The After Sermon /// What story do you have on loop?

Welcome to The After Sermon by Plum Creek Church.

This bite-sized discussion is where we get to sit down with our communicators and ask a few follow up questions connected to the weekend message, unpack it on a deeper level, and explore how it all relates to our journey of following Jesus more fully.

In this episode of The After Sermon, Daniel sits down with Eric to talk through the deeper layers of Jesus healing the man born blind in John 9—and how it directly connects to the bold claims Jesus makes in John 8.

Eric shares how this passage stood out to him while studying the Gospel of John, and why this moment isn’t just a miracle, but a lived demonstration of Jesus’ identity as the light of the world. From there, the conversation moves into how we often interpret suffering—why we instinctively look for blame, and how Jesus offers a completely different framework.

They also explore the idea of “loops”—the repeated thoughts and internal narratives that shape how we see ourselves and what we believe is possible. Eric reflects on how Jesus didn’t just heal the man physically, but may have been inviting him into a completely new way of thinking and living. If you’ve ever felt stuck in the same patterns or unsure how to move forward, this conversation offers a compelling vision for what it looks like to step into something new.

This conversation is also available on our YouTube channel along with the full message that this discussion is based on.

YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/@plumcreekchurch

You can learn more about Plum Creek Church by visiting our website as well.

Website: https://plumcreek.church/

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Welcome to the after sermon where we get to sit down with our communicator from the weekend and discuss the sermon in more detail. Eric Parks, you were the communicator. Oh, me? That's you. Hello. Okay. Thanks for popping up here and chatting about this. Appreciate it. Can't wait. All right. So you know the drill. We've done this enough times. Totally. What drew you to this story uh for part three of our encounter series?

SPEAKER_00 0:28

It was accident. Oh. For Rekina, kind of real. I was just like, yeah, like when you're writing a sermon, you're researching and thinking about, and this series is encounter, and I was thinking about, oh, what's a compelling encounter? And literally was just reading. Truthfully, I had listened to a message uh through the Gospel of John. So I'm real fascinated with uh spoiler alert doing a big series next year through the Gospel of John. Um it'd be cool to do 13 weeks um or more through John two. You heard it here first. Um, but I I ran across the story in John chapter nine, and so I was just sort of looking at it, and then like as sometimes it does, I had like this epiphany, lightning strike of what was happening in the connection between John chapter eight and john chapter nine, that they are they're not two separate stories, it's not two separate things. It's like it is a continuation of what happened in the temple. You know, Jesus is like making these claims, says he's light of the world. They want to kill him because he said lots of other things that really like fired him up, all the religious leaders. And so he walks out and goes, Okay, well, then I'll just show you. I'm just gonna show you. I'm gonna show you that I what I just told you in John chapter eight. So John chapter nine is almost like you have the proof text in eight, and nine is he proves it out in real time.

SPEAKER_01 1:46

So, really quick, just give us a brief the story snapshot of the story.

SPEAKER_00 1:52

Um, eight, he's in the temple, says he's light of the world. Um, then he says he is I am, and they pick up stones and he slips out. And the first the guy he sees, at least it seems this way in scripture, is the blind man, walks over to this blind man that the Bible doesn't tell us his name or who he is, just that he's blind from birth. And then he goes through a series of steps that the blind man has to do in order to receive his healing. This is the one where he spits in the mud, puts it on his eyes, tell him to walk to the pool. All of that really captured my attention. Yeah. I'm like, wow, this is it, I I this isn't on accident. Right. The mud in his eyes can't be on accident, the walk can't be on accident. What is Jesus doing?

SPEAKER_01 2:34

So, okay, so something that kind of struck me as you were teaching was this idea of like uh suffering, and you reframed it as a place where God is working. Totally. How does that how can we take that concept and like apply it to our stories as we're walking through them?

SPEAKER_00 2:54

I think this is the great choice. I mean, uh I can only tell you personally. I mean, no, trust me, I I don't not looking to suffer. Like wait, isn't that what everyone wants? Everybody's like, can I have some suffering, please? Yeah, uh, I'm not looking for wilderness or suffering, but I've had so many conversations as a pastor and I've lived this personally. Um, those are the places where God has met me, right? Yeah. And then I reflect back to the beginning of Matthew in chapter four, when Jesus was led to the wilderness, it said the spirit led him there. Now the enemy spoke to him in the wilderness and tempted him, but it's the spirit that brought him there. So it there is this theology, and I go back to the ancient world, there was a theology that suffering was attached to sin. That's why in verse two of John chapter nine, the disciples say, Well, who sinned? Was it his parents or him? Like, who screwed this guy up? Like, why give it because he's blind from birth? He's blind from birth. So they're like, Why is he this way? And Jesus in verse three says, Well, that's not that's not what this is, that's not what's happening. Um, and I think we still do that today, right? Like when uh and part of the reason is because we are taught a very specific narrative about a way to live that's primarily built on the idea of comfort. So if you're taught that the goal of your life is to be pleasantly comfortable, and then suffering comes, then you ask the question, wait a minute, isn't that not supposed to be how it's wait, this is not that I'm not supposed to suffer. Right. I'm I'm supposed to go up into the right. And I I would I would say our theology is not the same as like uh first century Jews theology, but in practice it is. Oh, absolutely. We we don't we were like, you know, this what did I do wrong and why am I suffering? I'm following all the things I'm supposed to do. And suffering is a part of being human. Um and the truth is is so often it's in our suffering that I don't that I've I've met Jesus mo more clearly, more closely. Um again, I I I I don't wish to suffer.

SPEAKER_01 5:04

Right, but it's it's in that reframing that utilizes that season of suffering.

SPEAKER_00 5:12

Well, it is what is the goal of your life? Is it to be comfortable? Right. Well, if that's the goal, then yes, you're gonna be really disappointed with suffering. Um, if it's not the goal of your life, if there's something broader at play, then you see suffering as part of this. Sure. God uses all these things, he doesn't waste anything. So I thought I thought that was really interesting.

SPEAKER_01 5:33

Oh, that's awesome. Um, okay, so another part of being human, as we're talking about, is um our brains. You brought in some brain science.

SPEAKER_00 5:43

And I am not a brain scientist nor a surgeon. Nope. Nope. I just repeat the things that I've heard.

SPEAKER_01 5:51

Okay. So one of the things that you repeated that you heard was this idea of loops or the the stories we get stuck in.

SPEAKER_00 6:01

The stories we tell ourselves, the soundtracks that run in our mind, whatever the metaphor is. Yeah, yeah, totally. I mean, every look, the the thing that caught my attention is uh Dr. Neil Warren did some he he is an actual brain surgeon. Not Eric Park, no. I nor me operating on there'll be a famous podcast about the pastor who did brain surgery, convinced people. So um this gentleman talks about the way in which our brain works, and the things that really caught my attention was that 90% of the thoughts you have today are thoughts you had yesterday. So that means like most of your thoughts are on repeat to just run in a loop. And of those thoughts, 80% are negative, and four out of five are not true. So we're lying to ourselves. So that's the thing that my brain went, yeah. So that voice in my head that I trust more than any other voice that says, When you do this thing to me, that must be the reason you did that to me. Right. And I convinced myself, think about how many relationships are ruined. Well, in the compounding effect of day after day, if 90% carryover is true. And we don't do the so that loop, it plays, right? It runs. And um that that that loop uh is is a pretty telling loop because it tells you what you can and can't do, what you're able to do, what you're not able to do. Um and uh it's re has devastating effects um because what I've noticed as a pastor is that um there are people who have a healing or uh have been forgiven uh but they live in brokenness. Right. Because healing and wholeness are not the same thing, right? And and so the the text was so interesting to me because you know I wondered, I I did wonder, I'm like, why would Jesus set this man first on a new course? And I'm like, I don't know, maybe to tell him a new story, a new loop. Because if you sat, like think about it, first century sitting on a mat, he believed he was cursed, like everybody else thought he was cursed. That's his only context. He believed he couldn't do anything other but sit on the mat because that's what he would. There was no jobs, it's like he you there's no programs for him, right? And so when Jesus says, Okay, get up and walk a mile to this pool with mud stuck on your face. The ultimate response is yeah, no. Like what? What how I can't? I'm blind. You know, he may not know that it's mud that's on his eyes, but he can feel he's done something to him. Yeah, is this a joke? Right. What is he doing? And um, I actually think I wonder if Jesus was doing him some sort of beautiful favor towards wholeness that he started with the loop instead of getting the healing first. The loop was the first thing, he addressed the thinking first. He said, Oh, here's what I want you to go, so interesting, go, and then he walked it out, and as part of the walk, he then I mean, Jesus did the healing, there's no doubt.

SPEAKER_01 9:10

The dude didn't heal himself, no, but if he bails halfway through the walk, oh my gosh, just imagine that an internal dialogue between where Jesus puts the mud on his eyes in the pool.

SPEAKER_00 9:21

I say this half joking, but what if he just says, I think I'm gonna go get a sandwich? Yeah, I mean, for it's like I this is this is ludicrous. Yeah, he had no theology for healing, right? So you're it's like the the amount of trust the man had to walk through is fascinating, but it got me thinking about this. Um I I I think too often we trust uh this voice in our in our brain that sounds like us, that's running on repeat, and it runs everything. And this is why, this is why the phrase that if Jesus was right about all these things, yeah, then we must rearrange that means like new loops. Like if what played through my mind more often were the words of Jesus, the parables that he told, the things that he thought, how he thinks of me, if I structured and modeled my life on these things, yeah, what would happen? Well, I suspect I would live more in wholeness, more wholeness would be available to me. Um and there's a whole bunch, like go listen to the message because we talk a little bit about trauma and trauma response. And um, you know, again, uh I would point you to go look up Dr. Warren. He's done a lot of podcasts, and he's absolutely brilliant. And he speaks to these things that I think whether or not you've had trauma in your life, we all have loops.

SPEAKER_01 10:59

Yeah, I think that's the important part is like, and I love how your message was able to kind of encapsulate both worlds of like, yes, there people have had uh significant uh trauma responses in life, but that this idea, this concept isn't just for that. It speaks to that, but it's not just for that, it's for the loops in life. It's that loop, man.

SPEAKER_00 11:21

Whatever loop we're in. In fact, some of the people who um I mean, there's some there's some hardcore loops being taught to us. And I we were, I think you and I had this conversation. If not, it was might have been me and Pastor Doug. I'm like, the truth is, man. I mean, I'm not trying to like I'm not the convictor of sin, so I'm not trying to convict anybody. But you are a brain surgeon, but I am a brain surgeon, and if you put a phone next to your Bible, the question you have to ask yourself, who's getting more time right now? Yeah, and if time really does win, then who are you being discipled by? Sure. Who's the thoughts running through your head? Some guy, some dude that posts on Instagram something on a social media feed. And I'm like, uh fine, if you want to do those things, just be aware, like um the loops, the loops are also being reinforced. Whatever we give uh attention to will reinforce, whatever we deny attention to will disintegrate.

SPEAKER_01 12:21

All right, so here's the deal we're out of time, but you've probably got a little bit more to spare. So head over to YouTube, check out the message that this whole conversation was based on. Uh, it's also available on our podcast. Wherever you get your podcast, that's where you're finding. Thanks for joining us.