SPEAKER_00: We know many of you but not all of you.
SPEAKER_00: We're very excited to be here.
SPEAKER_00: Ooh! I have the magic clicker.
SPEAKER_00: Feel powerful.
SPEAKER_00: And I'm told I click in this direction.
SPEAKER_00: Not in that direction.
SPEAKER_00: So we remember this.
SPEAKER_00: Let's see if I remember it while we're doing the lesson.
SPEAKER_00: Feel free to remind me.
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, you won't.
SPEAKER_00: But before we do that, we want to do a little catch up with you guys because, like you said, we know many of you.
SPEAKER_00: And so almost all of you.
SPEAKER_00: So Michelle's going to share a little bit about what's been going on with our family.
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
SPEAKER_00: A lot of things.
SPEAKER_03: A lot of things.
SPEAKER_03: Most of you in here know our family, are familiar with our family.
SPEAKER_03: And we have four daughters.
SPEAKER_03: They're all Christians.
SPEAKER_03: And we're in the Worcester Church, as I think was mentioned.
SPEAKER_03: But our our we've had a lot going on in our family.
SPEAKER_03: God has been blessing us and answering every prayer left and right, and it's just been incredible, kind of a whirlwind.
SPEAKER_03: But our oldest is doing Mul Courtney.
SPEAKER_03: She's a teacher in Boston.
SPEAKER_03: She's dating a brother in South Africa who we love and adore.
SPEAKER_03: He's incredible.
SPEAKER_03: And then she's had a busy time with that.
SPEAKER_03: And then our second one, Brittany, she is just finished with her doctorate in occupational therapy down in Miami.
SPEAKER_03: So she's doing travel therapy and running around and visiting different churches and figuring that out and loving life and traveling.
SPEAKER_03: And then the third Emily is married.
SPEAKER_03: She got married a couple years ago, and Kevin, our son-in-law, is one of the loudest human beings in our life.
SPEAKER_03: We've had a quiet girl house, and now we're getting son-in-laws, and we're trying to figure that out.
SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
SPEAKER_03: They eat everything, they break everything, they're loud, they stomp.
SPEAKER_03: It's hilarious.
SPEAKER_03: Congratulations, Chris.
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, Chris and I've got to be.
SPEAKER_02: Finally some testosterone.
SPEAKER_03: Thank you.
SPEAKER_03: And then our youngest, um, she just got married.
SPEAKER_03: Woo!
SPEAKER_00: In which direction do you point?
SPEAKER_03: Yeah, they got it.
SPEAKER_03: This way.
SPEAKER_03: There you go.
SPEAKER_03: Okay.
SPEAKER_03: So this is our youngest Ashley.
SPEAKER_03: She just got married about three weeks ago to a super world meeting.
SPEAKER_03: Charlie, who is we just adore him.
SPEAKER_03: He fell from heaven.
SPEAKER_03: He's in the ministry.
SPEAKER_03: And um, she just she she like left the nest full time.
SPEAKER_03: She just graduated nursing school.
SPEAKER_03: She's gonna be working in Boston.
SPEAKER_03: He's um the youth and family minister in the Metro region of the Boston Church.
SPEAKER_03: Wow.
SPEAKER_03: And they are um up at Teen Camp now.
SPEAKER_03: But yeah, we just had a beautiful wedding.
SPEAKER_03: God has blessed us um incredibly.
SPEAKER_03: Oh my goodness.
SPEAKER_03: It was just so much fun.
SPEAKER_03: It was outdoors, it was just God when she was up at the altar.
SPEAKER_03: I just felt like God was answering every prayer for her whole life all at once.
SPEAKER_03: And some of you have known her since she was born, and that's a whole thing.
SPEAKER_03: She was a premium.
SPEAKER_03: God answered a lot of prayers there.
SPEAKER_03: But to watch her move on in her life and just God is blessing our family, there they are.
SPEAKER_03: Um, our two son-in-laws that we love, and our four girls.
SPEAKER_03: So we're just excited.
SPEAKER_03: God's been using um our answering our prayers and using us.
SPEAKER_03: But yeah, yeah.
unknown: So that's the update on our family.
unknown: We're very proud of you.
SPEAKER_00: Isn't she awesome?
SPEAKER_00: Oh, she is the daughter whisperer.
SPEAKER_02: If you're raising daughters, this is who you go to.
SPEAKER_00: Yes, um, you can just see, we're pregnant on the way up, right?
SPEAKER_00: So wow.
SPEAKER_00: I mean, you can see all these awesome character traits that Michelle has built into our daughters.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
SPEAKER_00: Um, and um, I provided some background humor and funding.
SPEAKER_00: And no more tuition.
SPEAKER_00: So, guys, congratulations.
SPEAKER_00: Anyway, yeah, amen, amen.
SPEAKER_00: No, but um, Penthy also wanted us to give a little bit of a Worcester update.
SPEAKER_00: This is being very brief, but um September 1st, God brought Kim Larry Reed to Worcester, and those guys know what they're doing.
SPEAKER_00: They know what they're doing.
SPEAKER_00: I I've been a Christian for a long time.
SPEAKER_00: Um, I do, I'm someone who likes to kind of deconstruct things.
SPEAKER_00: You see someone do something, I want to.
SPEAKER_00: I I I am I've told them over and over, I cannot reverse engineer what they've got going on, but they've got it going on.
SPEAKER_00: Wow.
SPEAKER_00: Um, they've kind of got this way of making people feel welcome and still speaking the truth and timing that well.
SPEAKER_00: A lot of energy.
SPEAKER_00: You just feel the congregation feeling welcome, feeling energized, participating on a higher level.
SPEAKER_00: We have like 19 baptisms since September 1st.
SPEAKER_00: So we are we feel very blessed.
SPEAKER_00: Um, like I say, I don't have to figure it out.
SPEAKER_00: I don't need to have it figured out.
SPEAKER_00: We're gonna bring them on so I can figure it out.
SPEAKER_00: We we we were felt blessed by God to have them for what it is they do, and they are doing it.
SPEAKER_00: So um love to the to the Reeds.
SPEAKER_00: Um and so um the title of the lesson today, let me see if I can do this as well as Michelle did.
SPEAKER_00: Is ooh, did I go back?
SPEAKER_00: No, you're fine.
SPEAKER_00: There you go.
SPEAKER_00: Oh that's uh oh, that's us right there.
SPEAKER_00: Okay, great.
SPEAKER_00: Missing pieces.
SPEAKER_00: So if you had met me in 1993, I think at first glance you would have said, Oh, this is this dude doing okay.
SPEAKER_00: I was 26, I was a doctor, I had no um I had no medical school debt because the Navy had paid for it.
SPEAKER_00: I was in the Navy, I was living in San Diego, absolutely without question, the United States, the most beautiful naval base and a hospital in the country, no question.
SPEAKER_00: Um I lived in a very nice uh apartment complex, maybe one of the coolest ones in San Diego.
SPEAKER_00: Um you would have said, I think this guy's got it all together.
SPEAKER_00: I think it, especially since a lot of you guys in here are Christians, I think it then, but as Christian, you had spent a week with me, you would have said, nah, that's a missile.
SPEAKER_00: I think you would have figured out pretty quick.
SPEAKER_00: And I think you would have not been surprised then to see me in my apartment in this really cool apartment complex called La Mirage kneeling and crying all by myself one day, saying, Whew, God, uh my life is I am, this is broken.
SPEAKER_00: And I I cannot fix this.
SPEAKER_00: I need you to fix it, and I would change anything.
unknown: Wow.
SPEAKER_00: Anything you want me to change, I just need you to fix it.
SPEAKER_00: I will I remember thinking, I'm just gonna throw this one in so he knows I mean it.
SPEAKER_00: I'll even change my religion.
SPEAKER_02: Oh, wow.
SPEAKER_00: So I didn't I didn't I didn't, I I was quite sure that was not what he asked of me.
SPEAKER_00: I just wanted him to say, like, this is a bull print underlying italics.
SPEAKER_00: Like, I want you to know them.
SPEAKER_00: So, um, and he did bring, you know, someone into my life, and and I got met by someone and invited church, and I became a Christian.
SPEAKER_00: And so, um I I I do think though, if you had seen me then you would have sort of puzzled, like, oh dude, you get a lot, you get something's okay, and you're really way off.
SPEAKER_00: How is it, you might have asked yourselves, that you can't see what's missing?
SPEAKER_02: Because we really can't.
SPEAKER_00: Right?
SPEAKER_00: And sometimes when it's you, your missing piece is complicated.
SPEAKER_00: Right?
SPEAKER_00: Everybody else can come up that puzzle and say, right here, dude.
SPEAKER_00: There you go.
SPEAKER_00: I don't even know.
SPEAKER_00: It wasn't under the table, it wasn't in the box, it was right out on the table.
SPEAKER_00: You can reset all by your yourself.
SPEAKER_00: Um, and then other times, maybe for you, it seems a little more complicated when it's your own stuff.
SPEAKER_00: Sometimes, though, once you've been Christians for a while, sometimes life changes, the world changes.
SPEAKER_00: Maybe you think you've got certain answers, and then maybe one of your friends has got something happening.
SPEAKER_00: And now it's a little complicated for them and you.
SPEAKER_00: Maybe there's something they're going on in their life, and you're like, oh, I'm concerned about that decision.
SPEAKER_00: And maybe you bring that up out of your concern, and they say, but where can you show me in the Bible that says I can't do this?
SPEAKER_00: Or that I must do this instead.
SPEAKER_00: And you know, it sometimes life gets complicated.
SPEAKER_00: And so if you could leave anything from this lesson today, I would love you to leave with this.
SPEAKER_00: If you remember anything down the line, if something's complicated and you're pretty sure there isn't just one scripture that wraps it all up, there are three places you go Greatest Commandment, Second Greatest Commandment, and the Sermon on the Mount.
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
SPEAKER_00: Now I didn't just say that's all you need.
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
SPEAKER_00: Right.
SPEAKER_00: But you can really get some clarity for those things.
SPEAKER_00: So, like, you know, we think we've got complexity here.
SPEAKER_00: Like, you know, maybe you have a tough Bible talk discussion group, right?
SPEAKER_00: Jesus had some complicated Bible talk discussion groups.
SPEAKER_00: Like sometimes, you know, we might have someone come that, oh, they're a very different culture than me, they're a very different religion than me.
SPEAKER_00: Oh, I'm this political persuasion, they're the other political persuasion.
SPEAKER_00: They've got some copy things.
SPEAKER_00: We know that could be a complicated, might be an awkward Bible talk.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus had, well, they're they're trying to put me in prison or kill me, guests coming.
SPEAKER_00: That's more complicated, right?
SPEAKER_00: So if you look in Matthew 22, you'll find one of these complicated Bible talks.
SPEAKER_00: And you'll see what where does Jesus go with that?
SPEAKER_00: And this is in the this is um a series of complicated Bible talks, which explains why um the Pharisees had heard that Jesus had silenced the Sadducees in a previously complicated Bible talk.
SPEAKER_00: One of them, an expert in the law, tested him with this question, Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the law.
SPEAKER_00: And I will be reading from the S P I D W Bible, the smallest print in the world.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus replied.
SPEAKER_00: Oh, we'll start.
SPEAKER_00: I started in 34.
SPEAKER_00: Right?
SPEAKER_00: And I've already gotten down to 37 without telling you that first verse.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus replied, the print was small.
SPEAKER_00: Um, love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.
SPEAKER_00: And in Mark with all your mind and all your strength.
SPEAKER_00: This is the first and greatest commandment.
SPEAKER_00: And the second is like it love your neighbor as yourself.
SPEAKER_00: All the law and the prophets hang on these two commandments.
SPEAKER_00: So, I thought it might look like this.
SPEAKER_00: Right?
SPEAKER_00: So, all the law hang and the prophets hang on these two greatest.
SPEAKER_00: So the the these two, you might wonder why he actually gave you two, because they only asked for one.
SPEAKER_00: Right?
SPEAKER_00: But he gives them, love the Lord of God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength.
SPEAKER_00: Pretty easy to get clarity on your missing pieces that are complicated with this one.
SPEAKER_00: You get some motivational, very, very foundational clarity on that one.
SPEAKER_00: But Jesus adds in, and the second is like it, love your neighbor as yourself, unasked for, and you might wonder why.
SPEAKER_00: Um, and he does call it the second.
SPEAKER_00: He doesn't say it's a tie, right?
SPEAKER_00: But they're connected, and why are they connected?
SPEAKER_00: Well, they both involve loving someone who's not you.
SPEAKER_00: Right?
SPEAKER_00: The second one kind of acknowledges you love yourself, and God's willing to double down on that and say, you love yourself so much, it's safe for me to tell you to love others the way you love yourself.
SPEAKER_00: Right?
SPEAKER_00: Well, then why isn't it equal?
SPEAKER_00: Right?
SPEAKER_00: Why isn't it equal?
SPEAKER_00: Well, you can sometimes love each other wrong.
SPEAKER_00: Right?
SPEAKER_00: No, for instance, now suppose, suppose Gonjo and I had not yet wandered into the Bible in church, and I get paid every other Friday, first and third Friday, he gets paid second and fourth Fridays of the month.
SPEAKER_00: And I say to Gonjo, I got a deal for you, my brother.
SPEAKER_00: First and third Friday, I'm gonna go cash my check.
SPEAKER_00: And because back when we were that young, there would go with cash checks, you couldn't just direct deposit.
SPEAKER_00: And I'm gonna cash my check and I'm gonna buy all the alcohol for the weekend.
SPEAKER_00: We can be drunk the whole weekend.
SPEAKER_00: And then the next Friday, you return the favor, you cash a good part of your check, you buy the alcohol for the we'll be drunk every weekend.
SPEAKER_00: Right?
SPEAKER_00: And Gonjo might have said, bro, I love you, I love you back, bro.
SPEAKER_00: We are living out the second greatest commandment.
SPEAKER_00: Glory, glorifying God.
SPEAKER_00: Now I see some looks over here.
SPEAKER_00: Right?
SPEAKER_00: She's like, uh, if you think back, certainly not in anyone present, but maybe in some people's past, you can envision times where maybe people were loving each other in a way that did not reflect God's glory directly back to him.
SPEAKER_00: Right?
SPEAKER_00: And in this case, you would say, well, the problem is, you know, if you're loving Calvin, your heart's will, mind, and strength, then while you may occasionally go out for a beer, you would not get drunk.
SPEAKER_00: Because the Bible talks about not doing that.
SPEAKER_00: No, this is a safe place.
SPEAKER_00: No judgment.
SPEAKER_00: If that's something you struggle with, I'm not giving you a hard time.
SPEAKER_00: If you stopped drinking, if you're struggling, you are my hero because people on both sides of my family have done such a great demonstration of why people with my genes should not drink, that I have never had beef.
SPEAKER_00: Because it's just too risky for me.
SPEAKER_00: But if you that's your thing, no judgment.
SPEAKER_00: Don't feel bad.
SPEAKER_00: I just use that as an example.
SPEAKER_00: So please, you know, and Donjo's cleaned his act up, so you know we're good.
SPEAKER_00: You know.
SPEAKER_00: Um, so I appreciate that.
SPEAKER_00: So, so I that is kind of the thing.
SPEAKER_00: You you can get to a lot of motivational clarity when something just isn't really covered in the Bible, but you can start with this.
SPEAKER_00: And it's a way of connecting.
SPEAKER_00: I know you guys have been studying out community, right?
SPEAKER_00: And so much of this is about community, following God.
SPEAKER_00: So much of it.
SPEAKER_00: God exists in community, he's a Trinity.
SPEAKER_00: Right?
SPEAKER_00: He's one and he's three.
SPEAKER_00: We're just not going there this morning.
SPEAKER_00: Right?
SPEAKER_00: It's that's that's deep, right?
SPEAKER_00: But that's who he is.
SPEAKER_00: And when we do these things, we do a better job reflecting his glory back to him, right?
SPEAKER_00: And and maybe figuring out some of the missing pieces.
SPEAKER_00: Right?
SPEAKER_00: Now, as far as the Sermon on the Mount, it gets a little more specific because these are rather general, right?
SPEAKER_00: So, Sermon on the Mount, he starts by saying, You are a light on the hill, you're the salt of the earth.
SPEAKER_00: And the people he's talking to, most of them aren't even following him yet.
SPEAKER_00: So this is a statement of faith.
SPEAKER_00: This is who you're gonna be.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus believes in these people just because they're listening.
SPEAKER_00: So if you feel like, I'm not sure this is talking about me, it's talking about you.
SPEAKER_00: And then he gets into all this stuff that raises the bars so much higher.
SPEAKER_00: Right?
SPEAKER_00: He says things like, you know, we the law used to say don't murder.
SPEAKER_00: Right?
SPEAKER_00: Don't murder.
SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna tell you, don't even be angry.
SPEAKER_00: Don't even call people a fool.
SPEAKER_00: We said don't commit adultery.
SPEAKER_00: I'm saying, mm-mm.
SPEAKER_00: You could, if you've even lusted, you committed adultery.
SPEAKER_00: Gouge out your eye, cut off your hand.
SPEAKER_00: This is the new standard, okay?
SPEAKER_00: Let your yes be yes, and your no be no.
SPEAKER_00: Right?
SPEAKER_00: Love your enemies.
SPEAKER_00: Someone slaps you in the face, churn your cheek.
SPEAKER_00: Like, I would hear this kind of stuff when I was a kid going to church.
SPEAKER_00: This stuff doesn't even work.
SPEAKER_00: A kid hit me when I was in fifth grade, and I popped him right back in the nose, and the nose started bleeding.
SPEAKER_00: The teacher saw it all.
SPEAKER_00: She said, I saw the whole thing.
SPEAKER_00: You know, basically, no yellow card, no red card, go back to your seats.
SPEAKER_00: Both of you probably won't do that again.
SPEAKER_00: I said, my logic is that's how this works.
SPEAKER_00: But this isn't.
SPEAKER_00: He's not giving you logic for an earthly community.
SPEAKER_00: He's giving you logic that will work among Christians, right?
SPEAKER_00: And all this stuff is teaching you how to really do these two things.
SPEAKER_00: Love God and love your neighbor as yourself.
SPEAKER_00: And it gets, but it goes further.
SPEAKER_00: It says, take care of the poor and don't brag about it.
SPEAKER_00: Just do it.
SPEAKER_00: Let your left hand not even know what your right hand is doing.
SPEAKER_00: Right?
SPEAKER_00: When you pray, when you fast, don't show off.
SPEAKER_00: People are gonna be way more convinced when they accidentally find out you do those things by your example than when they hear you brag about it.
SPEAKER_00: That one kind of makes more sense.
SPEAKER_00: Right?
SPEAKER_00: Don't worry about money.
SPEAKER_00: God's got you.
SPEAKER_00: Right?
SPEAKER_00: Once you got all that stuff down, don't be judgy about all the people who don't.
SPEAKER_00: Right?
SPEAKER_00: Don't kind of remove a speck in this guy's eye when you've got a plank in your own eye.
SPEAKER_00: Right?
SPEAKER_00: That's a little different.
SPEAKER_00: A lot of people you hear say, oh, don't judge people, don't judge people.
SPEAKER_00: And they really take it so far that they forget the second part of it, which is the real kind of kingdom, God's kingdom out of you.
SPEAKER_00: First remove the plank from your own eye, then you will see more clearly to remove the speck from your brother's eye.
SPEAKER_00: He expects you to remove the speck, but just you didn't it, you know, they're they're the same kind of thing.
SPEAKER_00: You're sitting the same way as someone else.
SPEAKER_00: He doesn't expect you to become the sage on the stage telling them how to change everything.
SPEAKER_00: Right?
SPEAKER_00: But they are both, like the plank and the sawdust, are both made of wood, right?
SPEAKER_00: He didn't want you going up to somebody and picking them apart when you got a sequoia growing out of your eye.
SPEAKER_00: Right?
SPEAKER_00: They're not cool with that.
SPEAKER_00: Right?
SPEAKER_00: That doesn't land well.
SPEAKER_00: Right?
SPEAKER_00: So first you uproot the sequoia and then you can say, hey man, I've been there.
SPEAKER_00: Don't let that speck grow.
SPEAKER_00: It gets obvious to everybody else.
SPEAKER_00: But, you know, I'm not so influenced by my culture that I'm that I'm afraid to confront you.
SPEAKER_00: Right?
SPEAKER_00: And the idea in this is not just that you now have the courage to confront, but if you're the one confronted by your repentant friend, then you're like, thank you for helping me remove this back.
SPEAKER_02: Come on.
SPEAKER_00: Because I saw what that sequoia did in your life.
SPEAKER_00: I don't want any part of it.
SPEAKER_00: So I'm really grateful.
SPEAKER_00: Right?
SPEAKER_00: Both of those things need to happen, right?
SPEAKER_00: That can take care of a lot of those missing pieces.
SPEAKER_00: This kind of stuff can take care of a lot of stuff.
SPEAKER_00: Just that one right there.
SPEAKER_00: If Denise is willing to come to me about my sin and I'm willing to be humble when she does it, right?
SPEAKER_00: That's gonna take care of a lot of complicated stuff where I'm not finding the scripture that begins with my aunt name and ends in an exclamation point that sometimes I act like I want.
SPEAKER_00: Because I think those are some of the toughest missing pieces.
SPEAKER_00: When someone says, you just show me where it says.
SPEAKER_00: Right?
SPEAKER_00: Those are the same people who don't like the Pharisees for being holding the letter of the law and wanting to be told everything, but then when it's their sin that they have to repent, they want to find the scripture.
SPEAKER_00: They want the law then.
SPEAKER_00: Right?
SPEAKER_00: Interesting.
SPEAKER_00: This is very, but this is very kingdom of God stuff.
SPEAKER_00: It's not just a list of extra to-dos, right?
SPEAKER_00: And the thing is, in the beginning, he said, you're the salt of the earth.
SPEAKER_00: You're a light on a hill.
SPEAKER_00: So Jesus says this to you with vision.
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
SPEAKER_00: It isn't like, well, I know you've been running, but I gotta try Athlon in your future.
SPEAKER_00: It's not like it's not good enough yet.
SPEAKER_00: He just sees that in this crowd of people listening to him.
SPEAKER_00: Right?
SPEAKER_00: He this is vision.
SPEAKER_00: It's not meant to crush you, it's meant to give you vision, right?
SPEAKER_00: And then he keeps on going and going, entering through the narrow door, not that wide one.
SPEAKER_00: It's more easy to get through, but it's trouble.
SPEAKER_00: Right?
SPEAKER_00: You'll know a tree by its fruit comes next.
SPEAKER_00: And the reason I'm not reading it is, you know, I'm trying to kind of get through the concepts, right?
SPEAKER_00: But at the end, let's see if we can, at the end, he says, therefore, everyone who hears these words of mine and puts them into practice is like a man who built his house on the rock.
SPEAKER_00: Right?
SPEAKER_00: When, and that's Matthew 7, 24, when the storm comes, the house, the rain comes down, the winds blow, and every the wave, the storm beats against that house, and it stands firm.
SPEAKER_00: But the one who hears these words does not put them into practice is like a man who built on sand.
SPEAKER_00: The rain fell, the waters rose, and the wind beat on that house, and it fell with a great crack.
SPEAKER_00: Right?
SPEAKER_00: These things God gives you are to protect you, they protect your community.
SPEAKER_00: And all this is about community, right?
SPEAKER_00: If you're in a community that's behaving like this, right?
SPEAKER_00: That's loving God first and loving each other like themselves, and they're living like these things.
SPEAKER_00: You're gonna have a lot less missing pieces, and when you find them, you're gonna be able to help each other with the obvious ones and with the not so obvious ones.
SPEAKER_00: And these passages often, these passages often get you there.
SPEAKER_00: It's just like really, really cool stuff.
SPEAKER_00: And then your life is more solid, your relationships are more solid.
SPEAKER_00: I got baptized into a church in San Diego that were doing this stuff, and it was a huge deal for me because I felt like these people are aliens.
SPEAKER_00: There's something wrong with these people.
SPEAKER_00: They have some crazy ideas, but boy, they they seemed happier, they had different kinds of friendships, they would do things that I just felt were weird.
SPEAKER_00: And I thought I would, I remember I used to literally think this.
SPEAKER_00: I I mean, this is not super humble, but I was fresh out of medical school.
SPEAKER_00: I thought I'm not, I am smarter than most of these people, I'm more disciplined than most of these people, but dang people know their Bible, but they're made by a long shot, and they're actually trying to live it out.
SPEAKER_00: They're just so weird.
SPEAKER_00: It just doesn't, I don't get it.
SPEAKER_00: But um, it was kind of curious.
SPEAKER_00: Catchy.
SPEAKER_00: And so I kept on studying.
SPEAKER_00: And you know, kind of I had to run into his body and I kept on studying.
SPEAKER_00: Now you see how these pictures, those are some people from San Diego that we put into the picture there.
SPEAKER_00: Well, one thing I will tell you about these that these are not perfect people.
SPEAKER_00: We're not talking about perfect people.
SPEAKER_00: These people study the Bible with me, those people sinned so badly before they were Christians.
SPEAKER_00: I was their punishment.
SPEAKER_00: Study the Bible with me, I was their punishment.
SPEAKER_00: Let me tell you.
SPEAKER_00: Boy, did I make them go back to their Bible and argue and debate and argue and debate.
SPEAKER_00: In fact, one of the things that helped me start to change my mind about this whole weird group of people that we call Christians, I heard one dude, I don't, I can't remember what his face looks like, some guy, he had a roommate.
SPEAKER_00: And he was telling another person, yeah, I had an argument with my roommate, and I could have kept arguing.
SPEAKER_00: He showed me this scripture that said that, you know, I was like, yeah, I am just being prideful.
SPEAKER_00: And I heard that.
SPEAKER_00: And I said, no, dude, you could have still won this argument.
SPEAKER_00: You didn't have to relinquish the field.
SPEAKER_00: You could have said this, you could have done this, I would have pointed this out.
SPEAKER_00: But it's just so odd to me.
SPEAKER_00: It didn't, and it really didn't make sense.
SPEAKER_00: You're humble like that, you're gonna get controlled and manipulated by other people.
SPEAKER_00: You're crazy.
SPEAKER_00: That doesn't make that doesn't make sense.
SPEAKER_00: Because it didn't make sense outside of God's kingdom, outside of this community.
SPEAKER_00: Right?
SPEAKER_00: But you notice Jesus then, I I do have to point out, just for a moment of cultural awareness, um, Jesus' biological father was from heaven, his mother was from the Middle East.
SPEAKER_00: This is an exceptionally white representation.
SPEAKER_00: Very handsome.
SPEAKER_00: Exceptionally handsome for someone who is not using described as, no, not so much described as that in Psalms, right?
SPEAKER_00: So I guess what I would just say is that this was this is what I got apology for the the culturally unaware Jesus at the top there.
SPEAKER_00: But you guys do get the point.
SPEAKER_00: Jesus is ahead, right?
SPEAKER_00: I didn't get the point that Jesus was ahead when I walked in the room and started interacting with disciples.
SPEAKER_00: I didn't get it.
SPEAKER_00: That's why it was weird.
SPEAKER_00: Because they weren't loving each other in a way that made sense to them or what they would have taken from their lessons in the world.
SPEAKER_00: They were trusting that the guy above the shoulders knew more about how they should treat each other than they would have figured out on their own.
SPEAKER_00: So they took their world-learned lessons away and compared it in the scriptures, and where it matched up, they kept them, and where it was different, they trusted God more than they trusted their own experience, their own logic, their own study, their own conclusions.
SPEAKER_00: Right?
SPEAKER_00: But it made it very, very different for me.
SPEAKER_00: Um, it it that helped me become a Christian because I was being sort of brought into this community, and it really helped me figure some things out.
SPEAKER_00: Some other things I saw, and and and I think there's missing, we still get missing pieces, right?
SPEAKER_00: Right?
SPEAKER_00: Now, when you're doing a puzzle, right, sometimes you might do the same puzzle twice, and sometimes you realize maybe somehow between the last time you put that puzzle away, put it in the storage closet, brought it out again, you actually did miss a couple pieces, right?
SPEAKER_00: And sometimes, you know, in the church, you're not at church all the time hearing these amazing songs, right?
SPEAKER_00: Seeing good examples like Oscar Goss becoming a song leader when he didn't do that before, right?
SPEAKER_00: You don't you don't you're not always around that all the time.
SPEAKER_00: And sometimes you lose some of your Christian pieces over time.
SPEAKER_00: Or maybe something happens to you at church.
SPEAKER_00: Right?
SPEAKER_00: Maybe someone doesn't treat you quite the way they treat you, and that affects the way you see church, right?
SPEAKER_00: And then and then you felt like I wasn't treated just the way I should have been treated.
SPEAKER_00: Maybe I'm not gonna return some of that stuff.
SPEAKER_00: Right?
SPEAKER_00: And you lose a piece when that happens.
SPEAKER_00: Right?
SPEAKER_00: And it makes it harder to trust when that happens.
SPEAKER_00: You can lose some of these pieces, and they or maybe you learn lessons that everybody knows now that we didn't.
SPEAKER_00: You ever hear that?
SPEAKER_00: I get that from my my kids a fair bit, Dad, you can't say that anymore.
SPEAKER_00: Whole bunch of things I can't say and do anymore.
SPEAKER_00: I think some of them they're probably right about.
SPEAKER_00: Right?
SPEAKER_00: We we we don't always agree, and I try to make jokes out of some of those things.
SPEAKER_00: Um sometimes.
SPEAKER_00: I I think there are times where we learn things that are good.
SPEAKER_00: Sometimes the world teaches the church a lesson.
SPEAKER_00: And you gotta be humble when that happens, right?
SPEAKER_00: But I do think sometimes we take something from our disappointments in the world, whatever, and we bring them into our community, and we knock a piece right out of the puzzle.
SPEAKER_00: Right?
SPEAKER_00: And then it becomes, oh, I just can't talk to her about that.
SPEAKER_00: You know how Angel gets when you talk to her.
SPEAKER_00: You know what I mean?
SPEAKER_00: Right?
SPEAKER_00: I know how long I messed with Angel.
SPEAKER_00: That's not how she is.
SPEAKER_00: Actually, I appreciate Angel came to me one time, a long time ago, and I made an announcement about something at church that kind of was off on one thing.
SPEAKER_00: I thought I was being helpful with what I was saying.
SPEAKER_00: And she said, Well, let me just tell you how that comment would have landed with a few folks.
unknown: Alright.
SPEAKER_00: And I said, Yikes.
SPEAKER_00: I wasn't thinking that way, but once you explained to me, yeah, I was off the mark on that one for sure.
SPEAKER_00: And so the next step I did the announcement, I kind of undid that.
SPEAKER_00: I said, Oh yeah, I'm sorry about that one.
SPEAKER_00: But I would never have made that apology if Anjou hadn't said, I think I know what you meant, but I don't, they didn't land that way.
SPEAKER_00: And if you really think more about it, there's an assumption in what you said that could be hurtful.
SPEAKER_00: I was like, Wow, you're right.
SPEAKER_00: I wouldn't have seen that if she hadn't done it.
SPEAKER_00: Right?
SPEAKER_00: If she hadn't had the courage to do it, but if I had been kind of a jerk about it, that wouldn't have been helpful either.
SPEAKER_00: Next time she had another thing I did, I'm sure there's several, right?
SPEAKER_00: She would have felt like I can't go down that path anymore.
SPEAKER_00: You know how he gets.
SPEAKER_00: Right?
SPEAKER_00: Well, then what will happen?
SPEAKER_00: Well, then I'm gonna keep on doing them.
SPEAKER_00: She's gonna keep on being quiet, right?
SPEAKER_00: And the whole, and and it now I'm not acting like a Christian, you guys are all feeling that, and it keeps on going.
SPEAKER_00: Yeah, right?
SPEAKER_00: It's true.
SPEAKER_00: It's easy to lose pieces along the way.
SPEAKER_00: And I'm just gonna, as Richard and I were talking yesterday about, you know, sometimes Rich talks a lot, that's kind of like me.
SPEAKER_00: He's not a man if you wish, yeah, that's the way it goes.
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
SPEAKER_00: Anyway, so we get off of these little these little these little rabbit holes, and one of the things that came out is we were talking about how, like, you know, one good thing about one piece we had back when around the time we got back is people were not afraid to perhaps give you some valuable, unsolicited but unflattering input.
SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
SPEAKER_00: Now, there's a lot to that, guys.
SPEAKER_00: One thing you can learn from the world is the world has maybe become a bit more compassionate.
SPEAKER_00: You gotta think about the background of the person you're talking to sometimes.
unknown: Right.
SPEAKER_00: You don't enter the room always with a battering ram, right?
SPEAKER_00: And a megaphone.
SPEAKER_00: Right?
unknown: Right.
SPEAKER_00: There are times where you may say, listen, we tried, we sent you an email, we sent you a text, we whispered in the door, you locked it up, we we got the battery ram because you taught us we needed a battery ram, we got the megaphone because you plugged your ears.
SPEAKER_00: But most of the time people aren't quite that bad, at least in the beginning.
SPEAKER_00: And you can start off general.
SPEAKER_00: Right?
SPEAKER_00: But sometimes, because of what's going on in the world, right, you've been convinced that if you make someone experience an emotion that is not happiness in the moment, that is not encouragement for all the decisions in the moment that you're doing them a disservice.
SPEAKER_00: That means, what does that mean?
SPEAKER_00: That everybody's right about everything they do all the time, so that you're always wrong?
SPEAKER_00: That just doesn't make sense.
SPEAKER_00: Even if you're an atheist, that doesn't make sense.
SPEAKER_00: Right?
SPEAKER_00: And the Bible's a little pickier on that, right?
SPEAKER_00: There's another passage I'm sure I'm sure you have heard before that says, see to it, brothers, that none of you have a sinful, unbelieving heart that turns away from the living God.
SPEAKER_00: Now let's just say that, whoever not there, Ivan and Ben, and I all become Christians.
SPEAKER_00: Right?
SPEAKER_00: And we learn some Christian stuff and behaviors because the Bible is about doing stuff.
SPEAKER_00: I know we don't earn it.
SPEAKER_00: You can't earn anything that is eternal with finite equity.
SPEAKER_00: Right?
SPEAKER_00: But Jesus says, come follow me.
SPEAKER_00: He doesn't say sit there, I'll go, I'll be back eventually, I'll fix everything for you.
SPEAKER_00: You can't follow him without doing stuff.
SPEAKER_00: So when you get this sort of grace means that you do nothing kind of stuff and you live anyway, that just doesn't make sense.
SPEAKER_00: Come follow me doesn't mean sit there and do nothing or do whatever you want.
unknown: Right?
SPEAKER_00: If he liked your wife where you were, he wouldn't say follow him and move away from where you are.
SPEAKER_00: Right?
SPEAKER_00: So there's action about you can't follow him without following him.
SPEAKER_00: So let's just say we're we now, Ben and Ivan and I are now doing different things than we did before, and we broke a few bad habits.
SPEAKER_00: Right?
SPEAKER_00: We're following Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: Now we don't earn our salvation with that, but thank goodness he earned our salvation for us on the cross, right?
SPEAKER_00: But we're responding to that with our lives, right?
SPEAKER_00: So I'm not having trampled on any doctrinal complexities there.
SPEAKER_00: Right?
SPEAKER_00: Sometimes being an elder makes it gives you a little PTSD.
SPEAKER_00: You feel like that's God's wall there.
SPEAKER_00: Right?
SPEAKER_00: So, we're doing that.
SPEAKER_00: And I'm doing my thing, and Ivan's doing his thing, and Ben's doing his thing.
SPEAKER_00: Have we fulfilled the scripture?
SPEAKER_00: See to our brothers that none of you has a sinful, unbelieving heart that turns from the living God.
SPEAKER_00: That none of you.
SPEAKER_00: We have not.
SPEAKER_00: We've stumbled across the result that the scripture, because none of us did it.
SPEAKER_00: But we did not see to it.
SPEAKER_00: I didn't do anything with Ben, and I didn't talk to Ivan.
SPEAKER_00: I just did my own thing.
SPEAKER_00: Right?
SPEAKER_00: And baptism washed away our sin.
SPEAKER_00: It didn't wash away our character.
SPEAKER_00: Sooner or later, one of us is gonna do something we ought not to do.
SPEAKER_00: Right?
SPEAKER_00: And if we're not talking to each other, then one of them's gonna go off the rails, and the the first three to go off the rails is probably gonna be me.
SPEAKER_00: Right?
SPEAKER_00: So if they don't talk to me, even though they're doing their little Christian thing all by themselves, they have not seen to it that none have an unbelievable sinful, unbelieving heart.
SPEAKER_00: They have each seen to it that one.
unknown: Right?
SPEAKER_00: And if you ask both of them, well, I don't know.
SPEAKER_00: What am I talking to him?
SPEAKER_00: It's uncomfortable.
SPEAKER_00: And I tried, but he was discouraged when I pointed out his simple.
SPEAKER_00: Okay, okay, this is complicated, right?
SPEAKER_00: But maybe we've we're missing a piece that we've lost, right?
SPEAKER_00: So I love the Lord with all my heart, soul, and mind and say, well, do you want someone to let you fall back away from God?
SPEAKER_00: Well, no.
SPEAKER_00: Well, then love your brother like you would like to be loved and go get him.
SPEAKER_02: Come on.
SPEAKER_00: Right?
SPEAKER_00: You don't have to enter the room with a with a battery ram and a megaphone, but you need to enter that room.
SPEAKER_00: Sometimes more than once.
SPEAKER_00: If someone enters your room with picking the lock, knocking, being invited, right?
SPEAKER_00: You saw them on the door camera, you pulled on the shades, but they're your brother or sister, they entered the room.
SPEAKER_00: Be hospitable.
SPEAKER_00: Make them glad they showed up.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
SPEAKER_00: Even if you don't like how they enter the room, right?
SPEAKER_00: Because, you know, we talked about this a bit already.
SPEAKER_00: We're trying to do the Jesus thing the way he would do it.
SPEAKER_00: We're trying to love the way he would.
SPEAKER_00: It's hard to love people enough to confront.
SPEAKER_00: It's hard to love people when they confront you.
SPEAKER_00: Right?
SPEAKER_00: But you you've got to do, you know, this is 1 Corinthians 12, 14, many parts.
SPEAKER_00: We all have stuff to do.
SPEAKER_00: Maybe that's what entering your room uninvited might be exactly what God wants them to do as their part of his body right now.
SPEAKER_00: How do you know?
SPEAKER_00: Listen, be patient, be humble.
SPEAKER_00: It might be complicated.
SPEAKER_00: What you're dealing with might be complicated.
SPEAKER_00: Go back to these passages.
SPEAKER_00: Are you, when you're confronted, and you say, I'm not going to take your input?
SPEAKER_00: Can you say, I'm absolutely manifesting.
SPEAKER_00: Loving the Lord my God with all my heart, soul, mind, and strength.
SPEAKER_00: I'm absolutely loving my neighbors on myself in this behavior.
SPEAKER_00: I am doing a perfect job.
SPEAKER_00: I'm killing it, living out the Sermon on the Mount.
unknown: Right?
SPEAKER_00: When Davina comes to me and tells me about my sin.
SPEAKER_00: And I don't want to listen.
SPEAKER_00: Can I go back to those passages and say, this is my defense for my behavior?
SPEAKER_00: This is my pathway in this.
SPEAKER_00: If I can't, I need to have a little bit of humility and think maybe that is the role that God had for Davina today.
SPEAKER_00: And this is a community thing.
SPEAKER_00: Because when somebody comes in, right?
SPEAKER_00: When somebody comes in to your church, and this is how you're dealing with none, they're going to think you're weird at first.
SPEAKER_00: And sooner or later they're going to realize who's the head of this body.
SPEAKER_00: And that the weirdness to them is because that's who you're following.
SPEAKER_00: That's who you're trusting.
SPEAKER_00: And that's that's the weirdness.
SPEAKER_00: And they may like that weirdness.
SPEAKER_00: They may realize, oh, in this congregation, I'm what's missing.
SPEAKER_00: I'm the missing piece.
SPEAKER_00: I'm the one you've been looking for.
SPEAKER_00: You've been looking for them.
SPEAKER_00: You've been in, maybe you invited them to church.
SPEAKER_00: Maybe it's their first time.
SPEAKER_00: Maybe they've been kind of struggling with something.
SPEAKER_00: And they can see in this group these kinds of things.
SPEAKER_00: Right?
SPEAKER_00: So life is complicated.
SPEAKER_00: We are complicated.
SPEAKER_00: And Jesus was not trying to give you a left foot, right foot, breathe in, breathe out script for every part of your life.
SPEAKER_00: He wanted you to have freedom.
SPEAKER_00: But when you want a non-Pharisec freedom, when you want to follow Jesus, not be in a triangle choke, dragged behind him, right?
SPEAKER_00: So you're on the verge of tapping all the way through the MMA Tournament of Life, right?
SPEAKER_00: That's not freedom.
SPEAKER_00: That's not following.
SPEAKER_00: That's not relationship.
SPEAKER_00: That's being forced.
SPEAKER_00: If you if we don't, we we sort of revel that there's freedom in Christ, right?
SPEAKER_00: But you've got to use it the way Jesus' followers are supposed to use it.
SPEAKER_00: And the missing pieces who wander in your fellowship are gonna see that.
SPEAKER_00: And Jesus sees you guys as the salt of the earth back like that.
SPEAKER_00: Right?
SPEAKER_00: So I guess if I had any encouragement for you, I would just remember these scriptures are super helpful when life's complicated.
SPEAKER_00: And if there's somebody in the room who has sort of been loving you in that weird way, that weird Jesus way, wandering into your room uninvited, telling you things that you don't want to hear, and maybe you have that the most encouraging, maybe they would be reluctant to do that again.
SPEAKER_00: Then think about that.
SPEAKER_00: Run your behavior, your thought process through these scriptures and see if maybe there are maybe you can apologize for that.
SPEAKER_00: Maybe you can actually thank them for being that kind of person.
SPEAKER_00: Um because um it is challenging for everybody, and it's it's complicated.
SPEAKER_00: Um but um Jesus and your Bible have the missing pieces.
SPEAKER_00: So thank you, guys.