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All the Law & Prophets: Conversation · Beyond the Sermon

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You're listening to Beyond the Sermon, the podcast of First
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Methodist Church in Collingswood, NJ.
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On our podcast, the goal is not just to share our sermons, but
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to go beyond the sermon and talk about what we're learning and
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what God is doing in us and in our community.
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This fall, we're living in the gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke
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and John and learning how to live from our model, Jesus.
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This conversation was inspired by our series The Gospels.
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You can find more information about our church at
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fumccollingswood.org. Thanks for joining us for this
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conversation. Oh, man.
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We Eli was watching a new version of Where in the World is
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Carmen San Diego. Did you ever play that computer
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game when you're a kid? I don't.
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Think I ever actually. Played it, yeah.
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So anyway, it's. Like the answer should be San
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Diego. But it's not.
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But anyway, so he's watching this.
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It's like a cartoon these days. But when I was a kid, it was a
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like geography game show kind of feel OK.
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And so we, we pulled it up on YouTube last night.
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We were watching it with him while the boys were a youth
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group. And then we watched Double Dare
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relive in the early 90s. So we're sitting there watching.
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He was like, this is cringy, this is amazing.
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Yeah, I watching The Chosen last night with the youth first
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episode of season 1 and I'm like, I remember not liking or
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being the biggest fan of the first 3 episodes because you're
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not really in scripture yet. You're building up characters
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and that kind of stuff before you get into the great thick of
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it. And I'm just like, they had
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lower budget Season 1 than the others.
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Yeah, kind of shows in certain aspect.
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And some of the, like, actors aren't, I mean, none of them are
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big actors to begin with. But like, they're just growing
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and getting into these characters and building like all
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this stuff. And so they also like ads, make
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the music so intense for no reason.
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And now that we have surround sound in the youth room.
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It's a little overwhelming. It's yeah, it's just
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overwhelming. Like nothing that insane has
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happened, but the music makes it sound overly dramatic.
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Yeah. And so.
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True confession. You haven't watched it?
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I think I've only watched as far as the wedding and Cana.
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Is that even season? Two no season. 1.
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I think it's like in the first 3 episodes.
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No, I think it's probably farther.
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I think it's like episode 4. Yeah, but.
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That might be true, but anyway that's that's as far as I've
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gotten. It is worth the investment if
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you can get past the first 3 episodes.
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Yeah, I mean, I I think I've cried more in season 4 of The
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Chosen than watching any other TV show because I think I've
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only cried maybe once in another TV show ever, Season 4.
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And we're not getting to like arresting and cruise it like not
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in any of that. But the way they just, you see
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the characters navigate situations we know from
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scripture and some that are not in scripture, but they're
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wrestling with questions and feelings a lot of people wrestle
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with in regards to how Jesus works, God works and you know,
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it's like to follow him and it was incredibly done.
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That's good. Maybe I'll have to give it
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another shot. Slowly pacing well, if you join
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the youth group we will we finish one episode every two
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times we meet. Very totally.
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But I think they're getting more invested now then the first
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time. But it's fine.
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Those nights are good to have an opportunity for the kids to come
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together even after a retreat. For those that couldn't go on
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the retreat, sure. We did boys retreat, fall
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retreat and a girls fall retreat this fall and both were great
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and they're done. I feel like there's a better way
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to describe them, but like. Yeah, something you would do
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again. Would you do the divided?
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Thousand, 1000% and I think both.
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So we like tried to customize the retreats to the interests
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and the dietary preferences of the boys and the girls and they
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were drastically different weekends, even though most of
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the spiritual activities and times were similar, if not the
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same. Everything else was different.
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It was very different. All great, all great.
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Just what they wanted to do what they who slept in longer, who
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wanted to stay up more, what foods we have.
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I'm not I learned that I'm not good at salad math.
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I'm good at pizza math for youth groups.
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Fair. And so we had I can't buy myself
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any justification. We were supposed to have 12
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people in total on the girls, which we ended up being 10 due
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to sickness and. Does that mean you bought 12
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bags of salad? I got 18 hearts of romaine
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lettuce and then a Costco size tub of spring mix that's a.
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Lot of salad. I don't salad.
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I was just like and that's the only thing who gets filled up on
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the salad. So we need to have.
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I mean, it fills you up faster than a lot of other things.
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That's part of the point that I. Learned.
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And so someone's pet rabbits is having the time of their life
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this morning. Yeah, So I went.
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But luckily lettuce is cheap. Of all the things that I sure
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ever bought. Yeah, lettuce.
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Is better than ever buying something like bacon.
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Wagyu steak Oh yeah, which they ate all the 9.
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The boys ate 9 lbs of bacon 9. Pounds of bacon in 2 days.
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Wow, the healthy kind. Sure.
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Yeah, of course. But.
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Yeah, and the girls went through 3 lbs.
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But anyway, so I learned a lot and and have heard from multiple
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that it was well needed even though there was chores because
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we had to clean up our own stuff weren't at a retreat center
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right where other people cook and clean stuff.
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We were cooking and cleaning and.
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I think sometimes that like fosters a good community.
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And teamwork and all that kind of stuff and how you work
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together. And so it, yeah, it ended up
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being really good. And like in the spiritual time,
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one of the kids was like, we've been going to Ocean City for a
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couple years, which they love and they're like, and I always
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have a fun time, but like, I never remember any of the Jesus
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stuff. And I was like, thanks, all I
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did was the lessons last year. That's fine.
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Welcome to my world. Yeah, like I'm aware of it, like
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I, I know that not going to remember every single thing I
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said, which is probably better sometimes, but yeah, the but
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this time it seemed like a lot more deeper impact.
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So I'm glad that was faithful to what God was calling us.
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And so it may become a tradition until feeling LED to change it
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or switch it up again. And yeah, so that's.
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It's always interesting when you get groups of people that are
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used to being together and you split them up in different ways.
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Like a couple years ago you took them for winter retreat and they
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were split Senior High and junior high.
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And that changes the dynamics in a different way too, yeah.
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For sure, yeah. Like I was surprised to like
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boys. I was thinking they're sleeping
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in till 11 and staying up real late and we'll just move the
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whole itinerary to fit that. And was thinking that, you know,
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the option of jumping into a cold lake was going to be like
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whoop Dee Doo. And it ended up being the girls
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that slept in stayed up late and the girls all jumped into the
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lake and not all, but most of them did.
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And on the boys retreat, only Benjamin did.
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Yeah. Yeah.
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So it was it was an interesting change.
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But the Lord provides. The Lord is good.
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We made it back safe and we'll get rest in heaven.
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But while we were gone, your opening and your sermon
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yesterday, from the rumors I've heard, you talked about if you
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had one meeting with Jesus, what would you do?
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Because it's, it's different, I think, than the, as we discussed
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with Sarah a couple weeks ago of the like, when we're in God's
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full presence in heaven And like that's the eternal aspect or the
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can I can only imagine song. But what if you just get one
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shot and he's in person on earth while you're still living here
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on earth? How do you seize that moment?
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Well, everyone else is also trying to seize their Jesus
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moment, right? Or at least those that are
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attracted to Jesus. Would you would you seem like a
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whole lot of people who are attracted to Jesus?
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Seems like it seems like it. So as you were supposedly you
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said you'd been thinking about it all week last week.
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Did you come to a conclusion? I don't think I did.
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Every time I thought about it in in different contexts as I was
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reading different stories, it just kept coming up and
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depending on the like the stories I was reading, it
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brought up like, Oh, I wonder if if I really had that chance, I'd
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ask Jesus to heal somebody or, or if, you know, I'd come to him
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and try to ask some kind of question or that I've always
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wondered about or needed explained or, you know,
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hopefully not in the the like I said with the Pharisees and said
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he's like trying to trap Jesus, but you know, something that
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would somehow unlock something amazing.
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I don't know. And I think another aspect of it
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is when it's the physical Jesus traveling, you don't know when
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that moment is right. And so the desires and questions
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of your heart, yeah, it's the your gut reaction at that
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moment. Like if you had a it's not the
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same, but he is a celebrity. Like if there's a celebrity
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encounter and they're just walking, sure.
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You're like, I didn't think that Christopher Lloyd was going to
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be walking down the streets of Collingswood today at my back in
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the future, Right. I yeah, he just, I feel like to
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stumble over and try and figure out how to maximize on the
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moment in the moment, Yeah. Versus like Jesus is doing his
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tour and he's coming to the Wells Fargo.
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Center let me let me write down my top three things just in case
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I get a chance doing. AQ and A a Comic Con.
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Right, Yeah. And so I think, I think that's
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probably part of it is on any given day in our lives, there's,
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there's so much that's going on and so many things that come to
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the forefront of our hearts and minds that I don't know that I
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could nail it down to just one thing.
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But I am grateful. And I didn't feel like we really
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quite had time or or would have been too much in one sermon to
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really get into how grateful I am that we do still have access
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to Jesus. It's not the same way.
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It's not the face to face, sit down and have a conversation
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over, you know, a cup of coffee or, you know, some fire roasted
12:07
fish. But to be able to bring some of
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those things to him and say, Jesus, you know, what are you
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doing in this situation? And and, you know, trust that he
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actually wants to speak into those things or, you know,
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should I, I'm not considering this, but for instance, should I
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take that job opportunity? Should I move to that other
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place? I'm not actually considering any
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of that. I'm God has me here right now, I
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guess. Things changed over the weekend.
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Get out of here how much anxiety you're going to cause in people.
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Then they should go to Jesus. This is how I push people into
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prayer. There you go.
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There you go. But though we can, we can have
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that kind of relationship with Jesus where we can bring things
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to him, believing that he really does speak to us.
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And it's not just, oh, I've got a question and I go and open my
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Bible and plunk my finger down and that must be God's answer.
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I don't know because I haven't experienced physical Jesus,
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right, Right. I assume I, I assume none of
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them maybe necessarily were qualified.
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I would be baffled if I would be considered top 12, maybe not
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even considering them top 12, but as in the 12 that he chose
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to be regularly around and, and disciple.
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And so 'cause you were talking about like having fish with him
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on the beach and that kind of stuff, I was like, that means
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that means 12 disciple status or revolving around them at that
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time. So it's almost like a would you
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rather, and I mean, I would maybe pose this, this is 1 where
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like pull Pastor Scott and I over later and let us know,
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'cause I'm really curious. Would you rather have a one
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moment in a crowd interaction with Jesus physically or the
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opportunity to communicate with him through prayer all the time
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your entire life, right? Because I think like people seek
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after that closer, more intimate in your face moment.
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And yet the beauty of what a lifelong relationship can be
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through prayer, right? Because if you got that moment
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with Jesus, you don't have any of the New Testament, then you
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won't probably in your lifetime ever get to hold one of those
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things, if you can even read at that point.
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And so there's so much of his wisdom that you're missing and
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at that point, unable to regularly communicate.
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And you can communicate with the Father, right?
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Yeah. But like there's a different
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dynamic shift that's happening and changing afterwards.
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And so. Yeah.
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But I think we take the opportunity for granted that we
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do have. And we, we've talked some this
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year about revival and awakening and, and, and things.
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And I think sometimes we, we want to seek that kind of
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experience because we're not experiencing Jesus in the
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day-to-day, because we're not putting in the time day by day
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to cultivate that kind of a relationship.
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And so we're like, we're we're grasping, hoping for this, you
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know, manifest presence of God experience in hopes that that
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would be like the Oh, well, if I could get that one moment, if I
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could get that one experience that would carry me the rest of
15:57
my life. But I don't think that's why God
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shows up, why he pours himself out in those specific ways.
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You know, it's, it's to draw us deeper into the relationship.
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It's to draw people into a first time relationship.
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It's to but it's all relational. Yeah, yeah.
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It's it's not about an experience or an encounter.
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It's about the ongoing living in the midst of that.
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Now also in your sermon, use as we're talking about relational
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and what that all looks like. You'd mentioned the similarities
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or the oddities. Oddities of if we treated our
16:43
romantic relationships as we did, how we're called to love
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God with all of our heart, mind, soul and strength.
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And so, since your famous celebrity couple relationship is
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of curiosity by the people, what was your first date with Meg?
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My first date with Meg officially.
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Unofficial and unofficial. I think officially, oh, I'm
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going to get in trouble. You said hear ye, hear ye all
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thy dateth myself this evening. That one you don't know.
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Oh, I'm going to leave you this whole pause.
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I'm not editing it out for a time.
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Yep, there we go. How about I'll tell you ours
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first about you time? There's not enough time in the
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world. I I think it was I think.
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Just make one up at this. Point.
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I think we had gone and done something so our sophomore year.
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Of. Of college are dorms like of the
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halls I was on Johnson second W she was in second Crawford and
18:24
they were like brother sister halls.
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So they would get together and do stuff and go out and do stuff
18:31
off campus and whatnot. And I think we had been on one
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of those. I think we'd been bowling and
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that was kind of it was. Like as a group, as a group
18:44
focused on time together. And then like, it was out of
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that evening like that. That's the evening we said like,
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hey, let's start dating. Like let's.
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Yeah. Yeah.
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There you go. But I do know it was January
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24th, 2004. Making up a date doesn't save
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you, Scott. Oh my God.
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My gosh. I don't have a single youth kid
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that was alive then. Were you alive then?
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No, luckily I was smart and I asked Rebecca this morning.
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So because you knew what you were going to ask me, you did
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the prep work in. Case it got flipped and there's
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the there's the one that I'm allowed to share to ask Rebecca
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for that mess came back and then we both went to Malgo because
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they had like a theatre camp and they did their show.
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Like at the end of the week we saw the show and then we went to
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Pegasus Diner there and Malaga, Franklin, whatever it is
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afterwards. And I wore closed toed shoes.
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That's how I knew I was serious. Oh man, wow.
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And so the reason I'm really interested because even as we
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are listening to your sermon felt again an an influence kind
20:15
of coming from our conference with the what was the first love
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book? I always forget the title.
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Love goes first. Love goes first, like some of
20:24
the main pushing points from that, even I think it was
20:28
unintentional. I think it's just becoming more
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natural part of the yeah framework.
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So again, we've mentioned it already last week, I think or
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two weeks ago. Would highly recommend looking
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into that resource because I think it's an area that themes
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from that book you will see pop up yeah, in the next year.
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And so to kind of chew on that with us, if you're, if you're,
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if you're interested, I think comes.
20:56
Out sometime in October. Oh, it's not officially out.
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We got really copies. Yeah.
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I didn't know we're so fancy. Yeah.
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OK, well coming out in October by.
21:08
Andrew Forrest 2 Arson Forrest. To check that out.
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And I noticed that your sermon was a little shorter than it has
21:17
been lately, probably because we had, I believe, missionary come
21:21
and talk yesterday. So I was curious, did you have
21:25
to shave anything down? Is there anything that got put
21:28
aside for maybe time's sake or whatever that maybe you wanted
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to cover here? Yeah, I had debated and even
21:37
written out some chunk of a sermon for yesterday just
21:43
talking about the difference between the, the different
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groups of people who come to Jesus and question him.
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I I talked to ever so briefly about how the Pharisees had
21:56
asked about, you know, paying taxes and the Sadducees had
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asked about the whole marriage and the resurrection thing.
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And then the Pharisees came back to.
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And then sometimes, you know, the Gospels talk about the
22:08
scribes. Who were they?
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And so I, I kind of talked a little bit about because we, we
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come across these groups in the gospels in different places, and
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I think sometimes we tend to just kind of lump them all in
22:25
together as like the religious leaders.
22:28
And that's not wrong. With the the Sanhedrin which is
22:32
made-up of. Right.
22:33
So the Sanhedrin would have been like the the ruling council.
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That's who Jesus goes before, after he's arrested.
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High priest is part of that, but there are others involved as
22:43
well. The scribes are what some
22:47
translations call the teachers of the law.
22:49
They were the ones who it was their job to do the copying and
22:55
the teaching of the law. And so they they knew it
22:59
frontwards, backwards. If you remember back to our
23:02
Practicing the Way series all the way back in what was that
23:07
January, February, and I mentioned that when Jewish boys
23:14
were were growing up, their education, you know, and they're
23:17
the first part. They'd memorize the the first
23:20
five books of the Old Testament, the law.
23:23
And then if they're really good, they'd, you know, spend the next
23:28
12 years, I think it was memorizing the rest of the Old
23:32
Testament, you know, And so, and then if they were really good at
23:36
that, then, you know, a rabbi, a teacher might call them to be an
23:41
apprentice. So long, long process there.
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These scribes would have gone through all of that.
23:48
So not only did they spend their days copying the the Old
23:54
Testament on to new scrolls, but they had already memorized it,
23:59
which just blows my mind completely and utterly.
24:05
So that's describes then, you know, we talk a lot about the
24:09
the Pharisees and the Sadducees, and these were were two groups
24:14
and that both wanted power and influence within Israel.
24:19
The Pharisees had kind of come up out of the exile period and
24:24
their framework, their mindset was if we got into exile because
24:31
we weren't keeping the law, then what we have to really focus on
24:37
is following every bit of the. Law exiled from what?
24:42
Oh, when when Israel and Judah were taken into exile as entire
24:48
nations, you know, So that's what leads to the stories of,
24:53
you know, Daniel and all those being in Babylon.
24:56
And then when they come back, you get Ezra and Nehemiah
24:59
rebuilding the city, rebuilding the temple, rebuilding the
25:02
walls, all those kind of things. So the Pharisees come out of
25:05
that. All right.
25:07
If we don't want to go into exile again as punishment, then
25:11
we've got to make extra careful not to break the laws.
25:17
And so they're kind of the the conservatives, right?
25:21
They're the traditionalists. They're the ones who want to
25:23
make sure we're following all the laws.
25:25
We're not changing anything. We're holding to the traditional
25:31
interpretations of things and you have the Sadducees on the
25:34
other side. They're kind of the, the other
25:36
side. They're they're the
25:37
progressives. They're the ones who they're the
25:40
ones who would have come up out of the Maccabee and revolt,
25:45
which I don't remember exactly when that happened, but it's
25:48
kind of in that intertestamental period around 280 or 200 BC.
25:53
So that would have happened in that what we consider like the
25:57
silent part between the end of the Old Testament prophets and
26:01
the New Testament happening. And if you don't know Maccabee
26:04
in revolt, look up story of Hanukkah.
26:07
Yeah, and then bam. Yeah, they, yeah, overthrew
26:12
their foreign oppressors and had a period of time.
26:16
And so these these political elites kind of came to power and
26:23
eventually be changed. Political.
26:25
Yes. Jewish political elites, yeah,
26:27
they were the ones then who were kind of running the Sanhedrin
26:31
and different priestly families were involved in all that and
26:35
whatever else. And, and they were the ones who
26:38
were saying, I don't know that we necessarily need to believe
26:41
all this stuff quite so literally as we have.
26:45
And so like when the one question that I mentioned, when
26:50
the Sadducees come asking, you know, if, if a man is married to
26:53
a woman and he dies and his brother marries the woman to
26:58
produce an heir for him, which was what the Jewish law taught.
27:03
And that happened 7 different times.
27:06
And then in the resurrection, which of those seven brothers is
27:10
going to be married to the woman?
27:13
When they ask that question, they don't even believe that the
27:16
resurrection is going to happen, right?
27:19
And so, you know, they're, they're kind of trying to trick
27:23
Jesus into this question with all this theological stuff that
27:28
that they didn't actually believe to be true.
27:30
So they're using all this just to try to trap Jesus and get him
27:34
to say something that they could then arrest him for.
27:38
And so those are kind of the the four big groups that we hear
27:43
about that we just kind of lump into the religious leaders,
27:49
scribes, the Sanhedrin, the Pharisees and the Sadducees.
27:54
Yeah. And, and I think it's helpful to
27:58
keep some of that in mind as we're reading through the
28:01
Gospels rather than just thinking this is this one
28:05
monolithic group that's coming to Jesus.
28:07
They're all coming with their different motives.
28:09
They're all coming with different frameworks behind
28:13
their questions. And, and we can still learn
28:16
stuff even if we can't keep them all straight.
28:19
But it's different when it says, you know, one of the teachers of
28:21
the law comes to Jesus. That might be a sincere question
28:24
they're trying to ask. Different, though, when it says,
28:27
you know, the Pharisees came trying to trap it right?
28:31
And, and we can remember, all right, the the Pharisees, they
28:35
get a bad rap, but they're just trying to be faithful to God's
28:40
word the best way they know how, right.
28:43
And so we, we give them a lot of Flack, but they're the ones who
28:48
are trying to keep things true and faithful best they could.
28:53
Sadducees maybe, maybe they had a little more ulterior, but they
28:57
were really mostly concerned, I think, about their political
29:01
power, right? They had this good agreement
29:04
with the Roman overlords that let them kind of run the temple,
29:09
run things the way they wanted to, as long as they, you know,
29:14
tipped their hat and paid their taxes to Caesar.
29:18
And once again, you can see all this in The Chosen, especially
29:22
season 3 and four, they have, you're really seeing the
29:27
Pharisees and the Sadducees wrestle with what's going on,
29:31
Some of them genuinely trying to figure out if he's the Messiah,
29:36
others trying to keep those things to power.
29:38
And you see how that comes into play between the two groups and
29:41
stuff. So that's where like you'd get
29:43
kind of these tellings of what could have been happening in
29:46
these meetings between the two of them as they're navigating
29:50
what's going on with Jesus in his ministry, Which I think
29:54
helps kind of take all that you shared and looking into a bunch
29:59
of history and, and all that kind of stuff and kind of
30:02
playing it out in person. If that's an easier medium to
30:07
chew on those things and kind of see how that would have
30:09
potentially played out. But I think it's not dissimilar
30:13
to how we can be and questioning God and and things of God where
30:21
people will ask questions like they'll be really strong on one
30:26
specific topic or thing and be like, oh, well, the first one
30:30
that comes to mind, maybe we'll come, maybe won't.
30:33
It's like the homosexuality discussion of whether it's sin
30:38
or not. People will be like, Oh, well,
30:40
you know, I just can't serve and follow a God if he doesn't think
30:43
love is love is love is love is love and any way wants to be in
30:46
a relationship with them shouldn't be in that.
30:48
Then I just can't get behind the whole thing.
30:51
And for me it's like with the asking the question that doesn't
30:57
even go with your beliefs in regards to like the resurrection
31:02
and the wives. It's like the that's not the
31:04
thing stopping you from following God and being faithful
31:08
and giving up your life to him. That's not the oh, he was
31:11
perfect and I trusted everything and this and that.
31:13
But like, there's one thing is the broke the camel's back.
31:17
You didn't want to live your life for him to begin with and
31:20
you needed an excuse. And this is just an example of 1
31:23
of dozens of things that people find and be like, Oh, well, the
31:27
way Israelites took over other nations in the Old Testament and
31:31
how could a good God, you know, wow, order that kind of.
31:35
Genocide. Yeah, that kind of stuff.
31:38
And so instead of looking into it, instead of yearning for the
31:41
truth and and what he said in the full revelation of God, it's
31:45
a let me find this one thing to nitpick and focus on without
31:49
giving fuller context, without looking at everything else so
31:52
that I have a reason to not follow him.
31:55
And I think it's something that we can all be easy to tilt into
31:59
that even if it's not a groundbreaking follow and have
32:04
faith or not, but we like to test them with our own moral
32:09
compasses. It's not quite where I thought
32:12
you were. Going with it originally, I
32:14
thought you were going to say something along the lines of
32:16
like how we we focus on one part of what it means to love God
32:23
with all of ourselves. You know, like, yeah.
32:28
Yeah. Like we want to make it just an
32:30
intellectual thing. We've got to understand all the
32:32
things. We've got to study all the
32:34
theology. We've got to know the Bible
32:37
really well, but it it's OK if it just stays in our heads, you
32:42
know, or there are other people who that they want to make it
32:45
about their their heart and their emotions.
32:49
And, you know, following Jesus is all about creating these
32:53
emotional environments where I feel connected to God.
32:58
And what you believe the theology of it is that doesn't
33:02
really matter, you know, just as long as I feel it and once it
33:07
stops feeling nice. Though that it must not be God
33:09
or must not be true. Yeah, or, you know, if God.
33:12
Were ever to convict me of something and it didn't feel
33:15
good, you know then that must not be from God that must be
33:20
something else it's do you want to teach the.
33:22
Buckets. No so so I think sometimes.
33:24
You know, we can get wrapped up, yes, like you were saying, like
33:27
in finding the one thing that kind of we hold up as our well,
33:31
this is the reason I can't believe in God.
33:34
But I think also sometimes we can push it the other way and
33:36
say we can make it so much about 1 aspect of our being that we
33:42
then forget about the others or or don't care about the other
33:46
parts, which might even be, you know, the relationship side.
33:50
Oh, we don't don't care if you're actually loving people
33:53
next door to you, as long as you believe the right things,
33:56
believe that you're supposed to love.
33:58
Them right, Not throwing rocks at their windows because I love
34:03
Jesus. Yeah, or you can.
34:07
Invert that one even right and say, well, it doesn't matter
34:10
what we believe or how we feel about.
34:12
As long as we're loving people, then God will accept us, you
34:17
know, and, and we can't make it about any one of those things.
34:20
He calls us to a whole. Being.
34:24
Wholehearted kind of love. Well, that's our.
34:29
Conversation for today. But that doesn't mean the
34:31
conversation is over. We'd love to hear your thoughts
34:34
on these topics as well. To ask a question about anything
34:37
we've discussed in this episode or to join the conversation, you
34:40
can head over to fumccollingswood.org/podcast.
34:45
Thanks for being part of this conversation.