our life. And we just cannot understand
21:25
today from a 1st century perspective, the trauma of being
21:29
a woman in this situation. Like we are our understanding of
21:33
like some of the gift of singleness for the right person
21:37
is so different. We have churches that run
21:39
singles ministry and value that period in time.
21:42
We actively tell people while you're single, enjoy being
21:46
single, all those different things like in not not in a
21:49
sexual way, but just in a enjoy having the space between you and
21:53
God yourself. We, we have all of the, we even
21:58
know that when you have experienced trauma with the
22:04
right amount of money, there's the option to move to a
22:06
different town and begin again, all those different things like,
22:10
and society is much more forgiving of, of those things
22:12
than it is than it was then. And so we can't imagine what
22:16
it's like to be a 1st century woman stuck in a town with no
22:21
possibility of change. Like she will always be this
22:24
woman till the day she dies. And that's what Jesus steps
22:28
into. Jesus brings transformation to a
22:31
woman who's hopeless that the idea of transformation has no
22:36
hope of any idea of transformation.
22:38
Yeah, and I think the other thing that's so like, again,
22:42
there's a couple different ways you can read this.
22:44
And, and even if, even if the conversation is already pivoted
22:48
at the, at the earlier in the passage where Jesus starts to
22:51
talk about living water and all this stuff, and she starts
22:54
getting curious about this theological conversation.
22:58
And then she's wearing her mask. She's trying to engage in a
23:01
theological conversation with this, this strange person.
23:06
Either that's the reading or maybe she's still wondering if
23:09
he's kind of hitting on her in some way, shape or form.
23:14
Either way, the like when she gets to the space space and she
23:18
says, I have no husband. I I mean, is she, is she like,
23:23
you know, I'm available, Yeah. Maybe.
23:25
And then and then he's like, and that's the other reason why I
23:28
think it's, you know, that's a little bit more how I read it
23:32
recently that she's she hasn't either way, she has an
23:40
expectation of how a man will interact with her.
23:43
And Jesus chooses not to go there and like, like how much
23:48
dignity that instills on her. And he says, and he sort of like
23:52
brushes aside any remaining tension in the narrative of if
23:57
this is a romantic interaction or is this leading to merit or
24:01
whatever the narrator kind of sets you up for Jesus brushes it
24:05
aside and speaks to her as like an equal about some theological
24:10
things. It's it's just either way, it's
24:11
really beautiful. She can now.
24:14
She doesn't have to hide anymore.
24:16
She knows that there's no more tension in this thing.
24:18
He's going to treat her like a a, a, a human being and dignify
24:23
her with a meaningful conversation.
24:25
Well. And and also he dignifies her by
24:29
making her the first point of revelation is to who he is.
24:33
Like I mean that that in itself. Yeah, she's the first one in
24:37
that Jesus reveals. Before his disciples, before
24:40
anyone, it's her. Yeah.
24:42
Like, I mean that that that is such a beautiful gift to someone
24:47
who is either, you know, from in our language, like off the rails
24:54
or, or is, is actually just deeply hurt by a society that's
24:58
very unforgiving towards people that have multiple husbands die
25:03
in a, in a culture that regularly saw like the mortality
25:07
rate was high, especially given what was often the age
25:11
difference between men and women.
25:14
So, so I think, I think there's yeah, again, all sorts of ways
25:17
to read it. But but for her, her story will
25:21
be different because of this story.
25:22
And we'll get to see more of that that this next.
25:25
Week. All right, so now.
25:28
I will say yeah, because Jesus is brilliant and John is
25:31
brilliant. Suddenly the story very quickly
25:35
becomes not just about her, but about mountains and temples and
25:41
where worship happens and all those different things.
25:46
And so, yeah. Like John has this way of
25:49
teaching on Ford in Ford and 40, like you, the first time you
25:54
read it, you get lesson #1. The second time you read it,
25:57
you're like, oh, that's a call back to to this previous well
26:01
story. The third time you read it,
26:03
you're like, oh, this is like a meta theology thing where he's
26:07
transforming entire, you know, ideologies and cultures and
26:12
like, it just goes on so. On one level, it's one woman's
26:16
honor is restored in a small town that matters to no one, and
26:21
on another level it's like siblings that have been fighting
26:25
for 2000 years are suddenly restored to relationship when
26:32
they follow. Jesus.
26:33
Yeah. I mean, like these two, like
26:35
nation groups or not nation groups, people groups.
26:38
Yeah. So let's get to the first
26:40
question, which is actually, I think we're maybe more typically
26:46
this text is preached, which is the question of what in the
26:51
world does it mean to worship in spirit and in truth.
26:54
So we have this reference in John 41 of the things that Jesus
27:01
says to her along the way. Everyone drinks the water.
27:06
Dude, where is it? Let's see.
27:10
It's in the long section, right? Yeah.
27:12
So she says something about the mountain and where should we
27:16
worship? And she he says, woman, Jesus
27:18
replied, I believe me, a time is coming when you will worship the
27:23
Father, neither on this mountain or in Jerusalem.
27:27
You Samaritans worship what you do not know.
27:29
We worship what we do know, for salvation is from the Jews.
27:32
Yet a time is coming and has now come, when the true worshippers
27:37
will worship the Father in spirit and in truth.
27:41
What in the world does that mean?
27:45
Well, in spirit seems like the easiest part of it, right?
27:51
Like, I mean, Jesus has already started to talk about that.
27:57
So so in in. In this passage earlier, yeah,
28:01
he's already. Started to talk about this idea
28:03
that there's a a spirit thing that's happening that isn't
28:08
defined by. It's a spiritual birth, not a
28:11
yeah. Physical birth and it's not
28:13
defined primarily by ritual purity.
28:16
So, so again, that, that that's the Jewish way has been, well,
28:21
what matters is whether you're pure physically.
28:26
So they care about things like correct washing.
28:29
And we see this with the Pharisee conversations with
28:31
Jesus constantly. Like they're upset that Jesus
28:35
disciples don't wash their hands properly before reading.
28:37
They're worried about them breaking the Sabbath, all
28:40
because purity matters a lot. And, and, and I guess it's hard
28:43
to understand that without knowing that the approaches to
28:48
the Roman problem the the Jewish people had in the 1st century
28:53
were pretty broad. So there's groups that feel
28:57
like, well, I'm, I'm we're, we're going to pick up swords
28:59
and we're going to fight the good fight and we'll probably
29:01
lose, but God's on our side. So who knows?
29:04
Like so the. Zealots.
29:04
Yeah. Yeah, the zealots, there's the
29:06
Essenes that disappear off to the desert and essentially are
29:10
like, we're not even a part of this group.
29:12
The. Definition of fight or flight?
29:14
Fight the scenes. Flight.
29:17
Yeah, yeah. So they're like, you know, one
29:19
day, God, they'll judge all those people over there and
29:22
we're going to be this people over here.
29:24
Yeah, the Sadducees very much involved in with the Romans and
29:30
their temple practices. Let's play the game and get as
29:33
much out of them as we can. And then the the Pharisees
29:37
whose. Say and be grumpy.
29:41
Sorry, these are all my interpretations.
29:44
Sorry. The Pharisees broadly had this
29:46
mission to say, like, if we can just get as many people as
29:50
possible obeying the Torah strictly, God will act, yeah,
29:56
like we can force. Force God's hand by being
29:58
really, really good. So, so, so we'll, we'll, we're
30:02
going to make sure people are in line to the best degree we can.
30:07
We're going to make sure ritual purity is followed all of those.
30:11
Different things. You got to believe the right
30:12
things and do the right things, and then God will show up and
30:15
rescue us. So that's what worship looked
30:17
like. Like, have you done the thing?
30:20
And then suddenly there's this idea that, well, worship is now
30:23
a spirit connection and ultimately in Jesus will will
30:28
will not be about what you do at all.
30:31
So so there I think there's this thing going on that there's this
30:33
life of God that's now almost like on direct, like Direct
30:39
Line. It's the life of God is unlike a
30:41
Direct Line transfer with with human beings or will be.
30:46
But I think the truth part I find interesting, partly because
30:50
of what the the the the the Samaritans have come to believe
30:57
about God. OK.
30:59
So the Samaritan narrative, I tried to give a really brief
31:03
summary. I thought about for a moment
31:06
doing like a whole on stage thing to kind of track the
31:09
movements of this group of people over time by like having
31:13
people with little signs and moving them around so people
31:16
could see how things transformed.
31:19
But but I, I didn't really have time for it in the sermon.
31:24
So the, the, the people of Israel in about 700 at this
31:28
point, Israel has become two kingdoms N Kingdom S Kingdom
31:33
Israel, Judah. Judah is much smaller.
31:36
Israel's actually a player on the nationals on the
31:39
international stage at this point.
31:41
At one point Israel is probably the second most powerful nation
31:45
in the world or the known world. And then these other nations
31:49
rise up as Syria comes in and conquers Israel about 700 BC.
31:55
Takes off most of the prime people of Israel and deposits
32:01
them in other countries that they've conquered.
32:03
Brings a load of people that they've moved from other nations
32:07
to Israel and leaves them there. Now this interestingly doesn't
32:10
happen to the Southern Kingdom. Southern Kingdom has this weird
32:13
moment where the best people are moved out.
32:16
And then in this astounding change of policy that catches
32:19
everybody off guard, the the Cyrus, I think Cyrus the Great
32:25
turns around and says, oh, I'm just going to send you back.
32:26
He suddenly decides, after everyone has decided the best
32:29
way to keep your Kingdom a Kingdom is to move people out of
32:33
their lands and put them somewhere else.
32:35
He decides, you know what my policy is going to be?
32:37
It's going to be to move people back into their lands because
32:41
they'll be more loyal and they'll.
32:42
Pay taxes. They'll keep paying taxes,
32:44
they'll keep working the land because they value the land.
32:47
He's, he decides this bizarrely on a like on a secular level, 70
32:55
years after Jeremiah says 70 years, you'll come back to,
32:58
yeah, to Judah. So. 70 a year, yeah.
33:01
So, so with Judah, this southern smaller Kingdom, the people come
33:05
back to their own Kingdom, bring back their own faith, marry
33:10
again people of their own kind or own.
33:12
Nationality. Nationality, ethnicity, own
33:15
religion. And the, the, the, the Jewish
33:19
faith in Judah is primarily intact, right?
33:24
Yeah. And then the Southern Kingdom
33:27
doesn't have that narrative. All of the people are brought
33:29
from different nations with their own guards, with their own
33:32
beliefs, with their own actions, and mingle in by necessity with
33:37
this. So.
33:39
So would you say that the Samaritans were mud bloods?
33:42
You know, I've wondered whether that's a great definition.
33:45
Yeah, I mean. Can.
33:47
You mud Mudblood's a weird one, right 'cause it's all about
33:50
like, are you a witch or not and or a wizard or not.
33:53
So yeah, two degree like I I mean.
33:55
But it's kind of the vibe. So like, if you don't know what
33:57
that is, it's a reference to Harry Potter.
34:00
And sort of some of the dynamics in the Harry Potter sort of
34:03
novels is there's this faction of, of Wizards that are like
34:08
purists, meaning a wizard marries a, a witch and and they
34:16
have children. And so there's the bloodline is
34:19
pure, it's pure back to the foundation.
34:22
Now a mud blood is someone who has all the same powers, but
34:25
they have like a, a human marrying one or the other.
34:28
And so one faction just kind of hates the other.
34:31
You know, it's sort of like that in the sense that, like, the
34:34
Jews believed that the Samaritans were sort of
34:37
sellouts, like you. You are no longer committed to
34:41
the things of God because you intermarried with the nations
34:45
around you, which was forbidden by the Torah.
34:50
Yeah, in some, some ways, yeah. Yeah.
34:54
Definitely, yeah. And and then, then and so.
34:56
They they basically you like you don't take your faith seriously.
34:59
Bloodline, but then the actual like the actions of the praxis
35:04
of those people gets warped to a considerable degree as well.
35:08
Yeah, because they're marrying people from other faiths.
35:10
And so you have this just intertwining of of theology and
35:15
nationality. And so you and that's why
35:18
there's such hostility between the quote UN quote pure Jew and
35:22
the Samaritans. So.
35:23
So even though in name both people groups worship Yahweh,
35:28
the God of Israel, in terms of what they understand about God,
35:33
it's vastly different from and how how they behave in light of
35:38
that is vastly different from the so.
35:40
So somewhere I wonder whether what Jesus is saying is, you
35:44
know, it's now a spirit thing. It's not about place, it's not
35:48
about purity, it's not about background.
35:50
All of those things are going to disappear.
35:52
But actually what you believe about God and how you see God,
35:56
that actually is going to matter more than ever.
35:59
Which is why it's extra beautiful that Jesus most
36:04
explicitly states who he is to a Samaritan.
36:08
Totally. So like leaping the Samaritans,
36:12
specifically this woman and this town, light years ahead of the
36:17
Jews at this stage where he's like, we're jumping over the
36:21
prophets all the way to the revelation of the Son of God.
36:25
And I'm gonna do it first with a Samaritan, like bringing him,
36:29
leveling the playing field theologically and and
36:32
relationally with God. Yeah, really cool.
36:37
I also think so. All right, let me ask the
36:41
question in a slightly different way.
36:42
What would it look like for someone today to not worship in
36:46
spirit and in truth, or or to worship in spirit and in truth?
36:51
Is it just? Is that just relevant in the 1st
36:55
century between Samaritans I? Don't think it is.
36:57
I, I, I think we still struggle, I would guess with the same,
37:04
same, same problems they struggled with.
37:06
I think we can bring a sense of like who we are and what we've
37:11
done for God and hold that greater than what God has done
37:18
for us. At times I get like I, I
37:20
actually, there's a, there's a preacher and I think I've
37:22
probably told this story he tells before, but he's, he's
37:25
actually not a preacher that I think I would agree with on much
37:28
theologically other than about who Jesus is.
37:31
You know, I feel like we have, this is a good one, a lot of a
37:34
lot of differences. His name's Alistair Beck and and
37:38
he tells this story about like the point he's trying to
37:41
demonstrate is how important it is to remind yourselves of what
37:49
God has done for you over and against anything that you feel
37:52
like you might have done for you all for God.
37:56
And so his suggestion is anytime we start to articulate why we
38:02
can worship God as beloved children, if we ever start to
38:08
articulate that in first person terms, we've gone off track.
38:13
So give me. An example SO.
38:14
Like because I because I did this, because I because even
38:19
because I believe in Jesus, he said anytime the first person
38:24
dominates, we're off track. It's always supposed to be third
38:28
person. Now I'm not sure he's quite
38:31
wrong, quite right on his first person versus third person terms
38:35
literally. But but yes, but because Jesus,
38:39
because he did this. And so he's he's example for
38:42
that is the thief on the cross. Yeah, who he says, you know,
38:46
ends up in his imagination being arriving at, you know, the gates
38:51
of heaven. And the Angel, as is often the
38:55
case in jokes, is checking people in.
38:57
And he starts asking him all these questions about like,
38:59
well, why are you here? Like, tell me what you
39:01
understand about the theory of atonement.
39:03
Yeah. Tell me what you understand
39:04
about like the the value of scripture all these different.
39:07
Things even as a, as a seminary student, I hope that's not the
39:11
exam, you know, like little things.
39:12
You're like, oh, man, what was the term?
39:14
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. But but even like, tell me what
39:17
you believe Jesus was doing on the cross.
39:21
Yeah. All of those things like he
39:23
doesn't really have any answers. And then he imagines the Angel
39:28
finally saying to him, on what terms are you here?
39:31
On what basis are you here? And he says, this man looks at
39:35
me and says and looks at him and says, well, the man on the
39:39
middle cross said I could come like he.
39:42
And, and his point is like, if there's ever a reason that you
39:45
have other than that, you're probably missing the beauty of
39:49
the gospel. Like if there's ever a reason
39:51
other than the man on the middle cross said I was.
39:54
Welcomed. Great sermon, yeah, brilliant.
39:56
I mean just like yeah. And great preacher, even if you
39:59
just, if you disagree some of the theology.
40:01
Very good articulator. Unbelievably, yeah.
40:04
Gifted. And and so that like to me that
40:10
I have to remind myself of that all the time.
40:14
Like, yeah, I I can still enter in thinking, man, like that's
40:21
going to be pretty good with me today.
40:22
I've definitely run through the spiritual disciplines.
40:25
I've been like, you know, on point in terms of like how I've
40:28
acted in the world. I've been like I can start to
40:30
very easily build a list. Yeah, like I noticed my prayer
40:35
life historically, especially my prayer life, would get
40:41
increasingly more on point the closer Sunday came.
40:46
Yeah. Sure, yeah.
40:47
Because I wanted to make sure that what I, when I stand on
40:50
stage to lead worship, that like God would bless it.
40:53
Sure. And the way I can do that is by
40:54
being a good boy. Yeah.
40:55
Yeah. So it's like it's not a fast
40:57
step from washing of hands and obeying of Sabbath to those
41:03
things. Yeah.
41:04
And so I think still like a a regular reminder is no, I get to
41:09
experience God to stand before him in worship simply because
41:14
the man in the middle cross said I could come.
41:16
So that that to me is like a like a still a problem today.
41:21
And couple that with still today, it's very easy to develop
41:28
all sorts of ideas about what God cares about and what he
41:30
doesn't care about and who he is and who he isn't.
41:35
That, that if you would have put them against history, Scripture,
41:42
they'd start to look very different.
41:44
And so I think we still struggle with truth today as well.
41:48
I, I think we still are convinced that God is bothered
41:52
about a whole bunch of things that he may not be bothered
41:55
about. Like even even the like, even
41:58
the broadly like the idea that God has a nation like, and, and
42:03
that it might be Britain 100 years ago or America today or
42:08
like, but but the idea that that that nation is God's special has
42:13
got special attention and affection is, I would say,
42:20
wildly off track with how God reveals himself.
42:23
But it's still very easy to end up in those spaces.
42:26
Yeah. So I I also think some of the
42:29
element of the truth thing is, when you think you stand in the
42:35
presence of God based upon whether you did well or not, it
42:40
is not the same kind of true worship because you're you are
42:44
standing on your own ground. But when you when you know, you
42:49
enter the presence of God and, and, and you boldly approach
42:53
because of the man in the middle cross kind of language, then
42:57
your worship comes from a truer place.
43:00
It's not about a mountain or a, a, a thing.
43:03
Now it can happen on a mountain like, and that's part of the
43:05
beauty of it. Like true worship can happen
43:07
anywhere. Yeah, because it's a spiritual
43:11
a, a spiritual connection with the living God.
43:14
But it comes from a truer, more honest place.
43:18
And your worship is just genuinely more accurate.
43:20
So. That's Jesus beautiful invite to
43:22
her. He's like you'll never have to
43:23
go to a place at any point in this new story, but you will
43:28
have to come on specific terms and those terms can never be
43:33
first person driven. They they always are about the
43:36
invite when when I was in a season where I struggled with
43:40
that more particularly, or maybe I was more more aware that I
43:43
struggled with it. One one of the hymns I would
43:46
come back to. I don't know if you guys sing it
43:47
over here is before the throne of God above.
43:51
Yeah, yeah, we've done that itself while you've been here.
43:54
All right, I have a. Strong and perfect play a great
43:57
high priest whose name is love, who lives and intercedes for me.
44:01
Yeah. And that would be a song that I
44:03
would come back to, that would remind me the terms on which I
44:07
was was there. Sounds like we missed an
44:10
opportunity to sing it on Sunday.
44:14
We sang some other good songs. We.
44:16
Did and can it be this shocking thing?
44:19
Yeah, all right. So what's up with John and
44:24
water? Oh man, he loves it, doesn't he?
44:26
He he loves him some water. All right, so let me read a
44:29
little. He loves.
44:30
Him some living water. Yeah.
44:33
So it does seem like a a device that that John uses pretty
44:42
regularly. So let me just read the question
44:44
because I think it it Tees up a lot of the passages for us.
44:48
Really well written question. Second question, John seems to
44:51
write a lot about water. Obviously baptizing takes place
44:55
in water but also John turns water into wine.
44:58
John 2 tells Nicodemus that a person must be born of water and
45:02
spirit needs water from a well. Tells a woman about water and of
45:07
eternal life. Chapter 4 all over.
45:10
Chapter 4 heals a man by the pool of water.
45:15
Bethesda walks on water. John 6 explains water flowing
45:19
out of a of a believer is the spirit 7.
45:23
Chapter 7 washes disciples feet in water Chapter 13 and has
45:28
water come out of him when his side is pierced.
45:31
What, if any, connection can we or should we draw from all of
45:35
these occurrences of water in the John's Gospel?
45:40
Yeah, yeah. I mean, I mean I sounds.
45:43
Like we should bring them on the show to answer the question.
45:46
They've done their research. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
45:48
I mean those, those are, those are certainly like that's a good
45:51
summary of the passages. So, so I, I think with some of
45:56
the challenges, it seems like at times water is just physically a
46:03
part of it and doesn't matter. So interestingly, like an
46:07
example of that is John chapter 5, which we'll get to next, the
46:13
week after next, in which the man is by the pool of water and
46:17
then the water doesn't play a part in the story whatsoever.
46:20
Actually his regret is I can't get down to the water and and so
46:24
their water seems to to. Be less consequential.
46:28
Well, it seems to play an entirely functional part and in
46:32
actual fact, he's presented negatively in terms of his
46:35
assumption he needs to get there in Jesus revelation that he
46:38
actually doesn't need to get there.
46:40
So like that, that's the tension between like how water differs
46:46
from chapter to chapter. So on one level I think it gets
46:48
a consistent mention, but I think there's some passages to
46:52
me that stand out in terms of how water fits into the story.
46:59
And and that seems to be like John 4 seems really important.
47:04
The idea of living water, which seems to replace Jesus analogy
47:08
of the spirit and the wind in John chapter 3.
47:12
So it's but he. Mentions water born of like.
47:17
The way in chapter 3 you mentioned, but again that I
47:19
would say tends to push towards getting most of the reading I've
47:24
done towards water being inconsequential.
47:27
So most writers that I've come across in a modern era tend to
47:34
think when he says in John Chapter 3 has to be born of
47:37
water and spirit, he's actually not talking about baptismal
47:43
waters because that would not fit with John's theology moving
47:46
on, but that he's talking about actually either the water that
47:53
breaks during birth. Yeah.
47:55
Yeah, yeah. Or actually like the process of
48:00
intercourse, which actually like has a consistent, the consistent
48:05
language of water across Jewish history.
48:09
So I think that would be a passage I would nudge away from
48:15
giving us a consistent understanding of Jesus use of
48:18
water. Yeah, the book.
48:25
Yeah, like unless, unless you sort of can acknowledge the
48:30
expectation of how water should function and then he re crafts
48:34
it, in which case it it can. So like.
48:39
In a different way. So like for example, in the
48:42
Bethesda story, the expectation is I have to get in water in
48:47
order to be healed. The woman at the well, I have to
48:51
be in a certain location to be a true worshipper.
48:55
And so and then Jesus says in both cases at the at the pool of
48:59
Bethesda incorrect. Yeah, yeah, I am the source of
49:04
all living things. And so in in contrast, the the
49:08
expectation is that water should have the power.
49:10
And Jesus says I trump water in this case in in the well.
49:16
Then you're really saying like as Jesus does in this passage
49:19
very explicitly, that there's water and then true water.
49:23
And again. So, so it seems to nudge again
49:26
to an analogy for the Spirit, but it's it's.
49:30
More in in some of the stories, it's more a contrast or an
49:35
expectation that a reader would have had.
49:38
And then Jesus says, you don't need to expect water to be at
49:44
the healing agent I am now or you don't expect, you don't need
49:48
to expect a location to be a place of worship.
49:50
I am the place of worship, so in that sense it can have some
49:54
interpretive weight to it, but so.
49:58
Sure, it's, but it's only helpful in terms of yes, like an
50:03
antithesis, not a thesis, right? Yes, it's like the opposite side
50:07
of the coin. In order to emphasize the person
50:11
of Christ. Yeah.
50:12
So, so I think, I think like to get to the heart of the
50:14
question, I think maybe a sub question would be how does Jesus
50:19
connect himself with true water when water's an analogy, not
50:25
when it's a physical subject. So it seems like broadly
50:28
throughout John, you've got water and it's physicality and
50:32
then you've got water and it's like the spiritual language of
50:39
spirit that gets tied to it. So yeah, yeah.
50:42
So, so it's practical analogy and and the two seem to run on
50:47
parallel tracks to that scripture.
50:49
So actually interestingly, when you get to John Chapter 7, which
50:53
we haven't got to yet, the festival there had actually
50:58
become to be symbolized around water.
51:03
And so on the final day of the feast, which Jesus stands up on,
51:09
eventually the priest would carry a bowl of water through
51:14
the city and deposit it somewhere symbolically.
51:19
And so brilliantly, in John's remembrance of Jesus on a
51:25
festival, on a day which was about water, Jesus stands up and
51:30
says all this is about me. Yeah.
51:32
Which is again. Just brilliant.
51:34
Yeah. Yeah.
51:35
So, so, so actually. So in the Jewish mind, water,
51:39
they have a interesting dynamic relationship with the topic of
51:43
water. On the one hand, it's a very
51:48
arid, dry place. So water is in in the Old
51:52
Testament is a symbol. Of Jerusalem.
51:55
Jerusalem a bit less so than a lot of the other.
51:59
Yeah. But like in a lot of the
52:00
contexts where in the Psalms it writes about water or water, a
52:04
drink offering, all of these are sort of like a water is highly
52:08
valuable. So it represents life or it
52:13
represents some of these kinds of things.
52:15
So and that's one stream, but in the other stream, which becomes
52:21
relevant to several of the other passages that were mentioned in
52:24
the question is water is terrifying because there are non
52:28
Oceanside nation and the ocean or the sea is a place of of
52:34
chaos and disorder and God, you know, and and bad things happen.
52:38
So like. Even like.
52:42
In the sense that like. They're not seafaring.
52:46
Yes, yeah, yeah. They don't don't primarily
52:48
travel, but they are. But they do have oceanfront.
52:51
They do have but. But the majority of the of the
52:54
of the nations like cities and significance on inland.
53:01
It's a little bit more of an inland nation and and very
53:06
common in all ancient nations. The sea represents chaos and
53:10
disorder. And so like.
53:11
When he hovers over the face of the deep.
53:13
So the reason that's irrelevant. So there's this weird thing like
53:16
rain. Good.
53:17
We need water, it's dry, we need crops, all these sorts of
53:21
things. Rain and water represents life,
53:24
but then the sea represents disordering chaos.
53:29
And the reason that's relevant is, is like The Walking on the
53:32
water texts is like so either way, John can leverage
53:37
expectations around the sea or bodies of water where where God,
53:42
God can walk on the surface of chaos and disorder or and.
53:48
Sleep on it. And sleep, yeah.
53:49
And God or God is truer than physical water.
53:54
He's more life giving than physical water.
53:57
And so John kind of can draw upon some cultural things in
54:00
that so. And, and he's referenced to
54:02
like, you know, I mean, Jesus in the passage last week talks
54:05
about food or this this coming week talks about food and his
54:09
need or not need from it. That actually seems to tie back
54:12
to the the desert narratives and the temptation narratives in the
54:18
synoptic Gospels where you know it, you know, man does not live
54:24
by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth
54:27
of God. So I, I mean, I mean, I think
54:29
the analogy of the, the Holy Spirit in John tends to fit into
54:35
like the analogies of wind of water.
54:40
Most of the time. I'm trying to think, what's the
54:44
passage where he actually says? But he was talking about his
54:49
spirit, which will be given later.
54:51
Maybe that's not a water passage.
54:52
I think that's something else. But yeah, they, they, they seem
54:56
to run consistently through. And it seems to be summarized
55:01
broadly, yes, by that idea that actually Jesus is truer than
55:06
water. I would agree with that.
55:08
Yeah. So, so maybe would it be fair to
55:10
summarize this like how should we see water in Johanne
55:16
literature, in John's writings? And maybe the answer would be,
55:23
John's are really good, huh? Does he?
55:25
Mention it in any of his letters.
55:27
I think he does. Does he?
55:29
Well, he uses the sea trope quite a bit in Revelation and
55:34
like the ocean and disorder chaos waters concept.
55:40
And so in that sense, yeah. But I don't know, that's a good
55:43
question. So but maybe part of the answer
55:46
is John is writing within a a context where water already has
55:51
some significance and he's a literary master.
55:54
And so he leverages the cultural norms to to deposit literally
55:59
literary Nuggets along the way to kind of help his readers.
56:02
So. I think.
56:03
Why I think coming away with the language of Spirit is so
56:08
important it's because of John chapter 7's ending where Jesus
56:12
says, you know, anyone who is thirsty coming to me and from
56:16
your belly streams of living water will come like that seems
56:20
to be language that's used around like and even the the the
56:24
the parallel parallel of the term baptism for the experience
56:29
of the Spirit in the early church versus the experience of
56:32
water in the early church. It seems like the two get tied
56:37
enough that the imagination in plays water.
56:41
So in one hand you're dipped into physical water and in the
56:44
other hand you're dipped or immersed into spiritual
56:48
spiritual, which is represented by water.
56:52
So I think that to me just ties them very nicely together, but I
56:58
can't I'm, I still can't think of anything in his letters that.
57:08
Yeah. Oh does he talk about water and
57:12
blood in John? I think he does in First John
57:15
chapter 5. Yeah.
57:19
Because that, yeah, that that's what that's verse 6.
57:22
And these three testify the spirit, the water, and the
57:30
blood. Yeah.
57:38
All right. So then just by way of
57:40
conclusion as we wrap this up, is there, what would you want
57:45
long for, for our community from this passage and all of this
57:49
conversation? Well, I, well, I, I think like,
57:53
and this feels like we're reverting back to where we were
57:56
20 minutes ago, but that's OK. I think for me, what stood out
58:02
was this invite Jesus has for the woman at the well, which is
58:10
over and against anything she's experienced, anything she
58:13
believes about herself, like anything that she feels she
58:17
needs to hide. So I think I said something on
58:20
Sunday that I would probably reiterate, which is I think that
58:23
one of the things we have to remind ourselves is what Jesus
58:27
says about us is the truest thing about us.
58:31
Yeah. Like I think we're we're wired
58:33
to believe other things are more true.
58:36
Like I think we're wired to believe how we feel on a
58:39
particular day or moment is more true than what Jesus says about.
58:42
Us. Yeah, I.
58:44
Feel like we're wired to say what our four O 1K or our bank
58:50
account says about us is more important than what Jesus says
58:54
about us. I think we're wired to think
58:57
that our performance review at our job is more important than
59:01
what Jesus says about us. I think we're wired to think
59:03
whether we have kids or grandkids is more important than
59:07
what Jesus says about us. I actually think the list of
59:11
things that we might come to say this is more important than what
59:15
Jesus says about me is long and distinguished.
59:19
Interesting. And actually, I think over and
59:22
over again, Jesus articulates this idea of like who I am for
59:27
you is more important than any of those things.
59:30
That's actually what enabled the early church to be the early
59:33
church like they, they were enabled to go and live a life
59:37
that often landed in death or persecution and more regularly
59:43
than than either of those things in in relative poverty.
59:49
And they were able to do that because the mission of God was
59:52
more important than anything else they could receive.
59:55
And the, what Jesus said about them was more important than
59:57
anything this world could say about them.
59:59
And, and I just think we, we, you know, to speak about truth.
1:00:02
I, I read the passage in first John, actually the other day
1:00:06
where he talks about like, you know, the, the, the three things
1:00:11
that that dominate, which is the the lust of the eyes, the lust
1:00:15
of the flesh and the. The pride of life, the.
1:00:17
Desire of a pride of life. I'm like, man, those are pretty
1:00:21
3 pretty powerful things. They are like they they, they
1:00:25
dominate pretty easily. The eyes are always looking for
1:00:28
like what is attractive, what is beautiful?
1:00:31
The desire for great wealth, for power, for all of those list of
1:00:37
things is, is dominating and even just the desire to keep and
1:00:42
hold on to everything in this life as long as you can.
1:00:45
Yeah, I mean, those are those are pretty dominating things.
1:00:48
It's hard to it's hard to keep Jesus, the main thing in amongst
1:00:56
those things. Yeah, but that's the truth he
1:00:58
speaks about in this passage. Yeah, I think that's.
1:01:01
The only true True. Yeah.
1:01:03
Yeah. And, and so we, we like and,
1:01:08
and, and it's, it's, it's almost hard to say that there's
1:01:13
anything wrong with some of the things that you might have that
1:01:21
seem connected to those things. Like I'm not sure Jesus
1:01:24
particularly criticizes the wealthy, but he criticizes what
1:01:32
they do with their wealth or he critiques what they do with
1:01:35
their wealth. So it's so I don't think he
1:01:38
concretely says, and correct me if I'm wrong, like it's bad for
1:01:41
you to be wealthy, but he says no usual wealth for good things.
1:01:47
I think he gives warnings about being wealthy.
1:01:51
Yeah, wealthy. Yeah, being wealthy is risky for
1:01:55
your soul. And in the sense that it's easy
1:01:58
to trust it rather than him, it's.
1:02:00
Not long. It's not wrong to live a long
1:02:02
life and to enjoy living it. But again, like he's very
1:02:06
interested in what you do with your life.
1:02:08
Yeah. So so I whenever I read that
1:02:11
passage, I'm like, what? What do I do based on that
1:02:14
passage? Like that to me is always just a
1:02:16
easy question. Yeah, I'm like, well, I know.
1:02:19
Like it's really easy to look around lustfully for everything
1:02:22
you might like own or have or, you know, be and actually to
1:02:27
remind yourself regularly, well, God, what do you have for me
1:02:30
right now? Yeah, He's always, for me a good
1:02:33
question. Yeah.
1:02:35
But I, yeah, I, I think to know that the truest thing is what
1:02:39
God says about you is the central core of, to me of, of
1:02:44
this dialogue. Yeah, it's beautiful.
1:02:47
All right, folks. Well, on that note, we're going
1:02:49
to wrap it up and we will see you next.
1:02:50
We missed you last week. Sorry.
1:02:52
We Kevin's sermon was amazing. If you didn't get a chance to to
1:02:56
go, but I was just. Saying Kevin's fault that we
1:02:58
didn't have a show, but. He was just, yeah, he was just
1:03:00
out of town and we couldn't be, we couldn't be bothered to talk
1:03:03
about it without him. We couldn't, we couldn't be
1:03:06
bothered to spend an hour talking about how great he was.
1:03:08
Yeah, we were like, yeah, all we're going to do is say this
1:03:11
sermon was great so they can just go listen to it.
1:03:14
But anyway, we'll see you all next week.
1:03:16
Bye. Bye.
1:03:16
Bye.