Latest / Beyond the Sermon / Hope: Conversation

Transcript

Hope: Conversation · Beyond the Sermon

• 0:00
  You're listening to Beyond the Sermon, the podcast of First
• 0:03
  Methodist Church in Collingswood, NJ.
• 0:05
  On our podcast, the goal is not just to share the sermons we've
• 0:08
  preached, but to go beyond the sermon and talk about what we're
• 0:11
  learning and what God is doing in US and in our community.
• 0:15
  For Advent 2025, we are in a series called Brought to the
• 0:18
  Light, Advent for all who need it.
• 0:21
  This series is looking at the themes of Advent and how Jesus
• 0:24
  comes to us all. You can find more information
• 0:27
  about our church at fumccolleingswood.org.
• 0:30
  Thanks for joining us for this conversation.
• 0:34
  No, I don't get your reaction. That's lame.
• 0:36
  I thought we were. Having I thought we were having
• 0:40
  a pre production. Conference.
• 0:42
  You record half of those anyway. So, well anyway, I was
• 0:47
  forewarning Scott that this may be our first explicit podcast,
• 0:53
  not due to the language, but due to the topic and.
• 0:56
  Or at least the first topic. Is it because of what I said
• 0:59
  about Zechariah? Which part do you think would
• 1:01
  lead to explicit with Zechariah? When I said he went home, you
• 1:09
  know, with a renewed hope and eager to play his part in the.
• 1:15
  In the story essentially. So if you don't want to hear
• 1:19
  your pastors talk about that, then skip.
• 1:23
  I'll give you like 5 minutes. Just skip 5 minutes into the
• 1:26
  podcast. I never thought about that.
• 1:32
  Yeah, only Jesus was a virgin birth.
• 1:36
  Not not that. Not that sex was needed.
• 1:39
  Obviously it's part of the process.
• 1:41
  There isn't a specific timeline given between him coming home
• 1:47
  and her getting pregnant. Yeah, it just says a short time
• 1:49
  later. So this man that has him and his
• 1:55
  wife have not been able to make a kid for years, decades, is now
• 2:00
  told you can't talk until you have a kid, which then he means
• 2:05
  roughly minimum nine months. If it goes perfect first time,
• 2:08
  sure. If it doesn't go perfect first
• 2:10
  time, how long is this man waiting?
• 2:14
  And the eagerness isn't maybe the eagerness of his youth, it's
• 2:18
  the eagerness to talk again. And so that dynamic must have
• 2:26
  been fascinating. Well, and that's why, like,
• 2:28
  Elizabeth must have thought he was crazy.
• 2:30
  Like he comes back not able to talk with a goal in mind.
• 2:36
  Right. What sign language did he use to
• 2:38
  get that point across? Yeah, or writing or whatever it
• 2:41
  may be. And then it's like, I just
• 2:44
  imagine, like, marital arguments of Elizabeth, like, you don't
• 2:47
  even want me. You just want to talk again.
• 2:50
  Like which knowing most guys isn't even true I.
• 2:55
  Can't. I can't.
• 2:56
  I can't because Rebecca, like, does what she is like, oh, that
• 2:58
  must have been a happy nine months for Elizabeth.
• 3:01
  And that's what, like, kick started me.
• 3:04
  And I started laughing. Not because of the like, oh, the
• 3:06
  man was finally quiet. I was like, it was more than
• 3:09
  nine months. It had to have been more than
• 3:11
  nine months. So how long?
• 3:16
  Yeah. These are the dynamics that I
• 3:17
  never thought of. I just think like, you know, you
• 3:20
  heard it. Shut up.
• 3:22
  Nine months, baby Bam and. Yes, at least nine months.
• 3:28
  Yeah, at least nine months. Yeah, yes.
• 3:31
  I don't know exactly what a short time later was.
• 3:37
  Yes, soon afterward is how the NLT puts it.
• 3:40
  I don't think it was months and months and months.
• 3:44
  And, you know, God was involved, and so maybe, maybe it didn't
• 3:49
  take all that long. Yeah, but.
• 3:52
  But even still. Right.
• 3:54
  Like they don't know that. You know, excuse the the
• 3:57
  graphicness of it, but they didn't have a little thing to
• 4:00
  just pee on. And no, like they didn't know
• 4:03
  she was pregnant until either she started showing a little bit
• 4:07
  or if she got real morning sick. Like missing a period with.
• 4:11
  Missing a period? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, for
• 4:13
  sure. But still up to like, you know?
• 4:15
  I mean, you're talking like a month or so later and you know.
• 4:18
  Yeah, nervous that yeah, that's that's a wild.
• 4:22
  Had she even still had her period?
• 4:24
  What? She was old.
• 4:25
  Oh shoot, she was super old. Yeah.
• 4:30
  So that wouldn't have been right.
• 4:34
  I couldn't handle those mental gymnastics.
• 4:36
  I guess that's where the faith comes in.
• 4:38
  I guess. Like not being able to talk
• 4:41
  until this thing happens and then months, even if it is
• 4:46
  already started, has already the process has begun.
• 4:50
  Not knowing that's a whole thing.
• 4:52
  And then how you pointed out with all these promises of how
• 4:56
  their son was going to be, how important their son was going to
• 4:58
  be, and then how John turned out, which verified the prophecy
• 5:08
  and the message given to them by the angels, but probably not in
• 5:11
  the way that they expected, right?
• 5:14
  You think like, especially with Zachariah and them being like
• 5:18
  priestly family, it's like, OK, he's going to be the greatest
• 5:21
  priest that ever priested. Sure.
• 5:23
  And and lead the people in the church to the coming Messiah,
• 5:27
  not live out in the middle of nowhere wearing itchy clothes
• 5:31
  and eating bugs with honey. Yeah.
• 5:33
  I mean, having eaten grasshoppers before, they're not
• 5:35
  bad, yeah. Oh yeah, no.
• 5:37
  I've had a a good plethora of bugs as a kid and then in a
• 5:40
  exotic food market in Mexico City and some of them are
• 5:45
  delicious. I don't remember having locusts
• 5:46
  though. Yeah, that's why I said
• 5:48
  grasshoppers. But in Uganda, it was a the
• 5:51
  seasonal thing. Like there was a certain time
• 5:54
  when the the grasshoppers would come and they would set up these
• 6:00
  whole elaborate like net things to catch them and funnel them
• 6:03
  and all these. And then like you could get like
• 6:05
  little bags of fried grasshoppers.
• 6:09
  Yeah. On the side of the road.
• 6:11
  Grasshoppers are popular. This are basically grasshoppers.
• 6:15
  Ants in Australia. We also ate white ants.
• 6:19
  White. Are they actually white?
• 6:21
  Yeah, they're they're a bit more like termites than ants.
• 6:26
  They would come out after the the first big rain after the dry
• 6:32
  season. Yeah.
• 6:34
  And then I'd a friend eat spiders and Thailand.
• 6:36
  I think it's like a normal St. Food.
• 6:38
  OK, yeah. My least favorite though was
• 6:40
  Scorpion because it has zero flavor, just crunchy.
• 6:44
  It's just super crunchy. Everything getting in your
• 6:46
  teeth. I've stepped on a scorpion.
• 6:48
  No reward. Yeah, zero reward with a
• 6:50
  scorpion. But anyway.
• 6:53
  Yeah. And I was thinking back to the
• 6:57
  prep work that I did for that sermon series 2 advents ago on
• 7:02
  John the Baptist and preparing the Way.
• 7:05
  And I was reminded that one of at least some scholars think
• 7:11
  that, you know, Zechariah might have died fairly early in John's
• 7:17
  life, you know, due to his age. And so just the interplay of of,
• 7:24
  you know, how long was Zechariah watching and observing?
• 7:29
  But either way, you get a message like that.
• 7:32
  And I, I feel like you got to be expecting all kinds of things.
• 7:36
  Yeah, I don't know. And the I love the reflecting
• 7:41
  are the the contrast between Zechariah's reaction and Mary's
• 7:46
  reaction, where Mary's the young believer Jew, whatever you want
• 7:52
  to call her, and her just being like, how will it happen?
• 7:56
  Like I trust that it's going to happen.
• 7:58
  How will it? Happen.
• 7:59
  I don't understand the. Logistics and where Zechariah,
• 8:03
  you know, priest, even you know has the opportunity to go and
• 8:09
  does it do the sacrifices or the blood?
• 8:11
  He was doing the incense. The incense right, but like to
• 8:15
  be in high enough that he's even amongst the options to pull a
• 8:18
  lot to be there, and yet he's the one that give.
• 8:22
  Me a sign or what's the sign going to be?
• 8:25
  Yeah, yeah. Which?
• 8:27
  Not not dissimilar to Moses when God speaks to him out of the
• 8:33
  burning Bush and he's like, well, well, what sign are you
• 8:38
  going to give me? And God says, well, here's the
• 8:40
  sign I'm going to give you. Once you've done it, once you've
• 8:43
  led the people out of Egypt, you'll worship me here on this
• 8:47
  mountain. I got him at most like that's
• 8:51
  not a sign God. After you do the thing, yeah.
• 8:55
  After you do the thing, you can trust that you did the thing.
• 8:58
  Yeah, yeah, no, it's God's so funny.
• 9:06
  He really is. He really is.
• 9:08
  And I think we, I think we try to gloss over that because it
• 9:14
  feels irreverent. But, but I really do think God
• 9:19
  and Jesus, I think we see through the the Gospels.
• 9:22
  I think he had a sense of humor. Oh yeah, I think God has a sense
• 9:27
  of humor and sometimes I think he does stuff be like, OK, we're
• 9:32
  going to enjoy this one. Not in a mean way, but.
• 9:36
  And like playing with you for the sake of playing with you.
• 9:39
  But it's, it's the because in all those circumstances, it
• 9:43
  draws people into a deeper faith.
• 9:45
  Yeah. And so doing it in a way that we
• 9:47
  wouldn't anticipate might be more amusing.
• 9:51
  But like, it's always for our good.
• 9:53
  It's not just like dance, monkey dance, right?
• 9:58
  And as as you're leaning into like Zachariah being amongst the
• 10:04
  more righteous, I have down righteousness still unprotected
• 10:10
  from disappointment, suffering and shame.
• 10:12
  Yeah, Luke said that they were righteous in the sight of God
• 10:18
  and careful to obey all of his commandments and requirements,
• 10:22
  something like that. And I talked about how even
• 10:25
  though they were seen as righteous people, it didn't
• 10:29
  protect them from the the suffering and shame of being
• 10:34
  childless and, and just the weight of that.
• 10:37
  Like, just because we're good with God doesn't mean that we're
• 10:44
  not gonna experience suffering and disappointment in our lives.
• 10:49
  In fact, I think it's probably the opposite.
• 10:55
  Yeah, it's, it's interesting in different Christian circles
• 10:58
  where it seems like the if you do enough of the good things,
• 11:04
  then it weighs God in your favor and he owes you 1 when no matter
• 11:10
  all that we do, we always owe him everything.
• 11:13
  Yeah. So that as I've been reading
• 11:17
  maybe as Aquinas, I can't remember reading a lot of old
• 11:20
  church fathers and writings of theologians.
• 11:23
  As one should. Pre reformation and one of the
• 11:26
  things he he does this interesting like answering
• 11:30
  questions through like a faux dialogue, like a fake dialogue.
• 11:35
  So it's like asking the question and then from his perspective,
• 11:39
  answering it and then as another person following up on that.
• 11:43
  And then so he gets into the like, how do we, how could we
• 11:48
  save ourselves or justify ourselves before God?
• 11:51
  And he's like, OK, well, if the baseline is that we owe God our
• 11:56
  everything and like everything we do should be glorifying for
• 12:01
  him and for his will and purpose and all of that, as soon as we
• 12:05
  sin and deviate from that, we're automatically at a deficit.
• 12:11
  So trying to make up for the deficit by going back to what
• 12:16
  the standard should be doesn't make up for the deficit.
• 12:20
  It just gets you right back on the right path of how things are
• 12:23
  supposed to be. We can never go above that
• 12:27
  thing. And that really it was just a, a
• 12:31
  great way for me to better imagine and, and visualize like
• 12:35
  the there's literally no way to earn God's grace, earn God's
• 12:42
  salvation like ourselves, like all of those things.
• 12:45
  Yeah, but it's, it's essentially, it's an implicit
• 12:48
  prosperity gospel. Explain how prosperity gospel.
• 12:53
  Prosperity gospel being that we believe that if we're doing what
• 13:00
  God has told us to do, he's automatically going to bless us
• 13:04
  and give us health and wealth and all the good things.
• 13:08
  So you see this a lot in, you know, honestly a lot of
• 13:13
  televangelists who are out there, you know, if you do this,
• 13:17
  send in this, believe this, pray this, and God's going to bless
• 13:21
  you. And you send us this much money
• 13:23
  and God's going to give you even more.
• 13:25
  And it's, it's an appealing, appealing theology, but it's
• 13:32
  wrong. What we do doesn't obligate God
• 13:37
  to anything. And at its best, our response of
• 13:44
  obedience is just a response of gratitude in recognizing all
• 13:51
  that God has done for us. Yeah, so does the other day.
• 13:56
  I posted on the youth Instagram story.
• 14:00
  It's just phrase that says you cannot be thankful for what you
• 14:04
  feel entitled to. Yeah, I saw that.
• 14:07
  Yeah, and so it connected with our youth because when we had
• 14:12
  our friends giving potluck, I was like, and I got a question
• 14:15
  for everybody and they're like, oh, what are we thankful for?
• 14:18
  And I said, no Rendu, what do you take for granted?
• 14:23
  And went around the table. I was like, but if you want to
• 14:25
  do the traditional 1, you can do what we're thankful for because
• 14:29
  then you have to really think about what you should be
• 14:31
  thankful for and don't give God the glory.
• 14:35
  And so Scott, what are you? What do you take for granted?
• 14:42
  I'll go first while your wheels are turning.
• 14:44
  One of our kids said access to water or access to clean
• 14:50
  drinking water. And I would say that I don't
• 14:53
  take for granted the access to water, but to clean drinking
• 14:58
  water I think I take for granted because in my mind I was like,
• 15:03
  well, if you have water, it's drinkable.
• 15:05
  Like that's the I don't know why.
• 15:07
  Right. So yeah, you're taking it for
• 15:08
  granted. Yeah, So I take for granted the
• 15:10
  clean access. Like I'm, I'm very grateful to
• 15:14
  be able to get water ever, but I just assumed that anywhere I go,
• 15:17
  it should be clean and I'm able to drink it.
• 15:18
  And yeah, so there's this new exhibit in Franklin, TN where
• 15:25
  they it's like an interactive showing you like the clean water
• 15:30
  problem. And they have a wall of
• 15:33
  different colored waters that people actually drink around the
• 15:37
  world. There's a blue one.
• 15:39
  I was like, how do you get a? Blue one.
• 15:41
  Yeah. And so just a very immersive
• 15:43
  experience of things that we aren't even close to
• 15:46
  experiencing here. Yeah.
• 15:49
  And and I think that's that's part of why I'm struggling to
• 15:55
  answer the question because of the experiences I've been
• 15:59
  privileged to have in life. A lot of those things that we
• 16:05
  normally take for granted here in America, I don't anymore.
• 16:10
  Like when we were in Uganda, they told us initially we
• 16:15
  eventually we did, but they told us like don't even brush your
• 16:19
  teeth with the water coming out of the sink because you'll get
• 16:23
  parasites. Not the fun ones.
• 16:26
  Not the fun ones. So like every, everything we
• 16:31
  drank there, even we have to make our coffee or, you know, to
• 16:36
  make dinner or whatever, it all came out of a filter that we had
• 16:40
  to make sure we kept topped up with so we didn't run out.
• 16:44
  We had to clean off the filters, you know, every few days to make
• 16:47
  sure that they were still filtering and they didn't just
• 16:49
  get clogged up with all the gunk that came.
• 16:55
  So, you know, water's not maybe to an extent food.
• 16:59
  You know, I've, I've never, I've never had to go to bed hungry
• 17:03
  when it wasn't by choice. And that's, that's a real thing.
• 17:08
  You know, some people would say, oh, a house to live in.
• 17:10
  But as a pastor in a Methodist system where you know, our, our
• 17:15
  housing is connected to our service.
• 17:18
  It, it's different, right? Like coming here from Malka
• 17:22
  Hill, we didn't know what the house was going to be like.
• 17:25
  We didn't, we don't get to choose the house we live in.
• 17:29
  It's just like, here's the Parsonage, whether you like it
• 17:32
  or not. Which we do, we very much do.
• 17:35
  Very grateful, absolutely, but there's still that sense of
• 17:39
  like. You have no idea.
• 17:40
  We don't know what it called, where we're going to live, if
• 17:42
  it's going to be, you know, here in Collingswood.
• 17:45
  We're right next to the church in Mullica Hill.
• 17:50
  We were on the other side of town and like you just we don't
• 17:54
  get those friends. Who had a studio that was
• 17:56
  connected to the church? Yeah, just.
• 17:59
  Try and barge it. Like a rectory almost.
• 18:02
  Yeah, that would be tough. And then just even with the
• 18:06
  uncertainty of the future of our church these days, like, yeah,
• 18:10
  I, I don't know where we're going to be living this time
• 18:13
  next year. That's just part of it.
• 18:16
  And that's OK. But you know some of those
• 18:19
  default answers that come to. Us.
• 18:21
  Yeah, for. Sure I was.
• 18:22
  I was sorting it through. I was like, Oh no, I don't
• 18:24
  really like, but I think food would be the the big one.
• 18:27
  Yeah, for me, backpacking is always a humbling experience of
• 18:32
  like, the needs and necessities of life and not taking for
• 18:35
  granted. Yeah, yeah, you got to carry it
• 18:38
  all. So if you want it, you got to
• 18:40
  work for it and carry it. And it's still not going to be
• 18:43
  as great as home and all that kind of stuff.
• 18:45
  Yeah, yeah. Yeah.
• 18:47
  And I, and I guess the last thing I want to touch on from
• 18:51
  your sermon would be the section where you're talking about
• 18:55
  encountering God in the hopelessness.
• 18:58
  And so I was wondering if you had a personal example of a time
• 19:02
  in which you encountered God in a situation that seemed
• 19:06
  hopeless. This one goes back always and I
• 19:09
  think I might have shared it in a sermon before, but people
• 19:13
  don't remember anyway so it's OK.
• 19:15
  But thinking about all these stories here in Advent of, of
• 19:20
  new babies and all that kind of stuff.
• 19:23
  And when we first had Tim, we were right at the end of my
• 19:29
  seminary career and about to, you know, begin fundraising to
• 19:35
  go to the mission field. And so we right after he was
• 19:39
  born, like within two months were with our mission
• 19:44
  organization. They're giving us the
• 19:47
  calculation of here's everything you're going to have to raise on
• 19:51
  a monthly basis and a one time basis in order to be kind of
• 19:55
  cleared to go to the mission field.
• 19:58
  And that felt almost impossible. And then we get back from that
• 20:06
  Christmas trip and going to the and getting that support
• 20:11
  calculation and we come back and we're just opening all these.
• 20:16
  Bills from the hospitals and the doctors from Tim's birth, you
• 20:19
  know, they never actually come like that week or whatever.
• 20:23
  It's, you know, 2-3 months later.
• 20:27
  And so we're just opening these and just with the support
• 20:30
  calculation in our mind, we're just opening these bill after
• 20:33
  bill after bill. And we get to the bottom of the
• 20:37
  stack and there's the insurance adjustment and kind of the
• 20:43
  explanation of benefits and all that they were going to pay.
• 20:46
  And we're like, oh, OK, Like we can manage this.
• 20:54
  Even in the midst of what fell overwhelming, we can manage
• 20:58
  this. And then the next day, maybe two
• 21:02
  days later, that's a little fuzzy, oh, 17 years ago, we get
• 21:08
  in the mail, there's another piece of mail from the hospital
• 21:12
  and we're like, oh, no, like what, what now?
• 21:16
  Like, and it was actually a check because when we had
• 21:20
  prepaid something, we had overpaid like what they
• 21:24
  estimated was more than what they needed.
• 21:27
  And it was like almost to the exact amount of the part that
• 21:32
  was left for us to pay. And, and in the midst of the
• 21:38
  hopelessness of having to raise support to be able to go and
• 21:43
  serve Jesus, it was God met us in that moment even where we got
• 21:52
  to the point where we felt like we could handle it.
• 21:54
  And he was like, no, no, no, no, no, I've got this.
• 21:59
  And so that was a a neat way of seeing God show up for us.
• 22:07
  How about you? I think that's all the time we
• 22:11
  have for Let me think. In a sense, God shows up because
• 22:18
  I can't remember the last time something felt hopeless, which
• 22:25
  is all him. It's not a ignorant bliss or
• 22:29
  just pushing off the bad things. Like there's situations that
• 22:32
  come up and I'm like oh I completely understand why other
• 22:36
  people would be hopeless. Sure these circumstances are
• 22:40
  with the state of their surroundings or whatever it may
• 22:42
  be. Trying to think pre Columbia
• 22:45
  because I feel like post Columbia I guess hopeless ish
• 22:50
  more just like my stupidity was. Well, and maybe reframe it.
• 22:54
  It doesn't have to be hopelessness.
• 22:56
  It was, you know, for for Zechariah and Elizabeth, it was
• 23:01
  unmet longing. That might help.
• 23:05
  Because I think that even changes it for me, you know, to
• 23:09
  think about it that way. There there are any number of
• 23:12
  things that I'm living with even now that feel like unmet
• 23:17
  longings and hopes that haven't happened.
• 23:21
  I got one. Yeah.
• 23:22
  I. Got it for you.
• 23:23
  Give context. At a planning retreat with youth
• 23:26
  pastors like 4 years ago, we're in some random Airbnb in the
• 23:32
  middle of the Poconos and we're on a hot tub.
• 23:36
  And the one guy who's who's leading us, he's really good
• 23:40
  about making sure that people are intentional about Sabbath
• 23:47
  and sabbatical if they've been in the ministry long enough and
• 23:50
  making sure that like time and like your goals are included in
• 23:56
  the equation of ministry. And it's not just everything
• 24:00
  else to the side and the 1000% to ministry just because he
• 24:04
  doesn't want people to burn out and a bunch of reasons.
• 24:07
  And so sometimes I think he can go a little too far with it or
• 24:13
  it's like more than maybe I would put, but I'm always
• 24:17
  hesitant anyway. So going around, it's like,
• 24:20
  what's that like dream trip that you keep telling yourself will
• 24:25
  never happen? And where in the next 10 years
• 24:30
  could you realistically fit that into your schedule?
• 24:34
  And each guy was going around and, and giving their answers
• 24:38
  and all great answers. And some of them since have been
• 24:42
  able to go, they like rented a, a sailboat and sailed for like 2
• 24:46
  weeks in the Bahamas. No, like they know like they
• 24:50
  were sailing. It wasn't like a hired captain
• 24:52
  like they were anyway. And it got to me and I was like,
• 24:57
  I know my answer, but I don't desire it like I once desired
• 25:02
  it. The Tea Arora Trail in New
• 25:06
  Zealand, it's a, it's a through hike, a long hike goes from the
• 25:11
  northern point to the southern point of New Zealand and you get
• 25:14
  to see beaches, you get to see cities, you get to see lake
• 25:17
  villages and big mountains, like a whole spectrum of stuff.
• 25:23
  And it would easily be a four to six month trip.
• 25:26
  To yeah, so similar to what people here would think of as
• 25:30
  like doing the Appalachian Trail through hike or Pacific Coast
• 25:33
  Trail or something like. That so it's but it's shorter
• 25:37
  because I'm lazy. Well, and it's New Zealand.
• 25:39
  It's only this big. But yeah, so that is definitely
• 25:43
  it. But but I was sharing with him,
• 25:44
  it's like with all the traveling that I've been blessed to do and
• 25:50
  see that as much as I enjoy it and I might be going somewhere
• 25:57
  next year, but as much as I enjoy it, it doesn't compare to
• 26:02
  the joy and the blessings of what I've seen God be able to do
• 26:07
  in and around me and through me in ministry.
• 26:12
  But not not like even official ministry, but just like living
• 26:17
  out the faith and family and friends, whatever it may be, are
• 26:21
  moments that you couldn't pay to experience.
• 26:25
  And so seeking after the stuff that you could pay to experience
• 26:30
  to a certain degree, right? It's like, OK, well then that.
• 26:34
  And and this stuff's for the most part free or relatively
• 26:38
  cheap to experience and and witness God.
• 26:40
  And so for me, it's like, well, that as wonderful of an
• 26:44
  opportunity as it would be to see more of God's creation,
• 26:47
  whether it be how he reveals himself in nature around the
• 26:50
  world, or through the different cultures and people.
• 26:53
  And the the creativity he has in all of these people that live
• 26:58
  life in so many different ways that all reflect his image to a
• 27:02
  degree. But none of it is going to
• 27:04
  compare to little glimpse, other glimpses we get here, but also
• 27:09
  where we go and we die. And so why am I going to invest
• 27:13
  all the time, money, effort, and thought into things that don't
• 27:18
  compare to glory? Oh, you compare small glimpses,
• 27:23
  right? Little pieces of it.
• 27:25
  But I feel like the time given can be used for so much more
• 27:32
  important, eternal things. And glory is going to be so much
• 27:37
  better. And so it's not a don't go on
• 27:40
  vacation, don't spend time with your families.
• 27:42
  Don't go right. But is that the, oh, all of this
• 27:46
  work I've done for in my case, you could say, like, you know,
• 27:49
  if I do 5-6 years ministry, 10 years of ministry is my end goal
• 27:55
  insight like, oh, I know this is really annoying and rough, but
• 28:00
  I'm getting to that sabbatical and that's going to make it all
• 28:03
  worth it. And I'm going to be able to go
• 28:04
  to wherever I want to go and travel and whatever it might be
• 28:07
  like, oh, all of this is going to be worth it for this
• 28:11
  vacation. And I know some people that like
• 28:14
  2A year, that one Christmas break, they have one in the
• 28:17
  summer. And it's like, I'm just getting
• 28:20
  through these six months to get to this trip or can these six
• 28:23
  months to get to this trip. It's like, what if we had that
• 28:26
  same hope would be a great theme for this week in what happens
• 28:33
  after this lifetime. And also hope that God, through
• 28:38
  his power can use us to bring a little bit of that here to earth
• 28:42
  and just provide Jesus to more people so that they can
• 28:47
  experience him now and be with Him for eternity.
• 28:52
  Did I just close the podcast with Wisdom?
• 28:54
  He did awesome. Someone take note of that.
• 29:02
  Well, that's our conversation for today, but that doesn't mean
• 29:05
  the conversation is over. We'd love to hear your thoughts
• 29:08
  on these topics as well. To ask a question about anything
• 29:11
  we've discussed in this episode or to join the conversation, you
• 29:14
  can head over to fumccollingswood.org/podcast.
• 29:19
  Thanks for being part of this conversation.