WEBVTT 00:00:04.310 --> 00:00:04.612 Here we go. 00:00:04.612 --> 00:00:17.471 I'm sorry I have to use this I'd much rather not, but it's great to see some I won't say old faces that's not very nice, but faces I've seen before and some new faces. 00:00:17.471 --> 00:00:19.864 Brent just here. 00:00:19.864 --> 00:00:35.189 If you want to know the difference between Brent's personality and mine, this is Brent's wallet and this is my wallet, and I just feel like that says everything right there. 00:00:35.189 --> 00:00:47.606 This is how we're different from one another, but the truth is, this is what I need in my life and yeah, that's right. 00:00:51.661 --> 00:01:07.731 I wasn't going to go there, but Brent and I have been very good friends for a long time and for lots of reasons, but one of them is I just need him in my life. 00:01:07.731 --> 00:01:16.171 I'm quite a linear kind of person, but what I value are deeply relational things. 00:01:16.171 --> 00:01:49.125 So I've needed Brent in my life to keep reminding me about what's true and really to have somebody to live it out with, that approaches the same things from a different perspective, and I'm so grateful for his friendship, for his leadership in my life, and that we've been able to journey through all of our mistakes and messes and just come out the other side not just appreciating each other, but still being able to pull in the same direction. 00:01:49.125 --> 00:01:51.852 I just think is a huge gift to me. 00:01:51.852 --> 00:01:54.686 So, brent, thank you so much for your friendship. 00:01:54.686 --> 00:01:56.049 It means a lot to me. 00:01:56.049 --> 00:02:03.631 I was expecting to just have a conversation with a few people, so I'm hoping that that can still be true. 00:02:03.631 --> 00:02:10.769 I have a couple stories, a couple thoughts, but I'm really more interested in us talking about these things together. 00:02:15.480 --> 00:02:19.491 A number of years ago now, we had a woman come from mainland China. 00:02:19.491 --> 00:02:21.865 I'm from Vancouver. 00:02:21.865 --> 00:02:28.109 She came to Summit Fraser University, came to Christ there and became a campus missionary in our church. 00:02:28.109 --> 00:02:31.967 Jessica, not Gao, not anymore. 00:02:31.967 --> 00:02:40.853 She got married, so she's out on the SFU campus and she's now going to be an evangelist for Jesus. 00:02:40.853 --> 00:02:52.622 And so she comes up to a white dude which was her first problem, anyways, but very different and so she comes up to a white dude, and she comes up to him and she says Jesus loves you. 00:02:52.622 --> 00:02:57.110 And the dude says well, why wouldn't he? 00:02:58.152 --> 00:02:58.353 I mean. 00:02:58.393 --> 00:02:58.973 I'm a great guy. 00:02:58.973 --> 00:03:01.808 What's there not to love? 00:03:01.808 --> 00:03:05.000 And so he just went on a little bit explaining how great he was. 00:03:05.000 --> 00:03:10.632 And then Jessica says well, actually you're a sinner. 00:03:10.632 --> 00:03:16.832 I mean, she's just new, so it's just God's love you and you're a sinner, like within a few minutes. 00:03:17.360 --> 00:03:25.772 But and so this guy says he says, look, what you Christians call sin, I call solutions. 00:03:25.772 --> 00:03:31.366 He says whenever I don't do well at work, I lie. 00:03:31.366 --> 00:03:35.103 He says it works well, all the time I just lie. 00:03:35.103 --> 00:03:37.871 And he says it's served me very well. 00:03:37.871 --> 00:03:43.431 When I'm not feeling very good about myself, I gossip and I feel better. 00:03:43.431 --> 00:03:55.954 And if I'm stressed out, that's when I smoke weed, and if I have, you know, physical desires, that's why I go to the bar and pick up somebody. 00:03:55.954 --> 00:04:01.832 And he says what you Christians call problems, I call solutions. 00:04:01.832 --> 00:04:06.812 And she comes back to our team meeting and she says you know what do I do with this guy? 00:04:06.812 --> 00:04:15.734 I don't know, how do you, how do you even begin to have a journey toward faith and relationship with Christ? 00:04:16.740 --> 00:04:40.413 And so here's something that dawned on us back then and I've been thinking about it for a very long time since then is that gospel solutions require gospel problems, and unless we have the right problem, jesus never really makes sense. 00:04:40.413 --> 00:04:57.531 And so we talk with people about how much God loves them, or they should repent and believe, or those kinds of things, and, at least in my city, it often falls on deaf ears because people really aren't very interested. 00:04:57.531 --> 00:05:02.074 And what we realized is that we had to actually back up the process. 00:05:02.074 --> 00:05:04.000 By the way, it's so great to be in Canada. 00:05:04.000 --> 00:05:06.127 I can say process without people giggling. 00:05:06.127 --> 00:05:10.000 When I'm in the States, it's always process and I think that's very funny. 00:05:10.000 --> 00:05:11.403 They think it's cute. 00:05:11.403 --> 00:05:13.810 When I say process, it annoys me every time. 00:05:13.810 --> 00:05:28.173 But so what we needed to do was to back up the process and say maybe our first responsibility is to give people better problems before they'll receive better solutions. 00:05:28.173 --> 00:05:34.773 And so then the question becomes what's the problem? 00:05:34.773 --> 00:05:44.000 What's the problem that Jesus came to remedy when it says, for God's love, the world, he gave us only something. 00:05:44.000 --> 00:05:46.689 What did the Father give the Son for? 00:05:46.689 --> 00:05:49.244 Like what's going on? 00:05:49.244 --> 00:05:53.951 That would first of all require such a drastic response on God's part. 00:05:53.951 --> 00:06:03.672 And so I find it interesting and maybe you can add to this list what people think their problem is. 00:06:03.672 --> 00:06:18.415 So, and this is just, I'll touch hot buttons just more for the point of conversation than anything else. 00:06:19.321 --> 00:06:27.704 But what I notice lots of people come to Christ for would maybe be under the banner of success that I have, I want to be. 00:06:27.704 --> 00:06:30.129 They can even use Christian language. 00:06:30.129 --> 00:06:50.112 I want to be all that God has called me to be, and so I need the work of the Spirit and Jesus to somehow enable me to become successful, and God kind of, at that point, becomes a resource for their own personal development. 00:06:50.112 --> 00:06:56.382 And so that one doesn't make too much sense to me, although I think it's also true God does. 00:06:56.382 --> 00:07:15.471 I was just listening to a speaker say that he was referencing King David, and somebody comes up and says to David God is going to give you success, success, success, and we're all David's children, and so that's what God wants to give us as well. 00:07:15.471 --> 00:07:28.252 So that's true, so there's truth to it, and so maybe the primary problem I don't think it's the primary problem, but it is a problem would be our personal success. 00:07:30.160 --> 00:07:44.788 Maybe another one in my city it's a super big deal, and it would be called mental health, and so I have a counseling background that I'm incredibly grateful for. 00:07:44.788 --> 00:07:58.009 My mentor is a psychologist, and so I've been steeped in these things for a long time and I really care deeply about this. 00:07:58.009 --> 00:08:12.870 But mental health and we can maybe discuss this if you want to go deeper but mental health is just like one degree off of gospel health, it's just a little different. 00:08:12.870 --> 00:08:39.453 But people will assume that mental health is exactly the same as what Jesus came to bring, and so they'll go on a journey of self-awareness and working through having an image of self and of God and of others that has been refined and perhaps purified by scripture and ministry. 00:08:39.453 --> 00:08:45.873 But that can be a problem that they think is the primary problem that Jesus came to solve. 00:08:45.873 --> 00:08:56.298 And again, we can talk about this because I'm not trying to bash mental health anymore than success, but I don't think it's the core problem. 00:09:00.309 --> 00:09:39.755 And then another one that I've spent many years exploring and have found great personal benefit in would be maybe what could be described as inner healing, slightly similar to mental health, but it was for me an inward journey of finding peace within my soul through deliverance from demonic oppression and forces and finding healing through the power of the Holy Spirit, and those moments for me have been transformational. 00:09:39.755 --> 00:09:42.011 They changed my life. 00:09:42.011 --> 00:09:53.049 But I found that as I minister to people in that kind of vein which, again, I'm trying to emphasize that they're helpful but maybe not the core issue. 00:09:53.049 --> 00:10:04.171 But, as I that people actually ended up chasing after freedom instead of Jesus, and it just was slightly. 00:10:04.171 --> 00:10:15.111 It just went slightly, just slightly off, and then I found that people kept coming back again and again for more and more inner healing and I wondered why it didn't stick. 00:10:15.111 --> 00:10:27.495 And then it got me wondering whether maybe even that wasn't actually the core problem that the gospel came to remedy Again, important, but maybe not the core problem. 00:10:30.004 --> 00:10:48.231 And so I think the core problem would be summarized in St Corinthians 5, 18 to 20, that let me just read it and then it's better that way, it's faster if I do it this way. 00:10:48.231 --> 00:11:08.173 So, oh, this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation. 00:11:08.173 --> 00:11:17.293 That God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting people's sins against them, and he is committed to us the message of reconciliation. 00:11:17.293 --> 00:11:23.332 We are therefore Christ's ambassadors, as though God were making his appeal through us. 00:11:23.332 --> 00:11:27.971 So we implore you, on Christ's behalf, be reconciled to God. 00:11:27.971 --> 00:11:40.789 I think that the core problem that the Father sent the Son to remedy through His work and the work of the Holy Spirit. 00:11:42.931 --> 00:11:50.751 I think it's reconciliation, I think it's a relational problem and I think that's the main thing going on. 00:11:50.751 --> 00:11:59.629 And when success and mental health and inner healing serve that deeper problem, they all get redeemed and they all become super helpful things. 00:11:59.629 --> 00:12:06.870 But they're only helpful when they're serving something more profound and I think it's alienation. 00:12:06.870 --> 00:12:17.812 So, if you've heard me talk before, we have a definition of sin that's based on Isaiah 59, verses one and two, that sin is anything that breaks right relationship. 00:12:17.812 --> 00:12:20.851 Sin isn't an arbitrary list of dos and don'ts. 00:12:20.851 --> 00:12:33.011 It's a God opposes everything that opposes relationship, and then what God came to remedy is everything that would reconcile First to God and then to one another. 00:12:34.024 --> 00:12:50.072 And so I really believe that there's only one ministry in the church, and sometimes in churches that we have worship ministry and children's ministry, and I think there's only one ministry in the church. 00:12:50.072 --> 00:12:56.288 It's the ministry of reconciliation, and unless the church is serving that ministry, I don't think it's doing Christian work. 00:12:56.288 --> 00:13:06.453 We can run programs and amuse kids and have amazing worship, but unless it leads towards reconciliation, it can actually be a distraction to the work of the kingdom. 00:13:06.453 --> 00:13:15.852 So I think I think that's the problem and in my city. 00:13:15.852 --> 00:13:24.638 We're trying to help them care about that problem, so that the gospel would be good news. 00:13:24.638 --> 00:13:51.394 But unless they have that problem, it just doesn't make any sense, and so the hyper-individualism that we experienced, I think, in Canada in general, in a my city at least in particular, is very profound, and sadly, people have come to befriend it where their problems are, because they have relationship, and they'd prefer to have fewer relationships in order to reduce their problems. 00:13:51.394 --> 00:14:00.753 That's one of the primary difficulties, by the way, with mental health is that I am never angry, sad, confused when I'm alone. 00:14:00.753 --> 00:14:25.476 It's only when I have other people around me that life gets more difficult, and so I think that the gospel is about reconciliation, and our journey is to help people have a gospel problem so that they can receive a gospel solution. 00:14:25.476 --> 00:14:27.476 So we're going to talk about how to do that in a minute. 00:14:27.476 --> 00:14:28.573 But how are you doing with that idea? 00:14:28.573 --> 00:14:30.672 So far, you doing OK, ok. 00:14:35.416 --> 00:14:41.215 So the question then becomes how do we stimulate a need for a relationship with God and one another? 00:14:41.215 --> 00:14:51.177 And so I think that, from what I can understand, the overwhelming answer is actually hospitality. 00:14:51.177 --> 00:15:06.056 That what hospitality does is it awakens inside of people's hearts their need for a relationship, and so Debbie and I have really devoted our lives to being hospitable people. 00:15:06.056 --> 00:15:08.695 She's way better at it than I am. 00:15:08.695 --> 00:15:26.919 I'm an introvert and I think about stuff, but I'm not super friendly, and so I'm working on it, though I'm only 62, so I have a few more years left to nail this thing, but my heart deeply cares for that. 00:15:28.970 --> 00:15:34.052 Hospitality is the most often mentioned good work in the New Testament. 00:15:34.052 --> 00:15:36.913 It's the most often mentioned. 00:15:36.913 --> 00:15:49.801 What I find interesting in the Old Testament is that there were three primary crimes that the prophets would highlight in God's people. 00:15:49.801 --> 00:15:58.094 It was idolatry, immorality and not caring for the alien and the poor. 00:15:58.094 --> 00:16:09.134 Like it made the top three, like it's right up there with idolatry and adultery, was not caring for the alien, for those in the outside, for the disenfranchised. 00:16:09.134 --> 00:16:10.653 That's very sobering to me. 00:16:10.653 --> 00:16:15.595 That that's in the middle of God's heart is a spirit of hospitality. 00:16:15.595 --> 00:16:24.234 He's a welcoming God and his primary motivation is that I would be your God and you would be my people. 00:16:24.234 --> 00:16:32.677 That's what's motivating him from Leviticus 26 right through to Revelation 20. 00:16:32.677 --> 00:16:39.220 And so we see this as being the primary mechanism. 00:16:39.220 --> 00:16:41.855 I think that awakens people's needs. 00:16:41.855 --> 00:16:45.312 So we've had I don't know dozens and dozens of people live with us. 00:16:45.312 --> 00:16:51.856 We have 10 children, and three biological, and don't tell me it gets complicated after that. 00:16:51.856 --> 00:17:00.677 It's one or two adopted and then, I think, three foster and then two other who just lived with us for years. 00:17:00.677 --> 00:17:17.375 They call us mom and dad, and so what we've longed to do is live an open life, because we've noticed that people don't recognize their need for Jesus unless they've tasted of his love. 00:17:19.289 --> 00:17:22.192 I remember there was one guy who's still a very good friend of ours. 00:17:22.192 --> 00:17:27.740 He struggled all of his life with same sense of attraction. 00:17:27.740 --> 00:17:30.259 When we first met him he was in a relationship. 00:17:30.259 --> 00:17:39.991 He broke up, they broke up, and so then he came and lived with us for a while, and just a well, I just have to say this because I think it's so funny. 00:17:39.991 --> 00:17:46.717 But he was a comedian on cruise ships and so just the funniest guy you could ever. 00:17:46.717 --> 00:17:54.993 One of my favorite jokes of his and I've said it so many times, but I still think it's funny he says Greg, he says I don't repeat gossip, so I'm only going to say this once. 00:17:54.993 --> 00:18:01.357 I just think that is so funny, I just love that. 00:18:01.357 --> 00:18:10.093 Anyways, he came to, he lived with us, I don't know for how many months. 00:18:10.093 --> 00:18:15.336 Oh OK, so I didn't remember that. 00:18:15.336 --> 00:18:22.320 And so here's, so it's well into him living with us. 00:18:23.410 --> 00:18:29.090 And he's having a talk with him one day and he says Greg, I don't want to live the gay lifestyle anymore. 00:18:29.090 --> 00:18:33.130 And so I said to him I'm trying to be funny. 00:18:33.130 --> 00:18:35.073 It wasn't very funny, but I thought it was funny at the moment. 00:18:35.073 --> 00:18:39.875 You'll always be gay, anyways, I thought I was being funny. 00:18:39.875 --> 00:18:44.073 He goes no, no, no, I don't want to do that, I don't want to do that anymore. 00:18:44.073 --> 00:18:46.394 And I asked why. 00:18:46.394 --> 00:18:49.454 He says well, anytime. 00:18:50.637 --> 00:18:56.976 So he's kind of very flamboyant and so he says anytime anybody looks at me, they could see that I'm gay. 00:18:56.976 --> 00:18:58.816 And then they assume that I'm a pedophile. 00:18:58.816 --> 00:19:05.815 And he says nobody lets me near their children and I never get to experience family. 00:19:05.815 --> 00:19:14.493 He says but you and Debbie have let me into your home and you've let me play with your kids and I've tasted of a better love. 00:19:14.493 --> 00:19:35.193 And if this is what the love of God is like, he says, this is way better than the quote, unquote love that I was chasing for many, many years of my life, and that's just very moving to me because I love them very much. 00:19:35.193 --> 00:19:43.816 So I'll just say one more thing, and then we can talk. 00:19:45.829 --> 00:19:52.233 So hospitality, to me, is the doorway into the kingdom of God. 00:19:52.233 --> 00:19:57.435 It allows people to identify right problems so that they can have right solutions. 00:19:57.435 --> 00:19:58.874 Are you OK with the idea? 00:19:58.874 --> 00:20:00.012 Is this making sense? 00:20:00.012 --> 00:20:04.256 Ok, there's one more complication that I'd like to introduce and then we can talk. 00:20:06.413 --> 00:20:15.394 So, as I said, we have 10 kids Now and they've come to us in different kinds of ways, but here's what we've believed. 00:20:15.394 --> 00:20:37.692 We believed that if we could demonstrate the love of God to these children, most of whom have come from horrendous backgrounds I can't tell you about it for lots of reasons for confidentiality, but if I do, I just get so choked up because it's so horrible what human beings have done to one another. 00:20:37.692 --> 00:20:41.432 It's not right and it breaks my heart. 00:20:41.432 --> 00:20:56.034 So we believed that the remedy would be and it is the remedy, but I have to qualify it or expand it at least that we thought the remedy would be extravagant love. 00:20:56.034 --> 00:20:58.996 And so we just love them like our own kids. 00:20:58.996 --> 00:21:11.659 If we're all going on vacation, we don't say if the foster kids or the other kids don't go with the no we're just a family, we call ourselves a forever family, and we treated them as our own kids. 00:21:14.990 --> 00:21:25.638 And then we discovered that they super enjoyed that and many of them had no intention of changing. 00:21:25.638 --> 00:21:34.075 And so we thought, oh, they just haven't tasted the love of God enough yet, and so we would try to love them even better. 00:21:34.075 --> 00:21:41.079 And then there's this definition that I think is still the best definition of personal health. 00:21:41.079 --> 00:21:42.253 It's Matthew 10.8. 00:21:42.253 --> 00:21:44.174 Freely, you have received, freely give. 00:21:44.174 --> 00:21:48.739 And so I think that they nailed freely receiving. 00:21:48.739 --> 00:21:52.880 I don't think they quite got along around to freely give. 00:21:52.880 --> 00:22:02.974 That was a bit of a gap in their relational development, and so they were happy, happy, happy to receive all kinds anything. 00:22:03.230 --> 00:22:07.280 Our love, money, roof over their head, our time, energy. 00:22:07.280 --> 00:22:16.078 Thank you so much really, but never really got around to giving love freely. 00:22:16.078 --> 00:22:20.094 Some of them Feels like the 10 lepers, you know. 00:22:20.094 --> 00:22:23.116 Let everybody comes back to say thank you. 00:22:23.116 --> 00:23:08.035 So here's my question to us To thoroughly embrace hospitality, to give away our hearts, I think, in a more robust and profound way, requires that our hospitality leads people towards repentance and faith, that it's possible to live in such a way that we can be thoroughly loving and actually give them the illusion that we can be truly loving, that they're mature, but they're really just living off of our godliness and they've never really committed themselves to lay down their life for their neighbor. 00:23:08.035 --> 00:23:14.786 And so what we're in the middle of trying to understand and we don't really have answers. 00:23:14.786 --> 00:23:46.298 So that's why this is a genuine discussion is how do we exhibit a spirit of hospitality which I think is the heart of God, in a way that leads others towards repentance and faith, where they would churn toward that themselves and do it in a way that was founded in faith, not just performance and you know works, righteousness, but with a genuine trust in the gospel. 00:23:46.298 --> 00:23:49.492 So what do you think about that? 00:23:49.492 --> 00:24:01.685 How does hospitality produce heart transformation. 00:24:01.685 --> 00:24:11.972 I don't know where I want to go. 00:24:11.972 --> 00:24:12.817 So this is all good. 00:24:13.672 --> 00:24:25.989 I keep thinking about burnout and you guys burned out doing that, but what are your thoughts towards that? 00:24:25.989 --> 00:24:27.415 Oh, do I have a thought? 00:24:27.415 --> 00:24:33.334 You didn't know that you set me up? 00:24:33.334 --> 00:24:58.029 Yeah, he was first hospital Before he ever invited us to do anything. 00:24:58.029 --> 00:25:00.938 So this is a theory that we can talk about as well. 00:25:00.938 --> 00:25:02.382 It's just a theory. 00:25:02.382 --> 00:25:13.113 So Most people that I know are really nervous about burnout, and for legitimate reasons. 00:25:13.113 --> 00:25:16.167 I burn out at least once a year. 00:25:16.167 --> 00:25:17.964 Usually comes around May, june. 00:25:17.964 --> 00:25:28.711 I get depressed for a month or two and I don't function very well Something I look forward to every year and it's a real issue for me. 00:25:28.711 --> 00:25:31.229 So burnout is not a theory for me. 00:25:31.229 --> 00:25:36.152 It's something that I've lived through over and over and over again because I'm a slow learner. 00:25:36.152 --> 00:25:39.825 Here's my theory. 00:25:43.221 --> 00:25:44.184 So you have Jesus. 00:25:44.184 --> 00:25:46.426 This is the story of the woman at the well. 00:25:46.426 --> 00:25:53.288 You have Jesus, who is exhausted, right, because he's been walking for a very long time. 00:25:53.288 --> 00:25:58.310 We know that he's exhausted and tired because his disciples go off to find some food. 00:25:58.310 --> 00:25:58.932 They're tired. 00:25:58.932 --> 00:26:02.079 It's been a long day or life. 00:26:02.079 --> 00:26:09.713 And then he meets a woman, and now there's another need in front of him and he's exhausted. 00:26:09.713 --> 00:26:14.632 They have, as you guys all know, an amazing encounter. 00:26:14.632 --> 00:26:26.055 And then, and so he offers her living water, which is refreshment, right. 00:26:26.055 --> 00:26:35.335 And then, so you know, incredible encounter, verse 27 of John 4,. 00:26:35.900 --> 00:26:42.868 Just then his disciples returned and were surprised to find him talking with a woman, but no one asked what you want or why you're talking with her. 00:26:42.868 --> 00:26:48.787 Then, leaving her jar of water, the woman went back to the town and said to the people come see a man who told me everything I ever did. 00:26:48.787 --> 00:26:50.250 Could this be the Messiah? 00:26:50.250 --> 00:26:54.090 Then they came out of town and made their way towards him. 00:26:54.090 --> 00:26:57.631 Meanwhile, his disciples urged him rabbi, eat something. 00:26:57.631 --> 00:27:02.111 Okay, so they can see that he's tired and exhausted and hungry. 00:27:05.003 --> 00:27:07.211 Psychologically, we can overlay burnout, perhaps. 00:27:07.211 --> 00:27:09.342 And then he says this. 00:27:09.342 --> 00:27:13.752 But he said to them I have food to eat that you know nothing about. 00:27:13.752 --> 00:27:21.371 In a classic fashion, the disciples then said to each other because someone had brought him food, like totally missing the point, you know. 00:27:21.371 --> 00:27:27.806 So here's my theory Freely loving others is not exhausting. 00:27:28.909 --> 00:27:42.811 Anxiety is when I make it about me having to save a soul, or me having to be a rock star, or when I take on responsibilities that are only the responsibility of God. 00:27:42.811 --> 00:27:47.798 I can't change hearts right, I can't bring conviction only the Spirit of God does that. 00:27:47.798 --> 00:27:54.148 And so as soon as I start doing his job, that's a little exhausting and it leads to my burnout. 00:27:54.148 --> 00:28:05.951 But when I'm walking in his will, in response to him, then I find loving others to be life-giving, and that I have food to eat that you know nothing about. 00:28:05.951 --> 00:28:13.714 And this, to me, ties in with the issue that I discover in my home, in church and city. 00:28:13.714 --> 00:28:15.420 Is that here's the mentality? 00:28:15.420 --> 00:28:28.434 I think, because I recognize it in myself is something like this I need my love tank filled so that eventually I'll be able to. 00:28:28.434 --> 00:28:30.579 Then it'll overflow into loving others. 00:28:31.605 --> 00:28:32.528 Are you familiar with the theory? 00:28:34.064 --> 00:28:34.989 That's never true. 00:28:38.403 --> 00:28:39.248 We give in faith. 00:28:40.210 --> 00:28:42.528 I never feel full, I never go. 00:28:42.648 --> 00:28:48.351 Wow, I am so bloated with the love of God and I like I give you a. 00:28:49.314 --> 00:28:49.755 God bless you. 00:28:49.755 --> 00:28:51.098 If that has happened to you, that's not happened to me. 00:28:51.098 --> 00:28:57.594 I'm always hungry and thirsty for more of him and feel inadequate in most every moment. 00:28:57.594 --> 00:29:02.660 But so my kids don't want to be selfish. 00:29:02.660 --> 00:29:17.115 They don't wake up in the morning hoping to be selfish, but what they do think is I'm not ready to love yet I need to receive more yet, and then there'll be this magical moment when it'll spill over into loving others. 00:29:17.115 --> 00:29:29.459 And I wonder if their issue is fear and anxiety as well, that they're afraid to get burned out, and it's why repentance must always accompany faith. 00:29:29.459 --> 00:29:44.654 It's only by trusting in the work of Christ, in the work of Christ, are we able to then have the freedom to love out of our poverty, not of our amazing riches or whatever it is. 00:29:44.654 --> 00:29:50.972 So I think receiving love and giving love are not tiring. 00:29:50.972 --> 00:30:06.287 I think that my flesh pollutes that and pulls me away from relationship or makes me over a function in relationship, both of which are exhausting that steal away the beauty and life-giving nature of love. 00:30:10.233 --> 00:30:21.397 Yeah, it is very interesting that you say that hospitality is very important. 00:30:21.397 --> 00:30:32.556 I think the hospitality, like you said, God start hospitality with the Adam near. 00:30:32.556 --> 00:30:38.596 We build this earth to be in love. 00:30:38.596 --> 00:30:44.414 Unfortunately, we see we cover up everything. 00:30:44.414 --> 00:30:56.355 For me, hospitality, probably because my culture is more hospitality than Americans. 00:30:59.041 --> 00:31:01.088 Just say Americans, don't say Canadians, it's just the Americans. 00:31:01.088 --> 00:31:06.704 I feel better about that. 00:31:06.704 --> 00:31:17.534 I can only say to everybody hospitality is a gift from God. 00:31:20.961 --> 00:31:27.153 Why I only say to everybody, do you know others? 00:31:27.153 --> 00:31:31.125 And I say, do you know others? 00:31:31.125 --> 00:31:36.678 And I say I make others but I don't know others. 00:31:36.678 --> 00:31:42.064 It's very difficult because no others. 00:31:42.064 --> 00:32:04.023 I have to be hospital, open my house to bring others to my house, to a place Actually I don't say to my place, the house of God, because everything that is here is not us, it's not God. 00:32:04.023 --> 00:32:13.516 And if I hospital the others, I'm going to start a relationship with you. 00:32:14.198 --> 00:32:14.659 That's right. 00:32:15.721 --> 00:32:24.134 If I don't have a relationship with any of you, I make you, but where is the love? 00:32:24.134 --> 00:32:33.388 Me to all of you, and that's the reason that God is. 00:32:33.388 --> 00:32:39.156 The first thing that God wants is to love the people. 00:32:39.156 --> 00:32:52.455 If you don't love the people like James I think it's James said if you say that you love God and you hate your neighbor, where is the love? 00:32:52.455 --> 00:33:04.680 So love is kind of love, unfortunately, the human love and the love coming from God. 00:33:04.680 --> 00:33:09.467 And you was the answer to him. 00:33:09.467 --> 00:33:16.051 If I am going to be tired to open my house, no, why? 00:33:16.051 --> 00:33:21.954 Because you love God is in that house and I give love to him. 00:33:21.954 --> 00:33:29.313 I'm going to learn things from any of you because I am not perfect. 00:33:29.313 --> 00:33:47.239 I remember one thing that James Jordan was saying that he was very burned out until he realized that he was carrying on all the burdens of the other people. 00:33:48.279 --> 00:33:53.144 I am not Jesus, I am not God, god, god. 00:33:53.144 --> 00:34:08.757 I think it's a good thing that I only can do is to pray, and whatever is trouble in that knowledge, in that religion, in that love, I give up to him. 00:34:13.286 --> 00:34:27.389 Isn't it interesting that when it says in Matthew 22 that the sum of the law and the prophets is to love God and to love your neighbor, I don't know that I would have written that if I was God, I would have said the sum of the law is to receive God's love. 00:34:28.380 --> 00:34:31.125 But there's something, and I think it goes along with what you're saying. 00:34:31.125 --> 00:34:41.489 There's something about loving others that opens us up to the love of God in a very profound way and that maybe it's not nearly as sequential as we think it is. 00:34:41.489 --> 00:34:44.820 It's actually cyclical or reciprocal. 00:34:44.820 --> 00:34:59.389 That as we decide to open up our hearts to love, we find ourselves experiencing being loved first by the Father and then by the people around us in very remarkable ways that it can't be neatly put I receive and then I give. 00:34:59.389 --> 00:35:11.615 Maybe I mean, according to Matthew 22, it's actually I give and then I receive, because there's something that happens in your heart when you decide to love that opens yourself up to be able to receive love. 00:35:11.615 --> 00:35:19.820 And I'm not trying to put it into a sequence, but it's just interesting that the two build off of one another instead of our mutually exclusive. 00:35:19.820 --> 00:35:21.503 Thanks for your thoughts. 00:35:21.503 --> 00:35:22.586 Anybody else, what are you thinking? 00:35:24.452 --> 00:35:40.577 Yeah, I sense that maybe a part of being able to love people is seeing them with God's heart and with his eyes. 00:35:42.322 --> 00:35:52.255 And you know, the scripture says and I don't think it's all for the sweet buying by when we see him, we shall like him. 00:35:52.255 --> 00:36:15.277 So perhaps giving love away, even like by faith, what you were saying a few moments ago is a little glimpse of me seeing something that humanized would never see, because behind it is God's love. 00:36:15.277 --> 00:36:29.739 And then there's a sense in which I see him, so I become more like him, and part of the process of becoming more like him is receiving his love so good. 00:36:29.739 --> 00:36:46.376 So you know, I'm giving him faith and I give away and I want someone to experience the heart of the Father, with his love and his goodness and his acceptance and his truth. 00:36:46.376 --> 00:36:57.347 Then in that moment something happens that I don't have words for and part of me somewhere, maybe even here as well, in my head. 00:36:57.347 --> 00:37:12.137 But I see him and perhaps that's one of the line upon line changes of I become more like him because I'm expressing his heart. 00:37:13.701 --> 00:37:18.047 Oh, you're saying that so well, you know, it's the. 00:37:18.047 --> 00:37:23.074 It's when the servants say when did we see you? 00:37:23.074 --> 00:37:32.525 And he says what you've done to the least of these, you've done to me also, and we didn't see you poor, blind or naked, ah, but what you did to these I got. 00:37:32.525 --> 00:37:43.273 You caught the heart of God in that and it transforms us because we see him actually in the act of loving those who are marginalized on the outside. 00:37:43.273 --> 00:37:45.708 And isn't that beautiful. 00:37:45.708 --> 00:37:53.344 Even when we're loving others, we still are always receiving, because it's just what God is like, so beautiful. 00:37:53.344 --> 00:37:54.186 Thank you for saying that. 00:37:54.186 --> 00:37:55.927 Any other thoughts? 00:37:55.927 --> 00:38:02.965 Yeah, nice to see you, but there's a glow about you, so I see you as being darker than that. 00:38:02.965 --> 00:38:06.867 Yeah, yeah, I assume that. 00:38:06.867 --> 00:38:10.135 I assume that, Steve, I'm sure your wife would agree. 00:38:10.135 --> 00:38:11.621 That's right. 00:38:15.940 --> 00:38:28.748 The thoughts I'm trying to put together, Greg, are my experience with God has been, in the last 12 days, 60 years, so it's constantly called the rest, but I've done more than I've ever done before. 00:38:28.748 --> 00:38:34.067 So there's that normal God thing where opposites are going together Sure. 00:38:34.516 --> 00:38:39.949 Then there's an invitation to receive love and there's an invitation to give love. 00:38:40.556 --> 00:38:47.648 but the giving of love is done, as you said, in a place of rest, so striving is actually an act of love. 00:38:48.518 --> 00:38:49.021 That's right. 00:38:49.021 --> 00:38:49.947 That's right. 00:38:49.947 --> 00:38:53.882 I'm trying to create a health quality, so what? 00:38:53.942 --> 00:38:56.693 I'm trying to put together and because you're really really good at all. 00:38:56.693 --> 00:39:05.423 This stuff is how you love someone, but the second you put an expectation on them, it's almost not love anymore. 00:39:05.423 --> 00:39:12.943 Maybe I've heard you talk about this before, but it's like we have a person we're thinking of hiring. 00:39:12.943 --> 00:39:13.887 He's super broken. 00:39:13.887 --> 00:39:15.298 So this is a question. 00:39:15.298 --> 00:39:16.704 He's super broken. 00:39:16.704 --> 00:39:21.440 We can just hire him, love him through it, or we can just love him through him and I'm going to be broken. 00:39:21.440 --> 00:39:29.275 We really want to hire this person who's broken, but the invitation in my mind can't be okay. 00:39:29.275 --> 00:39:30.059 If you say this is a prayer. 00:39:30.059 --> 00:39:33.034 Now you're in the car, you know what I mean. 00:39:33.034 --> 00:39:36.130 Like I actually told him that I don't even know what this is. 00:39:36.130 --> 00:39:51.271 I don't even know what that magic sentence does, but I said I want you to experience life when you're around us and we'll love you as best as we can, but it can't be great, or one of these things you're seeking, or one of these things you're looking for, because then I'm back. 00:39:51.271 --> 00:39:51.954 So those are all. 00:39:52.737 --> 00:39:54.922 That's great, it's even really great. 00:39:54.922 --> 00:40:02.523 So here's what's interesting to me and again, you push back on this because we're just trying to figure it out together. 00:40:02.523 --> 00:40:08.226 I don't think expectations are antithetical to love. 00:40:08.226 --> 00:40:13.806 I have lots of expectations of myself, of my children, of my church. 00:40:13.806 --> 00:40:15.340 Lots of expectations. 00:40:15.340 --> 00:40:21.135 It goes weird when I control people toward those expectations. 00:40:21.135 --> 00:40:22.581 That's a problem. 00:40:22.581 --> 00:40:27.746 But the expectations I want my kids to be well, just simply happy. 00:40:27.746 --> 00:40:29.380 That's an expectation. 00:40:29.380 --> 00:40:31.320 I want them to be good. 00:40:31.320 --> 00:40:39.559 But if I feel like I have to control you toward that expectation, well then the whole thing's messed up. 00:40:39.559 --> 00:40:40.563 Keep going. 00:40:43.708 --> 00:40:44.934 I desire my kids to be happy. 00:40:45.798 --> 00:40:55.349 I'm not expecting, if you're not happy, but if you can glineate the Sure, oh, do you think that they're different? 00:40:55.469 --> 00:40:57.032 Yeah, I think they're what you're saying. 00:40:57.032 --> 00:41:03.789 Expectations are good Because I want my kids to be happy, but my expectation isn't the happy of those. 00:41:04.478 --> 00:41:06.114 I just want to get the land back. 00:41:06.114 --> 00:41:09.061 God has expectations. 00:41:09.061 --> 00:41:15.706 It says, 1 Peter, that he desires that all come to know him. 00:41:15.706 --> 00:41:23.525 He expects us to be holy and righteous, yet he's never manipulative or coercive in his expectations. 00:41:23.525 --> 00:41:27.210 So I'm okay with the word expectation. 00:41:27.210 --> 00:41:28.135 I'm okay with it. 00:41:28.135 --> 00:41:30.963 It's just what I do with my expectations. 00:41:30.963 --> 00:41:39.639 And when I start caring more about my expectations than I do about you, it's not loving. 00:41:39.639 --> 00:41:43.884 And it's super hard to figure that out, isn't it? 00:41:43.884 --> 00:41:46.108 It's really hard. 00:41:46.108 --> 00:41:47.135 It's really hard. 00:41:47.135 --> 00:41:50.445 I'm going to ask somebody else if they have other ideas and then I'll go back to you. 00:41:50.465 --> 00:41:54.994 Yeah, it reminds me of the family that I grew up in. 00:41:54.994 --> 00:42:01.054 I grew up in a house with four generations and I was the baby right and my family was not well-loved. 00:42:01.054 --> 00:42:07.623 All those women came from broken relationships, and so C-Sola, the marriage, who's over 45 years. 00:42:07.623 --> 00:42:10.750 He was a fresh person in my life that ever said I love you. 00:42:10.789 --> 00:42:10.909 Wow. 00:42:11.943 --> 00:42:26.932 I didn't miss that because I didn't know about it, but when I was telling my 30s as a music practice and I felt God say focus on getting out, there is no natural vacuum in nature where it sucks in, he says think of your vacuum cleaner. 00:42:26.932 --> 00:42:32.934 It doesn't have a sucking motor, it has a blowing out motor and because you create that flow, it will come in. 00:42:32.934 --> 00:42:36.021 And he didn't say give out so that you'll get. 00:42:36.021 --> 00:42:40.793 He just said focus on getting out and implied was I'll look after you, honey. 00:42:40.793 --> 00:42:43.903 But you know he's trying to support me because I'm him from this. 00:42:43.903 --> 00:42:47.014 Oh, please love me, Please care about me, Please notice me too. 00:42:47.356 --> 00:42:55.963 I'm learning about you learning about you, I'm a granny and my granny, jean, just kicks in and I just want to love people and hug them and wow, he's really done that. 00:42:55.963 --> 00:43:05.094 But that's what he said to me Give out, just focus on that, not even with an eye to get Just focus on getting out. 00:43:05.836 --> 00:43:13.264 It's profound and you just and he never separates them in his mind. 00:43:13.264 --> 00:43:20.168 He never thinks oh, I remember one time I don't know if you guys know this but if you're from Vancouver, you're not allowed to like Toronto. 00:43:20.168 --> 00:43:21.070 I don't know if you know that. 00:43:21.070 --> 00:43:21.711 Do you know that? 00:43:21.711 --> 00:43:23.135 It's just a rule? 00:43:23.135 --> 00:43:24.500 It's just a Canadian rule. 00:43:24.500 --> 00:43:27.804 So I remember we were wanting to start a church. 00:43:27.804 --> 00:43:29.159 Brandon and I went out there quite a bit. 00:43:29.159 --> 00:43:34.139 We were going to start a church in Toronto and I remember praying one day. 00:43:34.139 --> 00:43:40.510 I said God, if you want me to move to Toronto, I'm from. 00:43:40.510 --> 00:43:46.023 You know this is like the ultimate sacrifice for Jesus, but if you want me to move to Toronto, I'll go. 00:43:46.023 --> 00:43:50.005 And this is what I said. 00:43:50.005 --> 00:43:51.762 I said I just want you to use me. 00:43:51.762 --> 00:43:56.525 And then God responds and he says I never used anybody. 00:43:57.155 --> 00:43:57.416 And I go. 00:43:57.476 --> 00:44:03.860 I know, I know it's just a let's not do the word game thing and I just you know, I'm just trying to. 00:44:03.860 --> 00:44:06.364 He goes no, he says I never use anybody. 00:44:06.364 --> 00:44:13.686 And that just struck me that even when he's inviting us to love he's never using. 00:44:13.686 --> 00:44:23.208 And there's something beautiful about what you're describing that is so clarifying of what the heart of God is like. 00:44:23.208 --> 00:44:32.760 I just think it's beautiful, brent, I don't know what our time is like, but Okay, just a thought. 00:44:34.639 --> 00:44:35.610 I'm going to hear you. 00:44:35.610 --> 00:44:39.005 So love others as you love yourself. 00:44:39.005 --> 00:44:48.208 That's your line, and it always takes me back to stories like Mother Teresa, who suffered her whole life. 00:44:48.208 --> 00:45:01.831 She loved so many people that nobody even had the compassion or courage to go, and I remember as you talked about how she would see Jesus. 00:45:01.831 --> 00:45:12.688 For her there was something about the life of God is in everyone and I'm not loving because I have to or I need to, or it's actually him. 00:45:12.688 --> 00:45:24.733 And when he starts being in, when he comes across his group of love others, you love yourself, and for a while that felt like well, I got to love myself, that whole self care deal. 00:45:25.717 --> 00:45:28.885 Let's get our whole world together and get it all set up. 00:45:28.885 --> 00:45:45.947 Now I'm okay and I got 50% now and I can remember, as you were talking about, it's just the silliest thing in the world Because you talk a lot about spiritual worker and things like that. 00:45:45.947 --> 00:45:47.932 He says it's just most of it. 00:45:47.932 --> 00:45:52.298 It's just people don't love, Because actually people love. 00:45:52.298 --> 00:45:59.751 You'd be probably happy or drippin' your part of life in half because you know those caret of concerns. 00:45:59.751 --> 00:46:02.824 But what if you just actually went across the street? 00:46:02.824 --> 00:46:05.014 What if you actually went to that politician? 00:46:05.014 --> 00:46:06.840 What if you actually did that? 00:46:06.880 --> 00:46:12.954 Fascinating and so and I remember him saying it for hundreds of people. 00:46:13.717 --> 00:46:18.331 So I hope you don't think loving yourself means being selfish. 00:46:18.331 --> 00:46:20.746 How do you love yourself? 00:46:20.746 --> 00:46:23.793 Well, let me get up, you'll get some food. 00:46:23.793 --> 00:46:25.751 You're not being selfish, you're just living. 00:46:25.751 --> 00:46:28.954 It's just thinking of the basic things, of what living is. 00:46:28.954 --> 00:46:31.094 And what would that look like? 00:46:31.094 --> 00:46:34.014 Why don't we turn it into this massive thing? 00:46:34.538 --> 00:46:51.094 A hospitality sounds so nice, but you're hospitable to yourself Unless you're in that place where it's so far and it's, like you know, caught in a road and I just think, wow, that really takes away all of this super spiritual house being. 00:46:51.094 --> 00:46:58.952 But it's incredible how what you're saying, greg, is how few people like my wife and I talk to each other a lot. 00:46:58.952 --> 00:47:07.242 This is a lot about how many people think they need to keep soaking in him, and to what place, and have they even tried? 00:47:07.242 --> 00:47:09.280 But they're so used to. 00:47:09.280 --> 00:47:11.929 I think the tri-part is that's where I guess you're. 00:47:11.929 --> 00:47:14.893 You know, strive to enter his rest. 00:47:14.893 --> 00:47:17.184 The word strive, in its visual language, means act of serenity. 00:47:17.184 --> 00:47:21.304 Wow, that being poor, that meaning being loved. 00:47:21.304 --> 00:47:25.764 And so to go across and love my neighbor, with no agenda to it. 00:47:25.764 --> 00:47:28.842 No, I got something for you. 00:47:28.842 --> 00:47:33.268 No, you know, it's just literally, and then it goes in a thousand different directions. 00:47:33.268 --> 00:47:37.885 But that loving yourself part, tell me how that? 00:47:37.885 --> 00:47:42.021 Because the guy on the campus going, yeah, he loves me. 00:47:42.021 --> 00:47:47.297 Because he wouldn't, I thought he'd be myself Best. 00:47:47.318 --> 00:48:01.300 People really love the self, love from the point of view of somebody who breaks both their hair, and to me that says as unique brothers and sisters at Christ who then in? 00:48:01.300 --> 00:48:06.061 The same with self-hatred, self-harm, as you mentioned. 00:48:06.061 --> 00:48:07.423 That's got lots. 00:48:07.423 --> 00:48:08.757 Best for them. 00:48:08.757 --> 00:48:13.074 They do release from that to see themselves and love my God. 00:48:13.074 --> 00:48:19.994 So they're really there for a release, for healing, for a down-going, because we're not too happy. 00:48:19.994 --> 00:48:21.846 So it's a talent for themselves. 00:48:23.438 --> 00:48:24.650