Living Life Abundantly

I had a bit of a moment a few weeks ago. I went through the Bible and looked up every single time the word “sin” shows up… and what I found honestly surprised me.

Not in a good or bad way – just… not what I was taught.

I didn’t find the clean, clear list of do’s and don’ts I grew up with. I didn’t find Jesus obsessing over defining sin or making sure people avoided it at all costs. What I did find—especially in the tradition I was handed – was a whole lot of fear. Fear of messing up. Fear of getting it wrong. Fear of hell.

And I can’t help but wonder… is fear really the point?

Because when Jesus talks about why he came, he says it’s about life – full, abundant life. And that doesn’t sound like fear to me.

So this week, we’re going to wade into some deep water. Not to tear anything down—but to see what might be underneath all that fear. To ask what our spiritual lives could actually look like if fear wasn’t running the show.

If you’ve ever felt that tension… or quietly wondered if there’s more to this than just getting it right… this one might be for you.

Join us at the Spiritual Gym this week. Let’s explore what it could look like to actually live—abundantly.

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Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:00

That was beautiful, you guys. Thank you. I also love when the band preaches my message for me. Just goes to show this is something that we're all involved in. I don't know what your tradition is, how you grew up, where you grew up. But chances are if you grew up in Canada, whether at the Church of the Simpsons or a traditional church, or friends who are religious, or family members who are religious, chances are you have a picture of Christianity. A picture of Christianity that has a certain narrative arc, I'll say it this way. And somehow it's connected to this thing over here. This sense that the Christian tradition or the Christian story is about staying away from something bad. For some traditions, they'll name it hell. Other traditions they'll talk about it in terms of your life being blessed, not blessed. But it's this sense of there's this thing over here, whatever this is, that we're supposed to be afraid of. And we make sure we don't go there. We make sure that this isn't part of our lives. And it doesn't matter if it's how we're living and who we are, whatever it is, it's somehow tied to the fear of this bad thing over here. Today I want to make you a promise. I'm gonna show you another way through our tradition that isn't just tied to fear. Because I actually don't think fear is a very good way of doing this. Allowed me to make my case. Picture little Vince, he's probably in grade 10 or 11, he's got big Afro hair. He's probably wearing a skateboard t-shirt because I lived for skateboarding back then, and I'm literally running at full speed across the field of my school as fast as I can away from my girlfriend. Now, the way this story starts isn't what you're thinking. This isn't a relational, well, it's gonna turn into a relational problem, but it didn't start that way. It started off, I grew up in a small town called Morden, Manitoba, 5,000 people. We had a school, one school, one high school. The core theme of a life in a small town is boredom. In the city, you guys, there's so much trouble you can get into. It's easy. In a small town, you have to actually have to work at it because there's nothing to do. So you're constantly dealing with boredom. It's small town boredom, it's a special kind of boredom. And so we we somehow figured out that you know what breaks the boredom? Climbing on top of the school and partying. Because when you're up there, you're not thinking about whatever you're thinking about the cops coming or whatever, right? And so it was the one day we were like, we should go up on top of the school because we're bored. And I was dating this girl, she was lovely. Her name, actually, I won't say her name. She was lovely, tall, willowy, don't think athletic, think bookish. And so we somehow convinced her that she should come up top of the school roof with us. And so they took two of us on top. We climbed up and like reached down and grabbed her hands, and she just like literally got pulled up while people were pushing at her butt to get her up on top of the roof because we're bored in small town, and this is what you do. The next thing I remember, I'm running full speed the opposite way across the field, away from the school. I don't have a whole lot of memories here. I remember being up there hanging out and seeing uh red and blue flashing lights. And the next memory I have is of running. There's a whole section between when I saw the police car show up and me running. I must have jumped off the school roof. It's a story. I launched off the opposite way of the cop cars and ran away from the police because I'm scared. Did I plan this? No. Did I leave my girlfriend up on the school roof? Yes, I did. Did that go well for us? No, it did not. For all of you who are dating, just don't do that. Not to mention the cops were waiting at my house when I got home because they got all the information from my girlfriend. Now, here's the point of that story, not Vince's the moron. Well, that is part of the story. It's this when fear kicks in, planning often goes out the roof. You ever walk down a sidewalk, you're having a lovely time, enjoying the weather, and also a massive dog jumps on the fence right next to you, barking like crazy? What do you do? You jump. Do you think about, well, how close am I to this the road? What if I jump into the road and there's a car coming? Maybe something will happen. Or, like, actually, there's a fence between me and the dog. It probably couldn't get at me. And by the way, it's probably chained up. Are you thinking of any of that? Fear, and you're gone. Vince is sprinting across the thing. Leaving his girlfriend to be picked up by the cops. I wonder how they got her off that roof. That's one way I never didn't go very well, so we didn't have that conversation. The point I want to make is this. Fear has a very particular way of going through our minds. The amygdala portion of our brain is what deals with fear. It can bypass almost anything in our brains. Conscious thought, gone. Values, gone. Rational thinking gone. And so when you take religion and you articulate it through the fear, think about what happens inside your mind. There is no running to something. It's like that dog that jumps at you and you just run away. I can't do that. I shouldn't do this. I shouldn't be that. I shouldn't, I shouldn't. Where are you going? It doesn't matter. Did anyone see the show or the movie Free Solo? Alex Honnold. Can you throw up the image for me? He goes into um, so you can't see it super well, but he's basically about 2,000 feet above the ground currently. He's in L Cap. He doesn't have a rope attached to him. It's called free soloing, means if he falls, he is dead. Not maybe dead, not possibly dead, like full on dead. And it will take him a good, let's say, 10 seconds to fall all that way down until he actually dies. So he has about 10 seconds to think, did I have a good life as he's falling to his death? His ability to handle fear is incredible. Now, the one you saw, Free Solo, he's actually climbing old cap, but he actually climbed a climb before that called Half Dome. It was his preparation. He spent two years climbing this stuff to get every move locked in his mind, to get everything down. He's like, I'm going to start here and I'm going to the top. I'm going to the top. He has a goal, he has a vision, he knows where he's going. Until about a third of the way up, half dome, he becomes a normal human being and the fear kicks in. Anyone, would it take you 2,000 feet of climbing before the fear would kick in? 2,000 feet. And here's what happened. Here's why I think fear is such a poor way of doing spirituality and religion. Because he goes up and he's right on this a famous ledge. I couldn't find the picture because it's only in video, but he essentially he walks up onto this ledge. He's 2,000 feet above. He's got about a foot. It's about like this. His feet aren't, his toes aren't over the edge. And his wall's right here. And he just stands there. The fear hits him. He said, Normally I can climb, and it's like there's a bubble around me. And nothing gets in that bubble. I'm just climbing. I'm having a good day. In that moment, the bubble broke.

SPEAKER_00 9:15

And he said, All I could think about was not dying.

SPEAKER_02 9:22

I was locked up. I couldn't move. My body wouldn't move properly anymore. He's 2,000 feet above the ground without a rope. It's not like he can jump on the elevator and head down. But do you see what fear does in that moment? He has spent two years looking up at the top, going, that's where I'm going. When the fear kicks in, all he has is I don't want to go there.

SPEAKER_00 9:56

He loses his direction.

SPEAKER_02 10:02

Fear is about running away from the dog that's barking. Fear is about running away from the police car. What are we running towards? Question for you. What does your body do when the fear hits you? Have you ever mapped this part of you? Anybody's body's mind gets really tense. It's like normally I walk, it's easy for me to walk. It's like all my muscles get really tense. When a mice climbing, I go from relaxed and having a good time to like I am holding onto these things like I'm trying to crush them. In about four seconds, I use up all of my energy and then I'm in a lot of trouble. Anyone fear make your body work not quite well? Anyone fear make your brain go? People say when they're public speaking, they're like, I remember walking on the stage, and I remember walking off the stage. I don't have any memory in the in-between parts. For some of us, fear turns off the portion of our brain that creates memories. It literally turns it off. That's why often if you get into a situation where you're having a fight with someone and you get fear comes up, and then you have an argument about what happened before, your memories, they're not there. Your brain turns them off. Anyone have fear where your brain goes over and over the same thing over and over again? You get locked into something? Okay, I gotta, I gotta, I gotta, I gotta. It's like, well, we could do this over there. No, I gotta, I gotta, I gotta. Do you know what fear doesn't do?

SPEAKER_00 11:41

It doesn't say where are we going? What's the best course of action? What are my values? Can you feel that inside?

SPEAKER_02 11:57

I grew up in the again, if you grew up in the Simpsons, you grew up in the same tradition I did. Mine was just Mennonite. It's the same thing. Ned Flanders, does anyone remember Ned Flanders? Yeah, this church of Ned Flanders. Uh my tradition articulated my spiritual journey through fear. Now, just be brave. How many of you have some church tradition, some church influence in your life outside of just The Simpsons? Okay, a lot of you. Anyone's church tradition also use a bit of fear as part of this whole system? Oh, yeah, same number of people plus a few more. Right? It's that. My tradition took. There's about 31 plus thousand verses in the Bible. My tradition articulated the entire spiritual journey with three of them. And they were all based in fear. Can you throw up the first one? First one, I remember I was little, I was at it, they called it a crusade. This is a horrible word. They called it a crusade. That's awkward, isn't it? They sat us down. I was six years old. I didn't know a whole lot. I grew up in the church, but they sat us down and they said this verse. They read us this verse. They didn't say it was a letter to the church in Rome. They didn't say it was written by Paul. They didn't give us any context whatsoever. They didn't even say when Paul is making his argument, he's saying there's Jews and there's not Jews. Don't think Jews like today, Jews. Bible Jews. Jews, not Jews. He said, These people sinned, these people sinned. All have sinned. That's what Paul's argument is here. But what they did is they just read as this for all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. Vince?

SPEAKER_01 13:48

Big hair. I sin. Yes, you sinned. And I fell short of the glory of God. Yes, you did. He's not happy. Oh crap.

unknown 13:58

What do I do?

SPEAKER_02 14:00

You know, I'm six. I don't I don't know any better. I can't rationalize this thing. So then they gave us a new verse. Can you scroll up the next one for me? If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness. Okay, is that true? Little Vince, right? If I just confess my sins, this isn't gonna be bad, right? And they're like, yeah, because if you don't, you're going to the H E double hockey sticks. They even made us do this at one point. You want that over your body?

SPEAKER_01 14:33

I don't. I really don't.

SPEAKER_02 14:36

So if I confess my sins, there I am, like little Vince. Okay, so I called my brother a dumbhead, but he was being a dumbhead, but maybe that's a sin, so I'll just confess that. And then I wanted more supper, but maybe I shouldn't have that, so I'll confess that too. Um, what else? What did I miss? What did I miss?

SPEAKER_01 14:52

I was petrified.

SPEAKER_02 14:57

500 years ago was the Protestant Reformation where Protestants and the Catholics split. The person who did that was Martin Luther. He was did that. He made 70,000 different denominations. No, he was the person, his shift is how we got the Protestant tradition. And the Protestants, we just like to split like crazy. So there's about 70,000 different groups of us that all think a bit differently or believe a differ differently. But it started off with Martin Luther. He didn't grow up in the same tradition, but he had that same verse in his mind. His mentor said, This kid spends all afternoon, every day, confessing. It's eating him up inside. All have sinned. If you confess your sins, you'll be okay. But what if I missed one? What if I didn't know that was a sin and it was a sin and then I didn't confess it? What what what? And he would go, he would read like anything that he could. Okay, maybe that's a sin. Okay, I'll I'll confess that one. And as he walks out, he's like, oh crap, I probably sinned, just thinking about being done. Oh, okay, back in again. Okay, confession. It was so bad that his mentor made him go back to university just to give him something else to do. He's like, this kid is going to kill himself. He's racked with guilt and fear. If you confess your sins, you'll be okay. But what if I miss them?

SPEAKER_00 16:36

What if I am the sin? How do I do that?

SPEAKER_02 16:43

We had one more verse that they gave us at the crusade, little Vince, remember Big Afro, six years old. Can you throw up the last verse for me? Again, they didn't tell us this was from a different author, different book, different genre altogether. The first two were from, well, the first one was from uh Romans, so Paul, second one was one we call first John, letter to the the first epistle of John. This one is the gospel of John, completely different. None of that, they didn't tell us any of that stuff. 32 or 31,000 verses in the Bible. All we need is three. Here's the third one. Everyone knows this one, right? If you go to a football game, someone's got this written on their chest. I'm not sure why they have to take their shirts off and write it on their chest, but that's a thing. For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only son that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. Okay, so before I just had to confess all my sins and then I'd be safe. Now we have a new system. Okay, good. If I believe, what does it say? Whoever believes in him. So this is a permanent solution to the problem. They're like, Yeah. Now my tradition took a bit of creative liberty, creative liberties here. They said you have to ask Jesus into your heart. That's what I think they were tying into this believe in him, but that's how they did it. You have to say a prayer. I remember sitting at the kitchen table with my mom saying, Mom, can I please say this prayer? I want to ask Jesus into my heart because I don't want that. I'm scared, spitless. My mom was scared too. And I don't falter at all. She's from a tradition that says, if her son doesn't say this prayer, he's going there. My mom would do anything for me. Me going to hell? So when I said, Mom, I want to say the prayer, her fear was assuaged. I said the prayer. I said, Am I okay now? She said, Yeah. What else do I have to confess? Well, you should still continue to confess your sins. Okay, but but I'm not gonna go there, right? You know what we didn't talk about? Where we're gonna go. My tradition was not focused on a direction. It was not focused on how I was gonna live in the world, how healthy I was gonna be, how I was gonna use this whole tradition to rebuild myself in a healthy way, to get rid of my unhealthy part. Well, not get rid of them, let's be uh fair point. To treat my unhealthy parts nicely so that they don't take over my life again, say it properly. I never once was told how I was gonna live in my life, other than I need to get other people to say that same prayer. That was the only thing that was taught.

SPEAKER_00 20:02

Do you see how the fear was just not that? The question of what is it? They were a little light on that one.

SPEAKER_02 20:17

There's one story, Jesus is uh the word sinner. I spent the last last week, I spent half the week, three days almost, research reading every instance of sin in the Bible and studying the context and defining it. I have more sin in my head right now than what I realized though is one of the main ways they use sin in the Bible is a group of people. If we don't like what you do, we call you sinners. It doesn't matter what you did, you're just not us. So there was biblical Jews, and then there was sinners. Anyone here a biblical Jew? Therefore, you are all what? Sinners! Woo! Not because you sinned, but because it's just a catch-all term. It's like saying, you know, Americans. Sorry to all the Americans, I apologize. But what do you mean is it's just that group of people? It's not actually what they did, it's just that group of people. So Jesus is hanging out with a bunch of sinners, which is a group of people. And the people who were good said to him, or the the Jews in the story say to him, Why are you with the sinners? And he said, Why do you conceive of this whole journey through this? I want you to just take a second and think about your conception of God through a different lens. This is Jesus talking. The way it's translated is, I want you to think on this. What if you conceive of God in this way? He says, He's quoting an older prophet. He says, I don't desire self. Sacrifice, which was the way you solved this problem, we would use the word confession. I desire mercy. I don't desire you running away from the fear of what your behavior is causing. I desire you to go someplace to mercy. Do you see how it shifts? If your conception of God is God, and again, I'm not trying to change your mind. I'm trying to show you a different way if you want it. If this is your conception of God, I have no desire to change it. Actually, that's not old. That's not completely true. I would encourage you to think about it through another lens. But if you end up staying with this one, I'm totally cool. The conception is in the way it's phrased is the angry God conception. God is angry. Whenever you do something that angers God, God is angry. And there's the result of that is you're going to be punished somehow, or something bad's going to happen. It's going to be either in the afterlife or the present life, it doesn't matter. If you look at the biblical text, it's almost exclusively you're going to be punished right now, in your life, right now. That's a way of conceptualizing God. And it means you'll spend your life running away. Oh, I almost sinned. Oh, quick. Oh, I must. Oh. What if there's another conception of God that isn't just tied to fear?

SPEAKER_00 23:49

It's tied to something else.

SPEAKER_02 23:53

Would you be open to seeing a conception of God from our tradition that looks different than the angry God? Now to do that, I have to ask you one more thing. Would you be willing to change your conception of the word sin? That's what studying all those instances of sin did for me. I was like, where's the list of all the things I'm not supposed to do? That's called sin. Oh, it's not there. Oh, there's instances of lists. The Jewish community has 300 and sorry, 613 of them. Are they sins? That's a little unclear. Could we reconceptualize sin as instead of this thing that's like the thing we're supposed to be scared of, like, oh, you're about to do that, run away. Instead, look at sin as this thing that shapes us beautifully. When we're living outside of congruency with ourselves, sin is the thing that says to us, hey, you sure you should be saying yes to that? Your values aren't there. Oh, yeah. One of our traditions says, sin is when you lose connection from the divine within. And you see yourself as a piece of crap on the side of the road, right? Worms and dirt. I'm just horrible. He's like, when you lose connection with the divinity that's in you, that's part of our tradition. That's sin. I was like, wow. There's ways of conceiving of sin, not as the thing we run away from in terms of like this is going to make the angry God conception angry. It's one that says, no, no, how are we living? Who are we? How do we become the healthiest version we can? Gregory said it beautifully. We become healthy, and that spills out from other from us into the world around us as taking water. Sin is that thing that helps guide us into something that's healthy. It's not something to be afraid of. It's like a mentor who comes around you and says, Hey, you sure you want to do that? Oh, yeah, you're right. Hey, do you want an area of growth? Why don't you work on this piece over here? Oh, yeah, that has been holding me back. To do it, we have to let go of this, though. And we have to be willing to look at the tradition through something other than the fear of sin. There's a story from Jesus that I want to end with. It's it's framed in the metaphor of a shepherd and sheep. I don't know, Jack, about sheep, so I'm gonna have to rephrase this. Jesus is the leader. Think of him as like he's led your intramural sports team for three years. And he's done an incredible job of it. He's the one that when you're having a tough day, he's like, hey, no, no, you're okay. Come on. When you duff whatever shot that sport has, he's like, okay, no, no, it's all good. The next day he's like, hey, come on over. We'll work on that together. Get you better. Consistently, it's not that the team has won all the time, it's that the team feels incredible and connected. You've become better because of his leadership in your life. And he's like, you know what? When other leaders come in here, they just scare the crap out of you. I've been here for three years, fitting into your life, calling you out sometimes, but in love, asking you to be healthier. Not from fear, but by showing you what you could be. And then Jesus says there's a the way they translate it is this I did not come out of a spirit of fear. I came to show you a life lived abundantly.

SPEAKER_00 28:10

To live life abundantly.

SPEAKER_02 28:15

What a beautiful direction. It's not, it's not running away from this. It's not running across the field scared of the flashing lights, leaving your girlfriend behind. It's not the frozenness of being, I'm on top of a cliff and suddenly fear hits me and I've lost track of everything that I'm doing. I'm just like, I just can't be here. He frames it by saying, what if we live life abundantly? What if the tradition, what if we take all the other 31,000 plus verses? The ones that speak to life, to speak to living wisely, living in a way that works. Stories that talk about our spiritual ancestors who kind of didn't do it great, but we learn from them and we're like, okay, don't do it that way. That doesn't really lead to good things. What if the spiritual journey is aimed towards an abundant life? Wouldn't that be a beautiful direction for our tradition? Now you can stay here. There's nothing wrong with this. This has helped many people for a very long time. And if this is something that resonates with you, I've taken my best shot. I'm okay. But you know what? I am more made motivated by living life abundantly. By using this tradition to help me heal. My dad's going through some old age stuff. He's starting to get dementia. His heart's kind of kicking out on him. Me and my siblings get together, and it's hard because we're dealing with our past and our present. We're trying to figure out how to deal with our, you know, helping our dad, but still living our lives. It's not been easy. And we haven't been great always with each other. But I keep looking at my life, going, how do I take this experience with my dad to inspire me to live abundantly? Not to be scared. One of personnel traditions says, when people live in fear of death, that's sin. How do I take my dad's experience and go, my mind is mostly clear? How do I live this part of my life abundantly? How do I use this experience to reconnect, not reconnect, because we haven't been disconnected, to connect more deeply with my siblings? How do I heal the wounds of my childhood? The stuff that got stuck in my mind and it's now warping things and making relationships hard for me. That's what this series is designed to do. To show you how to live life abundantly. We're gonna use the conception of sin, but not this one. We're gonna use a conception of sin that's kind of like an indicator light. Maybe don't go that way. Not because they're fear, but because there's more abundant life over here. I like to think of it as a mentor in my head, going, uh, you sure you want to do that, Clausen? Yeah, I do, screw you. Oh, actually, yeah, I probably shouldn't do that. That's not gonna work very well for me, is it? I'm gonna encourage you. If this direction is something that resonates with you, and we think that this spills into everything in our lives, taking water, all of it, if this resonates with you, commit to coming for the next couple weeks. I'm gonna show you all these different paths of different people in our tradition that have said, how do we use sin to become the healthiest humans we can so that we can take water, the world around us becomes better. So let me end with this.

SPEAKER_00 32:56

May we realize that there's more to the Christian tradition than fear.

SPEAKER_02 33:08

And may we realize that there's abundant life if we're willing to do that work. Amen. For those of you who didn't grow up in the church, amen is kind of like saying hell yeah at the end. So you can say hell yeah too. Have a great week. We'll see you next week first.