Actually Living the Gospel | Ears to Hear #14

Busy in church or actively living the gospel way of life? There is a difference and in everyday life people can notice. 

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:08

Welcome to Ears to Hear. By the end of this episode, hopefully you get an idea of how important it is to actually live the gospel. There are those who say that they followed the precepts and the commandments of God, but we know their life would tell us otherwise. Maybe that's you. It's been me. I've been there where I say I believe these things, yet I do totally different things. And one time I was in church and a man got up and said, You know, the gospel is about trying my best. And he paused for a while and said, I don't try my best. He said, I'm a hypocrite. And I'm proud to say I'm a hypocrite because being a hypocrite means that I am constantly in a state of trying, but being aware that I could always do better. And so he kind of flipped the word hypocrite on its head and was trying to use it in a positive light of saying, like, listen, we're all hypocrites. Everybody who tries to live and become like Jesus Christ, yeah, that's nobody accomplishes that in this life. So with that being said, I get it. I get it. We are hypocrites. And you know, we're supposed to, we're supposed to try our best, but we day to day kind of don't. Like trying my best, like if I'm playing soccer, which is something I like to do, trying my best means I've put in some training, I've been working on some new skills, and I show up to a game, I've eaten correctly, I've hydrated correctly, I've stretched properly, and I go out there and I'm able to maintain a level of fun and focus where I get into like a flow state, and it's just everything feels natural. I'm able to let the ball do the work. I'm not trying to force things, I'm moving well with my team, we're communicating, and that usually leads to a win. That's trying my best, but there's elements, there's a lot of elements that I have to do on my own to ensure that I'm now trying my best. Most of the time I roll up to a game, I have like a half-hearted stretch. I usually don't eat correct because there's not a lot of weight on these games. It's like a local rec league here in an indoor facility. So I'm not super concerned with trying my best. I go out there and I try. I like winning, I like scoring, but I couldn't say after every game that I tried my best that game. And I think that's how it is to live the gospel. Yes, we're supposed to try our best, but that doesn't, that shouldn't take away from the fact that you are trying. Some days trying just means you thought about Jesus. Maybe you didn't get in the word that day, maybe you didn't pray that day, but you thought in retrospect that you need to. Now, I'm I'm always been I've always been a little more harsh on like we gotta be better, we gotta do better. But as somebody who's obtained mercy from God for not doing my best, I think it's important to have an edit uh episode dedicated to like effort in intention. Now, I've said it before, and I totally believe that overall when we die, God cannot translate our good intentions into reality, into who we are. Right? I can intend my whole life to be like Jesus Christ. If I never do anything where I become like him, actually change into the character of Christ, well, those intentions only get you so far, but some days you will just have to have the intention, and you won't be able to muster any more strength to do anything else. And so circling back to living the gospel of Jesus Christ, what does that mean? Well, at a baseline, it's intending to do these things, it's making sure your heart is facing Jesus, but more importantly, it's standing out when you read. I was able to have a Bible study with a friend recently, and we read Matthew chapter 5 and the Sermon on the Mount of Beatitudes that Christ gives, where you know he says a city that is set on a hill cannot be hid, you know, therefore don't light, don't take a light and put it under a bushel. Um, and he's he's saying all these things, pretty much just saying, be an example to those around you. It's not about showing off, it's not about you know pointing at yourself, saying, Look how cool I am, look how Christian I am. But if you do live these standards, naturally they're gonna be different than the world standards, so don't like shy away from them. Story time. I just spent a week in Costa Rica for a friend's wedding. Had the greatest time ever. It was awesome. A lot of people I was there with were believers. I'd say majority were believers. And the two of us stood out. My friend and I, the one that I had that Bible study with, we both don't drink. We're both not drinkers, and I've I've never drank ever, and he has had a pass with drinking and has been sober for about three years now. And so this was a destination wedding, there was parting, partying, there was alcohol, lots of things like that. And in every instance, both of him and I, our decision to not drink is rooted in our beliefs in Christianity. And secondly, I would say health, but first and foremost, a belief in keeping the body pure, only putting things inside that are healthy. And um in every instance where there was drinking, him and I were both individually or collectively approached numerous times, each time, about wow, you guys just are so strong in your faith. Wow, I can't even imagine what it would be like to have fun without a drink. Like, I like though that's what people were telling me. They were saying that they didn't think they could have fun without drinking. And secondly, they were going, and you know what's really cool? You guys, it doesn't seem like you're judging us. You guys are just amongst us, and you're having fun, like we can tell you're having a good time, and you're not like in the corner being weird, you know, like I don't want to get next to that. And it just got me thinking, and I didn't think much of it, but it was so frequent every day that by the end of the trip, I was just like, man, like the I mean, probably 15-20 different instances in the last week where the fact of living my faith to the best of my ability, and it's again, it's not like oh, I'm so cool, I just was raised that way. It was it's been easy for me to never drink. It was a choice I made one time and have never had to second guess it, and I've seen the effects it has on others, and I've determined as an adult I still want to abide this choice, I don't see the need to go that direction. Anyway, again, that's just by by the grace of God. I'm fortunate to have been raised that way. However, but living it has had an effect when you live the gospel. People see it, people notice. And believers and non-believers alike will see you're different, you stick out. What's wrong with you? I like it. Why are you different? Why are you able to have fun sober? Well, yeah, one, I don't know any different. Somebody could make the case, oh, I'm sure you'd have more fun if you drank. Well, more fun is subjective because I don't think that hangover you just had the next morning, that doesn't sound fun to me. Your night before might have objectively been more fun because you were a little more outside of your shell, because you were loose and whatever. But at what cost? At what consequence? And so rather than this like up and down of what drugs can do or what many of the vices that Satan's gonna offer you can do, why not like ride the piece of just being sober? And I don't mean sober just in the instance of not a uh partaking in alcohol, I mean sober-minded, sober in life, sober by the way you act and the principles you follow. And it was just cool, it was just plain cool to be in those settings, and I'm from California and I've just I've been in similar-ish settings, and so I I I've been in a place where I may have judged previously, or I've been the person judged for the way I act. And I don't think it's right to be in a setting like that and be like, oh, like I'm above this, you know, I'm not I'm not gonna, you know, this is so beneath me. No, it's not that's not what it's about. Like Christ dine with the sinners and the saints alike. I don't, I'm not advocating that you go put yourself in situations that are like tempting for you. That's not Christ doesn't want you to do that, but if there is something you are strong in and you happen to be in a situation where there are vices and sins and temptations surrounding you, well then time to take a stand. And take a stand sometimes just means just be who you are. That's the beauty of it. If you taking a stand is just you being yourself, well, that says a lot about you and your character. And I think people were able to see that about my friend and I, and I admire my friend more because he has delved into that world and had to claw out of it, and it took him a long time and it was really hard, and X, Y, and Z, and he lost friends and had to move away. It was a whole thing. So I commend him more so because now he's able to say, Hey guys, I relate to you. I've actually done it. That's something I can't say. And so his like testimony of not drinking, if you will, was very strong, and people were able to really connect with him and be like, Wow, like, yeah, I don't know, man. Maybe, yeah, maybe I should, or you know, I found people would often like, yeah, no, I've been meaning, you know, I've been meaning to get around to drinking less or whatever, and they felt the need to like. I was like, no, you're good, bro. Like, it's cool. We're not again, we're not judging you and saying you need to live this way. We've just found it's it's been beneficial and we feel the spirit more in our life by doing so. So live the gospel and have that intent, that intention. I just think that's that's beautiful. If you abide by the principles that Christ teaches you, then you really do become a city on the hill for others to observe and follow. And it's very easy for me to pick out a few people in my life who man, they're just principled men and women, they just live a certain way, like they they operate on like a higher, so more sober mindset, and so with that comes their unshaken, they don't, it seems like they don't have any vices, right? None of these people are perfect, but those people really do stand out, and so to live the gospel is just so much better than to just be like a busy bee in the church, you know, whatever your faith is, wherever you worship, however you worship, it's easy to just get caught up in like being busy, you know what I mean? Like to just feel okay, I need to read, I need to pray, I need to serve, I need to go teach this class, I need to um do one good thing a day, and like we kind of make systems out of worship and faith, and sometimes I think that just doesn't leave enough room for like natural preaching, natural relationships with people. I think it's better if you just again operate a certain way, which is in line with Christ and his teachings. So as you go through life, you go through life this particular way, and as you go through each situation, your answers on how to behave, what to say, how to act are already, they're already there. You know, each party I was at this week didn't, it wasn't like a oh no, like I don't know, maybe I do drink now because it is my best friend's wedding. Like, I don't know, you know, like that's not a thought. Whereas if I hadn't lived that way or I was washy or didn't believe these things strongly, it'd be hard, it'd be so hard. So that is the message today. A little bit shorter, a little bit more concise. But sometimes trying is all you can muster. Don't stop trying. But get to the point where it's not so much you have to try to do these things, you just live this way. This is just who you have become, and work on that becoming versus the just like stacking things to do in the gospel. Because that just gets overwhelming. That that causes some anxiety, and um there's this new new age term going around called I think it's scripul scripulosity. Scrup scrupulosity, scriptulosity, uh, I don't know, something like that. I'll do an episode on that, but that is essentially just saying it's almost like a religious form of perfectionism where we get caught up in the commandments, we get caught up in the teachings of Christ and be therefore perfect, and so we psychoanalyze ourselves it from a judgment perspective that we are never enough, and then we really detach from just feeling the spirit because we're so self-critical, and that feeds into the you know, you repent, but you can't forgive yourself, which is a key part of that repentance, and at that point, we're still hurting Christ on the cross if you can't forgive yourself. Because oftentimes he's ready to forgive us when we are, and we're what we are what is holding us back, if that makes sense. So I'll dive into that later. Thanks for watching. Talk to you next time.