Latest / Ministry Minded / Preaching with a Fallen Condition Focus and the Comedy of the Gospel with Eric Attinger

Transcript

Preaching with a Fallen Condition Focus and the Comedy of the Gospel with Eric Attinger · Ministry Minded

0:16
SPEAKER_03: Hello and welcome to a brand new episode of the Ministry-Minded Podcast,
0:20
SPEAKER_03: a show that seeks to marvel at the mercy of God that meets us in our messy ministries.
0:25
SPEAKER_03: I'm, of course, your host, Pastor Brad Gray.
0:27
SPEAKER_03: I serve as the senior pastor of Stonington Baptist Church in Pax Sinus, Pennsylvania.
0:32
SPEAKER_03: And today,
0:33
SPEAKER_03: once again,
0:33
SPEAKER_03: I am joined by my assistant pastor,
0:36
SPEAKER_03: my fellow pastor here at Stonington,
0:38
SPEAKER_03: Pastor Eric Adinger.
0:40
SPEAKER_03: And I'm so excited to share this episode with you.
0:42
SPEAKER_03: This conversation was such a fun one to have in which we, once again, yes, talk about preaching.
0:48
SPEAKER_03: We dive into the aspects of what it means,
0:52
SPEAKER_03: what it looks like to preach faithfully,
0:54
SPEAKER_03: to preach biblically today.
0:56
SPEAKER_03: And lest you believe that this is an overdone topic, I can rest assured it's not.
1:03
SPEAKER_03: But also, I think there's so much...
1:07
SPEAKER_03: beauty in talking about preaching from all these different aspects.
1:10
SPEAKER_03: And I think you'll find that here,
1:12
SPEAKER_03: even though what we are talking about is somewhat hard or difficult to hear at first,
1:17
SPEAKER_03: which is we're unpacking this idea that appears in Brian Chappell's book,
1:22
SPEAKER_03: Christ-Centered Preaching,
1:23
SPEAKER_03: in which he talks about the idea of preaching with a fallen condition focus.
1:28
SPEAKER_03: What does that mean for
1:29
SPEAKER_03: to approach preaching,
1:31
SPEAKER_03: approach sermon writing and sermon delivery with the idea that everyone that you
1:35
SPEAKER_03: are preaching to is fallen?
1:38
SPEAKER_03: And also, why is that so important for understanding the gospel itself?
1:43
SPEAKER_03: This is what we unpack at length in this episode, and I think it'll help you understand
1:49
SPEAKER_03: listening to,
1:50
SPEAKER_03: when you're listening to preaching,
1:51
SPEAKER_03: when you're listening to sermons to hopefully discern if your particular preacher
1:56
SPEAKER_03: or pastor is treating the text faithfully,
1:59
SPEAKER_03: but it'll also help you understand what the thrust is of the Bible itself,
2:04
SPEAKER_03: which is to whittle down all of the ways in which we think we have some sort of
2:10
SPEAKER_03: potential within us,
2:11
SPEAKER_03: have some sort of capability within us that allows us to
2:15
SPEAKER_03: thrive and make our lives better,
2:17
SPEAKER_03: when in fact,
2:18
SPEAKER_03: that's kind of the opposite of what the Bible is revealing,
2:21
SPEAKER_03: is showcasing,
2:22
SPEAKER_03: which is the fact that every page is revealing that we have a dire and desperate
2:27
SPEAKER_03: need for Christ,
2:29
SPEAKER_03: the Redeemer.
2:30
SPEAKER_03: That's sort of the point.
2:31
SPEAKER_03: It's driving us to recognize and confess our fallenness so that the word of the
2:37
SPEAKER_03: gospel then can be received with faith.
2:41
SPEAKER_03: That's sort of the paradigm of preaching that we're unpacking.
2:44
SPEAKER_03: And we also talk about in this,
2:46
SPEAKER_03: which I'm really delighted to share,
2:47
SPEAKER_03: about the overlap between comedy and the gospel.
2:53
SPEAKER_03: And that may not be something that you have recognized before or thought about
2:59
SPEAKER_03: before consciously,
3:00
SPEAKER_03: but it's definitely something that exists.
3:01
SPEAKER_03: The overlap between stand-up comedy and preachers is actually a lot deeper than
3:07
SPEAKER_03: perhaps you've recognized before.
3:08
SPEAKER_03: So, we talk about that.
3:10
SPEAKER_03: And we're talking about all of these things in light of true biblical,
3:14
SPEAKER_03: faithful preaching of the Word of God.
3:15
SPEAKER_03: So, hopefully this encourages you.
3:17
SPEAKER_03: In fact, I know that will, and I pray that you are blessed as we converse.
3:21
SPEAKER_03: So, sit back, listen in, and I hope you are encouraged by this conversation.
3:25
SPEAKER_03: All right.
3:27
SPEAKER_03: So, we're talking again about preaching.
3:30
SPEAKER_03: And maybe some people are
3:34
SPEAKER_03: frustrated or just like, hey, you've probably talked about preaching enough by this point.
3:40
SPEAKER_03: Maybe, I don't know, we've kind of turned over a lot of stones here.
3:45
SPEAKER_03: I think there's this paradigm in which
3:49
SPEAKER_03: You're preaching a word that is infinitely true,
3:51
SPEAKER_03: which also means there's infinite amount of variables to kind of unpack.
3:56
SPEAKER_03: So anyways, we're here with another episode talking about preaching.
4:00
SPEAKER_03: And one of the things I wanted to kind of start out with is I think this...
4:07
SPEAKER_03: this prism,
4:08
SPEAKER_03: if you will,
4:09
SPEAKER_03: of how to understand preaching that comes from Brian Chappell,
4:12
SPEAKER_03: which he calls it the fallen condition focus,
4:16
SPEAKER_03: which I think is a really helpful way to approach preaching in general,
4:23
SPEAKER_03: which is just the fact that you're approaching preaching
4:26
SPEAKER_03: the fact that everyone that is listening to you is fallen in one way or another.
4:33
SPEAKER_03: And you're speaking to that condition.
4:36
SPEAKER_03: And that really is a driver, right?
4:39
SPEAKER_03: That's like a true fundamental motivator for how you're going to approach the way
4:45
SPEAKER_03: in which you're going to deliver whatever message,
4:48
SPEAKER_03: right?
4:49
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah.
4:49
SPEAKER_00: And it's a really amazing focus because the thing that you want to do when you're speaking to people is,
4:54
SPEAKER_00: Give them a reason to make it real to them.
4:57
SPEAKER_00: That's the big thing.
4:58
SPEAKER_00: You can have this pie-in-the-sky examples,
5:00
SPEAKER_00: and sometimes we can think,
5:02
SPEAKER_00: oh,
5:02
SPEAKER_00: that's cool,
5:02
SPEAKER_00: but not really relate to it.
5:03
SPEAKER_00: But when you relate to it, it's why people tear up about certain topics when you bring them up.
5:08
SPEAKER_00: And it's cool about this fallen condition kind of concept because it doesn't even
5:12
SPEAKER_00: have to be something that you specifically are currently dealing with now.
5:15
SPEAKER_00: It might be a family member.
5:17
SPEAKER_00: Because I used to see this even like...
5:19
SPEAKER_00: In the past with work I did is how people would be so affected by the topic of drug abuse,
5:25
SPEAKER_00: whatever,
5:25
SPEAKER_00: and they had no drug issues with it,
5:27
SPEAKER_00: but it really because I was part of the condition,
5:29
SPEAKER_00: the fallen humanity.
5:30
SPEAKER_00: And although they had not personally experienced this,
5:33
SPEAKER_00: they were ears open because they either knew a friend,
5:37
SPEAKER_00: a neighbor,
5:38
SPEAKER_00: some relative or some sort.
5:39
SPEAKER_00: that had been affected.
5:40
SPEAKER_00: So because you start talking about the fallenness of man,
5:45
SPEAKER_00: right out the gate,
5:46
SPEAKER_00: the people are going to identify with it,
5:48
SPEAKER_00: which I think is super important.
5:50
SPEAKER_00: Because then they know,
5:52
SPEAKER_00: as we know,
5:53
SPEAKER_00: when you start talking about the Bible,
5:54
SPEAKER_00: the first thing,
5:56
SPEAKER_00: especially people that disregard the Bible,
5:58
SPEAKER_00: say,
5:58
SPEAKER_00: why do I need to read a text about
6:00
SPEAKER_00: An old ancient text outdated from 2,000 years.
6:04
SPEAKER_00: They always say the outdated part, which is hilarious to me.
6:07
SPEAKER_00: And their basic concept is, what does this have to do to me?
6:10
SPEAKER_00: I don't read any other books from 500 B.C.
6:13
SPEAKER_00: Why am I reading these scriptures or whatever?
6:16
SPEAKER_00: And when you tie it into this,
6:19
SPEAKER_00: that the fallen human condition,
6:20
SPEAKER_00: it's amazing because this means this is since sin entered,
6:24
SPEAKER_00: is what the Bible says,
6:25
SPEAKER_00: is there's been this condition,
6:27
SPEAKER_00: which is so evident as why everybody can relate to this.
6:30
SPEAKER_00: And then you can start pointing out in the Bible when you jump into these scriptures,
6:33
SPEAKER_00: you touch on whatever condition that you're going to,
6:36
SPEAKER_00: that is affected in the story.
6:37
SPEAKER_00: And then now the next thing you know, they're listening to the story in a whole different light.
6:40
SPEAKER_00: They're not listening to it thinking it's Ezekiel in this foreign desert.
6:43
SPEAKER_00: Yeah,
6:43
SPEAKER_00: they might be or whatever,
6:44
SPEAKER_00: but they're going to start seeing a more human,
6:46
SPEAKER_00: which I think is a really neat way to put it because,
6:49
SPEAKER_00: again,
6:50
SPEAKER_00: we've talked even in the past that so many people feel disconnected from biblical
6:55
SPEAKER_00: figures as they're these biblical giants when,
6:58
SPEAKER_00: in fact,
6:59
SPEAKER_00: as you and I know,
7:00
SPEAKER_00: the whole thing is about how fallen they are except for Christ and why Christ was
7:03
SPEAKER_00: so different.
7:05
SPEAKER_00: is he didn't have this, but he never killed an Egyptian and buried him in the sand.
7:07
SPEAKER_00: You know, he never did all these things.
7:09
SPEAKER_00: He never asked the Lord to, you know, kill him because he hated doing all this stuff or whatever.
7:13
SPEAKER_00: And it was rough for Jesus and he lived through everything we did, but he was different.
7:16
SPEAKER_00: But the fact that is when you preach about all these things,
7:19
SPEAKER_00: even when you talk about the stories of Jesus,
7:21
SPEAKER_00: he's dealing with people in their fallen condition.
7:23
SPEAKER_00: So again, you're identifying with, I really know why Jesus, why I need Jesus.
7:26
SPEAKER_00: These people back then needed Jesus.
7:28
SPEAKER_00: And it brings that connection.
7:29
SPEAKER_00: And I think everybody in their humanist, once you hear something that has to do with that,
7:34
SPEAKER_00: you're going to really attach to it,
7:36
SPEAKER_00: or at least immediately relate to it in some way,
7:38
SPEAKER_00: even if it's not within yourself.
7:40
SPEAKER_03: Yeah,
7:40
SPEAKER_03: correct,
7:41
SPEAKER_03: because,
7:41
SPEAKER_03: and this again,
7:43
SPEAKER_03: and not to beat a dead horse,
7:45
SPEAKER_03: perhaps,
7:46
SPEAKER_03: I guess we can,
7:47
SPEAKER_03: but the dead horse of the prosperity gospel,
7:50
SPEAKER_03: this is kind of what undermines that,
7:52
SPEAKER_03: because
7:53
SPEAKER_03: when you're preaching a prosperity gospel type of sermon,
7:57
SPEAKER_03: you're automatically starting from a way different starting point.
8:01
SPEAKER_03: You're starting from the fact that things are not as good as they could be,
8:06
SPEAKER_03: and they can get a little bit better.
8:09
SPEAKER_03: You're starting from the standpoint of the fact that
8:12
SPEAKER_03: you also have the potential to make it better.
8:14
SPEAKER_03: You just have to apply a little bit more gumption,
8:18
SPEAKER_03: have a little bit more faith,
8:19
SPEAKER_03: maybe even give a little bit more into the offering box,
8:22
SPEAKER_03: and then things will probably work out your way.
8:25
SPEAKER_03: But that has this understanding of,
8:27
SPEAKER_03: this underlying premise of,
8:30
SPEAKER_03: you have the potential within yourself,
8:32
SPEAKER_03: and you just need the wherewithal in order to make it happen.
8:35
SPEAKER_03: Whereas what the gospel says, the true gospel, we could say what God's word reveals is,
8:41
SPEAKER_03: is indeed a fallen human condition where that's impossible.
8:45
SPEAKER_03: We cannot do anything apart from God in order to, quote-unquote, better our lives in the here and now.
8:54
SPEAKER_00: Right, and that's the beautiful message of the gospel.
8:56
SPEAKER_00: We were talking about this last night.
8:58
SPEAKER_00: I used to be that guy.
9:00
SPEAKER_00: I think everybody has to automatically start out that way because you can't know
9:02
SPEAKER_00: everything at first,
9:03
SPEAKER_00: right?
9:03
SPEAKER_00: But you start out thinking, well, I have this sin problem.
9:06
SPEAKER_00: And this is my one bad habit.
9:08
SPEAKER_00: I've noticed this is my early sin.
9:09
SPEAKER_00: I need to work on this.
9:10
SPEAKER_00: And you might conquer it for a week or two or three, and then all of a sudden you slip back into it.
9:14
SPEAKER_00: And then you say, well, I'm going to do this again.
9:15
SPEAKER_00: Until at some point you realize, oh, this is why Jesus came, because actually I don't have the power.
9:19
SPEAKER_00: There's nothing good in me outside of Christ.
9:22
SPEAKER_00: The reason I'm failing is because I'm living outside of the Spirit and in my flesh.
9:26
SPEAKER_00: I need...
9:26
SPEAKER_00: the spirit the holy spirit to work within me i need christ to change me and that's
9:31
SPEAKER_00: literally the whole premise of it the reason we know uh we can know somebody has
9:34
SPEAKER_00: been you know is a true believer and we you know as much as we can know is usually
9:38
SPEAKER_00: you see somebody got a terrible life sinful life and all of a sudden they're
9:40
SPEAKER_00: completely radically changed and it looks miraculous and it's because it is um and
9:45
SPEAKER_00: again it's not because of what we do on our own and i think this is a really
9:47
SPEAKER_00: important thing to get across to the people especially in preaching is that
9:51
SPEAKER_00: There is nothing within our own.
9:52
SPEAKER_00: If anything's going well for any of us in any capacity, it was something that the Lord did through us.
9:56
SPEAKER_00: And it's more relieving to say, Lord, I can't do this.
9:59
SPEAKER_00: Will you change me?
10:00
SPEAKER_00: And then once you become,
10:01
SPEAKER_00: once you empty yourself,
10:02
SPEAKER_00: which again is another version of dying to yourself,
10:06
SPEAKER_00: then the Lord can do that.
10:07
SPEAKER_00: And that is what the prosperity gospel preachers, they miss a couple things.
10:11
SPEAKER_00: One, they miss the source, which is the sad part.
10:13
SPEAKER_00: They miss the source of the prosperity and anything in your life would be Christ.
10:16
SPEAKER_00: And again, nothing changes.
10:18
SPEAKER_00: As they pitch it,
10:18
SPEAKER_00: as you do this and do that,
10:19
SPEAKER_00: tithe this,
10:20
SPEAKER_00: give seed this money,
10:21
SPEAKER_00: and if you go through these things,
10:22
SPEAKER_00: you'll get it.
10:23
SPEAKER_00: So they got the source wrong, which is a really big thing.
10:24
SPEAKER_00: The other thing I say is the reason they can convince so many people is because,
10:29
SPEAKER_00: in a way,
10:31
SPEAKER_00: prosperity to the believer is true.
10:34
SPEAKER_00: It's just a misguided way of how their timing is off, I tell them.
10:37
SPEAKER_00: Their timing is so off because there are things that we will prosper eternal life.
10:41
SPEAKER_00: Life will be great.
10:41
SPEAKER_00: It'll be better.
10:42
SPEAKER_00: We won't even cry.
10:43
SPEAKER_00: It's going to be, we're going to have the most prosperous life ever, but it's not here.
10:46
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
10:46
SPEAKER_00: It's not here though, guys.
10:48
SPEAKER_00: And the, it's the timing and the location.
10:49
SPEAKER_00: They really have things off where they think,
10:52
SPEAKER_00: and you can take things out because again,
10:53
SPEAKER_00: it's,
10:54
SPEAKER_00: I always have to reiterate this to people as well.
10:56
SPEAKER_00: I'm not saying go beat the rich people over the heads of baseball bats because
10:58
SPEAKER_00: they're all going to hell or anything.
10:59
SPEAKER_00: Cause that's not the case either.
11:00
SPEAKER_00: Abraham was wealthy.
11:02
SPEAKER_00: Solomon was wealthy.
11:03
SPEAKER_00: It's not a bad thing.
11:04
SPEAKER_00: God can prosper you in this life.
11:07
SPEAKER_00: But there's also situations like Job where you might live poor and that might be part of it.
11:11
SPEAKER_00: And Jesus wasn't a guy all of a sudden bringing in wealth.
11:15
SPEAKER_00: I don't understand what the prosperity gospel preachers say about Jesus and why he
11:18
SPEAKER_00: didn't have a million bucks in the bank.
11:20
SPEAKER_00: Because that really breaks their story here and their whole concept here.
11:23
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it really does.
11:24
SPEAKER_00: But yeah, they just have things so out of whack.
11:26
SPEAKER_00: And I think it's once you go back to Christ-centeredness and that the only way you can change
11:31
SPEAKER_00: Is through Christ.
11:32
SPEAKER_00: And then you hit this whole thing.
11:33
SPEAKER_00: We're all broken.
11:34
SPEAKER_00: That's true.
11:35
SPEAKER_00: Everybody knows that's true.
11:36
SPEAKER_00: You can think of somebody and say Christ is the only one that could ever change it.
11:39
SPEAKER_00: And that's why you couldn't change your family members.
11:40
SPEAKER_00: Because Christ can do it.
11:42
SPEAKER_03: And that's actually the beauty of the gospel.
11:47
SPEAKER_03: Is the sense that we don't believe in this pie in the sky better life now.
11:52
SPEAKER_03: But we do believe we could call it a pie in the sky,
11:55
SPEAKER_03: better life then that is brought into the now by faith.
11:59
SPEAKER_03: And that's a way different way of understanding it because that's essentially what
12:03
SPEAKER_03: we're believing in is that,
12:06
SPEAKER_03: yes,
12:06
SPEAKER_03: we understand the promises of God.
12:08
SPEAKER_03: We trust and believe that because of the resurrection,
12:11
SPEAKER_03: all of these other things,
12:12
SPEAKER_03: yada,
12:12
SPEAKER_03: yada,
12:13
SPEAKER_03: yada,
12:13
SPEAKER_03: are going to be true.
12:14
SPEAKER_03: And we're trusting in their trueness now.
12:17
SPEAKER_03: even in the now, even though they haven't been realized yet.
12:20
SPEAKER_03: We're essentially following in the same pattern of the patriarchs.
12:26
SPEAKER_03: I was just reading again,
12:28
SPEAKER_03: I'm about to finish my sermon series on the life of Jacob,
12:34
SPEAKER_03: and I was reading again in Hebrews 11 where it talks about the patriarchs,
12:39
SPEAKER_03: and I love verse 13 where it talks about the fact that
12:44
SPEAKER_03: These patriarchs who are given this word of promise,
12:47
SPEAKER_03: they believed that promise even though they never saw it.
12:50
SPEAKER_03: I'm paraphrasing verse 13.
12:53
SPEAKER_03: But anyways, they believed even though they never saw any of it come to fruition.
12:57
SPEAKER_03: They never saw any of it realized.
12:59
SPEAKER_03: And it says that they believed as though they had seen it from afar.
13:03
SPEAKER_03: And I love that imagery because...
13:08
SPEAKER_03: Abraham,
13:09
SPEAKER_03: Isaac,
13:09
SPEAKER_03: and Jacob,
13:09
SPEAKER_03: they didn't have a gospel that told them,
13:11
SPEAKER_03: hey,
13:12
SPEAKER_03: Jesus Christ is going to do this.
13:14
SPEAKER_03: But they had a word of promise from the Lord that blessing was going to come to the
13:18
SPEAKER_03: world through them,
13:19
SPEAKER_03: and they trusted in this Messiah that was going to come.
13:23
SPEAKER_03: In the same token, we have a more better word of gospel, as it talks about in the New Testament.
13:29
SPEAKER_03: But even we still, too, in the New Testament church, New Testament modern believers...
13:35
SPEAKER_03: are still in the same,
13:36
SPEAKER_03: and this kind of gets to this same thing,
13:39
SPEAKER_03: we're not exactly the same circumstances,
13:42
SPEAKER_03: but we have the same exact hope,
13:43
SPEAKER_03: which is we're seeing from afar the great and better day in which the new heaven
13:50
SPEAKER_03: and the new earth will come about and we will be with the Lord forevermore.
13:55
SPEAKER_03: We're seeing that from afar and we're living it in the now as we go.
13:59
SPEAKER_03: Like that's true gospel hope, I think.
14:02
SPEAKER_00: Right.
14:03
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
14:03
SPEAKER_00: And it's amazing.
14:04
SPEAKER_00: There's always these kind of analogies I kind of draw and it's almost,
14:07
SPEAKER_00: this might be a gross oversimplification of it,
14:09
SPEAKER_00: but it's almost your spiritual retirement in a way.
14:12
SPEAKER_00: It's like, hey, listen.
14:13
SPEAKER_00: Because how do people get, like that's how people get today.
14:16
SPEAKER_00: Like, oh, look at my pension.
14:18
SPEAKER_00: So I only got to do this, but I got to do 10 more years.
14:20
SPEAKER_00: And it's not going to be great.
14:21
SPEAKER_00: I'm going to have to go in Monday and Friday and hate my job.
14:23
SPEAKER_00: You know, some people act like that.
14:24
SPEAKER_00: But they all have this hope from afar.
14:26
SPEAKER_00: And it's, you know, again, that's probably an oversimplification of this all.
14:30
SPEAKER_00: But the concept is, listen, it's not going to be sunshine and rainbows all the time now.
14:35
SPEAKER_00: It will be.
14:36
SPEAKER_00: We do have these amazing promises.
14:38
SPEAKER_00: And I love how it says, almost like they've seen it from afar, like you said.
14:41
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
14:42
SPEAKER_00: and it's another thing of uh once you realize this and and you can see there's some spiritual blindness
14:48
SPEAKER_00: still to the people that believe in the prosperity gospel or maybe just some,
14:52
SPEAKER_00: you know,
14:52
SPEAKER_00: I don't know,
14:53
SPEAKER_00: twisting of things.
14:55
SPEAKER_00: But really what it gets to is that people just,
14:58
SPEAKER_00: again,
14:58
SPEAKER_00: need to know that it all comes from Christ and everything has to get back from
15:01
SPEAKER_00: Christ and that's the focus.
15:03
SPEAKER_00: And it's maybe not going to be the greatest thing now.
15:05
SPEAKER_00: And I know that hurts your people because you want to say,
15:07
SPEAKER_00: and you can still have,
15:09
SPEAKER_00: there are ways where people can turn around if they're in poverty now and they're
15:11
SPEAKER_00: having a terrible life.
15:13
SPEAKER_00: And by all means, that can change.
15:14
SPEAKER_00: And there are practical ways that things can get better,
15:16
SPEAKER_00: but it's just not promised because not even tomorrow is promised.
15:19
SPEAKER_00: I want you to start understanding these things.
15:21
SPEAKER_00: You get this spiritual blindness almost removed in a way.
15:25
SPEAKER_00: And we can all actually get,
15:26
SPEAKER_00: even the best believers can get trapped into the illusion again that we might have
15:28
SPEAKER_00: a little bit more time or a couple more years to do even some of the things that we
15:31
SPEAKER_00: think the Lord wants us to do.
15:32
SPEAKER_00: And we'll have time over.
15:33
SPEAKER_00: And then I know a lot of people that don't show up tomorrow.
15:35
SPEAKER_00: You know, they're gone.
15:36
SPEAKER_00: Nobody really can plan their death or anything like that and know when it's really coming.
15:41
SPEAKER_00: A lot of the time,
15:41
SPEAKER_00: so to know,
15:42
SPEAKER_00: again,
15:42
SPEAKER_00: just to focus and trust that and have that belief that Christ can do it,
15:47
SPEAKER_00: I think is really,
15:48
SPEAKER_00: really important.
15:49
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, but I don't know where this comes from.
15:52
SPEAKER_03: I guess it's just in nature.
15:54
SPEAKER_03: But there's something definitely within human nature that resists the idea of our fallenness.
16:00
SPEAKER_03: And whether it's just pride, I don't know, or whatever you want to like.
16:04
SPEAKER_03: I guess it is pride, but it's that ego within us that's like, I'm not that fallen.
16:10
SPEAKER_03: and there's some sort of potential within me or pedigree that I have that can allow
16:17
SPEAKER_03: me to kind of overcome on my own.
16:19
SPEAKER_03: And that's kind of part of the whole premise of gospel preaching,
16:23
SPEAKER_03: or I should say biblical preaching,
16:24
SPEAKER_03: which is law,
16:25
SPEAKER_03: then gospel.
16:26
SPEAKER_03: The law whittles down any potential that anyone thinks they might have,
16:32
SPEAKER_03: and then suddenly when that happens,
16:35
SPEAKER_03: that person is whittled down to the point where they have no other hope.
16:39
SPEAKER_03: Here comes the word of the gospel,
16:40
SPEAKER_03: which tells them of the true and better prosperity that is theirs through Christ.
16:45
SPEAKER_03: And it's theirs by faith.
16:47
SPEAKER_03: So here again, we're seeing how if you get away from...
16:55
SPEAKER_03: the biblical prism of preaching,
16:57
SPEAKER_03: which is everyone has fallen,
16:59
SPEAKER_03: which means everyone needs a redeemer,
17:02
SPEAKER_03: then you're going to get really far off in what you're going to do with a specific text.
17:07
SPEAKER_00: Oh, yeah, and that's why it's really important.
17:08
SPEAKER_00: I love that it even came up again in our discussion last night.
17:13
SPEAKER_00: One of the guys asked, even when you're born, is there any little glimpse of goodness in you?
17:18
SPEAKER_00: And the answer is absolutely not.
17:19
SPEAKER_00: The Bible is very clear on that.
17:21
SPEAKER_00: And that's hard for us to handle because we say,
17:22
SPEAKER_00: well,
17:22
SPEAKER_00: there's good people out there that aren't believers.
17:24
SPEAKER_00: And you have to know the Bible just says there's still nothing good about them,
17:29
SPEAKER_00: that there must be some ulterior motives.
17:30
SPEAKER_00: The reason they might do it is there's some kind of pride involved.
17:33
SPEAKER_00: So the people out there maybe doing philanthropy that aren't believers,
17:35
SPEAKER_00: I'm not going to go out and say whatever it may be,
17:38
SPEAKER_00: but...
17:38
SPEAKER_00: A lot of them might have,
17:39
SPEAKER_00: whether they know it or not,
17:40
SPEAKER_00: they want to be in the newspaper or get a picture or a photo op or pats on the back,
17:44
SPEAKER_00: and it all comes down from pride.
17:45
SPEAKER_00: But another problem is, it is a pride thing.
17:47
SPEAKER_00: We don't like to admit that we're fallen.
17:50
SPEAKER_00: There was somebody, me and my one friend online were like,
17:54
SPEAKER_00: kind of ministering to online through the comment section, which we like to do every once in a while.
17:58
SPEAKER_00: I don't do it as much anymore.
18:00
SPEAKER_00: And the one woman said, I'm sick of this Christianity stuff.
18:04
SPEAKER_00: I'm sick of being told I'm no good.
18:07
SPEAKER_00: And basically said, the world out here says I can be everything I can be.
18:10
SPEAKER_00: You guys are keeping me down.
18:13
SPEAKER_00: and spun it as in, I am good, I am worthy.
18:17
SPEAKER_00: And it's weird because out here there is these self-affirmations you're going to
18:20
SPEAKER_00: hear in the world to help build you up.
18:23
SPEAKER_00: But maybe those are the noble lies.
18:25
SPEAKER_00: Maybe John MacArthur had it confused.
18:28
SPEAKER_00: Those were the noble lies because you're not worthy on your own and you're not good
18:34
SPEAKER_00: and you're not able to achieve on your own.
18:37
SPEAKER_00: Although you are worthy with Christ.
18:39
SPEAKER_00: You are able to achieve with Christ.
18:41
SPEAKER_00: When you start putting that into effect, it's really good.
18:43
SPEAKER_00: But the pride can even come into the best Christians.
18:45
SPEAKER_00: Like you said.
18:46
SPEAKER_00: We don't always want to admit our sins,
18:48
SPEAKER_00: or even when we do,
18:49
SPEAKER_00: we start to create the ranking system,
18:51
SPEAKER_00: as I call it,
18:52
SPEAKER_00: the sin ranking system.
18:53
SPEAKER_00: Like, oh, good.
18:54
SPEAKER_00: Well, my sins are way down here.
18:55
SPEAKER_00: I'm not cheating on my wife.
18:57
SPEAKER_00: I'm not stealing money.
18:58
SPEAKER_00: So, you know, this little sin of me, you know, doing my own thing down here, it's way better.
19:03
SPEAKER_00: And it reminds me, there's a really good song.
19:05
SPEAKER_00: Rich Mullen is one of my favorite Christian artists still to this day.
19:08
SPEAKER_00: He wrote this song called Hard.
19:09
SPEAKER_00: And the reason I love it is it's almost like the whole thing is like,
19:13
SPEAKER_00: you know,
19:14
SPEAKER_00: basically it's about how he thinks he's doing really well.
19:17
SPEAKER_00: He says when he stacks up against Peter and Paul, the apostles, it doesn't seem so good.
19:21
SPEAKER_00: But when he looks around here, he says it's not so bad.
19:24
SPEAKER_00: You know,
19:24
SPEAKER_00: he's basically saying like,
19:26
SPEAKER_00: oh,
19:26
SPEAKER_00: around here,
19:26
SPEAKER_00: around people around here,
19:27
SPEAKER_00: I might look better than other people.
19:29
SPEAKER_00: And I might be behaving on the outside better than other people.
19:32
SPEAKER_00: But once I go to scripture, I get torn apart.
19:35
SPEAKER_00: So, and it's that thing of being careful, being balanced, right?
19:39
SPEAKER_00: You are worthy in the Lord, but you're also worthless without the Lord in the way.
19:43
SPEAKER_00: Not worthless because, you know, God loves you.
19:45
SPEAKER_00: What I'm saying is you have no ability to do good.
19:47
SPEAKER_00: I guess is what I should word it as.
19:49
SPEAKER_00: And you can get so out of balance for many reasons.
19:52
SPEAKER_00: This is another of the many reasons why you need to be reading the Bible and praying daily.
19:56
SPEAKER_00: It's because when you put that book down, it's like walking away from the mirror.
20:00
SPEAKER_00: You forget that you're even dirty.
20:02
SPEAKER_00: And you're out here thinking better of yourself.
20:03
SPEAKER_00: And then some people will stay away from churches and the Bible.
20:07
SPEAKER_00: Because they know what will happen when they look.
20:09
SPEAKER_00: They don't want that feeling again.
20:11
SPEAKER_00: That's true.
20:12
SPEAKER_00: It's like they want to lie to themselves because they like the lie they're living in.
20:15
SPEAKER_00: And it can happen to anybody.
20:16
SPEAKER_00: Again, why it's really important to get into Scripture because then these realities start to break down.
20:20
SPEAKER_00: Because otherwise,
20:21
SPEAKER_00: if I didn't read,
20:21
SPEAKER_00: you know,
20:22
SPEAKER_00: even if I read parts of the Bible and never read all the Scriptures in its entirety
20:25
SPEAKER_00: or in context,
20:26
SPEAKER_00: I would think,
20:27
SPEAKER_00: well,
20:27
SPEAKER_00: I at least had a little bit of good in myself.
20:28
SPEAKER_00: And the only reason I know I don't is because Scripture is really clear and all that stuff.
20:32
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
20:33
SPEAKER_03: And that brings up the analogy that's used in the book of James where he's talking
20:39
SPEAKER_03: about you're going – like the law is a mirror and to ignore it is like the man who
20:46
SPEAKER_03: looks himself in a mirror and chooses not to make any changes.
20:50
SPEAKER_03: You wake up and you don't – I think truthfully that's kind of what we're getting at
20:55
SPEAKER_03: here is like if you're not reading the scriptures honestly –
20:59
SPEAKER_03: Humbly, but like then truthfully to understand what exactly that is the message that is conveying.
21:06
SPEAKER_03: You're essentially just ignoring the way that you actually look in terms of the mirror of the law.
21:14
SPEAKER_03: It's hard.
21:14
SPEAKER_03: No one likes to admit that.
21:16
SPEAKER_03: In fact, when you were speaking there, I was thinking of that quote from D.G.
21:22
SPEAKER_03: Barnhouse.
21:23
SPEAKER_03: D.G.
21:23
SPEAKER_03: Barnhouse used to be the pastor of 10th Presbyterian in Philadelphia.
21:28
SPEAKER_03: He's passed away now.
21:30
SPEAKER_03: He has this quote in one of his commentaries on the Book of Romans where he says
21:34
SPEAKER_03: essentially that the hardest lesson to learn is mankind's own spiritual bankruptcy.
21:40
SPEAKER_03: And I think that that's kind of what we're getting at here.
21:43
SPEAKER_03: This fallen condition ought to be indeed the focus of our preaching only because
21:51
SPEAKER_03: even if we don't want to admit it,
21:53
SPEAKER_03: we kind of feel it.
21:55
SPEAKER_03: And this is what you and I have talked about, like not from a standpoint –
22:01
SPEAKER_03: Well, I'll say it this way.
22:03
SPEAKER_03: This is, I think, kind of what makes, as we've said before, funerals...
22:09
SPEAKER_03: such a good opportunity to preach the gospel because there everyone is confronted
22:14
SPEAKER_03: with that fallenness right in their face it's not the fallenness that comes from
22:18
SPEAKER_03: bad decisions per se but it's the fallenness that says this person that used to be
22:23
SPEAKER_03: next to me is now no longer there and that speaks to the fallenness of this world
22:30
SPEAKER_03: where everyone is confronted by that same
22:34
SPEAKER_03: they're confronted by that same sense of, this is not how it should be.
22:40
SPEAKER_03: Which,
22:41
SPEAKER_03: I'm not going to say easy,
22:42
SPEAKER_03: but it's kind of like the runway is already set to land the plane of the gospel
22:49
SPEAKER_03: into that moment,
22:50
SPEAKER_03: right?
22:50
SPEAKER_00: Yeah,
22:51
SPEAKER_00: and it's one of those things,
22:52
SPEAKER_00: when I first got into ministry,
22:54
SPEAKER_00: the ones things I wanted to do the least at first,
22:56
SPEAKER_00: and now it's almost the thing that,
22:57
SPEAKER_00: kind of what you said,
22:59
SPEAKER_00: it's really the best opportunity if you really want to preach the gospel and have...
23:02
SPEAKER_00: I used to call it a captive listening audience.
23:05
SPEAKER_00: It's the one time you're going to get people into a church maybe who maybe never
23:07
SPEAKER_00: would have came in,
23:08
SPEAKER_00: first off,
23:09
SPEAKER_00: out of respect for whoever's up in the front laying in the casket.
23:12
SPEAKER_00: And second, like you said, it doesn't get more real.
23:17
SPEAKER_00: Death does not become...
23:18
SPEAKER_00: as real as it does when you attend a funeral.
23:21
SPEAKER_00: And everybody,
23:22
SPEAKER_00: they could lie about it,
23:23
SPEAKER_00: everybody thinks about their mortality when they walk into a viewing or a funeral.
23:26
SPEAKER_00: Even if it's for a split second and they push it out because they don't like it and
23:28
SPEAKER_00: it scares them,
23:29
SPEAKER_00: or they don't want to think about this or whatever,
23:31
SPEAKER_00: everybody considers it.
23:32
SPEAKER_00: And maybe for a week it'll last,
23:35
SPEAKER_00: or two weeks,
23:35
SPEAKER_00: and eventually it'll fade and they'll forget they're going to die any day.
23:38
SPEAKER_00: And that'll happen, but for a while you have them.
23:40
SPEAKER_00: It's sad to say it's a good object lesson.
23:44
SPEAKER_00: Because I always love to point out when I do funerals,
23:46
SPEAKER_00: it's like,
23:46
SPEAKER_00: hey,
23:47
SPEAKER_00: one day I'll be up here,
23:48
SPEAKER_00: one day all of you will be up here.
23:49
SPEAKER_00: There's actually no escape.
23:50
SPEAKER_00: There's actually a 0% probability,
23:52
SPEAKER_00: the stats say,
23:53
SPEAKER_00: that any of us will get through this without this process happening at some point.
23:57
SPEAKER_00: And then, I love kind of what you're pointing out here, it's like...
24:00
SPEAKER_00: you know,
24:01
SPEAKER_00: what a hopeless,
24:01
SPEAKER_00: sad,
24:01
SPEAKER_00: because it feels a lot of times at funerals,
24:03
SPEAKER_00: you can feel the hopeless in people.
24:04
SPEAKER_00: That's so sad.
24:05
SPEAKER_00: Emptiness, the feeling of never being able to see their loved one again.
24:09
SPEAKER_00: And then you hit him with this whole thing, but wait, there's more with the gospel.
24:15
SPEAKER_00: The Lord can change all this awfulness into good.
24:19
SPEAKER_00: And,
24:19
SPEAKER_00: and reality is somebody could say outside of like,
24:21
SPEAKER_00: what,
24:21
SPEAKER_00: what chance would they have to make this thing right?
24:23
SPEAKER_00: Or make any positive things out as if it weren't for the gospel message, which makes it so much brighter.
24:28
SPEAKER_00: It kind of reminds me of what, you know,
24:30
SPEAKER_00: if you have a black background and then you put a bunch of color on it,
24:33
SPEAKER_00: it's going to be very,
24:34
SPEAKER_00: very vivid.
24:35
SPEAKER_00: And the contrast is because of the darkness and the light, and that's kind of what happens.
24:38
SPEAKER_00: Funerals are very dark.
24:39
SPEAKER_00: A lot of people are even wearing black.
24:41
SPEAKER_00: It's just very sad.
24:42
SPEAKER_00: And then the brilliant light of the gospel shines so much at funerals.
24:47
SPEAKER_00: Because there's really not a lot of light there.
24:51
SPEAKER_00: And so it's just the great almost stage beam down on the gospel.
24:55
SPEAKER_00: Like, here it is.
24:56
SPEAKER_00: At this point, this is your only hope.
24:59
SPEAKER_00: And I really love that fact.
25:00
SPEAKER_00: And again, what you said there is it's another version of the fallen condition.
25:04
SPEAKER_00: Yeah,
25:05
SPEAKER_00: maybe there's no active sinning that we're talking about going on per se,
25:08
SPEAKER_00: but this is the physical ramifications of
25:11
SPEAKER_00: of sin and the fullness of humanity that we can't escape without Christ.
25:15
SPEAKER_03: Yeah,
25:15
SPEAKER_03: and I think it plays right into something one of my friends,
25:19
SPEAKER_03: Dan Price,
25:20
SPEAKER_03: he works for 1517,
25:22
SPEAKER_03: he once said,
25:24
SPEAKER_03: when we were talking one time,
25:25
SPEAKER_03: that one of the ways that he approaches preaching is to always preach to those who
25:31
SPEAKER_03: are dying.
25:32
SPEAKER_03: And that's kind of the same idea.
25:34
SPEAKER_03: Like everyone's fallen,
25:35
SPEAKER_03: but also everyone's dying,
25:37
SPEAKER_03: which also means the same sense of urgency that you would maybe preach at a funeral
25:43
SPEAKER_03: actually ought to be the same prism by which every sermon is preached.
25:48
SPEAKER_03: It's also,
25:48
SPEAKER_03: I think it comes kind of from,
25:50
SPEAKER_03: I'm not saying Dan took it from him,
25:53
SPEAKER_03: but there's this old Puritan,
25:56
SPEAKER_03: Richard Baxter,
25:57
SPEAKER_03: he talks about the fact that he preached every time as...
26:02
SPEAKER_03: as, what does he say?
26:06
SPEAKER_03: I forgot his quote.
26:07
SPEAKER_03: No, I lost it.
26:08
SPEAKER_02: I'm going to look it up.
26:09
SPEAKER_03: Hold on.
26:10
SPEAKER_03: I hate it when I lose that.
26:11
SPEAKER_03: But he talks about the same idea that he's preaching to those who are dying, as a dying man to die.
26:18
SPEAKER_03: He preaches those who are to die as a dying man to dying men.
26:21
SPEAKER_03: And I always find that to be one of the best ways to approach
26:30
SPEAKER_03: Like any type of sermon, any type of... Here, I pulled it up.
26:33
SPEAKER_03: Okay.
26:34
SPEAKER_03: I preached as never sure to preach again and as a dying man to dying men.
26:39
SPEAKER_03: Okay, there.
26:39
SPEAKER_03: I got the full quote.
26:40
SPEAKER_03: There we go.
26:41
SPEAKER_03: But that's a helpful prism,
26:43
SPEAKER_03: I think,
26:44
SPEAKER_03: to understand what we're talking about with the fallen condition focus is that's it
26:50
SPEAKER_03: right there.
26:51
SPEAKER_03: And even if no one wants to admit or kind of like it's...
26:55
SPEAKER_03: The people that are ignoring the fact that they're not going to die is the person
27:00
SPEAKER_03: walking out of the house without looking in a mirror.
27:01
SPEAKER_03: But also the person who doesn't want to admit their own fallenness or as D.G.
27:05
SPEAKER_03: Barnhouse, their own spiritual bankruptcy.
27:09
SPEAKER_03: It's the same paradigm.
27:10
SPEAKER_03: They're walking out of the door without looking in the mirror.
27:13
SPEAKER_03: And that's sort of the whole point of preaching is to...
27:19
SPEAKER_03: kind of rattle people with the law in order to reconcile people with the gospel.
27:25
SPEAKER_03: This is the perfect way in which we can explain or which we can think about preaching in general.
27:33
SPEAKER_03: This is what we're called to be doing, regardless of sermon text, regardless of context, regardless of
27:40
SPEAKER_03: what happens.
27:42
SPEAKER_03: Because even as we mentioned at the beginning,
27:44
SPEAKER_03: no,
27:44
SPEAKER_03: some people,
27:45
SPEAKER_03: like we've talked about before,
27:46
SPEAKER_03: the events of the Old Testament are strange and foreign.
27:50
SPEAKER_03: But if you step back and kind of get the big picture of what's happening, no, maybe you don't
27:57
SPEAKER_03: Like, you know, in Genesis, like, I'm thinking about Jacob's life.
28:01
SPEAKER_03: That's the only thing that fills my head.
28:02
SPEAKER_01: So,
28:02
SPEAKER_01: like,
28:02
SPEAKER_03: you know,
28:03
SPEAKER_03: maybe you didn't steal your dad's birthright,
28:06
SPEAKER_03: and so you have to go on the run because your brother has a death threat against you.
28:09
SPEAKER_02: Right.
28:10
SPEAKER_03: But...
28:11
SPEAKER_03: You can also sympathize and maybe even,
28:16
SPEAKER_03: as you said,
28:17
SPEAKER_03: have that resonate with you in terms of a broken family and being alone.
28:23
SPEAKER_03: And the same word of gospel comes and greets people who are in those types of distressful situations.
28:29
SPEAKER_00: Oh, yeah, no, absolutely.
28:30
SPEAKER_00: And again, it goes back to the fullness of humanity again here, whereas...
28:35
SPEAKER_00: Even some people who may not read the Bible so often think of Jacob, well, Jacob is Israel.
28:39
SPEAKER_00: Wow, he's a holy patriarch.
28:41
SPEAKER_00: He might have one of the worst life stories of all patriarchs by design.
28:46
SPEAKER_00: But God is really crafty with how he did it.
28:48
SPEAKER_00: It's a mastermind of how he allowed Jacob's life to play out.
28:52
SPEAKER_00: And I really like what you said even earlier.
28:54
SPEAKER_00: You've got to go, lol, then gospel.
28:57
SPEAKER_00: And why?
28:57
SPEAKER_00: I think we're seeing it right here.
28:59
SPEAKER_00: If you paint Jacob as this good guy and these biblical giants...
29:03
SPEAKER_00: And you allow people to think there's some goodness in them.
29:06
SPEAKER_00: There's really not a huge need.
29:08
SPEAKER_03: And that's why God chose them.
29:10
SPEAKER_00: Exactly.
29:10
SPEAKER_00: And this is why you're a Christian and God chose you because you behaved better than your neighbors did.
29:16
SPEAKER_00: And this is why you go to the church and remember to be on your best behavior
29:18
SPEAKER_00: because that's the only way you stand.
29:20
SPEAKER_00: Seriously, these thoughts are still out there as crazy as it may sound.
29:23
SPEAKER_00: But it is that thought.
29:24
SPEAKER_00: And once you allow people to think there's a little bit of goodness in them or
29:27
SPEAKER_00: there's these biblical giants,
29:28
SPEAKER_00: it's like...
29:29
SPEAKER_00: Well, that's cool, and I really like Jesus.
29:30
SPEAKER_00: He was a really nice teacher, too.
29:31
SPEAKER_00: Yep, he did really good, just like me.
29:33
SPEAKER_00: And it becomes this, all of a sudden, I'm going to relate to my greatness.
29:37
SPEAKER_00: It gets so out of whack, whereas I love the law, man.
29:40
SPEAKER_00: It does.
29:41
SPEAKER_00: It's like that woman who said to me, like, I'm sick of people telling me I'm wrong.
29:44
SPEAKER_00: Hey, I know.
29:44
SPEAKER_00: It's not a good message.
29:45
SPEAKER_00: It's offensive.
29:46
SPEAKER_00: I get it.
29:47
SPEAKER_00: But there is good news.
29:49
SPEAKER_00: And once you start breaking these things down, like, you know...
29:52
SPEAKER_00: Jacob's, you know, dysfunctional family.
29:54
SPEAKER_00: You don't have to look far.
29:56
SPEAKER_00: You go on social media and make some vague post,
29:58
SPEAKER_00: like a fortune cookie,
29:59
SPEAKER_00: about dysfunctional families and how this,
30:01
SPEAKER_00: and you'll get likes and comments because it resonates.
30:05
SPEAKER_00: And again, it's that brokenness.
30:06
SPEAKER_00: And why do we feel broken?
30:07
SPEAKER_00: Because of the law.
30:08
SPEAKER_00: And we're not following it.
30:09
SPEAKER_00: And when you don't follow the law, you're basically, I always say, like, God's law.
30:13
SPEAKER_00: I explained it one time in my study years ago.
30:15
SPEAKER_00: It's like a rubber band.
30:17
SPEAKER_00: And the rubber band, as long as you don't mess with it, it's fine.
30:19
SPEAKER_00: But once you yank on it, then once you let go, it's going to snap.
30:24
SPEAKER_00: It's not going to come back to where it was.
30:25
SPEAKER_00: It's going to snap and have repercussions in the other direction and resonate and
30:29
SPEAKER_00: go all over the place and cause issues.
30:31
SPEAKER_00: And if you think you can break God's law and still keep your life nice and fancy
30:35
SPEAKER_00: and easy,
30:36
SPEAKER_00: you're fooling yourself.
30:37
SPEAKER_00: The reason all of us have some kind of turmoil in our lives,
30:40
SPEAKER_00: some kind of anxieties or some kind of stresses...
30:43
SPEAKER_00: is because either the laws we're breaking,
30:45
SPEAKER_00: the laws that other people are breaking,
30:46
SPEAKER_00: whether we're acknowledging them or not,
30:48
SPEAKER_00: coming back to the fullness of humanity.
30:50
SPEAKER_00: So approaching this is such a great way,
30:52
SPEAKER_00: again,
30:52
SPEAKER_00: of approaching Jacob and all these other stories,
30:55
SPEAKER_00: even Moses,
30:56
SPEAKER_00: you know,
30:56
SPEAKER_00: to show,
30:58
SPEAKER_00: you know,
30:58
SPEAKER_00: that he even,
30:59
SPEAKER_00: you know,
30:59
SPEAKER_00: didn't obey God,
31:00
SPEAKER_00: struck a rock,
31:00
SPEAKER_00: like I said,
31:01
SPEAKER_00: killed an Egyptian.
31:01
SPEAKER_00: You can make the case that he was doing whatever,
31:03
SPEAKER_00: but when you point out that these people are fallen,
31:06
SPEAKER_00: it really shakes things up,
31:07
SPEAKER_00: and then they start to identify with him in a new way.
31:09
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
31:09
SPEAKER_00: Rather than trying to identify with Moses as this holy speaker and leader,
31:14
SPEAKER_00: I'm now going to recognize that I couldn't follow God's law even if I knew it
31:17
SPEAKER_00: completely either.
31:18
SPEAKER_00: Exactly.
31:18
SPEAKER_00: And Moses couldn't.
31:19
SPEAKER_00: I can't.
31:19
SPEAKER_00: There hasn't been somebody in Israel like that since Jesus came.
31:22
SPEAKER_00: So I'm not in that category.
31:25
SPEAKER_00: And it's like, man.
31:26
SPEAKER_00: So then it starts to see you identify in a different way.
31:28
SPEAKER_00: And you do want that identification in a way,
31:29
SPEAKER_00: but you want to identify with the lowliness,
31:31
SPEAKER_00: the brokenness,
31:32
SPEAKER_00: the spiritual bankruptness.
31:34
SPEAKER_00: and their need.
31:34
SPEAKER_00: I think Moses would have told you.
31:36
SPEAKER_00: Jacob would tell you.
31:37
SPEAKER_00: They'd all tell you, yeah, I needed the Lord.
31:39
SPEAKER_00: That was the only way.
31:40
SPEAKER_00: I shouldn't even be where I'm at.
31:42
SPEAKER_00: I should be dead in my sins.
31:43
SPEAKER_00: And it goes back to this,
31:44
SPEAKER_00: and it's the message people need to hear,
31:46
SPEAKER_00: which is why the prosperity gospel is so dangerous,
31:48
SPEAKER_00: because when you fluff it up and tell people,
31:51
SPEAKER_00: you know,
31:51
SPEAKER_00: you can have this life here.
31:53
SPEAKER_00: And it's the whole reason.
31:55
SPEAKER_00: The reason you know this is alive and well, you can just test it sometime.
31:57
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
31:58
SPEAKER_00: And go out and ask somebody that you know,
32:00
SPEAKER_00: a good believer,
32:01
SPEAKER_00: like,
32:01
SPEAKER_00: hey,
32:01
SPEAKER_00: wouldn't it be cool if we go to heaven right now?
32:03
SPEAKER_00: And you'll hear these comments like, well, I'm taking a cruise to the islands.
32:07
SPEAKER_00: I hope Jesus waits still after that.
32:09
SPEAKER_00: And they chuckle, and it's bothersome because they're being funny and stuff.
32:15
SPEAKER_00: But deep down, this life's pretty good for me right now.
32:19
SPEAKER_00: So I don't need to leave it yet because,
32:20
SPEAKER_00: you know what,
32:21
SPEAKER_00: Earth,
32:21
SPEAKER_00: I know there's sin,
32:22
SPEAKER_00: there's evil,
32:22
SPEAKER_00: but I'm not involved in wars,
32:24
SPEAKER_00: and my family didn't get blown up by bombs today,
32:26
SPEAKER_00: and I didn't get diagnosed with cancer today.
32:27
SPEAKER_00: So I want to go on my island trip before I go to heaven.
32:30
SPEAKER_00: And it's this really out of whack thing.
32:32
SPEAKER_00: Like,
32:32
SPEAKER_00: wait,
32:32
SPEAKER_00: if they really saw,
32:33
SPEAKER_00: you guys have no idea how good,
32:35
SPEAKER_00: I always tell people,
32:36
SPEAKER_00: and it's funny,
32:37
SPEAKER_00: I think of this because when I was a kid,
32:38
SPEAKER_00: I did this.
32:39
SPEAKER_00: I,
32:39
SPEAKER_00: you know,
32:40
SPEAKER_00: back in like 95,
32:40
SPEAKER_00: we went to Disney World and I made a joke,
32:42
SPEAKER_00: even in the church as a kid saying,
32:43
SPEAKER_00: I will hope Jesus waits.
32:44
SPEAKER_00: And I was a kid.
32:46
SPEAKER_00: But I really wanted to go to Disney World,
32:47
SPEAKER_00: and I knew I couldn't go to Disney World if I was in heaven,
32:48
SPEAKER_00: and I wish I could talk to my young Eric self and say,
32:50
SPEAKER_00: Eric,
32:51
SPEAKER_00: if you knew how good heaven was,
32:52
SPEAKER_00: you'd never want to go to Disney World again.
32:54
SPEAKER_00: It's way better than Disney World,
32:55
SPEAKER_00: and that's the thing,
32:56
SPEAKER_00: because we can't see or touch or feel,
32:58
SPEAKER_00: and if you're spiritually blind to it,
32:59
SPEAKER_00: you do not understand that your greatest day on earth that you could ever calculate
33:04
SPEAKER_00: magnify it by a billion, and you're still not there.
33:06
SPEAKER_00: You're still not at the heavenly reality yet.
33:09
SPEAKER_00: And this is why I think people who,
33:11
SPEAKER_00: I'm not going to go into this rabbit hole,
33:13
SPEAKER_00: but near-death experiences,
33:15
SPEAKER_00: where people,
33:15
SPEAKER_00: not everybody turns around or anything,
33:16
SPEAKER_00: but there are some people that have NDEs that come to Christ,
33:20
SPEAKER_00: and they will all,
33:21
SPEAKER_00: not all,
33:22
SPEAKER_00: but a good portion will say things like,
33:24
SPEAKER_00: I didn't want to come back.
33:26
SPEAKER_00: It felt so good.
33:27
SPEAKER_00: I'm not saying they're experiencing reality of heaven or anything.
33:30
SPEAKER_00: But I think maybe what's happening is they're experiencing something beyond this world.
33:33
SPEAKER_00: I don't think they're getting to where they need to be yet.
33:35
SPEAKER_00: But they're starting to realize, man...
33:37
SPEAKER_00: I thought this world was cool, but I had nothing to measure it against.
33:39
SPEAKER_00: And they're getting little tiny, like, you know, pinhole glimpses maybe into what the true reality is.
33:45
SPEAKER_00: But you hear this thing,
33:46
SPEAKER_00: and I think it would be really neat if we were just allowed to take a five-minute
33:50
SPEAKER_00: vacation to heaven.
33:51
SPEAKER_00: I think if we were all able to take a five-minute vacation to heaven,
33:53
SPEAKER_00: we'd come back drastically changed,
33:55
SPEAKER_00: realize how fallen we were,
33:57
SPEAKER_00: and we'd have a lot more of a reality of,
33:59
SPEAKER_00: wait a minute.
34:00
SPEAKER_00: Maybe I don't even want the prosperity.
34:01
SPEAKER_00: I wouldn't even want the prosperity on earth because it's nothing compared to it.
34:04
SPEAKER_00: And that's why I love Paul says, you know, nothing is worth what we're going to see.
34:08
SPEAKER_00: Like it's all worth it.
34:09
SPEAKER_00: Take it all.
34:10
SPEAKER_00: It's not going to be compared to what you're going to get.
34:12
SPEAKER_03: Well,
34:13
SPEAKER_03: and I think this speaks to also to jump off one of the things he said at the
34:17
SPEAKER_03: beginning of that,
34:18
SPEAKER_03: which is just that we have this concept and –
34:23
SPEAKER_03: I've always tried to figure out where it comes from,
34:25
SPEAKER_03: but this concept that the people in the Bible are obviously way more spiritual than us.
34:29
SPEAKER_03: So God chose them for something, right?
34:33
SPEAKER_03: We always have this idea that the people in the Bible are heroes.
34:37
SPEAKER_03: That's like the hall of faith.
34:38
SPEAKER_03: Look at all these heroes of the faith and all that kind of stuff.
34:40
SPEAKER_03: But actually...
34:42
SPEAKER_03: When you get down to it, like, no, these people were pretty reprehensible.
34:47
SPEAKER_03: And they were faithful despite themselves.
34:51
SPEAKER_03: Like, they weren't faithful because of anything in them.
34:55
SPEAKER_03: All of the, like, none of the people that God uses possess some...
35:00
SPEAKER_03: possessed any sort of potential or quality that God was like, man, I need that.
35:05
SPEAKER_03: No, he chose them despite themselves.
35:07
SPEAKER_03: And I think that that's, again, most clearly seen through Jacob.
35:12
SPEAKER_03: That's why we have the story of the fact that when he's born, he's holding on to his brother's hero.
35:17
SPEAKER_03: He's literally trying to get ahead of his brother when he's coming out of his mother's womb.
35:22
SPEAKER_03: Like what you were saying, he's fallen from his first breath in this world, which is just to say,
35:29
SPEAKER_03: Jacob didn't have any like special quality that God was like,
35:33
SPEAKER_03: I need that guy to be the one through whom my blessing is going to come.
35:37
SPEAKER_03: No, he chose Jacob despite him.
35:39
SPEAKER_03: And then I think what's also interesting, because this touches on this.
35:43
SPEAKER_03: topic of prosperity that we've been touching on is,
35:46
SPEAKER_03: and again,
35:47
SPEAKER_03: by the time this episode comes out,
35:48
SPEAKER_03: I'll have already preached this message,
35:49
SPEAKER_03: but this week I'm getting ready to preach this ultimate mess,
35:53
SPEAKER_03: ultimate meaning,
35:54
SPEAKER_03: but it's the final one on Jacob's life.
35:56
SPEAKER_03: And I've struck by how Jacob himself views his life because in chapter 47 of Genesis,
36:03
SPEAKER_03: he's brought before Pharaoh because,
36:05
SPEAKER_03: you know,
36:05
SPEAKER_03: after all the events with Joseph and everything,
36:07
SPEAKER_03: so,
36:08
SPEAKER_03: He reunites with Joseph and then he's coming to live in Pharaoh.
36:11
SPEAKER_03: He's going to live there because of the famine and all that kind of stuff.
36:14
SPEAKER_03: And he's brought before Pharaoh and he literally says,
36:17
SPEAKER_03: Pharaoh's like,
36:18
SPEAKER_03: hey,
36:18
SPEAKER_03: basically,
36:19
SPEAKER_03: like,
36:19
SPEAKER_03: tell me about yourself.
36:20
SPEAKER_03: And then Jacob responds.
36:21
SPEAKER_03: He's like, I've been on this earth for 130 years and all of my days have been destroyed.
36:28
SPEAKER_03: Few and evil.
36:31
SPEAKER_03: He calls it what it is.
36:33
SPEAKER_03: It's interesting because if you look at Jacob's life, he has a lot of kids.
36:39
SPEAKER_03: He has a lot of wealth.
36:41
SPEAKER_03: He would be,
36:42
SPEAKER_03: even though there's a lot of baggage that he comes with,
36:45
SPEAKER_03: from the outside tangible sort of way you look at him,
36:49
SPEAKER_03: you would be like,
36:49
SPEAKER_03: look at all the stuff that he has.
36:52
SPEAKER_03: He has this incredible family that is, yes, dysfunctional, but
36:57
SPEAKER_03: You know, look at all the blessing that God has given him, you would say.
37:02
SPEAKER_03: But Jacob's view of it is not the prosperity worked.
37:07
SPEAKER_03: No, what he views it as, my days have been few and evil.
37:10
SPEAKER_03: And I think what I kind of understand that to be is like,
37:14
SPEAKER_03: especially as the later chapters of Jacob's life kind of unfold,
37:18
SPEAKER_03: is that I think the reality of all of his past choices is
37:23
SPEAKER_03: come to hit him in a profound way,
37:27
SPEAKER_03: in the sense where he's like,
37:29
SPEAKER_03: look at all those years that I was just vacillating between faith and unfaith,
37:36
SPEAKER_03: when I was trying to go my own way,
37:38
SPEAKER_03: and all those kinds of things.
37:40
SPEAKER_03: All of that's hitting him at that point,
37:42
SPEAKER_03: to where suddenly at the end of his life,
37:44
SPEAKER_03: he realizes,
37:45
SPEAKER_03: I have nothing.
37:47
SPEAKER_03: Apart from God.
37:48
SPEAKER_03: And that's where he says in chapter 49 when he's prophesying over his sons.
37:52
SPEAKER_03: He says, I'm waiting for the salvation of the Lord, he says.
37:58
SPEAKER_03: Which is such a prophetic word of, I can't wait for all of this to be made right.
38:03
SPEAKER_03: And I think finally at the end of his life.
38:07
SPEAKER_03: Jacob was one who kind of put it together, which is like so ironic.
38:12
SPEAKER_02: The irony of all that.
38:13
SPEAKER_03: All of the chances that God had given him, and it's like, no, he finally realized.
38:19
SPEAKER_03: what a spiritual bankrupt person he was.
38:23
SPEAKER_03: And I think kind of the lesson for us is to learn that before we have all those experiences.
38:29
SPEAKER_00: Yeah,
38:29
SPEAKER_00: I was going to say,
38:31
SPEAKER_00: the whole Jacob's life has so many profound impacts because it goes to show,
38:36
SPEAKER_00: in a way,
38:36
SPEAKER_00: like you said,
38:37
SPEAKER_00: from the outside,
38:37
SPEAKER_00: like...
38:38
SPEAKER_00: It would be neat if God allowed this.
38:40
SPEAKER_00: I don't know how it will work in heaven, but to visually watch.
38:43
SPEAKER_00: It would be so cool if God would record it in 4K and we can go back and watch the chapters.
38:48
SPEAKER_00: Watch them through without any skipping.
38:51
SPEAKER_00: You'd probably see this stuff.
38:52
SPEAKER_00: You'd have mixed reviews from the movie critics.
38:55
SPEAKER_00: And like all that scams are like,
38:57
SPEAKER_00: oh,
38:57
SPEAKER_00: well,
38:57
SPEAKER_00: you know,
38:57
SPEAKER_00: he was getting ahead and he was worried about number one and I'd do the same thing.
39:00
SPEAKER_00: And honestly, he's taking care of his family and he's wealthy.
39:03
SPEAKER_00: And like you said, some people consider him, you know, he was fairly successful.
39:06
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, he did some wrong things, but don't we all, you'd hear it all.
39:08
SPEAKER_00: You'd hear it all for everybody.
39:10
SPEAKER_00: And it's so interesting to think like.
39:12
SPEAKER_00: If we would have been walking aside,
39:13
SPEAKER_00: and I think of,
39:14
SPEAKER_00: like,
39:14
SPEAKER_00: the people in our lives now that we look at and we think are Jacobs,
39:17
SPEAKER_00: right?
39:18
SPEAKER_00: There are Jacobs in our life who are like, I can't believe that.
39:21
SPEAKER_00: I can't believe they let him off the hook again.
39:23
SPEAKER_00: I can't believe God doesn't strike them dead, all the stuff they've been doing.
39:26
SPEAKER_00: You know,
39:26
SPEAKER_00: we have these thoughts sometimes about people and ourselves,
39:28
SPEAKER_00: and we think,
39:28
SPEAKER_00: you know...
39:29
SPEAKER_00: And that's why,
39:29
SPEAKER_00: again,
39:29
SPEAKER_00: we have to get careful with pride,
39:30
SPEAKER_00: because we're just as broken as whoever it is around us.
39:33
SPEAKER_00: But I think it also gives us this hope, because...
39:36
SPEAKER_00: Looking at Jacob, we would have been like, man, I know you're following God, but you are a wreck.
39:40
SPEAKER_00: You are a wreck.
39:41
SPEAKER_00: But it also gives us hope.
39:42
SPEAKER_00: Like, hey, do you have a friend that you've given up hope that you think their life's a wreck?
39:46
SPEAKER_00: So was Jacob, who's literally what the nation of Israel is.
39:49
SPEAKER_00: And you go find Israel down the map.
39:51
SPEAKER_00: That's Jacob.
39:53
SPEAKER_00: But it's so cool to see, like,
39:55
SPEAKER_00: You can change, yeah, it was the end of his life and you hope it'd be earlier, but there's still hope.
39:59
SPEAKER_00: And it gives that hope again,
40:00
SPEAKER_00: which I think is another important message because in our humanness,
40:05
SPEAKER_00: again,
40:05
SPEAKER_00: we can just think people are,
40:06
SPEAKER_00: we in our minds create this like cliff.
40:09
SPEAKER_00: And once you go off the cliff and sin,
40:10
SPEAKER_00: it's like,
40:11
SPEAKER_00: well,
40:11
SPEAKER_00: I'm not even going to tell them the gospel because they're never going to go there.
40:13
SPEAKER_00: They'll never believe.
40:14
SPEAKER_00: Do you see what they did?
40:15
SPEAKER_00: And the irony is that's what the Bible says about all of us.
40:19
SPEAKER_00: We can just say, did you see who they are?
40:20
SPEAKER_00: Like, I can't, but it's so amazing.
40:23
SPEAKER_00: To see how,
40:23
SPEAKER_00: like,
40:23
SPEAKER_00: Jacob kind of gets it together then,
40:25
SPEAKER_00: and it shows you the true faith that,
40:26
SPEAKER_00: you know,
40:27
SPEAKER_00: nothing he did was good,
40:28
SPEAKER_00: it was evil,
40:29
SPEAKER_00: and only the Lord is his hope.
40:31
SPEAKER_00: And it's even,
40:32
SPEAKER_00: I like what you said about the Hall of Faith,
40:34
SPEAKER_00: because you read the Hall of Faith out of context.
40:37
SPEAKER_00: If you just read the book of Hebrews, it's your first time reading the Bible.
40:39
SPEAKER_00: you will be intimidated.
40:40
SPEAKER_00: Like, man, I don't know.
40:41
SPEAKER_00: I want to learn more about this.
40:42
SPEAKER_00: I can't live up to that.
40:43
SPEAKER_00: I can't live up to that.
40:43
SPEAKER_00: These guys are great.
40:45
SPEAKER_00: And I'll be honest,
40:46
SPEAKER_00: there's very few people that know the stories of,
40:48
SPEAKER_00: you know,
40:48
SPEAKER_00: in today's church that if they don't read the Bible,
40:50
SPEAKER_00: they don't really know who Gideon and Barak really are.
40:52
SPEAKER_00: No.
40:53
SPEAKER_00: And then you go back and you're like,
40:54
SPEAKER_00: and then you just read the first chapter of Gideon,
40:56
SPEAKER_00: what is it,
40:56
SPEAKER_00: Judges 6?
40:57
SPEAKER_00: And you're like, oh.
40:58
SPEAKER_00: you know, wow, okay, cool.
40:59
SPEAKER_00: So he was humble and God used him.
41:01
SPEAKER_00: He did great things.
41:02
SPEAKER_00: Like,
41:02
SPEAKER_00: no,
41:02
SPEAKER_00: you got to keep reading and eventually became a jerk and wanted him to bring all
41:05
SPEAKER_00: the gold and his son is named my father's king,
41:08
SPEAKER_00: all these kind of weird things.
41:10
SPEAKER_00: And then Barak is the most,
41:11
SPEAKER_00: actually one of my favorites that's in the Hall of Faith because like,
41:14
SPEAKER_00: wait a minute,
41:14
SPEAKER_00: I thought it was Deborah.
41:15
SPEAKER_00: It's like, oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.
41:17
SPEAKER_00: No, Barack's in there.
41:17
SPEAKER_00: I know he was a fool and a failure, and only if Deborah would go, he would go.
41:21
SPEAKER_00: But he had faith, and because of his faith, it was accomplished, even though he wasn't the main guy.
41:26
SPEAKER_00: And, yeah, he didn't have the greatest story to start.
41:27
SPEAKER_00: He actually had a worse start than Gideon, honestly.
41:30
SPEAKER_00: But to see these things happen,
41:32
SPEAKER_00: and,
41:32
SPEAKER_00: again,
41:32
SPEAKER_00: it's that hopeful thought,
41:33
SPEAKER_00: like,
41:33
SPEAKER_00: wait,
41:33
SPEAKER_00: they're in the Hall of Faith.
41:35
SPEAKER_00: not because of their spiritual importance.
41:36
SPEAKER_00: And Gideon's the best example of that.
41:38
SPEAKER_00: Because when you go to his origin, he's like, hey, I'm the smallest guy.
41:40
SPEAKER_00: I'm like, my clan's the smallest, and I'm the smallest dude in that smallest clan.
41:44
SPEAKER_00: You are in the wrong camp, Lord.
41:45
SPEAKER_00: You're in the wrong spot.
41:47
SPEAKER_00: Jesus, go down that road.
41:48
SPEAKER_00: And it's just really interesting.
41:50
SPEAKER_00: And I would always love to point this out.
41:52
SPEAKER_00: Gideon's a great example.
41:53
SPEAKER_00: And then Abraham is.
41:54
SPEAKER_00: You can never be too old.
41:55
SPEAKER_00: Abraham's 75 when he first gets called.
41:57
SPEAKER_00: So if you're under 75, God could still call you.
41:59
SPEAKER_00: I always tell people.
42:00
SPEAKER_00: And then Gideon, who had no skills.
42:03
SPEAKER_00: And then you get in saying,
42:04
SPEAKER_00: if you think that you're worthless and you have nothing to offer or that you're too old,
42:09
SPEAKER_00: you are actually the most ripe fruit for the Lord to pick and use for his work.
42:13
SPEAKER_00: Because how many people really do think, well, I'm a really good speaker.
42:16
SPEAKER_00: I'm a really good speaker.
42:18
SPEAKER_00: writer, the Lord will probably use me because of my skills.
42:20
SPEAKER_00: And it's like, that's actually the opposite of how it works.
42:23
SPEAKER_00: And if you have those skills using the Lord,
42:24
SPEAKER_00: that means you had them somewhere,
42:25
SPEAKER_00: nowhere,
42:25
SPEAKER_00: and God gave them to you.
42:27
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, exactly.
42:27
SPEAKER_00: But if you think that you,
42:29
SPEAKER_00: with your skills and your abilities and your accolades,
42:32
SPEAKER_00: make you more worthy to do God's calling,
42:35
SPEAKER_00: the Bible actually flips that completely up on its head.
42:39
SPEAKER_00: It says, actually, if you have nothing going for you, or you think you're too old or past your prime,
42:44
SPEAKER_00: That would be miraculous for the Lord to use.
42:45
SPEAKER_00: And that's what he loves to do.
42:46
SPEAKER_00: He loves to use the weak and the lowly.
42:48
SPEAKER_00: Yes.
42:48
SPEAKER_00: And it's,
42:49
SPEAKER_00: again,
42:49
SPEAKER_00: inspiring to us because,
42:51
SPEAKER_00: oh,
42:51
SPEAKER_00: I don't have to,
42:52
SPEAKER_00: you know,
42:52
SPEAKER_00: graduate from Harvard or graduate from seminary or whatever to know all these things.
42:55
SPEAKER_00: And I don't have to start my own 501c3 and create clean water in Africa to be
43:00
SPEAKER_00: called by God because I'm going out there.
43:02
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, no, the Lord does it.
43:04
SPEAKER_00: It's not he, you know, God helps those who help himself.
43:06
SPEAKER_00: That's not in the Bible anywhere.
43:07
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
43:07
SPEAKER_00: It's God will help you because you're helpless.
43:09
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
43:09
SPEAKER_00: And that's really the true thing it gets back to.
43:12
SPEAKER_00: God helps those who can't help themselves.
43:14
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, we just have to put the carrot there and the can and red lettering above it to correct their paper.
43:20
SPEAKER_00: But it's so true.
43:21
SPEAKER_00: And again, it just gets back to this human fullness and that you don't have to have it together.
43:25
SPEAKER_00: And that's the best thing about the Lord and what he does.
43:29
SPEAKER_03: And that's kind of like the startling...
43:34
SPEAKER_03: realization when you read the Bible is the fact that when you like if you take a
43:38
SPEAKER_03: step back none of these people had it put together but we go into it thinking like
43:44
SPEAKER_03: oh they're in the Bible they have to have their life put together because look at
43:47
SPEAKER_03: God preserve well he's preserving them as Paul says for our instruction and I think
43:52
SPEAKER_03: also to show us that like like as you were saying like
43:56
SPEAKER_03: God doesn't use anyone who's not fallen and is aware of that.
44:01
SPEAKER_03: And that's part of the train of Jacob's life or anyone's life.
44:06
SPEAKER_03: Anyone you want to put in there is bringing them to that point of just utter
44:11
SPEAKER_03: bankruptcy and then saying,
44:13
SPEAKER_03: look,
44:14
SPEAKER_03: this is my word of promise for you anyways.
44:16
SPEAKER_03: And that's kind of the trajectory of,
44:19
SPEAKER_03: and I would say to apply this to preaching,
44:21
SPEAKER_03: that's kind of what the aim is of every sermon is.
44:25
SPEAKER_03: is to bring people to that point of like,
44:29
SPEAKER_03: okay,
44:29
SPEAKER_03: maybe you're not dealing with the same exact circumstances,
44:33
SPEAKER_03: but we can all understand the fallenness of the situation and relate and have it resonate.
44:40
SPEAKER_03: And the same word of gospel is given to us in the midst of that anyways,
44:44
SPEAKER_03: which is,
44:45
SPEAKER_03: again,
44:46
SPEAKER_03: why preaching is so important.
44:49
SPEAKER_03: Which also, again, is why we don't have to make preaching relevant.
44:55
SPEAKER_03: We just have to let the word do its thing.
44:57
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, again, I think it's one of the same thing.
44:59
SPEAKER_00: Like I said, it's so stress-free once you realize you don't have to save people.
45:02
SPEAKER_00: You just got to say the words, right?
45:04
SPEAKER_00: You don't have to convince them with trickery and all these words or whatever.
45:08
SPEAKER_00: But it's a relief.
45:11
SPEAKER_00: But what's also,
45:12
SPEAKER_00: what I like that you said there is like,
45:13
SPEAKER_00: it's the point of the whole point of preaching is to let people know even if we're fallen,
45:18
SPEAKER_00: but we have hope.
45:19
SPEAKER_02: Yes.
45:19
SPEAKER_00: And I think the problem with the Western American church is,
45:22
SPEAKER_00: unfortunately,
45:23
SPEAKER_00: there's not pastors that all agree with us on this.
45:26
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, I think you're right.
45:26
SPEAKER_00: I think that's the problem.
45:27
SPEAKER_00: It's like, well, I've mentioned this before.
45:30
SPEAKER_00: I've had people tell me,
45:31
SPEAKER_00: well,
45:31
SPEAKER_00: you were supposed to make them feel good about themselves on Sunday because they
45:34
SPEAKER_00: have to get through their week.
45:35
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
45:35
SPEAKER_00: Wednesday and stuff, you can deal with the heavier stuff later.
45:37
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
45:38
SPEAKER_00: Keep Dinah and the family off there, which I'm proud that you did that.
45:40
SPEAKER_00: That was great.
45:41
SPEAKER_00: You didn't skip right over anything.
45:42
SPEAKER_00: You went right for it.
45:43
SPEAKER_00: And there's a lot to learn from that.
45:44
SPEAKER_00: Yes, there is.
45:45
SPEAKER_00: Which is great.
45:46
SPEAKER_00: But it's one of those things like you got to fluff it up, make them feel good.
45:49
SPEAKER_00: And that's where we get these,
45:51
SPEAKER_00: you know,
45:51
SPEAKER_00: Christian self-motivational speakers,
45:53
SPEAKER_00: essentially,
45:54
SPEAKER_00: which I don't ascribe to at all.
45:56
SPEAKER_00: And the reason preaching can be so bad.
45:59
SPEAKER_00: And it can sound so good,
46:00
SPEAKER_00: like there's so many times,
46:01
SPEAKER_00: I'm sure you're with me on this,
46:03
SPEAKER_00: where somebody might not even go to a church,
46:06
SPEAKER_00: but they know me spiritually in another way,
46:08
SPEAKER_00: or they're a believer,
46:09
SPEAKER_00: whether they're immature or immature sometimes,
46:11
SPEAKER_00: and they'll send me this video like,
46:12
SPEAKER_00: yeah,
46:12
SPEAKER_00: you've got to check this out,
46:14
SPEAKER_00: and it sounds really good.
46:15
SPEAKER_00: And the preacher had these verses or whatever, and I'm just like, but that's not what it means.
46:20
SPEAKER_00: Oh, I cringe.
46:20
SPEAKER_02: Yeah, put Jeremiah 33 back in the book.
46:26
SPEAKER_00: Do you want to read Jeremiah from beginning to end?
46:29
SPEAKER_00: Let's not do that.
46:29
SPEAKER_00: Let's not do that.
46:30
SPEAKER_00: This is going to ruin your Sunday.
46:32
SPEAKER_00: You're not going to feel fluffed up.
46:34
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, and those are sometimes hard to tell the people.
46:36
SPEAKER_00: Like, yeah, I know that was a really hopeful message to really build up, but it was built on sand.
46:40
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
46:41
SPEAKER_00: And it's going to collapse if you rely on it.
46:43
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
46:44
SPEAKER_00: That's really what these are.
46:45
SPEAKER_03: So, yes.
46:47
SPEAKER_03: And this kind of comes back to what we were talking about, which is that type of preaching is not honest.
46:52
SPEAKER_03: It's not genuine.
46:54
SPEAKER_03: And it speaks to – it's kind of – I would say it's what Paul is talking about when
46:59
SPEAKER_03: he refers to Timothy that – when he tells Timothy,
47:03
SPEAKER_03: like,
47:03
SPEAKER_03: there's going to be people who are just preaching to itch people's ears.
47:06
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
47:07
SPEAKER_03: It's like the same as saying you're just preaching to tickle people's fancies.
47:12
SPEAKER_03: But that's all that it is.
47:14
SPEAKER_03: Preaching to make people feel good,
47:18
SPEAKER_03: to affirm that you're just becoming like a cheerleader at that point is dishonest.
47:25
SPEAKER_03: And it actually doesn't confront the issue, which also means it can't offer what is genuinely hopeful.
47:34
SPEAKER_03: You're actually just a sham of...
47:38
SPEAKER_03: what is actually true and good and I also think it's so funny how God brings things
47:44
SPEAKER_03: to our minds because prior before we jumped on to record this we were talking about
47:50
SPEAKER_03: comedy we were talking about comedians and stand-up comedians and how relevant it
47:58
SPEAKER_03: is to so the the art of pre the art of stand-up comedy
48:04
SPEAKER_03: as we were saying, is like so close to, I would say, the art of preaching in so many different ways.
48:12
SPEAKER_03: But I think that that's what makes comedy,
48:13
SPEAKER_03: true comedy that lasts,
48:16
SPEAKER_03: that actually does something to you,
48:20
SPEAKER_03: addresses the fallenness.
48:22
SPEAKER_03: They wouldn't use that word.
48:23
SPEAKER_03: A comedian wouldn't use that word.
48:25
SPEAKER_03: But they address what we all know and think about.
48:30
SPEAKER_03: But they do so in a way that allows us to laugh at it.
48:34
SPEAKER_03: And I think that that's one of the reasons why I'm probably applying too many
48:40
SPEAKER_03: theological stuff to comedians.
48:42
SPEAKER_03: But they're essentially approaching their stand-up performances through a fallen condition focus.
48:47
SPEAKER_03: Like, here's this issue.
48:48
SPEAKER_03: We all know it's an issue.
48:50
SPEAKER_03: And here we're going to laugh about it.
48:52
SPEAKER_03: And there's some sense of...
48:54
SPEAKER_03: camaraderie and unity around that.
48:58
SPEAKER_03: And it,
48:59
SPEAKER_03: it's a,
48:59
SPEAKER_03: it's a semblance,
49:01
SPEAKER_03: I would say it's,
49:02
SPEAKER_03: it's a ways away,
49:03
SPEAKER_03: but it's also,
49:04
SPEAKER_03: it's a semblance of what's offered in the gospel where we can also to have this
49:09
SPEAKER_03: resonant experience,
49:11
SPEAKER_03: if you will,
49:11
SPEAKER_03: of,
49:13
SPEAKER_03: we all know that this is the condition and yet through the preaching of the word,
49:17
SPEAKER_03: we're given a way better hope.
49:19
SPEAKER_00: Oh yeah.
49:20
SPEAKER_00: And,
49:20
SPEAKER_00: You have to ask yourself, because comedy, I'd agree with you.
49:22
SPEAKER_00: It's almost a complete overlap, other than they don't use scripture.
49:26
SPEAKER_00: And they have a different motive than we do.
49:28
SPEAKER_00: But if you're willing to break it down, like, well, why do comedy shows exist?
49:32
SPEAKER_00: Well, they exist because people go to them, or they wouldn't exist if people didn't go to them.
49:34
SPEAKER_00: It wouldn't exist.
49:35
SPEAKER_00: So people like to go to these things.
49:36
SPEAKER_00: It's not hard to find comedians and shows and things.
49:39
SPEAKER_00: And it's like, why do people even go there?
49:42
SPEAKER_00: Well, to laugh.
49:43
SPEAKER_00: why to forget you know the bad things about life and then what you said is well
49:48
SPEAKER_00: they're going there and they're usually hearing terrible topics of and you know i
49:52
SPEAKER_00: mean and like you said they'll exploit this sometimes they'll take the i've heard
49:55
SPEAKER_00: some terrible jokes that you can belly laugh at but it's on maybe some of the most
49:59
SPEAKER_00: evil worst subject whether it's war sexual assault things all all kinds you can
50:04
SPEAKER_00: obviously you can find everything in comedy
50:07
SPEAKER_00: But you have people laughing,
50:08
SPEAKER_00: and when they leave,
50:08
SPEAKER_00: they say they feel better than they did when they came in.
50:11
SPEAKER_00: How?
50:12
SPEAKER_00: Because they took something.
50:13
SPEAKER_00: You're not turning a blind eye to what everyone knows is reality.
50:17
SPEAKER_00: They're bringing it right out in the open,
50:20
SPEAKER_00: which I love about comedians,
50:21
SPEAKER_00: which is why they're always the ones on blast with society,
50:24
SPEAKER_00: because they're envelope pushers.
50:26
SPEAKER_00: Because what they're doing is like they're saying,
50:28
SPEAKER_00: we all know,
50:29
SPEAKER_00: and I know they say we're supposed to say this.
50:31
SPEAKER_00: But I'm not saying that.
50:32
SPEAKER_00: This is what we all think.
50:33
SPEAKER_00: And they're like, yeah, that is what we... That's why we laugh at comedians.
50:36
SPEAKER_00: It's because they're saying the things that we think and we're not allowed to say out in public.
50:39
SPEAKER_00: And a lot of times that's why they get flack.
50:41
SPEAKER_00: But it's the same kind of thing here.
50:42
SPEAKER_00: What they're doing is they're changing people's perspectives on these things.
50:45
SPEAKER_00: Letting them know, hey, we're in this together.
50:47
SPEAKER_00: And you feel better about these terrible issues.
50:49
SPEAKER_00: And kind of what you were alluding to earlier when we were talking about it is
50:52
SPEAKER_00: that's what you said the gospel does.
50:53
SPEAKER_00: It's like it takes...
50:55
SPEAKER_00: death which should be awful and it makes us feel better about there's a salute how
50:58
SPEAKER_00: can you make death feel good other than like you said the resurrection of jesus
51:01
SPEAKER_03: christ which is so powerful when you consider that yeah so um yeah what i would
51:10
SPEAKER_03: want to say is that like you're talking about the overlap of comedy and preaching
51:15
SPEAKER_03: So I don't think it's Bob Newhart,
51:18
SPEAKER_03: but he did say it in an interview,
51:20
SPEAKER_03: I know,
51:20
SPEAKER_03: but I don't think it originated with him.
51:22
SPEAKER_03: But Bob Newhart once said that comedy is tragedy plus time.
51:28
SPEAKER_03: So you're taking something that's tragic or awful...
51:32
SPEAKER_03: And you're allowing some time to perhaps – maybe it's longer or shorter depending
51:38
SPEAKER_03: on the type of tragedy.
51:39
SPEAKER_03: But then it becomes something that you can smile at, something that you can jest at.
51:44
SPEAKER_03: And you're disarming that tragedy by laughing at it.
51:50
SPEAKER_03: And this kind of comes from –
51:52
SPEAKER_03: So,
51:53
SPEAKER_03: one of my friends at Mockingbird,
51:55
SPEAKER_03: his name is Sam Bush,
51:56
SPEAKER_03: he gave a talk about this,
51:58
SPEAKER_03: about the comedy of the gospel,
52:00
SPEAKER_03: and what you were referencing there is just the fact that,
52:02
SPEAKER_03: like,
52:02
SPEAKER_03: so someone falling down the stairs...
52:05
SPEAKER_03: isn't necessarily funny,
52:07
SPEAKER_03: but if they get up and laugh at it,
52:09
SPEAKER_03: then they're disarming what seems to be awful and making it funny.
52:15
SPEAKER_03: And the same thing happens with the gospel with death,
52:19
SPEAKER_03: because what is tragic and absurd,
52:23
SPEAKER_03: something as absurdly tragic as death is disarmed by the power of the resurrection,
52:29
SPEAKER_03: which again brings us to this profound overlap of comedy and preaching.
52:34
SPEAKER_03: which is to say that it addresses what everyone knows is tragic and fallen.
52:39
SPEAKER_03: And yet through the word of grace,
52:42
SPEAKER_03: we can do so not in a callous way,
52:45
SPEAKER_03: not in a dishonest way,
52:47
SPEAKER_03: but in actually a comforting way,
52:50
SPEAKER_03: because we can actually offer the substance,
52:53
SPEAKER_03: not the semblance of hope,
52:54
SPEAKER_03: but the substance of hope,
52:55
SPEAKER_03: because we actually are offering them Christ.
52:58
SPEAKER_00: Oh, yeah, and kind of like what you were saying there, the comedy overlap.
53:03
SPEAKER_00: The reason a comedy show bombs or not is because it's unrelatable.
53:07
SPEAKER_00: There are comedy shows that bomb, that people don't laugh, they feel awful, and it didn't go well.
53:12
SPEAKER_00: It's because they didn't connect.
53:14
SPEAKER_00: in one way shape or another and I think that can also happen with preaching
53:18
SPEAKER_00: preaching can bomb because you don't have this connection and a lot of times
53:21
SPEAKER_00: because you're over hyping the good and the success and we're not talking about you
53:25
SPEAKER_00: just said it there comedians and we talk about are talking about tragedy things
53:30
SPEAKER_00: that people actually don't like to talk about and then saying things about them in
53:33
SPEAKER_00: a new light or whatever and focusing on things that we all resonate with us because
53:36
SPEAKER_00: we all know it's true these are real issues and I know nobody's not talking about
53:39
SPEAKER_00: them and the same is true I think when you go into the church and say listen we're
53:43
SPEAKER_00: all sinners
53:44
SPEAKER_00: And they can almost breathe a sigh of relief like, oh, thank goodness.
53:46
SPEAKER_00: Like I don't have to pretend anymore that I'm perfect.
53:49
SPEAKER_00: And it's one of these things like, hey, we all know.
53:51
SPEAKER_00: We're all not allowed to say it.
53:52
SPEAKER_00: You guys all have issues.
53:54
SPEAKER_00: You guys got issues.
53:55
SPEAKER_00: So do I. We all have issues.
53:57
SPEAKER_00: And it's almost like a relief like, okay, we don't have to pretend.
53:59
SPEAKER_00: I can stop performing.
54:00
SPEAKER_00: I can stop performing.
54:01
SPEAKER_00: The joke is like,
54:02
SPEAKER_00: it's like a universal joke in the American church anyway,
54:05
SPEAKER_00: is that there is usually,
54:06
SPEAKER_00: depending on how big the church is,
54:08
SPEAKER_00: there's a couple.
54:09
SPEAKER_00: usually on a Sunday morning, that is yelling and arguing in the car on the way to church.
54:13
SPEAKER_00: And they fix their hair and they straighten their tie before they get out of the car.
54:17
SPEAKER_00: And that's a true thing, but we all do it.
54:20
SPEAKER_00: We all have something like that happen.
54:22
SPEAKER_00: But it's this thing of like a front and we have to pretend and that we don't all
54:25
SPEAKER_00: have bad days and our kids don't get a little crazy and we don't lose it sometimes
54:29
SPEAKER_00: by yelling.
54:30
SPEAKER_00: We have to pretend that we don't because we're in church now.
54:33
SPEAKER_00: And it is this performance.
54:34
SPEAKER_00: People don't realize there is a performance self by a lot of people when they walk
54:37
SPEAKER_00: into a church if they're not real.
54:38
SPEAKER_03: Yes.
54:38
SPEAKER_00: The reason you'll usually magnetize people or resonate with people is when you're just yourself.
54:42
SPEAKER_03: Yes.
54:42
SPEAKER_00: When you start to act, people can tell whether they know there's something off.
54:45
SPEAKER_00: So when you come in there and you say, listen, there's sin.
54:48
SPEAKER_00: The world sucks right now.
54:49
SPEAKER_00: It's evil.
54:50
SPEAKER_00: It's broken.
54:51
SPEAKER_00: It's terrible.
54:51
SPEAKER_00: It's filthy.
54:52
SPEAKER_00: They're like, yeah, it really is.
54:54
SPEAKER_00: And they say,
54:54
SPEAKER_00: but the Lord Jesus,
54:56
SPEAKER_00: and now it's that thing of,
54:57
SPEAKER_00: you resonate with him,
54:58
SPEAKER_00: like,
54:58
SPEAKER_00: okay,
54:58
SPEAKER_00: everything he's saying is everything I've been thinking,
54:59
SPEAKER_00: I haven't been able to say to anybody around me.
55:01
SPEAKER_00: And he's saying these things, and then now he's giving hope.
55:04
SPEAKER_00: It's this ultimate connection of,
55:06
SPEAKER_00: I know what he was saying was true before he got to this point,
55:08
SPEAKER_00: and now I really know this is true,
55:10
SPEAKER_00: and now this is what gives me hope.
55:13
SPEAKER_00: Because all these things he said before, I was thinking, but now this makes so much more sense.
55:17
SPEAKER_00: There is hope in this.
55:18
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, and it's not a denial of...
55:21
SPEAKER_03: of anything that we've experienced.
55:22
SPEAKER_03: And my mind was drawn to
55:25
SPEAKER_03: what Paul says at the beginning of 2 Corinthians,
55:28
SPEAKER_03: where he talks about how he's going to give them the comfort with which he was
55:37
SPEAKER_03: comforted by God in his discomfort.
55:39
SPEAKER_03: It's like this circularity of Paul is in a place of discomfort,
55:45
SPEAKER_03: he's comforted by God,
55:46
SPEAKER_03: and he shares that comfort with other people who are discomforted.
55:49
SPEAKER_03: It's like this round and round.
55:51
SPEAKER_03: That's ministry.
55:53
SPEAKER_03: It's not denying...
55:55
SPEAKER_03: the awfulness,
55:56
SPEAKER_03: but it's applying the words of the gospel into what is awful and into what is
56:03
SPEAKER_03: tragic and into what is hard because those are the only words by which those things
56:08
SPEAKER_03: can be reconciled and made right.
56:10
SPEAKER_03: They can be made right by us.
56:11
SPEAKER_03: We are fallen and we are impotent.
56:14
SPEAKER_03: We cannot assert any sort of mastery over any of the things that we see in order to make them better.
56:20
SPEAKER_03: No, our only reliance is, as Paul says in Romans 7, who will save me from this body of death?
56:25
SPEAKER_03: Praise be to God through the Lord Jesus Christ.
56:27
SPEAKER_03: That's sort of the paradigm for all of this is our fallenness is...
56:35
SPEAKER_03: so heavy um and burdensome but through the words of grace we understand um that
56:42
SPEAKER_03: that burden has been relieved because it's been carried by someone else right and i
56:46
SPEAKER_00: think um that's really important too and the verses like that are so important
56:50
SPEAKER_00: because you see comfort and comfort is you know in that verse like maybe five times
56:54
SPEAKER_00: i don't even know somewhere around yeah
56:56
SPEAKER_00: It's up there, and it's almost like a tongue twister when you read it.
56:58
SPEAKER_00: You're like, wait, what?
56:58
SPEAKER_00: Comforts who?
56:59
SPEAKER_00: Comforts that.
57:00
SPEAKER_00: Comforts God.
57:01
SPEAKER_00: But what it's getting at is what I love and what's sometimes missed,
57:05
SPEAKER_00: and every once in a while I'll get somebody to say,
57:06
SPEAKER_00: you've got to add more fire and brimstone.
57:08
SPEAKER_00: Every once in a while it's like, I get that.
57:10
SPEAKER_00: We've got to preach against sin.
57:12
SPEAKER_00: The fire and brimstone is a disconnect a lot of times.
57:15
SPEAKER_00: This is why the fire and brimstone preachers get mocked by a lot.
57:17
SPEAKER_00: They're trying to be holy and stay away from sin.
57:20
SPEAKER_00: That's great.
57:21
SPEAKER_00: What they do is they take the law and they don't attach grace to it, but they attach wrath.
57:28
SPEAKER_00: It's law plus wrath.
57:30
SPEAKER_00: It's like, oh no, God's going to kill me.
57:32
SPEAKER_00: Which is true.
57:33
SPEAKER_00: He will do.
57:35
SPEAKER_00: What they're saying is literally true, but what they're doing is mischaracterizing God.
57:39
SPEAKER_00: Yes.
57:39
SPEAKER_00: And you have verses like this from Paul that are so much more helpful when you read the scriptures.
57:43
SPEAKER_00: He says, oh wait, God doesn't want to obliterate me to smithereens right now.
57:46
SPEAKER_00: He actually cares for me.
57:48
SPEAKER_00: He actually loves me.
57:48
SPEAKER_00: He wants to get me out of this mire, this muck.
57:51
SPEAKER_00: He wants to get me out of this here.
57:53
SPEAKER_00: And that's why it's so powerful.
57:55
SPEAKER_00: So when you have these preachers out there who are forgetting to attach the love
57:58
SPEAKER_00: and grace,
57:59
SPEAKER_00: they now mischaracterize God.
58:00
SPEAKER_00: And now that you have,
58:01
SPEAKER_00: again,
58:01
SPEAKER_00: the church people who are trying to sit up straight so lightning doesn't strike
58:04
SPEAKER_00: them in the middle of service because they read about all this fire and brimstone.
58:08
SPEAKER_00: And again, that's another timing issue.
58:10
SPEAKER_00: The Fire and Brimstone Preacher is just like the
58:11
SPEAKER_00: prosperity gospels, I think, have their timing wrong.
58:14
SPEAKER_00: The prosperity preachers want to bring prosperity now, not later, which is what it'll be.
58:19
SPEAKER_00: And the fire and prison preachers want to bring judgment now and not later.
58:22
SPEAKER_00: And so these timing issues can really mess things up because God,
58:26
SPEAKER_00: in context,
58:27
SPEAKER_00: says,
58:27
SPEAKER_00: hey,
58:27
SPEAKER_00: there will be wrath.
58:28
SPEAKER_00: That'll be later.
58:29
SPEAKER_00: There'll be prosperity.
58:30
SPEAKER_00: That's also going to be later.
58:32
SPEAKER_00: You guys are dragging the eternal into here, and I'm here trying to help you before we get to that point.
58:37
SPEAKER_03: So...
58:39
SPEAKER_03: Not to stretch the metaphor, but preaching is all about timing, just like comedy is all about timing.
58:46
SPEAKER_00: I'm telling you, it's more overlap than we know.
58:49
SPEAKER_03: We've got to make a Venn diagram.
58:51
SPEAKER_03: It might be more of two circles, really, at this point.
58:54
SPEAKER_03: Oh my gosh, that's so funny.
58:56
SPEAKER_03: But I think all of this is helpful for understanding.
59:00
SPEAKER_03: When you walk into church, you're walking in as a fallen human being.
59:06
SPEAKER_03: As Paul says, Romans 3, we've all fallen short of the glory of God.
59:10
SPEAKER_03: But the same gospel that Paul preached right afterwards,
59:13
SPEAKER_03: which is that because of Christ,
59:17
SPEAKER_03: God justifies the ungodly.
59:19
SPEAKER_03: He justifies the fallen.
59:22
SPEAKER_03: And that's the only message we can cling to.
59:25
SPEAKER_03: And if you're hearing something else...
59:28
SPEAKER_03: my advice is to perhaps maybe look for a different church.
59:30
SPEAKER_03: Maybe that sounds harsh,
59:31
SPEAKER_03: but go somewhere where the actual message is being preached and preached honestly
59:38
SPEAKER_03: and preached in a way that is faithful to the word because no other message,
59:44
SPEAKER_03: no other word is going to actually deliver you.
59:48
SPEAKER_03: Amen.
59:50
SPEAKER_03: If you haven't yet,
59:50
SPEAKER_03: make sure to subscribe to Grace Upon Grace 2 where you can get all of these podcasts.
1:00:15
SPEAKER_03: podcast episodes,
1:00:16
SPEAKER_03: but also a lot more content,
1:00:17
SPEAKER_03: a lot more resources to build your faith and to grow in your knowledge of the Lord
1:00:23
SPEAKER_03: and to grow in the grace and to be strong in the grace that God has given you
1:00:27
SPEAKER_03: through Christ.
1:00:28
SPEAKER_03: So hopefully you'll do that.
1:00:30
SPEAKER_03: And if you feel led to,
1:00:32
SPEAKER_03: share this episode with someone that you might know that might need to hear some of
1:00:36
SPEAKER_03: these things,
1:00:36
SPEAKER_03: and hopefully they'll get great encouragement out of it too.
1:00:39
SPEAKER_03: So God bless you, and I will see you on the next episode.
1:00:43
SPEAKER_03: Blessings.