Death to Life podcast
A podcast that tells the stories of people that used to be one way, and now are completely different, and the thing that happened in between was Jesus.
Death to Life podcast
#247 Rest Starts Here
We gather with a live room to explore why the gospel begins with rest, not effort, and hear how that truth lands in real lives. Testimonies trace freedom from control, loneliness, anxiety, people pleasing, and the fear of getting theology perfect.
• rest as the starting point for spiritual life
• Ephesians 2 and Hebrews 4 on seated identity
• releasing control and OCD patterns
• moving from loneliness to communion and connection
• peace within storms through a still small voice
• choosing safety over harmful opinions in faith communities
• freedom from condemnation cycles and anxiety
• centering Jesus over perfect doctrine
• Hebrews deep dive on why God rested
• ending people pleasing with beloved identity
• discovering self by first knowing who Christ is
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The world doesn't think that the gospel can change your life, but we know that it can. And that's why we want you to hear these stories: stories of transformation, stories of freedom, people getting free from sin and healed from sin because of Jesus. This is Death to Life. Yo, welcome to the Death to Life Podcast. My name is Richard Young, and today's guest is so many people because we have a live studio audience today. Yay! Yeah, we are actually in Casa de Leonardo up here in Michigan, and I'm here with all my gospel friends. Well, not all of them, but a lot of them. Justin Ku, say what's up? Yo, what's up, podcast? Uh, how why are we all together? What happened uh that we're all together here?
SPEAKER_11:You know, uh the word on the street, and by street I mean the internet street. Thank you, Jonathan, for tickling me as you pass. Um, is that we want to hang out with people. Uh, it's it's great to meet online doing the Bible study thing, doing the wave one thing, doing the podcast thing. That's all nice, but uh the saints are are wanting to gather together. They don't want to neglect meeting together as the day draws near, as it turns out. They're like, we want to see you. Exactly. Not on the internet. That's right. And so we decided to. Actually, it was more like we want to see you. They want to see us. So here we are, uh meeting in person. We're actually gonna be doing a lot more of this in the coming year. Uh, and if you haven't heard about that yet, loverality.org/slash events is where you can find out about the next in-person event. But yeah, that's the idea.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, and this morning we gathered together and we had a great discussion about rest. We had a great discussion about the Sabbath, and it was reminding me of one of my favorite books about the gospel is like this. I don't know, it's like 50 pages long. It's by Watchman Knee. It's called Sit, Walk, Stand, and it's going through the book of Ephesians, and his main point to start is that freedom starts from a resting position, from a seated position. It's called sit, walk, stand, and he takes it from this verse in Ephesians, Ephesians chapter 2. Uh, and I'll start with verse 4. Ephesians 2, and this is verse 4. He says, But God, who is rich in mercy because of his great love with which he loved us, even we were, even when we were dead in trespasses, made us alive together with Christ, by grace you have been saved, and raised us up together and made us sit together in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus. So he made us alive, he is seated at the right hand of God, we are seated with him. So, gospel freedom, the gospel, it starts with rest. We cannot walk until we first rest, we cannot stand until we first rest. And I mean, in my life, that was certainly true. I was trying, I was striving, unlike you, Justin, who you had it from the beginning. No, I mean, do you do you resonate with this idea that like when rest came in that something just kind of opened up for you?
SPEAKER_11:Oh, I absolutely. I think so many of us have been taught that you've got to earn rest. I was literally on Instagram recently, and and a quite large uh internet pastor type was talking about his interaction, interviewing new church interns, and they would ask questions like, Well, what about the Sabbath and things like that? And he was going on some rant, and I was I don't know why he was so uh excited and animated about the subject, but the line kept coming, he's like, You haven't earned the Sabbath yet. And the idea was like when you're in your 20s, you gotta be hustling. And then after you've been hustling and hustling and hustling, then maybe it makes sense to talk about the Sabbath. And it it just sounded so bizarre. And I think I understand the point that there's a certain amount of industry that's required in order to be successful in life and all that kind of thing. But it was just unfortunate that he used the Sabbath as the way to argue that because when you realize when the Sabbath was given, it was actually the very first experience for Adam and Eve. Uh, God didn't put them to work and then later rewarded them with the Sabbath, but the children of God started at rest. And if there's anything that I know about having new children who don't actually add anything to the family, bottom line. I'm thinking of my child Zeke right now. Start a business, Zeke. The only thing that he adds to my family is human excrement and crying. It's not a lot of value add. Stop pooping, Zeke. And yet his whole life right now begins at rest. And so I think that there's there's something there, and I'm obviously making a point kind of metaphorically, but the idea is this is that that that life in the gospel actually, I do think, begins at rest. We recognize that God did all the work in six days and rested on the seventh day. Isn't that a stretch that Adam's first day was actually rest? I I think that there's something there. Uh I think that there's something there. That that when we receive the gospel, it's because we realize Jesus did the work, so we start at rest. Do you have Hebrews hook four open right there? I have Hebrews. No, I can pull it up though. Hebrews chapter four.
SPEAKER_02:Why don't you go ahead and read for us Hebrews chapter four and maybe verse 10 and 11? Because this is what we were discussing this morning, and uh, and what we're about to talk about.
SPEAKER_11:How about I start at eight? It says, For if Joshua had given them rest, God would not have spoken of another day later on. And so then there remains a Sabbath rest for the people of God, for whoever has entered God's rest has also rested from his works as God did from his. So let us therefore strive to enter that rest so that no one may fall by the same sort of disobedience.
SPEAKER_02:That's awesome. And so, what we're gonna talk about this afternoon, we're gonna bring uh several people up. Uh who's gonna come up? We'll find out. I don't know. We're gonna they're gonna come up and they're gonna talk about an area where God has shown them rest.
SPEAKER_12:Okay. Um, my name is Reese Andrizak. I'm from Rockford, Michigan. And I guess an area of life, well, it's more like where haven't I found rest in Christ? But the biggest thing for me, I think, is I found rest from my old life, from my old ways and who I used to be.
SPEAKER_02:Tell us more.
SPEAKER_12:So I wasn't raised in a very religious home. I was it was kind of the family where like we'd maybe go to church on like Christmas or Easter, like once a year, and just kind of get it out of the way and then go about our lives. And uh in my early teens, I dealt with anorexia. And ultimately I came to Christ after hearing the gospel. And when I heard that message for the first time about how Christ died for us and then he rose again and defeated sin so that we didn't have to deal with that anymore, we didn't have to carry that burden anymore, and we could be a new creation in him by receiving his Holy Spirit. I was just blown away by that message, and the amount of love that I felt, the amount of power in that was something I can't even begin to describe in a way that would accurately portray just how impactful that message was to me. And from that moment on, I realized I couldn't throw away my life that he had died to save. So my life had a whole new meaning. My life had a purpose, and there was no more old me, no more burden of carrying that sin and that mental illness and just everything I was dealing with. I could let it all go and live my life for Christ instead. And I found just so much it it's rest, but it's like energetic rest where I'm like so content, so happy, so joyful just to be serving him and loving him and to be free from the sin that once almost destroyed me.
SPEAKER_11:I mean, that that is absolutely powerful. And I just think how rest is a contrast for striving and work and trying to accomplish something. And and maybe for some of us uh who don't have an experience with anorexia, uh, maybe you can help us understand. What do you think that you turned to anorexia in order for you to be able to strive towards or work towards? What was the the underlying thing that maybe you felt was missing that the gospel helped you to realize that you you had?
SPEAKER_12:So I'm a bit of a control freak, and I think to some extent we all like to think we can control things that we can't.
SPEAKER_02:You you guys can't control things? Just you? Yeah, I got it. I got it.
SPEAKER_12:Yeah, so I feel like you know, I felt so out of control with different things in my life, and I felt like if I could control my body, if I could control my food intake, if I could do that, then maybe everything else would fall into place. And I just it was just all I had all these rules for myself. I I struggle with OCD. So all these rituals, rules, all of it centered around my diet, my body, my body image, the food I was eating, and just kind of recognizing that that's not what life was about. And doing those things wasn't actually going to give me the fulfillment I was seeking for because I can only find that in my redeemer.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, the the funny thing about that control thing, and this is so much a thing, it's like I have control issues, is really I just have issues because nobody has any kind of control. There's like this fake control and this trying and striving, and like we think, oh, life is supposed to work a certain way. And if it doesn't work that certain way, then we're then we we get tight, we get anxious, and we try to somehow mentally make it happen, but that just causes suffering, right? It just causes pain. And so when you realize I actually have no control, but God loves me and has given me all of this. How did you how did you drop that control?
SPEAKER_12:I I will admit I still fall short every day. There are definitely moments when I still desire that control and I want that, but now I'm able to recognize when I'm having those feelings and know that hey, I'm not the one in control. Right. And that's okay because he holds my life in his hands and he knows the number of my days, he knows what I need, and he will always provide for me, and I don't need to strive to take over everything and to try to run things my own way, because you know, if if you look at it, I'm just a girl in a tiny speck in the universe, and he's the one who created the whole universe and knows everything. I'm pretty sure he knows how to handle my life better than I do because he can see all that, and I'm just I'm just here and I don't know everything. So yeah, I just being able to recognize when I'm tempted to worry and to be able to surrender those thoughts and to be able to say that everything's gonna be okay is that's it brings a lot of peace.
SPEAKER_11:Yeah, when when you don't know that God is for you, not against you, that he's working everything together for your good. Uh and if you don't, then no one else will. Then yeah, it makes sense to strive for control in every area of your life. But when you realize that God is actually better than advertised, that he truly does love you and he has given the world for you, then yeah, I think that it makes sense. We can actually take a sigh of relief, we can arrest because he's in control.
SPEAKER_12:Yeah, he'll make everything work out all for our good and for his glory.
SPEAKER_02:And it's just and I think it's awesome that I know you're living in freedom and you're walking this out. And if a thought comes up that I want to control this thing, if you realize that that's happening and you don't, it's not just happening to you, you're that's a beautiful moment to be able to release that and say, Yeah, God is actually in control. I am a spec on this planet spinning in the middle of nowhere, and yet God put me here because He loves me and He is actually in control. I don't, I can't, I don't have control, and I don't need to have control.
SPEAKER_12:Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:Awesome. Thanks so much.
SPEAKER_12:Thanks so much for a round of applause. Thank you guys.
SPEAKER_10:Good job, thank you.
SPEAKER_02:All right, man, that was uh that was deep stuff right there. Control that that issue comes up so much. Who uh who else has something that God has given them rest from? Okay, Enoch. Everybody give Enoch a hand. Yeah, he's coming up. I knew you would be number two, you know.
SPEAKER_00:I'm not sure how that worked out in such an amazing way, because about four seconds before you spoke, God said, Okay, you'll be next. And I was like, Okay, I guess I can, you know, let me just sit here a second because I'm kind of in this zone, but that's fine, because I like how God often sends the same message to multiple people. Oh, because you know how you're in a conversation and you think a thought, but you don't say it, and then the next person speaks the very same thought. You know, that's kind of like that transmission. So, what I was gonna say is God has given me rest from loneliness. Oh, wow. Because loneliness is a state of anguish where you think about all the people that aren't in your contact list, and you think about all the hugs that you would be receiving, but you're not, because you never bothered to make those friends. Because, you know, you were home either doing some kind of addiction on the south side, or because you were trying to overcome sin by yourself, being your own savior on the north side. And either of those ditches don't work, and I've been in both, so I know. So this morning I was thinking, you know, as my whole being is thawing out from the loneliness which I do experience where I live, and that is God knows I need people, so he plans for me to have people to connect to ahead of time, to inspire me with the gospel. And he knows when I need time to myself, and my faith is because God is good, he's planning for me when I can't plan for myself, or when I feel lonely enough that I can't plan for myself. And sometimes he lets me suffer pain, like all of us, to say, hey, this earth isn't perfect, you know. If you're married and your wife is out shopping and she's delayed getting back, and you miss her, you know, that pain is like, oh, I love her, therefore I feel pain until she returns. You know, just like I feel pain until Jesus returns, or until all of us, you know, in this community are fully awakened to the us, you know, Jesus died to bring back to activation, you know. So my rest from loneliness is I know that Jesus died to give me community and joy with life-giving people, and he keeps bringing it to me as I need it. And when I have times and I'm alone, I can rest knowing that God is taking care of the next event for me and healing my mind so that I have that memory of the joy that I had with the people that are bringing me such joy and connection.
SPEAKER_02:Man, I I love that, Enoch, and I think of loneliness a lot of it is our mindset. Um, because there's plenty of times that we're alone, but we're not lonely. Like we want to be alone, for example. Like Jesus was alone so much of the time, and like he goes gets up early in the morning, he goes to be with his father. He's not alone, he's he doesn't have a human with him, but and he's alone, but he wasn't lonely. And then there's this one part where he goes to pray and he brings the homies with him, and they fall asleep, and he's like, Yo, where were you guys? Because and in that moment he he needed it. And it seems like in your life, like I've known you for a few years now, like I he you go to Europe by yourself, and yet your mindset is no longer I'm completely alone, or you might be alone, but it's not I'm lonely, because you have like you don't operate from this lack mentality anymore, where you're alone some of the time, and yet you're not lonely. Do you do you even feel that like when you're alone, you no longer have this mindset of lack that you're like, I don't have like when I hear your story of what you used to live in, and it was just loneliness, even when you were around people, you were lonely. Does that make sense?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, yeah. I'm at a point where when I am by myself, I know that God's with me, and I feel his presence basically continually because I know that he's love. Then I'm traveling overseas because I know that all humans are this family of God. There is creation when I'm around anybody at the Qatari airport with the guys who are looking through my passport so leisurely in this big stack while the time is checking until my flight leaves. And then I get through passport security two minutes before the door of my plane is supposed to close, and I have half a mile to walk and somehow I make it. I don't feel lonely because I have these people around me who are also God's kids. Therefore, everybody who I meet everywhere on earth, whether they speak my language or not, feels like family to me. That's the change in my head. When before I was at a point where I didn't feel like family with my own parents and my own house, that was my low point. And now this is the high point where the whole earth feels like family to me. It doesn't matter, you know, which room you came out of, you know, my brother and my sister exactly the same way as if you're born to my mother, you know. Because we're one family. We used to be eight people off the ark, and always multiplied, but we're still all related, and it's just like so wonderful, you know.
SPEAKER_02:And that's beautiful.
SPEAKER_00:I love it. Thank you so much, Enoch. Appreciate it.
SPEAKER_02:Let's give Enoch a round of applause. Thank you, my man. All right, where has God given you rest? Zachariah. Let's go. Come on down.
SPEAKER_11:We had Enoch, we had Zachariah, we're doing all right over here.
SPEAKER_02:We're doing all right.
SPEAKER_11:We're gonna have Ezekiel and Obadiah next, you know what I'm saying?
SPEAKER_07:We're just gonna have a line of prophets. Yeah, who are you?
SPEAKER_02:Tell us who you are, where you're from.
SPEAKER_07:Yeah, uh, well, my name is Zachariah Eastland. Um, Albuquerque, New Mexico, um, a way out far from Michigan. So, um, but no, to answer your question as far as you know, where you kind of find rest. Uh, for me, initially, it's in a storm. And in that sense, is that a little bit before I just got recently re baptized. I grew up Adventist, got rebaptized. Um, grew up as a kid, there was just a lot of rough stuff that was going on. Um, eventually back in 2023, I went to uh Camp Your Pines in Arizona, and um that's long story short, you know, the kids have a tendency to give someone who has a hard heart a very soft heart. Um, and so I think one of the things with um with what I'm trying to say as far as the storm, um, when I came back home from that point, it was almost as if I was trying to figure out who God was. Um, trying to figure out who I was and all these different things. And when that happened, I kind of stopped going to church. I stopped hanging out with friends. I stopped kind of I kind of isolated myself a little bit, but it was needed. Um with everything that was going on, I would go out on Sabbaths instead of going out to church, I would go grab my dog, we start go off roading. And I know that kind of sounds, you know, odd because it's like we're supposed to be at church, you know, but I would find myself instead of being in a place where it didn't really feel like it was home, the love wasn't really there, I felt like I had that quiet time. God and in that storm of life, it was like life is gonna get crazy, you're gonna have a lot of noise all around. But he's like, Look for me, find me, and I think that's where I find rest, even in that storm.
SPEAKER_11:Wow, so if if I'm hearing clearly, you've been going through difficult times in lives in the past, and maybe the the temptation in that moment is to try and seize control, change all of your circumstances because that's when you find God. And maybe where you're finding rest today is to realize that God is with you even in the middle of the storm. You don't have to get through the storm by yourself to to to overcome it, to subdue it per se, but God is there with you right there in that moment, and so therefore you can actually live with contentment and rest in all seasons of life.
SPEAKER_07:Absolutely, yeah. And I think in that it kind of brings it back to the story in uh I think it's 1 Kings, uh, where like it's talking about um so there's a great earthquake, and then there was a fire, then there was a wind, and like everybody's like, okay, that's God's voice. And it was like, no, and then it was like then there's a storm, and it was like that was that had to be God's voice, and it was like, no, like it was essentially saying calm down, slow down, and like at the end, what did you hear? A still small voice, and it's like in all of that storm, still looking for that still small voice is where it's at.
SPEAKER_02:Amen, man. Thank you so much for sharing that with us. Love it. Let's give him a hand of round of applause. Thanks. You ready? Yeah, of course you are. Everybody give Anna a round of applause. We want to hear it. Let's talk about it. Rest.
SPEAKER_05:Okay, so when you're saying rest, I first just thought about um Hold on.
SPEAKER_02:This is Anna. Anna, where are you from?
SPEAKER_05:Michigan.
SPEAKER_02:Anna from Michigan. Tell us tell us some more, Anna.
SPEAKER_05:Okay. So I first just was thinking about just rest from opinions of other people. Because a lot of times when we're getting a new revelation or something new, it doesn't always align with our whole community. It doesn't align with maybe what people are thinking around us. And that happens a lot in scripture. You know, people that are getting, you know, a word. Not everyone's like, oh yeah, well, we need to listen to God too. And for me, that was basically um getting a divorce. It was a very difficult, hard journey for me because I connected that marriage was higher than um God's viewpoint of me as a person. And so being in an abusive situation, it didn't really even matter. My marriage was what was number one, not even my own safety, my children's safety, or anything like that. So for me, it was like it wasn't just like me thinking that, it was my community that thought that as well, because they had a very strict view on marriage. And so I was learning to find rest and peace with realizing that um I needed to move forward because the pressure keep kept on coming on me, and it was coming on really, really hard. I was 18 years in abuse, and it's 18 years for me to finally just like let go and be in rest with God and not care uh so much about what other people were thinking. I know people in this room have been, um, you know, Enoch and Keith, they were there with me in some of the beginning stages of all the struggle because my thing I was thinking is, well, what if like God was gonna be mad at me? Like, if I did this terrible thing, like remove myself from being with my abuser who is called my husband. And so it was very hard because of religious like things, and just resting in the fact that I lost friends, I lost family, I lost a church, I lost community, and then finding my rest in um just slowly but surely, small um steps of safe people, like testing people, like testing them the safe. Sometimes when you get in situations, you just start telling everyone everything, and that is also another thing learning that like you need to start discerning who is a safe person to talk to, how much you say, and things like that. But the rest really did come when it was like I'm a daughter of the most high, and he cares more about me than my marriage, he cares more about my children um than my marriage. So that was like one of my rest journeys.
SPEAKER_11:That's powerful. I I used to wrestle with why do I care? Like, what why does people's opinions of me register so high on what I care about? Um, as it because I don't know, I think in in 2025, going into 2026, it's like, well, well, who cares? That's a stranger on the internet. If they say negative things about me, whatever, or uh, you know, that's just a stranger on the street, whatever the case is. But when you think about it from almost like a socio, kind of maybe evolutionary perspective, when we were smaller tribes, uh, to be outcast from society, like social opinion, mattered a lot. To be out of the tribe, so to speak, meant that, well, you likely were going to die. And so I I think that there's there's reasons as to why our body responds so strongly against the thought of being uh thought differently or cast out of the social group. Um, and and so really what's at play here is a certain level of trusting in the society to keep and protect and to sustain us. And this is perhaps an opportunity for us to really place our trust in the right place, which is we don't trust in man, we don't trust in uh our community per se, but ultimately our trust lies in the Lord. So that if the Lord has a positive regard towards us and he says, This is my beloved son, this is my beloved daughter in whom I'm well pleased, then that can supersede all other deviant opinions that that people may or may not have of us and allow us to experience rest when people maybe don't understand all the time.
SPEAKER_05:Yeah, exactly.
SPEAKER_02:Thank you so much for sharing your heart, Anna. Let's give her a round of applause. All right. Frank, you're up, my man.
SPEAKER_01:Thank you.
SPEAKER_02:What's up, y'all? Hey Frank, tell us, Frank. Rest, talk to us.
SPEAKER_01:When I think about rest in my life, it's from stress, anxiety, depression, feelings of insecurity in terms of my walk with God, my relationship with God. I used to be obsessed and super fearful with the idea that one day Jesus was going to look at me and say, Depart from me, I never knew you. And I thought this because of my sin and my life and my mistakes and my shortcomings, and I could not stop doing a lot of things in my life, you know, pornography and lots of different things like that. And because of that, I felt that God was gonna tell me, Depart from me, I never knew you. And when I finally found rest in the gospel, I learned that I was forgiven 2,000 years ago when Jesus died on the cross.
SPEAKER_02:Let's go.
SPEAKER_01:That I didn't have to keep begging him. I used to live in this cycle of I'm only forgiven until I sin again. As soon as I sin again, I'm unforgiven, and now I've got to beg God, Lord, please forgive me. I am so sorry. And then I'm forgiven in that moment, and then as soon as I sin again, cycle starts all over again. And I used to struggle a lot with that. But after the gospel and after some years of really just choosing to believe that this is who I am in Christ, I I don't struggle with anxiety, stress. I used to literally be in a state of anxiety almost all day, every single day. Mercy. And it took a toll on my life. I I was really messed up mentally. But I had a friend recently, there's some things that's happened in my life this year, and my friend asked me, He's like, Are you okay? Are you facing any depression? I said, Dude, God forbid, I experienced depression. Like, I have not experienced that and I don't know how long. Like these things, like, yeah, I might have moments of depression, moments of anxiety, but they do not last anymore because I know I am my father's son and he loves me and I am completely free in him.
SPEAKER_02:Man, so when those moments come up, when you feel that old feeling of depression, because you know what that feels like because you lived it, what do you do?
SPEAKER_01:I I claim the promises that I am uh whom the sun sets free as free indeed. I I believe who I am in Christ, and I just tell that thought to kick rocks, so to speak. And I just choose to live as the person that Jesus says that I am.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, some people don't think that they have the option to do that.
SPEAKER_01:Oh, I know that I know the truth now, so I know what to do about those things. Before, when I would face them, I would just live with them, not knowing what to do about them. But now I'm living from a place of knowing what to do, and I don't have to let that last. It can come, but it's gonna go just as quick as it came.
SPEAKER_02:Man, that's a word. Thank you so much, Frank. Appreciate you. Thanks for your time. All right. Next up, we have Esme. Esme is gonna come up and tell us about rest. She's looking at me like she's mad at me now, maybe. That's the mic right there. Uh tell us who you are and where you're from. And we love you, so don't be mad at it.
SPEAKER_08:Me too. Hi guys, I'm Esmeralda. I'm from California, but currently living in Michigan. Um, rest. I think for me, the Lord has been teaching me to rest from having all the right answers.
SPEAKER_02:Mercy.
SPEAKER_08:Like theologically speaking, too.
SPEAKER_02:Oh, mercy. No, we gotta have all of them right, or we're not getting in.
SPEAKER_08:Yeah. So not that I'm not getting in, but that like, oh, I don't want to be led astray. Like, I don't want to be confused, I don't want to fall into deceptive teachings. So that has that was something that I struggled with, just kind of growing up differently, like Catholic, Pentecostal, Adventist, and then having like these thoughts of like, wait, is this the right way to like is the Sabbath, you know, like questions about the Sabbath, questions about the way to worship, or just other things like doctrines, getting really into like I need to know because I kind of like, what am I? And uh, am I a Seventh-day Adventist? Am I a charismatic? I don't know. Um, but I think lately, like definitely within the past year, I want to say, like, God has been reminding me, like, you don't have to label yourself because he doesn't label me, like, he labels me as his daughter, and that's it.
SPEAKER_02:So, man, we just uh we were going through this book club uh on Wednesdays, and we were reading this book called Lamb of the Free, and it's all about the sacrificial system. And my buddies like to show me or tell me that I don't know very much anyway, and but this book was just like, you know, nothing about this subject, and then if you go deep on the internet, there's 15 different arguments and 15 different like atonement models, and you can go on a on a rabbit trail and you realize, yo, this thing is crazy deep, like just theology in general, and you realize how much of it you kind of just understand and grasp, right? And if if the answer is like we have to have it all right, I mean, is there anyone who has it all right? And we're not even gonna know until a certain time.
SPEAKER_11:Like, how do you do that? How do you deal with that? Imagine my son thinking he has to understand how I pay my taxes in order for him to be loved by me. I I don't even understand my own taxes, right? But I but I pay them because I love him, right? Like I go to work and then I earn money and then I spend it in a way that will bless my child because that the aim of all that energy is that my son's life would be enriched. I give my energy, my time, my attention so that his life would be better, period. And then so now to ask the question, which there's probably some truth somewhere along the, you know, it's probably important that I figure out how I'm paying my taxes and all that, but for him to think that he needs to understand how all the money works and how the job works is kind of missing the point, don't you think? Wouldn't it be better for my son just to be able to live life as my son without having to worry about all the legalities and how I do the books, etc., etc., etc. Wouldn't it be just good for him to be my son who is loved?
SPEAKER_03:Yes.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, so like when it comes down to it, you know, we preach these things uh at Love Reality because we think, like, so much of the time these things have gotten in the way. There are obstacles of us being able to be son, right? Like if we're talking about our intent, I was talking to Jonathan last week and he was like, My intent is to live as a son every single day. I just want to live as a son. I'm like, man, that's it. We like to keep our mindset on like this is how I'm going to live. How do you decide all the things that you have to know? Like, how did you come to like this realization, like, oh, maybe I just need to know that I'm loved?
SPEAKER_08:Well, so there's this emphasis on like truth, right? Like, what's the truth? And um, I think like one day Jesus was like, I am the way, the truth, and the life. Like the only truth that I need to have like solid is the gospel, Jesus Christ, dead, buried, and resurrected. Like Christ and Him crucified, and what that means for me now and this new life that I now live. So he's the truth, and I don't like whatever. If he wants to uh uh along my walk, like lead me further into something, you know, like different. Yeah, like great. But like I'm not in a rush to like, no, I have to know, like, you know, I don't have to know everything. He'll I'm patient, he's patient with me.
SPEAKER_11:So man, Esme, always daughter, love it. Yes, is that the name of her episode, too? I don't know, was it?
SPEAKER_08:No, but thank you for that affirmation from the Lord.
SPEAKER_02:All right, thank you, Esme.
SPEAKER_08:Thank you.
SPEAKER_02:All right, all right, Floyd's up next. Everybody give Floyd a round of applause. Yeah, Floyd, talk about rest, and you've been sleeping over there, so we gotta wake you up from your rest.
SPEAKER_10:I love all weekend long. That's been Richard's go-to jokes. Oh, Floyd's already fallen asleep twice. Do you know where the joke comes from? We're having a podcast.
unknown:Yeah.
SPEAKER_10:Exactly. There was one time during the internet stream. A few years ago, right? Several years ago.
SPEAKER_11:Uh I I think he he did that thing where he's fishing for someone to call out in a Bible study or something, and he called on you, and then you were sitting in your chair past.
SPEAKER_10:And I was like, everybody take a screenshot and send it to Floyd. Well, we're glad that you're here, Floyd.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, tell us about rest. What has uh God shown you about rest in freedom?
SPEAKER_06:Well, yeah, I've heard the sermons, I've read the scriptures my entire life, and I still had the question, you know, what is in the world is this talking about? And a few years ago I was impressed to uh unpack the whole book of Hebrews. Yeah. Just go for Hebrews. And I actually, I think, preached every day for a week twice on that whole topic. So when I got to chapter four, and I'm asking the question, so what is this actually about? And uh and I got to ch verse ten and I just got stuck, and I said, I'm not leaving this verse until you show me what this means. So it makes sense. Because if this whole thing is about rest and I still don't know what it means, there's no point in going to the rest of the book. And so I did a deep dive in there, and the outcome out the other end really surprised me, but also greatly relieved me because what I what I took from that verse, based on Genesis and the creation account, the reason that God rested on the Sabbath day is to be the same reason that I rest. Why why didn't God rest? That was the question. Why did God rest?
SPEAKER_11:This is me trying to help you.
SPEAKER_06:That's what I was asking. Because obviously he wasn't tired, didn't get tired. Um it just says he was finished and he rested. And I and I said, wait, there's a context here. And I believe there's a backstory that unpacks why God created because the question is not why did he rest, but why did he work? Because if you're gonna rest, well, you must have been working. If you're working, why were you working? Because you're gonna stop working for to rest. Sure. So I need to know why he was working, why was he creating? And I don't think he was just got in the mood one day and woke up and said, I'll create one. And as I thought about it, I realized there was a war going on, and the war was over God's reputation. And if you've ever been slandered, you know that you can't defend yourself. Um you have to the evidence has to defend you. You can't just say, oh, they're wrong. And that's where I believe he found himself. And so a lot of the slander against him was abuse of power, which we're quite familiar with. In fact, most of us probably come from a place of believing the same thing about God that he tends to be a power abuser. I know I grew up that way. So, how do you how do you overcome that kind of accusation? Well, you demonstrate how he uses power without abusing it. And so he comes to a place where Genesis 1 said it's chaos, complete chaos and darkness. Interesting because first John says God is light and there's no darkness in him. And yet there's nothing but darkness and chaos, but it says, But the spirit was still brooding over this chaos and darkness, like just waiting to do something, which started resonating with my life. It's like, wow, the spirit's been here all the time, just waiting. And then as soon as God starts saying things, they all happen. Which just a few days ago really hit me again because I realized the very first chapter of the Bible is over and over and over. God says, and it's true. It literally actualizes because he says so. So it's demonstrating his power, but never in an abusive way, never violating, never forcing, never crushing or destroying. It's always life giving. It's bringing beauty and organization and harmony and joy out of chaos and darkness. And then well, why is he doing this? Because there's a whole universe who have all these questions, just like we do, about can God be trusted? Can he not be? Is he, you know, how does he use power? And so he's presenting evidence of how he uses power, what we would call in a jury situation. So everybody's a jury, and so he demonstrates how he brings beauty out of disorder. But the most powerful thing is, because especially from our viewpoint and our so-called ideas of justice, if you win your case, now what do you do with the accuser? And in our mindset, well, if the accuser lost, then he needs to be prosecuted, he needs to be punished for all the slander. But God rests his case and rest. And he does nothing to the accuser. But he provides enough and then he stops. So I begin to see in that illustration that what the kind of rest that he rested is leaving everyone free to choose to believe whatever they want to believe with no threat of recrimination. No threat of anything. So if that's the kind of rest that Hebrews 4 is calling me to enter into, which is very different than what I thought previously, then what am I going to rest from and who am I going to leave free? And then it really hit me because I realized that my whole life, all this dysfunction and all this effort to get God's favor, or to avoid punishment, or all these things were actually just attempts to convince God to love me or to accept me, or to give me favor. And now he's saying, You never needed to convince me of that because I never thought what you thought I thought.
SPEAKER_11:So so the thing that God has given you rest from is the need to prove yourself worthy of love. Yes. That's powerful.
SPEAKER_06:And to leave God free to believe that he loves me without me trying to convince him. And that was such a relief to me. And if that is the reason for the Sabbath, is to celebrate that God can love me if he wants to, and I'm not going to argue with him.
SPEAKER_10:Sounds like a good day. Yeah. What a day. Amen. I love it. I love it. Thank you so much for that. Thank you, Floyd.
SPEAKER_02:I talked to Floyd uh probably once a week, and I was like, What'd you do this Sabbath? He's like, I went to a park and talked to people about how God loves him. I'm like, that's a good thing. That's a dope way to experience the Sabbath. All right, who's next? We have maybe one or two more. All right, yeah, come on down. Who are you? Where are you from? What's your quest?
SPEAKER_13:That's funny. Um, I'm Lisette Eastlin. Um, I'm from El Paso, Texas, and I live in Barry and Springs at the moment.
SPEAKER_02:Okay. Talk to Springs, represent yeah, the BS, the Springs. Uh yeah, what has God given you rest from as you've walked into this gospel?
SPEAKER_13:Um as I was just reflecting, not even to just like chat on here, but just I was like, Lord, like what have you given me rest from? And honestly, what I can say is rest from seeking to be loved, but also seeking to like people please, which I feel like is something that we don't always think about. Um, and it's uh it's something so easy to fall into that we don't think we need rest from.
SPEAKER_11:What what do you think you were doing? Thank you for that. What what do you think you were doing in an attempt to get people's to do the people pleasing? Like what were what what were you turning to? What did you think would earn their happiness or joy or whatever?
SPEAKER_13:Yeah, I think that's such a good question. I think one of the lies that were told is like if you can be accommodating, um, like people will love you, you know? And so I definitely would see like I love to make people happy, but it became this warped kind of practice.
SPEAKER_02:Because it's actually manipulation.
SPEAKER_13:Yeah, exactly. It's like, well, I'll do this for you in hopes that you'll love me. I'll do this for you in hopes that you'll strings attached, yeah. Yeah, exactly. And so while it can seem of wow, you're so kind, you're so generous, it's something that I think the devil can use of like, see, and if you don't do that, they won't love you. And if you don't do that, you're not a child of God. So yeah.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, you can't really do anything for anybody from a sincere heart unless you're loved by God.
SPEAKER_13:Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:Because in other ways, you're just trying to manipulate them to love you back. So um, this whole thing of people pleasing, we're like, oh, I have a problem with people. You have a pro it's it's actually self-centeredness. It's like people please, like, I'm gonna do this nice thing so I can be okay because you like me. But now it sounds like you're okay.
SPEAKER_13:Yeah, and I not I will say that I am okay and like affirm because of that in Christ, but it's definitely a practice that me and the Lord like still work on. And I think when I have an inclination to give of myself, I have I'm reminded that it's like it's not yourself that they need, it's me that they need. And it's most of all, it's me that you need. And so out of that abundance, then go and share that. But if it's not from the Father, it's it's meaningless, it's empty. And I I know in my life, I it has run me empty and it has run other people on empty as well.
SPEAKER_11:I I'm really curious to see if you relate to this idea. Um, when I would read the gospels, uh, when I would understand what great gifts God has given me, some some like let's take patience, for example. When I realized that because the spirit dwelt inside of me that I was actually a patient man, um, I often retreated and kind of like undercut that gospel truth by saying, but you know what, I'm I'm I'm still practicing it, like I'm still working on it, right? And and in my mind, it was a way of saying, like, I do have it, and uh, and it was an honest attempt at faith, like I have this thing, but also I don't really, and so like I gotta work on it kind of a thing. And I I think about like you know, it's almost t ball season in California, uh, and I'm thinking about signing my son up for T-ball.
SPEAKER_03:Oh, that's so cute.
SPEAKER_11:And uh, like the idea is like, oh cool, he's on a team, right? And then he goes to practice. I would never use the notion of practice as a way to undercut or soft-sell the fact that he's on a team. In fact, the the the very the very idea that he shows up to practice is evidence of being on the team. Yeah, and so so this is a really like long way of saying I wonder if you relate to the idea of uh uh undercutting gospel declarations of who we are, like I like you're actually loved, you don't have to earn any of this kind of stuff. Oh, but then sometimes I gotta practice it. And and what if, like, hold on, what if practicing was actually part of the evidence?
SPEAKER_13:Yeah, no, and I think that's true. I I that's such a good point. And even when we wrestle in that, that's the Holy Spirit already in you, already working.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, so I totally spiritual work to practice it, and we're spiritual people, and so we continue to like maybe we're thinking, oh, I'll I'll never ever have a self-centered thought again. But if you don't have a self-centered thought, then you can't practice putting it off. Like it's just like you're just in this bubble. No, like this is the real spiritual work, and when those thoughts come up, that's the deepest, like that's when you get to do it. And so, like, sign up for it, get to do it. You get to go to practice, you're a part of the team, and that's the beautiful thing, right?
SPEAKER_13:Yeah, yeah, definitely.
SPEAKER_02:Love it. Thank you so much.
SPEAKER_13:Yeah, of course.
SPEAKER_02:Give her a round of applause. All right, we're gonna do one more. Oh, there he is, Luigi. Come on up, man. One more, my man. Is that a Forrest Frank shirt? Let's go. That's my guy. We saw him in concert this year, it was dope. Yeah, yeah. He he actually gave it to me. No, he didn't.
SPEAKER_09:You met Forrest? Well, not with like a t-shirt cannon. Not really.
SPEAKER_10:He gave it to me personally.
SPEAKER_09:No, I went to his concert and he was just throwing shirts in.
SPEAKER_02:No, man, tell it next time tell the story is like, yeah, we dapped him up. He was cool.
SPEAKER_09:Oh, yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_02:So, yeah, what is he what is God giving you rest in or showing you rest in?
SPEAKER_09:Yeah, um, I was meditating, reflecting on um and yeah, I believe that God gave me rest on my identity. I um three years ago, almost three years ago, I I was going through something that I felt like I lost my identity. And even though like I kind of knew, like, okay, like I'm a child of God, like um, He calls me holy, righteous, like those things weren't really like doing something in me. And I started like reading books, started reading the epistles again, started watching like a lot of uh sermons uh on the Bible app, like I will download like um like the devotionals about identity. And it was until I came across this sermon where this uh pastor started talking about Matthew 16, and where like Jesus asked the question of like, Who do other people say that I am? And then Peter like takes a step forward and he's like, You're the Messiah, you're the son of God. And at that moment, Jesus tells him, like, hey, like now your name is no longer Simon, but it's gonna be Peter. So Peter got his identity when he knew who Christ was, and so that like that told me, like, hey, like, I need to stop focusing so much on myself and focus like who is the Lord. And so now I'm like reading the epistles in a different lens where I'm like, okay, like I'm reading this, so what is this telling me about God? What is this uh telling me about the character of Jesus Christ? So that gave me so much rest, and like, okay, I'm gonna stop focusing on like my identity and focus on his identity.
SPEAKER_02:Self-centeredness is suffering, you know what I'm saying? Like, if our lives are so focused on even trying to get out of sin, like sin consciousness, like that is just complete suffering because as we've said before, you don't break out of sin. God sets you free from sin, right? And so, as you what does he say, seek ye first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added unto you. Like when we get our head out and we're not constantly just considering ourselves, because I don't know if you guys have been there, I've been there. Thinking about yourself and your life nonstop, it is it's not fruitful, it brings just fear, like oh wanna, wanna, but then when you focus like what you were saying on who Christ is, yeah, he is the son of man, he is the son of God, he is alive. All that stuff kind of gets cleaned up, and so it's it's what is our consciousness on? Is it on what I'm like what I think is so important, or like where my life is in Christ with God, right?
SPEAKER_09:Yeah, and and then you start believing what he says about you now, because like now that you know more about his identity, now when he calls you, okay, you're you're my child, you're righteous, like it is like now you understand it more. You're like, okay, like okay, it's coming from him.
SPEAKER_11:If if some random dude on the street, you know, disheveled look or whatever, is like, hey, you're the man, it's kind of like oh, all right, go. Thanks, man. Like you're almost feeling like insulted because the guy's just like you know, uh teasing you almost. But when someone who's of note, someone who's got status, someone who's got uh a bit more trust behind them, when they say something, we actually believe it more. So when God, the creator of heaven and earth, uh the Lord of the universe, calls us something, it puts puts a little bit of uh uh a little pep in our step, yeah? Yeah, yeah, and yeah, it's good.
SPEAKER_02:And so from that, you're able when you look back at yourself, did you even look back at yourself or how how did you move forward?
SPEAKER_09:Yeah, um, I think I started like um seeing, okay, like I don't think my identity never changed. Yeah. Uh even though like I was uh I was thinking, okay, I'm just this horrible person, but since God's identity never changes, so I just started thinking and believing that what he said about me doesn't change, just even though like I might think that it's it's not like that. So and then from there on I just started believing more on like uh on his worth. That's beautiful.
SPEAKER_02:Thank you so much, Luigi, and thank you guys so much. What is this number four that we've done live or something like that? I don't know. It's been sure, but they're all good. If anyone doesn't like these episodes that says more about you than us, uh yeah, and so we'll do this again. Maybe we'll do it in California, maybe we'll do it again. But thank you guys for listening. Love you guys and appreciate y'all. Bye.