The Extra
The Extra is a podcast hosted by Crosspoint Christian Church in Conyers, Georgia. Senior Minister, Curtis Zehner, and his friend, Ken Pierce, talk through each week's sermon unpacking the extra material that didn't make the cut for the weekend message. Curtis' and Ken's conversational and relaxed style lend itself to listeners of all ages and spiritual maturities.
The Extra
Easter pt.1
The temple cleansing wasn't just a dramatic moment in Jesus' ministry—it was a profound revelation of his purpose that continues to challenge our expectations today. When we look closely at this pivotal moment, we discover Jesus wasn't merely concerned with religious practices but was addressing the fundamental problem of our hearts.
Check out more at www.CrosspointConyers.com
Hey guys, welcome to the Extra where we talk with Curtis Zahner about last week's sermon. Welcome to the Extra.
Speaker 2:What's happening?
Speaker 1:Ken, you have a future in coaching, because the amount of encouragement it took for me to get to a place where I wanted to do that intro was in the last 90 seconds was superhuman.
Speaker 2:Is that right? We did that in 90 seconds.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I convinced you to do it From nothing to doing the intro you did great.
Speaker 2:I appreciate it. Come on, man Ken you have the face for radio. I'll tell you, I mean the voice for radio. It's great to be here.
Speaker 1:You sound like my dad when you say that oh gosh, I'm already telling dad jokes. No, that's good, Can I tell you you have a face for radio. That's funny.
Speaker 2:Well, my dad was in radio for a long time. Yeah, and that's what he would always say I've got a great face for radio. Yeah, that's good. Oh, great to be here, ken. I did not preach this past week. Yeah, preach this past week, and typically we have the guest preacher on the podcast with us but this week Marcos is with his baby.
Speaker 1:They're busy, yeah.
Speaker 2:It's like he had a major life event happen or something, yeah you know major life event. He's got family in town. He had in-laws in town this past weekend, so he's extra busy, Am I right? Marcos? Cross country in-laws? That's right. That's a lot of pressure.
Speaker 1:That is A lot of pressure. Yeah, to entertain and to this is what we want.
Speaker 2:Yeah, this is what we're trying to do with the baby, because it's not like if it's terrible, they can just go back to their house.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we're here.
Speaker 1:We're here for a month. I wonder if his in-laws listen to the podcast.
Speaker 2:I'm sure you guys are doing great, absolutely, and they appreciate every second that you're with them. I guarantee it. Absolutely Well, marcos preached a great sermon this past week, and so we'll obviously talk about some of those highlights and maybe drift onto the topic of Easter at large over the next few minutes, which I'm really enjoying. We just started it. Marcos was the first sermon in a series of sermons on Easter and it began with the triumphant entry that bleeds right into the temple cleansing. So Marcos really focused in on the temple cleansing and the parallels between actually not parallels, because we're not talking symbols here Jesus was cleansing Israel of their sin against God. But even bigger than that, at Easter, at the crucifixion leading into the resurrection, he's cleansing us all who believe in him. He's cleansing our temples, our bodies of sin against God so that we can live in relationship with God.
Speaker 2:Finally, preparation in relationship with God. Finally Preparation of sorts, yeah, yeah, preparation, and really like the unveiling of a new life. So the preparation has been for generations that the law has been preparing us for the law of Moses. So the Mosaic covenant is the preparation and throughout the whole scripture we're looking forward to when is the new person going to come Like, when is the new covenant going to come. The Mosaic law is wonderful, it's great, but the way that Paul would put it in the New Testament is that that law it brings death Like no one can live up to it. So the greatest accomplishment of the law is to reveal that you are a sinner. So we need something new. So what Jesus is doing he's unveiling the newness of this covenant with God we can finally have the relationship that the law points us toward but prohibits us from having because we can't follow the law perfectly.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's a good way to look at it, as in, this is an unwinnable scenario.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Following this law is unwinnable, but there is a way out.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I like that there are benefits to the law. Part of the Mosaic Covenant is that if you follow the law then you will receive blessing. Right To live in the way that God designed for you to live naturally brings forth blessing, you know, to his laws, just the 10 commandments. If you go down, not murdering people, right, good start, that's a very good start. Jesus would say in Matthew 5, so you've heard it said don't murder, right. Well, good for you. Like golf clap. Yeah, you got to take it yeah.
Speaker 1:You got to take it one step further.
Speaker 2:One step further. If you even say to your brother you're an idiot.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Well then, you've committed the same sin of murder in your heart if you hate a brother. And so Jesus is revealing that the law is much deeper and our problem against the law is much deeper, and our problem against the law is a whole lot more intrinsic to who we are. It's so much deeper in our hearts and minds than we could have ever imagined. It's like, oh, we are jacked up, yeah, but Jesus ends up dying for all of us. He becomes the sin.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, not murdering relatively easy, but taking it one step further? Right yeah, it would be. And the further you take it it becomes more difficult, and thus holding that law becomes more difficult and it makes you better as a result.
Speaker 2:Absolutely, it's a heart issue. Have you ever heard anybody say that at church before? Yeah, it's a heart issue. Have you ever?
Speaker 1:heard anybody say that at church before.
Speaker 2:It's a heart issue and that's what Jesus is getting at in his ministry, especially Matthew 5. I talk about Matthew 5 a lot. Is that your favorite book? That is my favorite New Testament passage. Listen, my thought process is I think that what we read in Matthew 5, 6, and 7 is like Jesus' campaign speech.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah.
Speaker 2:He's not a politician, so don't mix my words there. He's not trying to be a politician. What I mean is every little place he went. I think that that's what he was teaching when he went. So he would do miracles, he would heal people. It's a press kit, yeah, kind of like that, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:This is what I've done. This is what I would like to do.
Speaker 2:Those things he's introducing the kingdom of heaven. Now, it's not exhaustive what we read in Matthew 5, 6, and 7, because there's only five case studies in Matthew 5 of the law, but there are 213 total laws in Jesus' day what the religious leaders had created and so forth over the years. So it's not exhaustive, but those five case studies give us at least the accurate representation of what Jesus was saying about the law as a whole. The point is that you're messed up and it's a whole lot deeper than surface level, Right? Yes, you need a savior.
Speaker 1:Yeah, the presence of that law and all those laws leads people to believe that, okay, all I got to do is follow the law and I'll be good, right, or I'll end up good and I'll be in a good place when it's all over. That's the expectation. The reality is you need a savior, yes, yeah. Expectation versus reality leads to a lot of it leads to anger, depression, anxiety all the great things that keep me in business as a counselor as a counselor, as a counselor, yeah.
Speaker 1:As a counselor. It's almost always a form of depression, anxiety or anger. I expect this, but I got this. Management of expectations and management of expectations Two things to get rid of anger. If you want to do it today, manage your expectations. Stop comparing yourself to other people, Wow, and then that's it, and you won't be angry anymore.
Speaker 2:How can we send our check to you Right? Will you bill us for?
Speaker 1:that that's $75. Yeah.
Speaker 2:Care of yeah. If you'd like to have a session with Ken. Pierce go to wwwkenpierce I don't know Right.
Speaker 1:Think of where you place expectations and think of where they're too high or unfair. I expect this person to act like me. I'm in a relationship. I expect her to act like me or me to act like her. Vice versa, whatever. And I get upset when she doesn't, or I get upset when he doesn't. Why doesn't she do what I want her to do? Or why doesn't he just listen and say what I want him to say in this situation? Well, there's a lot of different reasons.
Speaker 2:Yes, and a friend of mine says unmet expectations always lead to frustration.
Speaker 1:Always, Always. And that friction to what is happening is the discomfort. That's where the discomfort. Nobody likes being angry. People may think they like being angry and they use it to their advantage, but it always ends up bad. It always ends up in a worse place If you use anger to control a situation.
Speaker 1:It's not good. But if you manage your anger and you say, okay, I'm angry right now, I used to react this way Now I'm going to go for a walk, now I'm going to, the therapeutic approach would be to journal about it, to calm down and then talk. Yeah, but not in the moment, because anger is that little demon that wants you to just do damage to, somebody, right yeah?
Speaker 1:It's a god of war. I want to do damage to the other guy, wow, or whoever is in front of me. But those expectations have to be tempered versus reality. You're not going to change reality, you have to live with it. Think about somebody you know that gets angry a lot and they have a hard time accepting just what a fact of life, or just what is happening or what will happen. They want their cake and eat it too. It's one of those things.
Speaker 2:I got you. So how does this unmet expectations or mismanagement of expectations play into our relationship with Jesus?
Speaker 1:Right, so he's. Jesus has a certain nature and a certain way of doing things and a certain way of coming across and, like I said earlier, you know that there are people that create their own version of Jesus. There's a movie about it called Dogma. I don't know. Have you ever seen Dogma?
Speaker 2:No, interesting.
Speaker 1:It came out in the 90s. Alanis Morissette plays God. That should give you a good summary of what's going on. It's a Kevin Smith movie, so it's got Matt Damon, ben Affleck, kevin Smith.
Speaker 2:Wow.
Speaker 1:Alanis Morissette, jason Lee, it's got Matt Damon, ben Affleck, kevin Smith. Wow, alanis Morissette, jason Lee, it's in that crowd, kind of a big cast. Yeah, it was a decently big movie. But Jesus had become a commodity in the movie and they tried to commercialize Jesus to the point where they were. You know they're Jesus figurines, you know they're Jesus figurines. But they said, if you get basically in the movie, if you get this, you have all the blessings of a believer, of a sincere believer. So the whole movie plays out and they're trying to change. You know they're trying to change. No, no, no, that's not what it is, that's not what we were trying to do. That, but a lot of things are going to happen. Hilarity ensues. Basically, the world gets unmade pretty much. So they had an expectation of Jesus and it wasn't being met, so they created their own.
Speaker 2:Okay.
Speaker 1:And a lot of people do that in their heart, in their mind yeah, I'm going to follow this Jesus. I like that one. It's more palatable, I'm not going to suffer so much. And what do you get? Out of that you get prosperity gospel.
Speaker 2:So I was going to ask the question where does that come from? Is it a lack of biblical knowledge You're not reading your Bible enough or being taught in church or is it just a denial of what you are being taught because you want it to be what you want it to?
Speaker 1:be To the uninitiated which I would consider myself an uninitiated because I don't work in the church and I'm not in charge of teaching. Yeah, it comes from a combination of biblical ignorance, ignorance of how Christianity operates, what's expected of you as a believer, and denial that you have to change.
Speaker 2:Okay.
Speaker 1:Denial of the need to change is real bad yeah.
Speaker 2:All the time. It's interesting, you consider yourself to be uninitiated. I have a different definition of uninitiated, in that the uninitiated would be those who are outside of the faith completely, who don't have a belief in Jesus or even a reference to who he is.
Speaker 1:I mean in our culture.
Speaker 2:that's hard, I think most people in our culture have a reference of who Jesus is In good grief. We exclaim his name everywhere. I think most people have heard the name Jesus, but uninitiated would be outside of the faith.
Speaker 2:I would consider you an initiated person because you have a relationship with Jesus, you've been baptized into the faith, you attend church, you're leading your family in the way of Christ, and there's always going to be a level of biblical misunderstanding for everyone. I mean for everyone. The Bible is not a piece of literature that can be understood by one person in one take.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:It's just not possible. It takes a lifetime of relationship, of knowing Jesus and reading his word, to really discover who he is. And then I think, when we get to heaven we're going to have the light bulb turned on and be like oh, that's what you meant.
Speaker 2:That, okay, yeah, that's what you meant, um. And so there is room for frustration because, like you're saying, there's those who just deny it what, what, what they're hearing. They don't want to change, they deny the reality of the need for change. Um would definitely agree with you that the lack of, not the lack of, what did you say? There's biblical ignorance.
Speaker 1:Ignorance.
Speaker 2:Ignorance. The biblical ignorance part is part of it in all of us. Yeah, and so maybe.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that can factor into everybody's situation, right, yeah, even preachers, yes, yeah, and so maybe, yeah, that can factor into everybody's situation Right yeah, even preachers.
Speaker 2:Yes, you know because we're bringing a worldview into it too.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:You know we're bringing our own family upbringings and school experiences. Yeah, and there's a lot of factors in it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, okay, keep going. No, no, no, please. I had a college professor. He was the campus minister at Young Harris of Dr Fred Whitley and he said of the Old Testament, he was my Old Testament teacher. He said there is so much I don't know about the Old Testament and he dedicated his entire life, more or less. As far as I was concerned, I was only 19 at the time and he had been teaching for almost double that at the college. So, as far as I'm concerned, an entire lifetime. Yeah, right, and two lifetimes. And he would still come up and say, look, and there's a lot about this, I don't know. I'm telling you what is the prevailing wisdom now? Yeah, so there's always going to be this rediscovery and there's always going to be this, what I referred to when I was in college as the pulling back of the curtain there's always going to be this unveiling of new feelings, thoughts, emotions, especially when the Bible's concerned.
Speaker 2:So we're getting a little off track here, but I'm going to ask this question anyway. How do you respond to, then, a core belief of our scripture and of who God is, that he is never changing. He is completely unchanging in character? Yeah, and his word is unchanging, so explain to me how that works then. That it's unchanging, but you're going to experience new things.
Speaker 1:Yeah. So there are no fixed points, right? You can only in nature, you can only look at them and say oh, this room isn't moving, it, technically, is moving because the earth is moving, the galaxy is moving, blah, blah, blah, but it's so big we can't conceive of it. So God, jesus, the Trinity, all those things are going to be a. You're going to look at them as a fixed point and you're the one that's moving. So there's relative motion in play.
Speaker 2:Ah, very interesting You're the one that's moving.
Speaker 1:That's a great way to explain that. Okay, yeah, it's so big and so stable and so coherent. Yep, you have to be the one that's moving. It's not this thing, that is the fabric of reality. Okay, okay.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:That where this thing that constitutes the fabric of reality is not going to move, sorry, you have to be the one to move so it's like I I realize the sun moves throughout the galaxy.
Speaker 2:Like I understand that, yeah, but just to boil it down to maybe a simpler way of seeing it, the sun isn't rising and setting right on on the horizons.
Speaker 1:Yeah, the earth is rotating exactly, so it makes it appear like the sun is. That's what you're saying? Yeah, exactly we are.
Speaker 2:God is the fixed point. Yeah, and we're the ones who are.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, okay, rotating moving. Yeah yeah, we're the codependent variable in the equation.
Speaker 2:We're getting a little too smart. For me, we're the dependent variable.
Speaker 1:We're the dependent variable. I got you, god is the independent variable. He can do what he wants.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah. So in that, with that, you have to say, if I have the ability to change and I need to change, so you have the need to and the ability, what are you left with? In counseling you would say, okay, you have the ability and the opportunity. You have to be willing, you have to hand it over. You have to start to recognize, like Marco said, recognize Jesus for who he is, who he truly is Right, the truth of who he is.
Speaker 2:And in that day and age, when he came into Jerusalem, they thought that he was going to take over as a king, a political king, and there was a lot of frustration because that expectation was not met. In fact, that whole mob, that crowd I guess they're called a crowd at first because they're praising him and then they turn into a mob because they want to kill him- it takes one person to turn it into a mob.
Speaker 2:And that's what happens they turn into a mob. That same crowd that praised him at the beginning of the week ends up being a mob that calls for his execution at the end of the week, because their expectation of who they thought he was was unmet. And Marcos did a great job on Sunday explaining you know, we have this misunderstanding and, generally speaking, when I say we, we have a misunderstanding of who Jesus is in our lives. He's not. His prevailing phrase was he doesn't come into your life to just make your life 10% better.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and that's an arbitrary number. Of course it's not about how many percents or how much, an arbitrary number.
Speaker 2:Of course, it's not about how many percents or how much, but I think of prosperity gospel. Like you said, it doesn't mean that everything's going to start going right. I think we've joked on this podcast before about the car and the parking space.
Speaker 1:Yeah, the.
Speaker 2:Joel Osteen type of gospel where if you just give, you're going to get the right parking space and you're highly favored.
Speaker 1:Your best life is ahead of you. If you just give, you're going to get the right parking space and you're highly favored.
Speaker 2:Your best life is ahead of you if you just Right. And that's not what Jesus says In John 16, 33,. Jesus says I have told you these things so that in me you may have peace In this world. You will have trouble, but take heart, I have overcome the world. Following Jesus is not an easy thing, Like following Jesus is not an easy thing. In fact, in a later verse he says that the world hates you, but rest assured and be happy, because they hate you because of me.
Speaker 1:Really they hate me, and so rejoice because you're included in this now, and that feeds into the Beatitudes that we talk about in small group.
Speaker 2:Yeah, life is difficult about in small group. Yeah, yeah, life is difficult like on, according to our terms of how to live life, especially as a westerner. If we want to be really specific as an american um citizen of the united states, life, on our terms, is all about prosperity. Yeah, the good life is having a fat bank account and driving um I don't know what's a good car right now?
Speaker 1:I don't like it. I would like a nice truck within the next, like within the last five years, made within the last five years.
Speaker 2:That'd be nice that would be nice.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I drive an 04 f-150 with 275 miles on it see, I have a 15, that car out there is a 15. Yeah, but I'm like it's getting on up there because consumerism has told me it's getting on up there Exactly.
Speaker 2:Exactly, and so our way of life is really. The American life is dependent on prestige through wealth and the accumulation of the next big and great thing, but life with Jesus is defined by resting in the presence of God. You are in relationship with him, and that is good enough. And so when you suffer, how bad is your suffering compared to really being in relationship with God when? You experience grief. Yes, grief is terrible and it's a natural part of life.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:But rest assured that when you grieve, God is with you in the grief.
Speaker 1:Yeah, the expectation versus reality is really seen in stuff and material things Like when I get this, I will be happy.
Speaker 2:Right.
Speaker 1:Oh man, one of the best phrases I've ever heard as far as that goes is I can tell you that your troubles are coming from inside the house. Let's say, because you've already accomplished stuff that you said would make you happy. You've already done stuff that you said would make you happy. I've personally lived that I used to make this amount of money per hour and I was like man, if I can just make this amount of money, I'll be happy, I will consider myself rich. I'm making that. I made that several years ago and, and now I'm I'm still like, okay, I, I just want the next thing. It's called the hedonic treadmill. Yeah, psychologically, so you say you want, you want this. Well, you got to go here from there and then from there you go into the next room and then from that room you go into the next corner and then from the corner you go to the next door. You know you're always going to want to move.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and life with Jesus is not that, it's learning to be in the room that you're in. Yeah, and be um, um man. I just I don't have my words today. Content, Learning to be content in the room that you're sitting in.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you know, because he is also in the room and he is enough. Exactly, yeah, you're not searching. Feeling like you have to find something to be happy about and feeling like you have to find the next thing or the next process or the next relationship, yeah, not good, that's not good. Because you're constantly somebody that's exploring is not happy where they are, and Jesus is saying be happy where you are, I am enough.
Speaker 1:Yes, yeah, be happy where you are, I am enough, Be in relationship with me and I promise I am enough. But somebody that's an explorer is not happy in the valley. They want to climb the mountain to see what's on the other side right well, I'm not necessarily condemning the explorer no the mindset of the person who you know is exploratory in nature, but yeah
Speaker 2:I think, uh, I think, at the base of what we're talking about, yes, jesus, having relationship with him simply means that you, you have relationship with god and that's good enough. Yeah, so, no matter where you end up, no matter where you are right now, you can live the good life, because the good life means you are in relationship with the Heavenly Father. Yeah, we don't have to. We were talking about the Mosaic Covenant a moment ago. Was that on air or off air? I honestly can't remember. I can't have to. We were talking about the Mosaic Covenant a moment ago. Was that on air or off air?
Speaker 1:I honestly can't remember. I can't remember either. We do a hot 30 minutes before we even press record. So I don't know.
Speaker 2:Well, jesus changes the game. He introduces a new covenant and there's no need to make animal sacrifices anymore to atone for your sin each year, really to push back the sin. That was like if you make an animal sacrifice, it's just like that year's sins are just kind of pushed back. It's a credit card. It's a credit card, oh, ken, you're so? Yes, that's the perfect way to put it. It's a credit card system and your credit is just kind of rolling over, like, okay, you're starting off with a fresh balance, but last year still is unpaid. Well, jesus comes in and he pays the whole balance. So now, like the race of having to perform the ceremony every year and make the right sacrifice and do it the exact right way, we don't even have to chase after that anymore because Jesus did it once and for all and we can rest in his presence and it relieves a lot of that anxiety.
Speaker 2:It does.
Speaker 1:Anxiety relief is what everybody's after technically.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Because you can't. There's a lot more you can do about anxiety than you can about depression, because it's about the past. Anxiety is about the future and what's going to happen. Yeah, depression because it's about the past. Anxiety is about the future and what's going to happen. So let me relieve this right now by getting into a relationship with God and Jesus, who has paid it, paid my debt, all of it, and I don't have to worry about it. It is enough and that is extremely. Of course, it's uplifting, but it also, actually, in a counseling way, psychologically takes away anxiety.
Speaker 2:And it changes you from the inside out. Right, yeah, irrelevant, and you can live a hedonistic lifestyle for the rest of your life. Jesus has saved me. Paul says that, and Romans says what shall we do then? Shall we keep on sinning so that grace may increase? Yeah, More sins, more grace. Yeah, more sins, more grace, it's all good, yeah, yeah. No, absolutely not Right. That's not how it works.
Speaker 2:He says you are dead to sin because of the grace that Jesus has put in your life. And so if you can learn this now these are my words now, if you can accept that you needed to change, okay, and that through Jesus, now you have rest in his presence and relationship with him, that will produce in you, out of his grace, that will produce the change that's necessary in living in relationship with Jesus.
Speaker 2:You can't have one without the other. You can't change yourself. Only Jesus can do that. But he's not going to do it unless you surrender to him and are in relationship with him.
Speaker 1:By changing Maybe.
Speaker 2:Well, maybe. Yeah, I see what you're saying.
Speaker 1:Yeah, there's got to be an interplay. There has to be a relationship. It's a relationship, it's not one way, right, right, yes. Yes, that's what I'm saying. It's not one way.
Speaker 2:Yeah, sometimes my mind explodes yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, what you're always after as a counselor is for the person to change themselves, and you just are a guide by saying don't you think what's going wrong in your life? Okay, I have a bad relationship with my dad. Okay, what's going on? Tell me, tell me, tell me, tell me. You know, over and over Like let's get the story right first what really did happen between you, you know, when you were 30. That makes you not like him when you're 40? Right, you know, name it. And you're looking for the person's feelings and emotions to change about the situation, not just their actions. People can fake it, but for real change to happen, your feelings have to change, and that's what Jesus leads to a change of feelings, a change of heart, a change of soul and mind.
Speaker 2:Yes, I'm looking up something on my iPad while you're talking and it just sparked in me Like, if you think about the Sabbath day, the Sabbath it's the, the day of rest. Uh, per the mosaic law. Uh, you were supposed to do nothing on the seventh day and there were a lot of rules that came and developed around that, what you could and couldn't do. But, at the base of it, what Shabbat means is that you would rest from your work but also rest in God, and that day would be a formative day for the rest of your days of the week. It would kind of put in perspective the six days prior and change your viewpoint to maybe your aim of your six days in the future to come. So, resting from work so that you can rest in the presence of God, like, yes, you have to make the decision to rest, yeah, okay, but when you rest in the presence, it's the presence of God that energizes you to make the change for the other six days of the week.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And so, yes, there's conscious decision. You as the individual have to make a choice. Yes, but the person who's energizing you to make those changes, who's prompting you, who's helping you, is the Holy spirit. Yeah, that you are learning to rest in the presence, and so, really, every day, for the Christian, every day, should be a Sabbath day, in a, in a sense that not obviously the Bible scholars who are listening are saying hold on now, curtis.
Speaker 1:Yeah, easy, young on yeah.
Speaker 2:Easy, young man. Yeah, for all intents and purposes of this conversation, it's as if we should Sabbath every day, rest in God because of the presence of Jesus in our life, of what he did on the cross, and that we have the Holy Spirit in us. He sent us that helper to be with us.
Speaker 1:It's a perfect interplay. To me, the energizing force comes from one source. I act on that, and then it gets returned to me, and then it's just this feedback loop, in a way.
Speaker 2:I've said it a thousand times I feel like. But that's a relationship. A good relationship is one where you and your partner are mutually working together for a common goal. Right, and when one is down, the other is up. I think of like the oxen yoke Jesus says be yoked to me, my yoke is easy and my burden is light. Of like the oxen yoke, jesus says be yoked to me, my yoke is easy and my burden is light. Oxen yoke is a piece of wood and it has space at both ends for two ox heads to fit in, so both ox can pull the plow behind. And the purpose of the yoke is to keep them in line with each other so that if one oxen gets a little slow, the one who's going the correct pace can correct the slowness and the ox.
Speaker 2:It'll kind of pull him along. That way the plow stays straight. If one oxen gets slow or goes off to the right and the other one's staying straight, then the plow field is going to be all windy and you're not going to have straight rows, but the yoke keeps them together. Jesus says my yoke is easy and my burden is light. Essentially, jesus is doing the heavy lifting for us in relationship and so he's benefiting us by being in that yoked relationship with him. Have I thoroughly gone down that track at this point?
Speaker 1:We've exhausted several metaphors.
Speaker 2:Oh, jesus was a man of metaphors, so we're in decent company. I think I think so. Was a man of metaphors, so we're in decent company? I think I think so. Well, marcos did a great job on Sunday. I've said that before, but he pointed us towards the temple cleansing, and we kind of close out with this. I think that he was not just cleansing Israel of their sin, but Jesus cleanses us of our sin, and that is a hard thing. So life itself is hard enough, but God cleansing us of the crud inside of our lives, that is also a hard thing. Sometimes I picture it like you ever seen the movie Venom? Yeah, I actually haven't seen it, I've only seen the preview.
Speaker 2:So that's being a Viscous goo that he yeah yeah, that like attaches to you, that's what I imagine the sin in my life is like this goo that is just attached on the inside of me and pulling it out it's like stringy, it's like it snaps when it finally releases because the tension I've been holding on to my life and that's the mental picture I have of.
Speaker 2:God ridding me of my sin, and that's, man, when I, I just I'm so thankful, even though it's hard. I'm thankful that Jesus and his redemptive work is pulling that goo out of my life, because it's making me closer to God. It's making me more like Jesus, which is really the goal here that we would be more and more like him every day. Oh, sometimes, ken, I just want to like. There are, sometimes we say, things I want to just kind of stop and like meditate on it for a second. When we do this live recording format, it doesn't allow me the opportunity to, so here's my challenge for you If you're listening, if something hit, you stop for a moment before you turn something else on.
Speaker 2:You could go listen to baseball podcasts, like I'm probably going to do later, or turn on some music. If you're in the car, don't just turn something else on. Stop now and spend some time talking to your Heavenly Father. Process this stuff out loud, say it out loud in the car. If you're by yourself, do it together. If you got somebody in the passenger seat, it would be weird. Probably it would feel weird, but maybe it would lead to some awesome conversation and talks with God as well. All right, that's enough from me. Anything else from you, ken.
Speaker 1:No, you made me do the intro, so I'm completely exhausted for being here.
Speaker 2:See you next time.