00;00;02;16 - 00;00;27;26
Brenton
This is further a weekly show for the people of Harmony Bible Church, where we seek to revisit and expand on Sunday sermons with the goal of growing deeper in biblical truth that transforms our lives. Welcome back to Further. I'm Britton Graham and I'm here with Chris Carr. How's it going? Going good. And Chris Carr, who tomorrow actually is his birthday.

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Brenton
So, yeah. Happy early birthday.

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Chris
Thank you.

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Brenton
What? This?

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Chris
51, if you want. Yeah. Yeah. It's hard to say, but.

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Brenton
As I feel.

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Chris
There it is. Old but actually excited. Thankful for another year life and just a lot of blessings that the Lord's put out. I me in particular this year and our church as well and looking forward to a great holiday weekend. Really Christmas weekend. Christmas Eve is going to be great I believe, and can't wait to see what God's going to do.

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Chris
Yeah.

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Brenton
It's an exciting time of year and harmony and so yeah, it's going to be it's going to be a good time this year. I wanted to talk to you guys real fast before we get started here, because we're actually going to take the two the next two weeks off from recording. And so the next episode that you're going to see is going to come out on January 10th, and that'll be when we get back to our Romans series.

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Brenton
So we're going to take a small break over the New Year and then we'll be back with you. So. So today, I'd like to spend this episode talking about the Incarnation. It's a topic that. Absolutely, that's absolutely central to Christianity and is talked about often, but typically not in much depth. So let's open this up by giving an explanation of what the incarnation means.

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Brenton
When we talk about the incarnation of Jesus, we're referring to the fact that he took on flesh and became human. Now, of course, this this can become an incredibly complicated topic with a ton of room for error. And yet this doctrine is essential to believing the gospel. In fact, I believe that if someone rejects the Orthodox view of the incarnation, the gospel they believe doesn't save them.

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Brenton
Is that that out of line? Do you think that's. Do you agree there now?

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Chris
I agree absolutely. Hundred percent.

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Brenton
Even even so, that the Athanasius Creed, where the Trinity is really spelled out as in a systematic way, they say it is necessary to everlasting salvation that that he also believe rightly the incarnation of our Lord Jesus Christ for the right faith is that we believe and confess that our Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God is God and man.

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Brenton
And so I think it's fair to say that a lot of believers accept this doctrine without a real good understanding of it. And so it's kind of my hope today is to dive into a few of these, you know, harder sections of this doctrine and bring some clarity to it. So, Chris, why was it necessary that Christ was born to a virgin mother?

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Brenton
Had had Joseph been Jesus biological dad, what would that have changed?

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Chris
Yeah, great question. So I want to begin by just talking a little bit about, you know, why why this is so important. A number of years ago, so longer than I want to admit this, because it was back in my thirties, there was a guy by the name of Rob Bell, who was a well-known pastor, and he wrote a book in which he argued that it wouldn't be a big deal if we discovered that Jesus had an earthly father named Larry if he literally used the name Larry.

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Chris
So it wouldn't be a big deal. We wouldn't really we wouldn't really lose anything, that it wouldn't be catastrophic to the Christian faith. And I want explain why it actually would be. But first of all, I want to mention and make note that rubble then eventually became, at best, a universalist. And in many ways is denied the full gospel.

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Chris
So he's.

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Brenton
Still around, still writing.

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Chris
Books? Yeah, he's he's actually a great example of what happens when you begin to deny core tenets of the Christian faith. It is in many ways a slippery slope, you know. So with that being said, it's important for a number of reasons. One, it's important simply because the Christian faith has always held on to this, this view. And so the church has been around for 2000 years.

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Chris
And for 2000 years, faithful Christians have held to the virgin birth of Christ. And that's not everything. It's not even the most important thing. And tradition, of course, can has its dangers to it. When we become a traditionalist, maybe I should say, but we shouldn't quickly throw out the things that Christians have believed since the very beginning. But more than that, the virgin birth of Jesus is important because it preserves both the fact that He is fully God and fully man at the same time in one person, 100% God and an absent man.

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Chris
I've already talked about this in this series, about why that's important. He had to be God because we needed a perfect sacrifice for our sins, and only God is perfect. But He had to be a man because God required of human to die for. For humans in our belief place, we needed someone to die for us. That was was one of us.

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Chris
And so it yeah, it preserves that that truth. Another thing we could talk about here is it's an example of the way that God works, and particularly in our salvation. So think about the this situation with, with, with Mary and Joseph in Jesus. God took the initiative here. Mary was looking to get pregnant and we know that from her reaction when the angel tells us she's going to be pregnant, how is this possible?

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Chris
How's this going to be when I've not known a man? So this all God's idea and Joseph had no role in it either, right? That's kind of the point. He his body wasn't involved. And so the power had to come from God. And so right from the very beginning of Jesus's life, it shows that in salvation, God takes both the initiative and he provides the power.

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Chris
And that's the way it works for us. You know, we don't seek God. We don't take the initiative. He he comes for us and we don't do anything to earn our salvation. It's it's God's through God's power and power alone that we are we are saved. And so the virgin birth just really shows that gives a great example of that illustration of that.

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Chris
And then probably the most important thing to talk about here is that the virgin birth allows Jesus to be human without inherited sin. So every other human being is born as a sinner or conceived as a sinner. So we don't become a sinner when we sin. We are Psalm 51 in sin. My mother conceived me, meaning that we are all conceived in sin and that that comes through our bloodline, so, so to speak.

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Chris
We inherit that from our from our parents. And so if Jesus came about the way that the rest of us come about, then he would be a sinner like we are center. And so the virgin birth is is essential because that enables Jesus. He was conceived by the Holy Spirit in Mary's womb. So he didn't come about really through Mary or through Joseph either or or both.

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Chris
It was he was simply conceived by the Holy Spirit. And that enables him to be one of us without our sin nature. And so if, you know, Joseph was the real father of Jesus or Mary had been sleeping with Larry, okay, You know, Jesus is not perfect. He's not innocent, he's not sinless and as a result, we have no mediator.

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Chris
You know, Paul talks about and Timothy, there's one mediator between God and man, the man Christ Jesus Christ the Messiah, the the Holy one. And he's he can only be both the man and God if he didn't actually come from man, he's a man. But he didn't come from from man. So it's absolutely essential. And it goes back to what you're saying.

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Chris
If someone denies the virgin birth, they deny the gospel and therefore deny their their salvation, and we can't simply just throw it out. It is catastrophic.

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Brenton
Yeah. And this was a an issue that I kind of wrestled with yesterday. And I think I still have some questions on on how exactly all this happens. I'm sure a lot of people still have have questions on it. And I think, again, we we run into mystery whenever we try to tackle these issues because scripture only tells us as much as as much as we need to know.

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Chris
So yeah, and they're different views on it. And I think we've got to be careful that we don't go beyond Scripture. Some of that is is speculation and and not that it's wrong speculation. We should wrestle with these things. I think the important thing is that Jesus had to be both fully God and fully man, but he also had to be a man who was sinless and perfect and did not have a sin.

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Chris
Nature like every other human being. And so in some way, the Holy Spirit conceived in Mary, this child who did not have a sin nature like the rest of us, to however he acted in that way, that the end result was that he would be different, a different kind of human than the rest of us. Yeah.

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Brenton
Yeah. The other thing is I was looking to this was just the the way that in in the incarnation we see the entire Trinity working together, even in this one act. And so it's just another, another example of, you know, the, the necessity of the Trinity in, in the redemption of God's people. And so, you know, the Spirit is doing the work of of conception there.

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Brenton
And the father is, is setting these plans in motion. And yeah, I just found that interesting. Okay, onto the next one. So Philippians two seven says the Christ emptied himself by taking the form of a servant being born in the likeness of men. And I think this sometimes is where we can get into issues and maybe say too much more than we are meaning to say.

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Brenton
But people often speak of Christ giving up his divinity when he took on flesh. To what extent did he do this if he did at all?

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Chris
Yeah, I think it's incorrect to say that he gave up his divinity. That would imply that he stopped being God and the Bible Nowhere teaches that and in fact teaches that exact opposite. So Colossians two nine in Christ all the fullness of the deity lives in bodily form. So Philippians two seven says that Jesus emptied himself by taking the form of a servant being born in the likeness of men.

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Chris
This is known as the kenosis that that word kenosis is the Greek word for empty in that passage. But it doesn't say what Jesus emptied himself of. So we've got to be careful here. But we know that he didn't empty himself of his divine attributes. Okay, None of the attributes are mentioned in this verse, and if we read the gospels, it's pretty obvious that Jesus possessed omniscience.

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Chris
He was omnipotent and and we get lots of examples there. Now, he didn't always exercise his omniscience and his omnipotence, so in some ways he he intentionally limited himself. But I think it's better to understand the emptying them of saying that he laid aside some of the the privileges that he had as a son of God. So he made himself enough.

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Chris
I mean, that's how the NIV translates. Philippians two seven, and he chose to take upon the form of a servant. So I think it will mean even understanding that if you go back to the verses that he emptied himself by taking on the form of service. So he he actually took on something. He actually added something he added to human nature.

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Chris
It's not really lost anything. It's that he added something.

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Brenton
Very important distinction.

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Chris
It's a very important distinction. And so basically Jesus in in emptying himself, emptied himself of the privileges that he didn't the passage actually talked about he didn't consider being God, something to be grasped and something to be held on to. And I think what it means there is like his again, his privileges of being being God, He could have stayed in heaven, right?

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Chris
He did not have to enter into this world and take on the form of a servant. But he willingly did that. And in doing so, I even mentioned this. I suddenly became obedient to death, even death on a cross. So.

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Brenton
Well, if I can interject here, just to go back a little bit in Philippians and talk about how important context is, again, verse three says, Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility, count others more significant than yourselves. And what he's doing here is is using the example of Look, Christ is God and God has decided to condescend down, showing his humility, his his selflessness to do what he did.

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Brenton
And so, you know, he's really just using Christ as an example here and not necessarily giving some didactic information about about, you know, the point.

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Chris
The point is humility. Right. Right. That that's that's what he's trying to get across is like we're to be humble and our example here is Christ and his humility in not not saying, hey, it's it's got to be about like me in this case, I'm going to become a servant and I'm going to come and I am going to meet the needs that that you have.

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Chris
And he did that by actually adding something on. Right. And that would be his his human nature.

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Brenton
The theologians kind of speak of that, as is the two natures of Christ, that that Christ had his divine nature, but that he never got rid of. He I like the language veiled as he came down, but also added on his the second nature, which was his human nature.

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Chris
Yeah.

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Brenton
So it seems an accurate way to explain it.

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Chris
Veiled in flesh, the Godhead see, there you go in singing that. And you know, it's interesting. Like for most of his time here on Earth, Jesus, his divinity was was veiled, but it was it was his as if a number of different times he actually kind of pulled the Clark Kent, you know, costume back. And you could see the Superman outfit in the Cape.

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Chris
And there wasn't just once or twice, but, you know, he's healing people who know a lot of people and performed a lot of miracles. But overall, you know, if he was here, you know, estimates are for 33 years and his ministry was three years for, you know, 90% of his life, he was it was veiled, maybe was just he just seemed to be a human like the rest of us.

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Chris
And he was he is a human like the rest of us. But he's he's not only a human, he's also got and he never maybe get it down to it. He never stopped being God. And there's been a lot of heresies that have gotten either wrong on either side of the equation. He never was truly human or he never was truly God or he stopped being God or, you know, and all that.

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Chris
No, he was fully God. And for a man and one person. And he will be fully God and fully man for eternity now.

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Brenton
Yep. Yeah. I think one one interesting thing along with that is even even in those times when he, you know, showed his his divinity on earth, you know, he he always came back to that. He doesn't do anything on his own accord. He, he he only does what the father wants him to do. And so you still in all of his purposes and all of his actions on Earth, he's still showing this the selflessness and the the humility of still being a servant to to the father while he's on earth.

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Brenton
And so, yeah, that's an important point. Going back to Philippians. So you just answered my next question for me. So thanks for that. Which is my next question was what is Christ stating now? Does he still have a body post Ascension?

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Chris
Yeah. So a couple of passages here. First Corinthians 15, Paul's great treatise on the resurrection. He says, Just as we have born the image of the man of dust, it's Adam. We should also bear the image of the man of heaven. We shall also bear the image of the man of heaven and then Philippians 321 Paul says that Jesus will transform our lowly body to be like his glorious body.

00;19;48;15 - 00;20;28;10
Chris
And he's talking about the future, the future resurrection, and our current lowly body, you know, still sinful body, still a broken body, weak body. It'll be transformed to be like Christ's perfect body and it's he's not talking about his perfect body that he had just for a little bit after he rose from the dead. He's talking about the glorious body that he has currently and I also like first John three where John talks about he says, we don't know what we're going to be like.

00;20;28;13 - 00;20;57;24
Chris
We know that when we see him, we will be made like him for we will see him as he is. So there's something in looking at Jesus and his glorified body that will transform us, so our body to be like his body. So from from everything, the Bible will tell us that before the Incarnation, Jesus was a spirit, just like the Father and the Spirit are, all spirit are.

00;20;57;27 - 00;21;28;26
Chris
But in the virgin birth and the Incarnation, he took on human flesh. That's what Kaan means. Flesh incarnated. He took on flesh. And from that point forward, he will always have a have a body. And his body before his death and resurrection was a body that was subject to two to weakness and to pain like our bodies, which is amazing.

00;21;28;26 - 00;21;50;08
Chris
Just to think about that again, there's the humility that he would be willing to do that right to experience the grief and pain and sorrow and loss and hurt and all of us aches and pains and everything that we do. But then once he was resurrected and Paul talks about this in first Corinthians 15, he has a new imperishable body.

00;21;50;08 - 00;22;13;18
Chris
And that's the kind of imperishable body we're going to get when he comes back, which is our great, you know, like there's the great hope and then there's a great hope in the Incarnation, too, is because he he, you know, Emmanuel God with us. He's with us because he's one of us, but he's one of us. So that one day we can be like he is.

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Brenton
Yeah, yeah. And I think another example of that is we see final judgment where, where Christ comes back with a body.

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Chris
Yeah. So yeah, it's, it's all over the place and in just to tie it all together, you know, you go from creation all the way to the end to, to his return in creation. Adam and Eve were created with a pair of perfect bodies. And so they didn't have bodies that were subject to disease. They were not subject to pain to to all the issues that we have sin enters in and automatically now the curse comes and as a result, the curse.

00;22;56;13 - 00;23;08;18
Chris
We're all experiencing it. We experience that every day of our lives. Christ comes to reverse the curse, but that doesn't fully come to bear until he returns.

00;23;08;21 - 00;23;41;25
Brenton
Good. All right. I have one more question and it comes from your sermon. A question that you posed on Sunday was why was Jesus born the way he was, you know, in a barn around farm animals in this very lowly, lowly place. And you you gave an idea in your sermon. You said the reason that that he did that was to show that he came for the impoverished, the immoral, the unclean, the outcasts.

00;23;41;27 - 00;24;14;29
Brenton
And and I agree with you here, but at the same time, I don't want it to be lost that Christ came for all types of people and not just people that find themselves in the lower class. And I think that, you know, sometimes that's how the gospel can get communicated that that God, you know, has come for the the lowly has come for the and to some extent, I mean, we look at the Sermon on the Mount, we see that him talking about the meek like these are these are true things.

00;24;15;02 - 00;24;45;10
Brenton
But at the same time we see example after example in scripture of of Jesus taking on and and ministering to people that would have been seen in the upper class as well. And so I think I think my concern may be with just the broader, you know, kind of Christianity of how we evangelize is that we look at these lower we kind of look at Jesus's message in in the terms of class.

00;24;45;10 - 00;24;51;12
Brenton
Right. So what are your thoughts on that? Do you do you agree? Do you what do you think?

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Chris
Yeah, I think your concern is well founded here and you mentioned the Beatitudes. You mentioned the third Beatitude. If I have them right, the first Beatitude is blessed are the poor in spirit now doesn't say blessed are the poor is as poor in spirit as Earth. And I think that the the the point of the scriptures is that the the material poor are more inclined, are easier to recognize that they are poor in spirit, too.

00;25;32;22 - 00;25;59;16
Chris
But that does not mean that Jesus came solely for the poor or the the oppressed. He He came for everybody. And it's really, really clear. I mean, so Jesus in Luke four, quoting from Isaiah, he's he's in Nazareth. And after he quotes from this, they go and try to shove him off a cliff. He goes back home and this is the welcome that he gets.

00;25;59;16 - 00;26;22;08
Chris
But any quotes from Isaiah where it says The spirit of the Lord is upon me because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. Is sent me to proclaim liberty to the captives and recovery of the sight to the blind, the Senate Liberty, those who are oppressed to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor. And then he follows it up and he he says every today the Scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.

00;26;22;11 - 00;27;07;04
Chris
And so the the poor that he's talking about, they're the captives, these talking about they're the blind, the oppressed, those are the the spiritually poor, captive, blind and oppressed, which is everybody. And yet, if if we do follow the storyline of the Bible from Old Testament and New Testament, it seems pretty clear that God has a special heart for those who are experienced those things materially, and because they tend to be the ones that are over and overlooked, they tend to be the ones who think that are beyond salvation.

00;27;07;07 - 00;27;35;12
Chris
And so that that's kind of what I was getting at. And we got to be careful, though. Like you point out, we can there can be in kind of an overemphasis on that and to not recognize that the Bible's also really clear, especially like a Jesus ministry, and we can go after example after example of Jesus ministering to, to to wealthy people, to well-connected people, to moral upright people.

00;27;35;12 - 00;28;00;07
Chris
So, yeah, whether it's Nicodemus is a great example of that, either the poster child of that and and I'm in a study with a group of guys who are going through gospel of John I was you know, talking about Nicodemus a couple of weeks ago, and the negative miss was the cream of the crop. You know, intellectually, he was a very influential man, came a very influential family.

00;28;00;09 - 00;28;26;09
Chris
He was wealthy. I mean, like he was the upper crust of society. And yet Jesus has a very intentional, welcoming conversation with him. And I think from all that we can tell, that's what we see in John chapter three. We're not told Nicodemus a response, but we do know that after Jesus death, Nicodemus is one of the guys that goes in with Joseph of Arimathea, another rich man with wealthy followers.

00;28;26;10 - 00;28;53;14
Chris
They go get the body of Jesus, and they would have only have done that if they'd actually become his followers, because in doing that, they were literally risking everything. And so, you know, and we could talk about guys like Matthew, he was a tax collector, would have been very, very wealthy. Zacchaeus Another example, you have several of the ladies who were followers of Jesus who were wealthy and they supported Jesus's ministry, and we could give other examples here.

00;28;53;14 - 00;29;00;26
Chris
So she just came for, for everybody and we need to always keep that in mind. Yeah.

00;29;00;28 - 00;29;05;18
Brenton
Yeah. Even, you know, Old Testament. David Solomon.

00;29;05;20 - 00;29;06;26
Chris
Joe Yeah.

00;29;06;28 - 00;29;32;19
Brenton
Like for sure these people and I think, yeah, and I, I had a hard time even kind of forming this into a question, but I just, it seems to be a, you know, a, a repeating thing that the, the gospel sometimes gets split into like these two different classes and God or Jesus came, you know, for, for the outcasts, for the lower class.

00;29;32;19 - 00;29;33;19
Brenton
And so.

00;29;33;21 - 00;30;05;21
Chris
Yeah, there's a well, let me read one more passage that I think kind of brings this all together. So escalations chapter three, where Paul says that in Christ there is neither Greek and I'm sorry. Yeah. So that where Paul says Galatians 328 there is neither June or Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is no male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.

00;30;05;23 - 00;30;46;02
Chris
Yeah. And and so the wealthy, the more all the you know, upright influential need to to recognize that the gospel is for those on the other side of the ledger socially speaking. But in the same point and this is maybe even where the pendulum is swinging more in these days I think this is really why you're kind of bringing this up is like this idea that, you know, Jesus really only came for the poor and the marginalized and and like down with power and down with wealth and down with all all of that.

00;30;46;02 - 00;31;31;25
Chris
And that's just not it's just not the case at all. Yeah, that's not what we see in Scripture actually illustrated for us and examples. But it's also not what the the gospel teaches. Maybe I tend to talk about different generations at times and I think there's should be a warning on both sides here. I think the older generation, sometimes we've grown up in a world where a church world anyways, where we we have tended maybe to look down on the oppressed, the poor, the marginalized and, you know, at times maybe think, well, they they're in that place because of, you know, they deserve what they've done.

00;31;31;25 - 00;31;54;17
Chris
And sometimes, you know, we we do find ourselves in life because of things, the choices that we've made. But but a lot of times for for people, it's not easy for for people like me who were born on third base to recognize that I was born on third base and some people were born a little bit off of home plate, so to speak, in that example.

00;31;54;20 - 00;32;23;18
Chris
But then the the younger generation, what I would warn them about is the pendulum tends to swing. They think, okay, anybody with wealth or power influence, you know, that means that they're there because they're corrupt or something. And that that's not true either. And the point in all of this maybe that maybe is getting lost again is that everybody needs Jesus and Jesus came for everybody.

00;32;23;20 - 00;32;48;00
Chris
And so and in him, all of those things that divide us, whether it be race or class or gender, you know, all of those barriers get get broken down. And that doesn't mean that there aren't distinctions. Make the distinctions go away. You're right. Those distinctions are still there. Jesus says, you all the poor will always be among you.

00;32;48;02 - 00;33;04;19
Chris
Okay. So it's not that those distinctions are not there. It's just like we don't allow those distinctions to separate us and to prevent us from being in that church and treating others equal brothers and sisters in Christ.

00;33;04;21 - 00;33;38;08
Brenton
Yeah, well, the example you gave of, you know, the rich person with power, I think that that's, Yeah, but it could totally be corruption that got him there. And, and, but either way, the answer is it's the same as it is for the poor, the poor person. It's Jesus. And so that's yeah, that's the point. And I think what you said earlier is, you know, that people in that, in that situation and in the tough kind of lowly situation, it is a lot easier sometimes to convince that person of their spiritual need if they have big physical needs.

00;33;38;10 - 00;33;45;20
Brenton
And so it's not that. It's that these things are irrelevant. They're they're still there, but. Right. Yeah, I think. Right. Yeah.

00;33;45;22 - 00;34;10;28
Chris
Yeah. And I've had the privilege of ministering to people on both ends of the spectrum and a lot of people in the middle. And I can I can tell you that just because you're poor does not mean that you're going to be open to the gospel or poor broken. And sometimes it can actually harden you to the gospel.

00;34;11;00 - 00;34;36;21
Chris
And I also know that just because somebody is wealthy, influential, connected doesn't mean that they're going to be closed off to the gospel. And so, you know, and and we also need to minister the people that God where he puts us in the places that he calls us to. And that's different for all of us. Yeah.

00;34;36;24 - 00;35;00;20
Brenton
All right. Well, thanks for joining us today, guys. A couple recaps here. We are not going to drop another episode until January 10th, so keep that in mind. Continue to send in your questions that you got. We'll have three weeks of backlog of questions if you guys send some stuff in. So we will take care of that in Happy birthday to you, Chris.

00;35;00;22 - 00;35;05;03
Brenton
Thank you. But I'm not going to. Yeah. And yeah, we'll talk to you guys next week.

00;35;05;05 - 00;35;06;03
Chris
Merry Christmas, everybody.