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. 2 | Covenant vs Contract
What's the difference between a covenant and a contract? It's the difference between a relationship that endures through challenges and one that dissolves when things get difficult. In this thought-provoking conversation, we explore how modern culture has gradually transformed sacred covenants into mere transactions - affecting our marriages, friendships, church communities, and even our relationship with God.
Check out more at www.CrosspointConyers.com
Today on the Extra Podcast, ken Pierce and I talk about covenant versus contract. Maybe a little bit of marriage talk, who knows, let's go. What's happening?
Speaker 2:Ken Pierce Not much I'm doing great, I have to pull the curtain back a little bit on you. Oh, you nailed that in one take and it was perfect. You nailed that intro in one take and it was perfect, coming fresh off the intro that I did last week. No, you're hilarious man. It was. I said welcome to the extra twice.
Speaker 1:Yeah, Faith pointed. You've been thinking about it all week, haven't you?
Speaker 2:Faith pointed out. Oh, you said welcome to the extra, dot dot dot, welcome to the extra. And then there was 10 seconds and then, okay, the music hits, but you hit it within the 0.02 milliseconds well, I don't know, you're welcome I don't know what I say to that.
Speaker 1:I don't know you're welcome for my voice you're, you're, no, not at all so funny, nailed it first try first try yeah, I guess that is. Uh, that's a talent. There's an accomplishment for the day. That's a talent. I can go home and go to bed. I accomplished something today.
Speaker 2:That's why they tell you to make your bed first thing in the morning, because at least you can do that?
Speaker 1:What is that? The Navy Admiral or whatever that wrote that book? Yeah, make your bed.
Speaker 2:McRaven Yep, cool guy. Well, forget that, admiral, he. I just nailed my podcast intros. He'd be like, okay, whatever, he's a, he's a cool guy. His is a interview with a jocko willink on um, the leadership, the jocko podcast, the leadership podcast he was. He used to be called the bullfrog okay, because he was the head most senior navy seal in the navy Navy. Wow, for a while.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and he was going to be chancellor of the University of Texas and then he almost ran for president, like he's been all over the map. Oh my goodness. Yeah, but he's done. He's a little out of our podcast league.
Speaker 1:Yeah, maybe we could get him. I don't know, I don't know. Somebody send my intro of this podcast to the Admiral and that'll convince him.
Speaker 2:He'll be busting down the door. Everything that guy has done his whole life has been serious.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:Like serious, top level, everything.
Speaker 1:I'm sure he can't wait to be a part of this, yeah.
Speaker 2:And he's definitely never, ever sick at sea.
Speaker 1:Well, this past Sunday we talked about the idea of contract versus covenant. Really, it was stemming from in the Passion narrative, you know, jesus sitting at the table with his disciples and taking what we know as the Lord's Supper or the Last Supper, and he was introducing the brand new covenant in his blood. He was introducing the brand new covenant in his blood and so, yeah, you know, ken, you told me before we started you have a few questions and let's just, let's just do it. I don't need to recap, okay.
Speaker 2:What do you got? Covenant is a serious word compared to contract.
Speaker 1:Oh, definitely, but why why?
Speaker 2:does it feel so much?
Speaker 1:serious. Because don't we kind of use them in synonymous in some ways?
Speaker 2:If somebody said I want to enter into a covenant with you, I'd be like, well, okay, what's going on? That would be weird. It would be weird. I want to enter into a covenant with you. I'd be like, can we do a contract? Because there can be legal stuff in there. A covenant is more like it almost goes beyond the law, like it goes to the very like nature of your character. And if I break this covenant, I have gone back on so many things that can't be outlined in a contract. Right, like you can have, you can have a contract and you can break the contract because there might be a clause that says if this happens, then the contract is null and void.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:But a covenant just seems like no. It's stamped in the hardest material that you can imagine and you won't, even if something happens, to endanger the covenant. Your job is to honor the covenant, not the other party.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's interesting. You say it's stamped in the hardest material possible, because the Mosaic covenant was literally chiseled in stone. Yeah, yeah. But then Jeremiah says it's not going to be written on stone anymore, it's going to be written on the heart, and so it's not that it's stamped on the hardest material possible. It's stamped on the hardest material possible. It's stamped on the most sensitive material, the most sensitive part of our being.
Speaker 2:Brittle in a way Like it can be easily torn asunder, as they say in marriage vows.
Speaker 1:Torn asunder.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:I don't think I've ever heard that before.
Speaker 2:You've never heard that.
Speaker 1:When do you say that during a marriage vow?
Speaker 2:I've heard that in a bunch of.
Speaker 1:I will not be torn asunder. Yeah, I don't know. It's so funny. I've never heard that.
Speaker 2:Let me look that up. You're laughing hard enough to maybe look it up. Hold on.
Speaker 1:I'm not making fun of you. I'm not making fun of you. I promise I've never heard that before. Hold on, you caught me off guard, torn asunder. That'd be interesting. I certainly didn't say that in my marriage vows.
Speaker 2:Yeah, to tear asunder means to violently rip or separate something into pieces.
Speaker 1:Yeah, but did you and Faith say that in your marriage vows? No, I've just heard it. Oh okay, yeah, okay, no, I've just heard it. Oh okay, yeah. Well, I've never okay.
Speaker 2:Let no man, yeah, let no man, tear asunder, tear asunder.
Speaker 1:Yeah, the vows taken here.
Speaker 2:let no man tear asunder yeah.
Speaker 1:Interesting, yeah, anyway, yeah, I just got a lesson.
Speaker 2:Thank, you, if you have this brittle, this brittle thing that can be broken. Stone can be broken, yeah, but in the time when it was written, stone is seen as okay. This is the most permanent, hardest thing we can think of. Now you have the most sensitive thing the human heart. Yeah, it can be changed, it can be, it can be corrupted, it can be all these things.
Speaker 1:The Bible talks about the heart as if it can be hardened or softened, though. Yeah, as if it is a malleable material Right. You know, there's times in the Exodus narrative where the heart of Pharaoh was hardened yes, toward God, or toward the people of Israel, or even that God allowed his heart to be hardened, and so it seems like God can be the manipulator of the human heart at times.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it can be conditioned to be something that it wasn't before, which is great. People love that. People love to know that they can change or that something can be changed. I don't want anything to be permanent, and I think that's why covenants are so rare Definitely Because I don't want to live with this for the rest of my life. Are you saying this is how it's got to be? But a contract is like a clause at the very bottom that if this happens, we can get out of it.
Speaker 1:Let's just make sure that we're all on the same page. Let's just say hypothetically, You're starting corporate speak. Right.
Speaker 2:You start the corporation speak. It's just going to take time to find that balance right. Yeah, that phrase that's a good one.
Speaker 1:Do we do that in marriage? In our culture would that be what a prenup is described as. Probably.
Speaker 2:I don't really know much about what that means, except it has to do with the money yeah, as I mean, as far as I know, if I get you know, in the standard, when you sign one you get half, even though I didn't contribute anything to them financially. To you, I get half of your stuff if this marriage goes away. Right, yes, I'll sign it, and the lawyers say don't sign it.
Speaker 1:So that turns into a contract, yeah it's a contract. You're replacing the covenant part with a contract.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and eventually, if you sign one of those, what I would imagine is your marriage. You're living for the prenup, for the prenuptial agreement.
Speaker 1:I don't see why you'd be wrong.
Speaker 2:I'm not honoring the marriage anymore. I'm just not going anywhere because, that's half my money.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:I signed it so.
Speaker 1:And anywhere.
Speaker 2:Yeah, because that's half my money. Yeah, I signed it so and there's a yeah, there's a reason businessmen usually do that well, sure don't or don't do it. At least that's what they show in the movies yeah, yeah, yeah, I, I, and that's all I know of the world is movies exactly movies and tv.
Speaker 1:Yep, uh, yeah, I think that we have turned many covenantal relationships into contractual relationships. You know, even like friendships to an extent. Whether you realize it or not, friendships to some degree are a covenant relationship. Do you think that there's ways that we've turned friendship relationships into contracts?
Speaker 2:Oh, yeah, yeah, for sure. Um, for instance, there I'm, I can think of a bunch of different ways, especially um adult friendships. Friendships maybe not even post-college, I would say, post, post age 25 or so where you might be married and you might have a kid. You're now grounded in marriage and children, right, and you still have friendships to honor. And you might not make it to somebody's birthday party, right, and you might not make it to somebody's wedding and you might not be able to visit the hospital when they have a baby Right.
Speaker 2:And then that person turns around and says, well, they didn't come to our wedding, they didn't do this. Okay, well, that's, that's all of a sudden transactional. Yeah, you're start trading favors. Yeah, once you start keeping score, you will lose.
Speaker 1:When I think about it, there are, I don't know. I didn't think about this before we came in today, so forgive me that I'm just kind of off the top of my head. Here there have been a handful of people that probably I would say, even though I don't talk to them anymore, I would still be there for them if they called me today. Is that covenant?
Speaker 2:or is that contract? That's covenant, is it? Yeah, no, we're friends and I've stated publicly that we're friends. So this is what friends do. Yeah, and there's since I've, since I've been married and had kids, my long-term relationships have now been relegated to the covenant, right, okay, whereas I had a lot of transactional friendships in high school and college yeah okay, we hung out in my dorm last night.
Speaker 2:We're gonna hang out in your dorm. We're gonna play halo over here. Oh man, you know I never played halo, don't get the wrong, I'm just like picturing stuff.
Speaker 1:We're gonna watch the game okay, if you were gonna be cool. These are the things I would do, we would play. Halo together. We would watch baseball together.
Speaker 2:I mean study.
Speaker 1:Yeah, when I say watch and play Halo, I mean study.
Speaker 2:So in the 2004 World Series, when the Red Sox won for the first time after forever.
Speaker 2:I watched every single game in not my dorm room. Okay, okay, Because everybody congregated into one room. Okay, okay, because everybody congregated into one room. Yeah, and that's just what you did for that. You know, week and a half, that 10 days or whatever how long it takes to do a World Series. And there was no transaction necessary. I was not, I was not told to bring anything, there was no food, there was no expectation of return of anything. That's just what you did.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:That was a very mature thing for those guys to do Open up their room to a bunch of other guys that are just going to be screaming and yelling, you know, once David Ortiz hits a home run.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and it was all sealed by the blood of Curt. Schilling, schilling, sock, ankle, sock. Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and once you're joined under a bloody sock like that, then it's really hard to break. Because no, I've watched the last five games.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Am I going to watch it in my own room?
Speaker 1:Absolutely not.
Speaker 2:Baseball is extremely superstitious A but it becomes a thing that you do and those guys that I watch that game with are long-term friends.
Speaker 1:That's awesome, that I have not seen in.
Speaker 2:Probably haven't seen either one of them in 15 years.
Speaker 1:Wow yeah.
Speaker 2:But I could fall right in with them and talk about old times, definitely New times. Okay, I know they all have kids.
Speaker 1:So experiences have a way of binding us together in a more covenantal relationship.
Speaker 2:Yeah, they didn't stay 20 years old for the last 20 years. Yeah, they grew up, I grew up. We understand that that happens. There are some people that think, well, what have you done for me lately? And they stay in their hometown and they don't change after high school and they get a job at the factory you know, like a Bruce Springsteen song or whatever and they don't change and they expect that transaction to still be there and when it's not, they tear the contract up.
Speaker 1:Interesting. I wonder, spiritually speaking, how does all this play together? I mean, I know I preached on it, so I could probably answer that, but let's talk about relationship with Jesus, for a few minutes, contract or covenant? What do you think? What'd you take away from Sunday?
Speaker 2:Unfortunately, it's supposed to be a covenant but it's turned into a contract, especially, like you said, with the church, because, well, this church doesn't have, you know, dynamic music minister, this church, even something down to the, the sound like, the sound quality, the song choice. It becomes like I expect to be entertained and I am not being entertained. Therefore I'm not going to tithe. And they create this little mental contract that they don't tell anybody about and somehow the church staff is supposed to figure it out.
Speaker 1:Well, I do want to be a little gentle about, because I think that we do. We live in an age that let's just consider the Apostle Paul, you know did he have any idea that there was going to be a church on every street corner?
Speaker 2:Right, you know what I mean.
Speaker 1:Like when they were doing it, when he was planting churches in these places, like Corinth and Philippi and Ephesus, there was one church Right, one church in the capital trade center of that town or country, wherever it was. That was it. There wasn't first church of down the street or second church of down the road Right, it's just First and second ponds. There was only one church Right and so okay. So I think that there's some positives in that there's a place for everyone. There is Right, and the body of Christ can be eclectic enough that everybody can find a place for themselves to fit in. And you do have to find it. You do have to find it Absolutely.
Speaker 1:My hope is that wherever you find your church is that that church is adhering to the commission that Jesus gave the entire church. Because Jesus gave his church, the one that he established through his disciples. He gave them a mission to do and that is to seek and save the lost. Go, therefore, make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, son and Holy Spirit, teaching them everything I've commanded you, and surely I'll be with you to the very end of the age. Matthew 28, 19 through 20. That's the command. So, whatever church you end up at, whether it be Crosspoint, I hope it is you know, obviously I hope that it's our church.
Speaker 1:We're striving to build a family of believers right here in Conyers. But whatever church it is, I hope that it's a church that is obeying the command of God and working avidly toward fulfilling that command. I mean, you know so if the music doesn't work out for you here. Okay, I'm not sure the music is. I'm not sure we'd play the music for you then Right. Or, you know, if there's some kind of aesthetic that isn't fitting for you then, okay, you know.
Speaker 2:Yeah, when Faith and I have thought about going to my, we thought about going to my home church in Monroe. Yeah, we thought about just going there. But there became this increasing lack of connection to the people. Oh, that's big, that is huge, especially the preacher that was there. He was an interim and he was amazing and then he left and now he's the dean of theology at Mercer.
Speaker 1:You know what they say those that cannot do teach. Those who cannot teach do.
Speaker 2:As soon as that happened, that was sort of like the last straw, like, okay, we don't feel very tethered to this church here, so we had been coming to Crosspoint at the same time, yeah. And then we were like, okay, we're building and cultivating these connections with you and Emily. And then the Byrds came in.
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 2:And then Kalen and Sam started playing in the band. Yeah, playing behind Grace is always fun. She surrounds herself with very talented musicians on stage and it was fulfilling, whereas going somewhere else was not fulfilling, and we took that as a sign to be like okay, the people here, this flock is our type of flock.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think those are great things to look for in a church.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's hard to go without them.
Speaker 1:And I recognize too that sometimes hurt from previous churches is what drives us away. And I would hope that you know in any church not just my own that if the hurt is the thing that drives you away, that it would come out of a season of trying to make it work.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:You know, because the church is worth fighting for, the local body of believers is worth fighting for.
Speaker 2:And.
Speaker 1:I get it Like sometimes there's just no working through it because we're humans, and there's actually a lot of that in the New Testament. People are quarreling with each other and Paul's like hey, you guys got to work it out. So it feels different these days because there is first church down the street or second church down the road, versus if there's only one church in town.
Speaker 2:then you really got to work it out, yeah exactly, or be an outcast, like back in the day, like a little house on the prairie days you go to the one church and if you don't, what are we to think about you, you?
Speaker 2:don't. Yeah, what are we to think about you? You know the church that I came from. So there was a church and then the church where I met Faith through, so the church that I came from. Originally they didn't split, but there was this mass exodus to other churches in the town of Monroe and I got completely disillusioned with corporate worship and I was like, okay, nothing in this little ecosystem is permanent, so what am I? I'm continuing to go to church, continuing to search, as I've talked about here, and I so. Do I stop worrying about what church should feel like or what it should look like and just go for the personal relationship with God. And I leaned toward that and I still tried to join the band wherever I was.
Speaker 1:Nice.
Speaker 2:Because that's how I plugged in Exactly. As a musician, it's hard not to see an empty drumstool and want to sit in it and fill the drumstool.
Speaker 1:I think you're sitting in a drumstool right now, aren't you Of sorts? Yeah, yeah, I've had several here.
Speaker 2:Yeah. So it's hard not to. And when we went to Jonesboro First Baptist, the first thing I did was say, hey, do y'all have a drummer lined up every single Sunday? Because if not, I'll play. And say, hey, do y'all have a drummer lined up every single Sunday? Because if not, I'll play. And that was the most challenging music I've ever played. It was literally like getting thrown into a Broadway show that you'd never seen. Oh wow. So it's all these cues and stops and starts. It's ridiculous, but even then I wanted to plug in that way and be connected to it in some, in some deeper way than just sitting and and receiving something. I wanted to. I wanted it to turn into a relationship, like you say. I wanted it to be relational, absolutely, because that's the core of a covenant.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah. If there is no relationship, then what's like, why be committed to this person or this thing for any given amount of time? It's just a contract I'll be here for a time and then I can move on afterward. But in deep relationship, that's what God is, that's what his goal is for us from the very beginning was to have relationship. I mean, I don't know. We've asked this kind of what is it existential question. Am I using that correctly? That question about like, what's the point? Like, why did God create us to begin with? Why? Why the great? Why the great? Why? Well, if scripture is the indicator of that, it's to have relationship with his created ones.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:And we screwed that up in the garden. But all these covenants in the Old Testament are his plan of coming back into relationship with us. But we screw it up constantly. I mean the story of the Israelites, the nation of Israel, is that. They screwed it up time after time after time. I mean even Abraham. They weren't even a nation at that time. It was just one family. It was one man, his wife and his nephew. When God called Abraham to go and be a blessing wherever you went. And if people curse you then I'll curse them, but if they bless you, I'll bless you.
Speaker 1:That's Genesis 12. And, very first thing, abraham does sin against his wife and against God, but God sticks by his side, right, and he continues to cultivate that family and it turns into Isaac and Jacob and Joseph stories in there, and then the 12 tribes of Israel and we get to the Mosaic covenant that we talked about on Sunday and there's actually more covenants later on with the nation of Israel, but it's all coming down to Jesus as the final bearer of the covenant, like the final one for all of humanity, which is sealed in his blood. You know it's really interesting when you look back that there is animal sacrifice. There's the shedding of blood when there's a covenant made between God and his people and life is necessary. The shedding of that life is necessary in order to come back into relationship with God and that's what Jesus does for us on the cross. I said that very flippantly, like we just got there and that's just the way it is. I don't want to grow desensitized to that fact. Sometimes I feel like it's like semantic satiation.
Speaker 1:I say it so often that sometimes it loses its meaning in my head as I'm saying it.
Speaker 2:Well, yeah, you study it and you live in it so much more than the average person that you can get desensitized, and then you sort of have to find a new way to rediscover it.
Speaker 1:I have not, though, lost the feeling of how wonderful and amazing our God is, that he's the creator of everything and he just wants a relationship with me, like that's. His goal is that I would be with him in heaven, right? So, covenant with Jesus, covenant through jesus, right, I think?
Speaker 1:uh, man, I wonder what it would be like if we treated our relationship with jesus like a covenant every day not just what would church be like, just like what would my life be like if I viewed it as a covenant every day. You said something earlier and maybe we can just of, maybe we'll let it end with this. You said something earlier that you're a very how did you put it? You wake up every day and you recommit yourself.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I recommit myself, like, to my marriage. Yeah, the marriage covenant is yes, I'm married to faith, yep.
Speaker 2:And then I am also committed to the marriage itself which, to those of you not watching online, I imagine that there is a spot halfway between me and faith and I'm 100% up to that line and she is 100% up to the line, and there we become one. That is my commitment to the marriage and she is also committed to it. And then every you can picture it every day that I wake up, I recommit myself to the commitment. And you can take that as far out as you want, to as many recommitments as you want, but if I'm committed to renewing myself to the covenant with faith, then that is about as deep as it can get. That is as dedicated as I can imagine.
Speaker 1:So what does that look like? Do you do something practical every morning? Do you really think these thoughts before you get out of bed, or like in the morning time, or is it just innate within you?
Speaker 2:I would love to think that it's innate, but what I have to tell myself is that I'm sort of silently saying to myself a good husband does.
Speaker 2:X and then I go do X. A good father does X and I go do X. A good father does X and I go do X. So I'm not as ritualistic so much as to say it, as to kick my feet out of the bed and say it, but I know what I have to do that day to ensure that I have toed that line of being a good dad and a good husband.
Speaker 1:They're like mantras. It's just a mantra that you live by. A good husband does this. A good father does this.
Speaker 2:And it's okay to be. I was telling you off air that I'm very duty bound. Okay, a marriage can be nothing more than a series of duties and you can take all the romance out of it that you want. And I'm not saying do that. What I'm saying is a duty-bound person will do something when they recognize it needs to be done. They will do something they don't want to do because they know it needs to be done. I don't want to take out the garbage, right, right, yeah, I just don't want to take out the garbage, right, right, yeah, I just don't. But me and my mom, maybe 10 years ago, had an argument about well you know, I said, mom, you could just let the garbage pile up and never take it out. You could do that. And she's like, uh, no, you cannot. And that that she was speaking from the lens of I've been a mom for this long and I've been a wife for this long. You cannot let garbage pile up. And guess what? You can't let garbage pile up yeah.
Speaker 2:It doesn't make any sense anymore. Yep, that's her being duty bound. That's where I got it from. One of her favorite phrases is that's just what you do. That's just what you do. That's just what you do. This is what you do when you're married. That's just what you do when you love somebody. That's just what you do when you're a mom. Yeah, this is what you do.
Speaker 2:Get up and take out the garbage, and you can trivialize it down to that, but you can also well, it's just what you do to spend money on this. Instead of that, don't go on the vacation, because the kids need this. Right, the kids need this, so we can't have that. Yeah, it's about making all those micro choices that lead up to okay. Today I felt like I did my job as a husband. Today I felt like I did my job as a dad. As a dad, and that takes some serious, not dedication or discipline, because I'm not the most dedicated and I'm not the most disciplined, but I just understand that. I don't want to be seen as a bad dad or a bad husband. I don't want faith to look at me and go. I really wish I hadn't made this covenant, you know. So I don't. I don't want to get to that point, so I guard against it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you don't want to disappoint the one that you've entered into a relationship with Exactly. Right, Well, you saying that. It's echoing in my head. Maybe the mantra for a Christian is this is what disciples do.
Speaker 2:Yes.
Speaker 1:This is what a disciple of Jesus does.
Speaker 2:Exactly.
Speaker 1:And so we've been talking the last few weeks about it's Easter time and we're trying to double our impact as a church and, very simply put, if you double yourself, then you're doubling the kingdom of heaven. You're doubling the amount of people who could be in heaven when you get there. And so we're trying to double our impact and the goal is no empty seat on Easter. We want all those seats filled. And so maybe when you're at the coffee shop or you're in the drive-through or sitting in work or wherever it might be over these next few weeks, and you're looking for a person to witness to, the mantra for us should be. This is what a good disciple does.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, and or I'm a disciple, therefore I should.
Speaker 2:Ooh, yes, something like that yeah, just any way, you need to state it to get to I equal disciple. Therefore, if I was a disciple, what would I do here? I'm a disciple. I should do this. I want to be seen as a good husband. Therefore, I need to and I don't think there's anything wrong with that, with making it a little mechanical, because those little instances of performance taking out the garbage, doing dishes, picking up the kids, dropping off the kids, playing catch those little instances, things like that those are what make up your fatherhood and your parenthood and your husband.
Speaker 1:Yes, absolutely, and there's training built into that. So if you're not forcing yourself to do some of those things, then you're not going to grow those muscles to be more reactionary in the moment or to be. You know what I mean? Yeah, so I feel like I'm starting to kill the analogy. It's starting to break apart in my head.
Speaker 2:We're good at that.
Speaker 1:We are good at that, but I'll tell you that's our goal is to be disciples of Jesus. So I would encourage everybody listening, including myself be in prayer about who you can invite to Easter. Ask God to put you in a situation where you can be that disciple maker he's called you to be. Ask him and he will put you in that situation. Contract versus covenant we could probably have a longer conversation on it, but I appreciate those questions. We are in covenant with Jesus. It's not a contract. I was laughing with somebody recently about making an ultimatum with God. The music's playing, so I got to be quick here. Uh, I shouldn't have brought this up, but I'm doing it like you ever like had the stomach bug, yeah, and you're like you just can't stop vomiting. This is a terrible way to end this podcast, but you're like, oh, just make it stop and I'll just I will be the best disciple ever if you just like make the.
Speaker 1:Just make me stop vomiting right now.
Speaker 2:That's a terrible picture of who God is and what our relationship is with him.
Speaker 1:We don't make ultimatums with God. We're not making these requests based on some kind of criteria. It's not deal or no deal, right, it's not deal or no deal because of what jesus did on the cross is the reason why I'm I'm in covenant with him, right, okay, I rambled.
Speaker 2:thanks for joining us today thanks, I did the intro, you do the outro. Go, okay. Uh, right, right on the spot. Okay, how much time do I have? Like 10 seconds. Thanks for listening to the extra. We will see you sunday.