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Pause: Peace or War? (All In) · Neighborhood Church

• 0:05
  Devin Calhoun: Well, welcome back to Neighborhood Church Podcast.
• 0:08
  Mark Trinkl: Yes, yes, yes, c.
• 0:09
  Devin Calhoun: Pause.
• 0:10
  Devin Calhoun: How are you doing today, Pastor Mark?
• 0:12
  Mark Trinkl: Pretty good, Pastor Devin.
• 0:14
  Devin Calhoun: Pretty good, it's Monday you know, yeah, it's Monday.
• 0:17
  Devin Calhoun: Yeah, not a Garfield kind of Monday.
• 0:20
  Mark Trinkl: Just a Monday.
• 0:21
  Mark Trinkl: Yeah, just a Monday yeah.
• 0:22
  Devin Calhoun: We had a busy, good weekend this past week in Neighborhood Church's life.
• 0:27
  Devin Calhoun: We just came out from our summer social yesterday afternoon, slash evening.
• 0:35
  Devin Calhoun: That was a lot of fun.
• 0:38
  Mark Trinkl: Yeah, Mark and Mel Neely, fabulous job man over this weekend.
• 0:41
  Mark Trinkl: And that was a pool party.
• 0:43
  Mark Trinkl: I don't know how many people were in their pool, but there was lot.
• 0:46
  Devin Calhoun: Yeah, there's a lot yeah, and it was amazing and fun.
• 0:50
  Devin Calhoun: And also yesterday you gave us a message continuing us in the series yes the book of James yeah, and we were in James chapter four.
• 1:01
  Devin Calhoun: Yeah, James chapter four yeah.
• 1:03
  Mark Trinkl: So we jumped into and I titled it "Peace or War and kind of in parentheses, all in Like, are you all in?
• 1:11
  Mark Trinkl: And so James, just yeah, continues on, you know, taking us beyond the woodshed and reminding us of some important things.
• 1:21
  Mark Trinkl: And so you know, it was kind of a continuation of last week.
• 1:25
  Mark Trinkl: Chapter 3 finishes with that verse, you know, peacemakers will sow the seeds of righteousness, you know in a sense.
• 1:34
  Mark Trinkl: And then the next verse after that is what's causing fights and quarrels among you.
• 1:39
  Mark Trinkl: And so James gives us really a contrast there.
• 1:42
  Mark Trinkl: Often we can kind of like separate the two chapters, but really it's a continuation of thought of, hey, you're supposed to be a peacemaker, but now, as I look at your lives, you got all this conflict, these wars, these struggles, these things going on.
• 1:56
  Mark Trinkl: So what's up with that and where do they come from?
• 1:58
  Devin Calhoun: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 1:59
  Devin Calhoun: You started us off with this idea of the whisker wars, yeah, which we're representing today, by me having a beard.
• 2:08
  Mark Trinkl: And I don't.
• 2:16
  Devin Calhoun: But yeah, and James kicked us off with talking about these desires being not met and that leads us to quarrels and things among you, which that already as soon as he started, I'm like, oh, james is kicking us off heavy this week he's not even, you know, every week he's not pulling any punches, but we don't even get a sweet introduction we're ready into it Of, like you know what's causing those troubles amongst you?
• 2:39
  Devin Calhoun: It is your desires unmet, yeah.
• 2:43
  Mark Trinkl: And it's interesting because, like actually twice in that beginning section it talks about like evil desires or passions or these like out-of-control desires is what actually causes wars and fights and those and I don't know if I said it yesterday, but like basically the two words he's using there about quarrels and fights, one is more like verbal arguments and one is straight-up violence.
• 3:04
  Mark Trinkl: One is more like verbal arguments and one is straight up violence.
• 3:07
  Mark Trinkl: So it's like there's this idea of you know, these unmet desires cause us to verbally go at it, but then can actually lead us to action and to the point of like large scale war.
• 3:26
  Mark Trinkl: He's not just talking about like individual fights but like nations at war with one another.
• 3:28
  Mark Trinkl: And that, yeah, and it's playing back to these most often unmet desires, and so you have these things going on inside your own soul or within your being and you're like now I'm going to go to war with another person because of these things.
• 3:40
  Devin Calhoun: Yeah, yeah, and you touched on it in the message, but it immediately made me think about that, that thing of jealousy yeah of like when, when you are desiring after these things that someone else has desiring, that's that can lead you towards, like you're saying, that personal conflict but it also is is something that that can grow bigger and bigger in your interactions and now you're, you know, doing things with other people, that it becomes this whole big thing of what started off small and just this me and you were not having great relations to.
• 4:17
  Devin Calhoun: All of a sudden, now you know everybody hates this person and that person and that person, uh, lead to this bigger, even bigger strife, that kind of thing, yeah yeah, and jealousy is such a you know, james is rummaging around underneath the surface and going like, hey, what's, what are all the motives that's creating these actions?
• 4:36
  Mark Trinkl: and we we don't hear it often like verbalized, like man, I'm really jealous of that person or I'm, I'm, I really want what that person has.
• 4:45
  Mark Trinkl: And so james is kind of revealing what's happening underneath the surface.
• 4:49
  Mark Trinkl: But but if we're real about it you know that's a constant battle.
• 4:53
  Mark Trinkl: Yeah, we can often look, you know, kind of for lack of better term downstream from us and be like, oh, that person doesn't have as much as me, they aren't as good looking as me, they're not as fit as me, whatever it is, and kind of feel good about yourself.
• 5:06
  Mark Trinkl: But then you can turn the other way and go well, there's these other people who have more than me, they're better looking, more successful, have more influence, and and I think often we're looking that direction more upstream and saying there's others who don't have what, what I want, or there's others that have what I want, and so now, how am I going to go about getting that?
• 5:28
  Mark Trinkl: And just all those motives can quickly lead us to do things that we would have never thought we could do, but because we really have these unmet selfish desires.
• 5:42
  Mark Trinkl: It just puts us in a direction that can really destroy our lives yeah, yeah and it is.
• 5:48
  Devin Calhoun: It's so easy to be caught into that trap right of man and I think it can even start off as at a good area of like, oh, that person's really good at xyz, that person I know.
• 6:00
  Devin Calhoun: Last week we kind of talked about, uh, tim tebowbow and how he has this amazing physique and he's good at football and he can start off with this healthy admiration.
• 6:10
  Devin Calhoun: But if we go into this next level like I want that at all costs and I'm willing to even try to knock Tim Tebow down a peg and talk bad about him, bad about who he is, or find ways that, oh, he's not as good that is leading to that strife and that quarrelsome just because we want something that he has so much.
• 6:33
  Mark Trinkl: Yeah, and Christians are not immune from that, and even in the church it's not immune from that, I think, and this is a very practical example, I think, just in our setting.
• 6:43
  Mark Trinkl: So you're a great preacher, you know, and you have a natural gift for that, and so when you get up and speak, I have people come up to me and be like man Devin brought it today and you know, like I have a few ways that I could react to that.
• 6:57
  Mark Trinkl: One could be like, ooh, I'm kind of jealous of Devin because, like he can bring the word different than I can, and and and that could cause insecurity in me.
• 7:07
  Mark Trinkl: That once again could turn me like Ooh, maybe I shouldn't give Devin as many opportunities.
• 7:11
  Mark Trinkl: Or blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, you know, and and.
• 7:14
  Mark Trinkl: So that can play out because of my own insecurities and me, if I'm honest, being jealous, and then it can create this spiral of, instead of empowering you, I begin to in a position, since I'm in the position of power, begin to limit you, and I've had things like that happen.
• 7:29
  Mark Trinkl: You know that it's kind of played out of like huh, you know why is this person trying to hold me back or talking negatively, and I've had people come up to me and say it's because that person is insecure or they're jealous because you have something that they don't have and they're just trying to hold you back.
• 7:50
  Mark Trinkl: And I think it does play out in the Christian church, unfortunately.
• 7:55
  Mark Trinkl: You know, just because you walk in the doors of a church or you get on staff doesn't mean it's not there.
• 7:59
  Mark Trinkl: But to have like a posture, like for me in a position of leadership, to have enough security in who I am, that I'm not jealous if somebody is better than me or doing something greater or different, but I'm saying, man, go for it.
• 8:11
  Mark Trinkl: Yeah, you know, I want to celebrate that.
• 8:14
  Mark Trinkl: And that's kind of the opposite side.
• 8:16
  Mark Trinkl: If, instead of being jealous, I'm excited for that person getting different opportunities, even if I didn't get them, um, I'll take a different posture.
• 8:26
  Mark Trinkl: Yeah, and you can play it out in in like work too.
• 8:29
  Mark Trinkl: You know you want a promotion, somebody else gets that promotion and you're like man, that was mine, I'm jealous of what they got.
• 8:35
  Devin Calhoun: So therefore I'm going to mistreat them because they took what I I needed and then, like all of a sudden, these work relations fall apart and it's really because I have those unmet desires yeah so it is very practical in many different ways yeah and and and I mean and you're hitting on just james is about getting underneath that surface, because sometimes we'll be in that place or we'll be at work and someone has their promotion and then we don't know why we're being rude to them.
• 9:00
  Devin Calhoun: We think it's because x, y and z, but really we, we had this insecurity, they got this thing.
• 9:06
  Devin Calhoun: And so there's also this, this need for this heart check of like, well, wait a minute, why?
• 9:11
  Devin Calhoun: Why?
• 9:12
  Devin Calhoun: Every time they come around, am I a little bit angrier, a little bit more irritable?
• 9:16
  Devin Calhoun: Um, is it that deeper heart check for, for insecurity?
• 9:20
  Mark Trinkl: yeah, um yeah, yeah.
• 9:22
  Mark Trinkl: And and just being honest, you know, when somebody pulls up with like a brand new car, you're like oh yeah, my car looks a little older today.
• 9:28
  Mark Trinkl: You know they get a nicer place, oh you know they go on some kind of vacation.
• 9:32
  Mark Trinkl: Oh, you know, and like, if you're honest, what's going on with your soul?
• 9:36
  Mark Trinkl: It can almost be like, well, why don't I have that?
• 9:40
  Devin Calhoun: you know, and, and you know, you got to put that in check and be like aware of what's really happening on the inside yeah, yeah, and that is one of the things that can be hard to do is to rejoice in someone else getting something that you feel that's better than mine yeah you know that that new car is better than someone on our on our staff recently got a new car.
• 10:03
  Devin Calhoun: It's the same kind of car but it looks so much better than mine.
• 10:08
  Devin Calhoun: But I get to rejoice in them because I love them, and it reminds me of 1 Corinthians 13, talking about what love is.
• 10:16
  Devin Calhoun: And love is not envious and love is not boastful.
• 10:20
  Devin Calhoun: Love rejoices in the truth and rejoices with people, and so, yeah, that's good.
• 10:29
  Mark Trinkl: It's a nice ride.
• 10:29
  Mark Trinkl: It's a nice ride.
• 10:30
  Mark Trinkl: If you end up listening to this, you will remain unnamed.
• 10:34
  Devin Calhoun: Yes, because they are incredibly humble and I give them too many compliments on their car already.
• 10:38
  Mark Trinkl: Yeah, yeah, and I think just kind of back to this, like when we get into sort of the practical nature, I think some of the big areas where we can be jealous or lustful or desiring what other people have, which are very common, it's nothing like new looking at how much money somebody has and I talked about the crazy asian wedding, this- last week, 300 million dollars for the wedding or the wedding celebrations.
• 11:10
  Mark Trinkl: I'm like, wow, that's that.
• 11:12
  Mark Trinkl: It's just insane you know, but like I, but it's like when is enough, because when I'm looking at like so it could be money, it could be the possessions connected with that, it could be there's like sex, because that can take on a life of its own and all around us we live in a pretty hyper-sexualized country and online, and so you can just feel like you have these unmet desires.
• 11:35
  Mark Trinkl: It could be more like with regards to success or looks those kind of more immaterial things, but all of those desires, on a certain level they're, they're okay.
• 11:48
  Mark Trinkl: But then you move into this area of when it turns to jealousy and lust and seeking after, it just begins to turn you to do things that you maybe never thought you could do, yeah, so you break relationships, you get in fights, you know, know, and on extreme levels you kill people.
• 12:06
  Mark Trinkl: You know that's not uncommon in our country and in the world that over jealousy or rage or, you know, crimes of passion, people are actually murdered.
• 12:16
  Mark Trinkl: So it's not a far stretch to say, well, you could go even farther and do things you never imagined, but lots of things in that category.
• 12:23
  Mark Trinkl: You could go even farther and do things you'd never imagine, yeah, but lots of things in that category.
• 12:25
  Mark Trinkl: And then, and then that final thing, uh, basically James says and then you go to God selfishly.
• 12:30
  Mark Trinkl: And you try to get what you want, but God's like nah, you're asking with the wrong reasons, I don't give it to you, so it makes you even more angry and more disillusioned.
• 12:41
  Devin Calhoun: Which is another aspect of thinking about, of like, am I examining my prayer life, like, when I'm praying to God, am I praying for things that I think or things that are Holy Spirit inspired, that this is me trying to further the will of God, or am I just saying God, man, I really want that new big house.
• 13:00
  Devin Calhoun: Lord, provide a way.
• 13:02
  Devin Calhoun: And I'm not saying that it's a bad thing to ask God for what you want, but we do have to examine ourselves and see what is my motivation behind praying for this thing, getting this thing?
• 13:14
  Devin Calhoun: And is it just so I have this pleasure, this happiness?
• 13:20
  Devin Calhoun: Or is there a bigger, more?
• 13:23
  Devin Calhoun: What's the word?
• 13:24
  Devin Calhoun: I can't think of it, but more kind of beneficial to the world, reason.
• 13:31
  Mark Trinkl: And James kind of moves right in, that when he starts talking he moves on from what's causing wars to you adulterers.
• 13:38
  Mark Trinkl: You know like you, basically, you're trying to be friends of the world and you can't be a friend of the world and a friend of God.
• 13:45
  Mark Trinkl: You're either going to be a friend or an enemy and kind of talking about the worldly systems not like the planet but the worldly systems and playing into that.
• 13:52
  Mark Trinkl: Like what does the world from their perspective say?
• 13:56
  Mark Trinkl: Success is?
• 13:57
  Mark Trinkl: and what you want and what you need, and often our prayers can be formed more by that than by actually like kingdom prayers and perspectives of God, and I talked yesterday about this worldview.
• 14:08
  Mark Trinkl: Like, every one of us has a view of the world and with that that's going to affect how we pray, how we live our lives, how we do everything, how we do marriage, how we do parenting, how we do work, blah, blah, blah, on and on, and we can be just unaware that we're doing things that are actually in conflict to what God would have us do.
• 14:28
  Mark Trinkl: And I referenced that.
• 14:29
  Mark Trinkl: According to these statistics that are coming out of a cultural I think it's Research Institute from Arizona Christian University, which George Barna, took over that whole research area.
• 14:42
  Mark Trinkl: He basically is looking at his research and saying one out of 25 people in the US have a Christian worldview and around nine out of 10.
• 14:51
  Mark Trinkl: So the majority have this sort of syncretist blending of all these beliefs and practices together that are not formed around God and His Word.
• 15:00
  Mark Trinkl: And so you have this thing of like when we're talking about prayer, life and desires and all these things, most people, statistically speaking, are being formed by the culture and they're just grabbing all these different beliefs and then they're like well, I go and I pray to God and he doesn't answer.
• 15:15
  Mark Trinkl: And you're like well, do you know the God you're praying to?
• 15:18
  Mark Trinkl: Do you understand the character of God and the purposes of God and his desires for your life?
• 15:23
  Mark Trinkl: Or are you just praying to this being you think is there to satisfy all your whims and desires and whatever else?
• 15:30
  Mark Trinkl: Yeah, and so there is this like just tension or conflict of when people pray.
• 15:39
  Mark Trinkl: Are we actually praying to the God of scriptures?
• 15:43
  Mark Trinkl: or are we praying to a God in our own making?
• 15:46
  Devin Calhoun: Yeah, yeah, yeah, I believe you on Sunday put the term out.
• 15:52
  Devin Calhoun: Correct me if I get it wrong, but like is it moral?
• 15:56
  Devin Calhoun: Therapeutic deism.
• 15:58
  Mark Trinkl: Yes.
• 15:59
  Devin Calhoun: This like idea of God as this being that is out there, a little bit disconnected but just kind of he generally wants you know, good for people and you just got to kind of do the best you can and everything.
• 16:12
  Devin Calhoun: And I mean, when you were talking about it I was like, yes, that's what the world thinks about God, like that's what they think God is.
• 16:20
  Devin Calhoun: And opposed to this, you list out this eight biblical points for a biblical worldview.
• 16:27
  Devin Calhoun: Which, a little aside, in our neighborhood triads Mondays we ask what was something from the sermon that stuck with you?
• 16:36
  Devin Calhoun: One of my triad members is like that, right there, those eight biblical points and worldview of like, am I ready and pressing in to give scripture, to give background for each one of those things?
• 16:48
  Devin Calhoun: Is my worldview aligning with that?
• 16:50
  Devin Calhoun: And so just a little toss in there of one.
• 16:53
  Devin Calhoun: You should join neighborhood triads.
• 16:55
  Devin Calhoun: Well, I guess it's too late this year but next year join it, join it.
• 17:00
  Devin Calhoun: But also encouragement of like oh hey, there's this thing sticking in the message.
• 17:04
  Devin Calhoun: But back to the larger point of yeah, that is the tension point between just living in the world and what they want religious views to be or think about.
• 17:17
  Devin Calhoun: Religious views and what scripture is actually putting forth for us is a much, much higher standard.
• 17:23
  Mark Trinkl: Yeah, yeah, and just for a reference point, that term moralistic, therapeutic deism comes from a book called Soul Searching.
• 17:31
  Mark Trinkl: So if you're wanting to look up the book and you know it's based on a bunch of research also.
• 17:36
  Mark Trinkl: So I think it's a, yeah, a very common belief.
• 17:38
  Mark Trinkl: And to come back and say, yeah, what is forming us?
• 17:43
  Mark Trinkl: Where are we orientating around?
• 17:45
  Mark Trinkl: And when we say that we want to be all in for Jesus, what does that mean?
• 17:51
  Mark Trinkl: Are we just kind of saying that with our mouth but we really haven't allowed Jesus to form all the areas of our life.
• 17:58
  Mark Trinkl: And that's a tension, because there's so much coming at us and I've heard many different things.
• 18:07
  Mark Trinkl: If you're spending more time on social media or being filled with this than actually understanding who God is, what's going to form you more.
• 18:13
  Mark Trinkl: It's just this basic thing of the more time you invest and the more thought and the more energy and the more things that are pointed in a certain direction.
• 18:23
  Mark Trinkl: You're going to be formed by that.
• 18:24
  Mark Trinkl: You just can't help it.
• 18:30
  Mark Trinkl: So, yeah, it's a challenge, to say the least.
• 18:34
  Mark Trinkl: I felt like I was kind of really bringing it strong yesterday and like how are people going to take this?
• 18:40
  Mark Trinkl: Because I'm saying, you know and I look at my own life we can be malformed or misformed by the world and even miss that.
• 18:49
  Mark Trinkl: We're being enemies of God.
• 18:51
  Devin Calhoun: Yeah of God.
• 19:00
  Devin Calhoun: Yeah, I know, for me again, it's a tough teaching, but it drove into me.
• 19:01
  Devin Calhoun: When I'm looking through James 4, 1 through 10, it is like this rallying cry for me of this charge.
• 19:06
  Devin Calhoun: And specifically, a funny illustration of this all-in thing is uh, they're right now, there's two world wrestling kind of companies right now, that is that is, that are up.
• 19:20
  Devin Calhoun: There's, of course, the wwe, which is, you know, the big guys, uh, but recently, in the last couple years, there's been a new company forming called a aew all elite wrestling okay, and their their title and their slogan when they first started was All In and what they were saying.
• 19:37
  Devin Calhoun: what they were talking about is yeah, you have this super big global company who is like the dominant force in wrestling, but if you want to be a part of the AEW family, it takes being All In.
• 19:48
  Devin Calhoun: Talking about is a different form, but you can't just sit by idly by and let this kind of wwe thing and you know, rule and and make you know and shape exactly how you think about what wrestling is and what wrestling can be.
• 20:04
  Devin Calhoun: and so I'm I'm thinking about that as you're saying all I'm like yeah, yeah, you know the world has you know this certain force and push.
• 20:12
  Devin Calhoun: But if you want to really be a follower of christ, that means you got to go all in.
• 20:15
  Devin Calhoun: Like you want to really be a follower of Christ, that means you've got to go all in.
• 20:16
  Devin Calhoun: You've got to really be about what Christ is trying to transform you into being and you can't be kind of in between both, because in between both just means being in.
• 20:32
  Mark Trinkl: That because it's very interesting, because even you know kind of the world or different companies understand that they want people who are all in, Because if you have somebody who's, like you know, all in, they're going to invest in a different way, they're going to just live a different way if their life is kind of being formed around this center.
• 20:52
  Mark Trinkl: Kind of being formed around this center.
• 20:58
  Mark Trinkl: And James isn't specifically saying this, but what I pulled out was if you're trying to kind of straddle the two worlds and James is saying, if you're a friend of God, if you're a friend of the world, you become an enemy of God.
• 21:07
  Mark Trinkl: But I think there's also this like tension that it becomes like a war within.
• 21:14
  Devin Calhoun: Yeah.
• 21:15
  Mark Trinkl: Because you know you can say well, you're either a friend or you're an enemy of God, and I think that's a reality.
• 21:21
  Mark Trinkl: I also think that, like in the day-to-day living, when we begin to lean more towards the world or we're trying to play in both worlds, there's this tension in this war within that we're facing and Romans chapter seven really talks about that that there's these desires in and you're doing what you don't want to do and there's this whole mess happening inside of you.
• 21:44
  Mark Trinkl: And so I was kind of drawing from that too, that there's this war within and if you're trying to do both, it's going to rip you apart, it's going to make you unstable.
• 21:54
  Mark Trinkl: James talks about that.
• 21:56
  Mark Trinkl: And when people talk to you or you try to live your life, you're like I don't know where I'm going.
• 22:02
  Mark Trinkl: Some days I kind of feel like I know I'm not quite sure my beliefs are changing, my practices are changing.
• 22:08
  Mark Trinkl: Some days I'm following Jesus, some days I'm not, and it just makes life unstable.
• 22:13
  Mark Trinkl: Yeah, and maybe on the outside you look stable, but there's this like inter turmoil because you're trying to live in two different worlds.
• 22:21
  Mark Trinkl: Yeah, yeah.
• 22:22
  Devin Calhoun: And it's just that and that for me, and where I was sharing with my triad is that was one of the big takeaways for me of like, wait a minute.
• 22:32
  Devin Calhoun: You have to understand to be a friend of the world is to be an enemy of God that there is just no way to straddle the fence, there's no way to dip your toe in the world.
• 22:43
  Devin Calhoun: You know, and I'm a moralistic, therapeutic theist, you know I'll pray for you I rock with Jesus.
• 22:51
  Mark Trinkl: I rock with Jesus, but you know.
• 22:52
  Devin Calhoun: I still get to do whatever I want and participate in the worldly things and these other ways.
• 22:58
  Devin Calhoun: But just saying like no, james is telling us no, if you want to be on the team of Jesus, you have to be all in.
• 23:06
  Devin Calhoun: There is no way to do a little bit and do a little bit there and a little bit here.
• 23:10
  Mark Trinkl: Yeah, yeah, and it's.
• 23:13
  Mark Trinkl: If I look at my own spiritual journey, there's these kind of line in the sand moments.
• 23:20
  Mark Trinkl: They don't happen all the time, but I do feel like that God at certain points in my life says, hey, are you all in?
• 23:28
  Mark Trinkl: And then again later on hey, are you all?
• 23:31
  Mark Trinkl: in Then again hey, are you all in?
• 23:34
  Mark Trinkl: And it's not like every week, like if I heard this message every week.
• 23:38
  Mark Trinkl: It just becomes noise Right, right, right.
• 23:39
  Mark Trinkl: But I do think there's times that we need to come back and say, okay, if you're a follower of Jesus, at some point you said, jesus, I invite you in, I make you Lord of my life.
• 23:51
  Mark Trinkl: Take control of me, spirit of God, fill me, forgive me for my sins, help me to live my life for you.
• 23:56
  Mark Trinkl: You are the one I'm living for.
• 23:58
  Mark Trinkl: So you know some kind of prayer like that that you've, like, surrendered your whole life, and we sing it and we say all these things, and then we start living our lives and we begin to kind of drift away from that.
• 24:09
  Mark Trinkl: And you know, revelation talks about losing your first love and we can find passages about all of that.
• 24:14
  Mark Trinkl: But I think there's these line in the sand moments that we have to come back to again and again and say, okay again.
• 24:21
  Mark Trinkl: Today, jesus, I'm saying I'm all in.
• 24:23
  Mark Trinkl: Again, today, I'm recommitting myself to you.
• 24:26
  Mark Trinkl: Again today, jesus forgive me.
• 24:28
  Mark Trinkl: I began to dabble and I began to have divided loyalties and I'm all in again and that's, I think, really healthy for the soul to just kind of say okay where am?
• 24:40
  Mark Trinkl: I, where am I at with Jesus?
• 24:42
  Mark Trinkl: Or like an old book?
• 24:44
  Mark Trinkl: Am I just a fan of Jesus, or am I a follower of Jesus?
• 24:47
  Mark Trinkl: And so there's just this drawing in, I think, and James gives us that line in the sand.
• 24:53
  Mark Trinkl: He says make a choice, are you all in or not?
• 24:57
  Mark Trinkl: But don't live this divided loyalties, get all in or just, you know, go do something else.
• 25:03
  Mark Trinkl: And for those who decide to go all in, in the second half of this passage, basically, james says God gives grace to the humble God.
• 25:14
  Mark Trinkl: You know, when you say hey, I'm all in, he says, man, I show grace, I show mercy, I invite you in.
• 25:21
  Mark Trinkl: Humble yourself before God, lean into God.
• 25:24
  Mark Trinkl: You know, take this posture of I don't know what's best for my life and I need to know how God wants me to live.
• 25:31
  Mark Trinkl: And he even goes out of his way to like say you know, weep, mourn and wail, be broken over your sin, be broken over like how you've lived in rebellion to God.
• 25:41
  Mark Trinkl: And then, if you live that way and you humble yourself under God's mighty hand, in due time he'll lift you up.
• 25:49
  Mark Trinkl: And so, james doesn't just like take us behind, pull up the paddle and be like what's wrong with you?
• 25:55
  Mark Trinkl: He's saying no like if you decide to really be all in, there's grace available, but you need to humble yourself and you need to be broken over the way that you were living and truly be all in for Jesus.
• 26:07
  Devin Calhoun: Yeah, yeah, and I think that's verse 10.
• 26:11
  Devin Calhoun: When we got to that, my mind immediately jumped back to Philippians 2, where Paul says hey, have this mind amongst you?
• 26:19
  Devin Calhoun: Jesus Christ humbled himself, being in the form of God, emptied himself, was found as a servant and was obedient, even to the point of death.
• 26:29
  Devin Calhoun: And I'm thinking of what humility really means for us Christians if that's our example of Jesus Christ's incarnation and then his death on the cross for our sins.
• 26:42
  Devin Calhoun: But then in Philippians 2, just like in James, it goes and then God exalted him and gave him a name above all names.
• 26:49
  Devin Calhoun: And I'm like so we don't just have this example of humility, which we need, but we also have this example of what god does with humility.
• 26:58
  Devin Calhoun: Yeah, that he has this exaltation, he has this, this raising of power, and um, and I, I am both charged with like.
• 27:06
  Mark Trinkl: oh man, there is this great task of humility, but also like, reassured of like, and god, god pays that back with dividends, with this exaltation yeah, and the theme that kind of pulls through there, connected with this, is there's this idea of passion and where we're delighting and where we're finding like fulfillment, and so where james starts in this section, he's really talking about misplaced, misguided passions.
• 27:34
  Mark Trinkl: Um, and and as I was processing and looking through this, so much of the pursuit of pleasure is because we and I pulled a quote from John Piper.
• 27:47
  Mark Trinkl: You know, god is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in him.
• 27:54
  Mark Trinkl: And this idea of like do we look at following Jesus as the greatest pleasure, yeah, or have we bought into the system that we're going to find greater pleasure over here?
• 28:03
  Mark Trinkl: So when we talk about exaltation, I think oftentimes you can look at like positions of power or whatever else.
• 28:09
  Mark Trinkl: But I was almost looking at it more in this way of saying do I just find this like peace and delight and fullness of life in Jesus, or have I, you know, kind of bought into this like pleasure, passion, that's all temporary and never really satisfies?
• 28:30
  Mark Trinkl: And so, you know, like even this exaltation, I do think as we follow Jesus, as we lean into him, as we say we're all in, as we, you know, resist the devil, as we move away from that, we do find a peace instead of war within our souls and we find the sense of joy and fulfillment more than anything the world could ever satisfy.
• 28:53
  Devin Calhoun: Yeah.
• 28:54
  Mark Trinkl: Yeah.
• 28:54
  Devin Calhoun: Yeah, and I'm always thinking of this kind of eternal exaltation that we'll see, you know, when our king returns, you know, and being with him in eternity, in this glory, amen.
• 29:10
  Mark Trinkl: Yeah, somebody I talked to yesterday.
• 29:12
  Mark Trinkl: You know it was great.
• 29:13
  Mark Trinkl: I had some great conversations of this space, had some great conversations of this space and one of the people I was talking to just basically kind of framed it like you gave us a choice, Mark.
• 29:25
  Mark Trinkl: You're not saying we have to be all in for Jesus, but make a choice.
• 29:30
  Mark Trinkl: Make a choice and I think that's what James is saying Make a choice and deal with the repercussions of your choice.
• 29:36
  Mark Trinkl: If you are a pleasure-seeking person who's caught up in all this fighting and warring and jealousy and anger, you're going to reap the results of that.
• 29:48
  Mark Trinkl: But if you're somebody that comes to peace with God, is all in for Jesus, you're going to reap the rewards of that too.
• 29:56
  Mark Trinkl: And make a choice.
• 29:57
  Mark Trinkl: Make a choice what kind of life do you want to have?
• 29:59
  Mark Trinkl: And God is there to draw you in.
• 30:02
  Mark Trinkl: It says come close to God and he'll come close to you.
• 30:05
  Mark Trinkl: Lean in and he'll lean into you and he'll give you the strength you need.
• 30:09
  Mark Trinkl: You know, to live this out.
• 30:10
  Devin Calhoun: Amen, amen.
• 30:11
  Devin Calhoun: Well, I think that's a great place for us to stop today.
• 30:15
  Devin Calhoun: Thank you so much, pastor Mark, for your words and your wisdom, and I want to thank you guys so much for listening.
• 30:23
  Devin Calhoun: We'll be back here next week continuing on in our series through the book of James.
• 30:28
  Mark Trinkl: Yeah, talking about being judgmental.
• 30:30
  Devin Calhoun: Keeping it light.
• 30:31
  Mark Trinkl: Yeah, James gives us easy ones.
• 30:34
  Devin Calhoun: We hope you'll have a great week and we hope to see you again.