What does it mean to be righteous? Religious Words - Part 2

What does it really mean to be righteous?

In this episode of the Archie & Etta Podcast, we talk about righteousness not as religious perfection, but as right relationship with God that begins to produce real fruit in our everyday lives. Righteousness is not about pretending, performing, or proving we are good enough. It is about being made right with God through Jesus and allowing that relationship to shape how we live.

We discuss the difference between being real and being careless, why fruit matters, and how good works are not the root of our righteousness but the evidence of a life being transformed by God.

From faith to fruit, from relationship to obedience, this conversation is about learning to live honestly before God while letting His righteousness change our hearts, homes, choices, and relationships.

In this episode, we discuss:
What righteousness means in the Bible
Why righteousness starts with relationship, not performance
How to be real without excusing sin
The difference between fruit and religious image
Why works do not save us, but still matter
How a transformed life should produce visible evidence
What it means to walk in righteousness every day

Key Scriptures:
Genesis 15:6
Matthew 5:6
Matthew 6:33
Romans 3:22–24
2 Corinthians 5:21
James 2:17
Galatians 5:22–23

Righteousness is not about looking the part. It is about belonging to Christ and becoming more like Him.

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:04

Welcome to the Archie and Edda Podcast, where real conversations meet biblical truth, where a husband and wife talk through faith, life, marriage, calling, and culture through the lens of God's Word. Pull up a chair. Let's grow together. Welcome back to the Archie and Edda Podcast, where today I'm wearing this hat. And we're recording on Father's Day, so that's fun. Today we're going to talk about another word that I think has gained a lot of meaning to me that I used to definitely not fully understand. And that word is righteousness. And you may go, like, okay, well, I'm not really not that interested in that topic, but you may find that you are. So stick around and we're going to explore it a little bit. So I think to me, it's one of those words that was kind of a religious word. It I mean, it appears in the Bible a lot of times, and it seemed like just this like good thing. But there's also these mixed feelings because there are things like self-righteousness, which we always are kind of like, that's not great. Um, but I just wanted to get into like why should we care about righteousness and that kind of stuff. And so, first, I think we should sort of start with like what is it? So tell me, like, first, what do you think? What is righteousness? How do you understand it? And then I'll bring up like other stuff.

SPEAKER_02 1:30

Should I like talk about how I misunderstood it before or just go straight into knowing better?

SPEAKER_01 1:38

Um, don't give the full spoilers yet. Like, we'll take a little bit, but yeah, say about what how you misunderstood it first.

SPEAKER_02 1:46

Well, I grew up in the church, so definitely was first hearing that word thrown around as a little kid with zero context of what righteousness or unrighteousness meant. And when asking a question, you just sort of get the word repeated back to you, no explanation, at least in the Sunday schools I went to. Like it was too complicated to explain to a little kid or something. Um for me, it just turned into sort of a non-word that didn't seem to mean anything except for the not the negative connotations of self-righteousness. I would hear adults say, Oh, they're so self-righteous, and blah blah blah. And so I was like, Well, maybe it's just not a great thing to be in any regard. Like, I just sort of had this non-word that I knew was kind of bad, but yet Jesus gave it to us, so maybe I'm not seeing the full picture, right? And it seemed so unattainable that the bad thing could be made good and that I could be that good in a way. So I just sort of left the word alone and was like, well, I think I'm just gonna stick with Jesus and leave that alone.

SPEAKER_01 3:07

Which is as a kid, which is funny. So I just pulled up Webster's definition for righteousness, and it's just a state of being right with God, justification, the work of Christ, which is the ground of justification, and that actually makes me think a lot about some Romans. Um, but I I think similarly, you know, I grew up in the church, different, different church, different things going on. Uh, but in my experience, it was like I um, as a person who's always been very confident and had to battle ego and pride, I think for me it was easy to be like, well, I'm doing things right, and like start to kind of slip into what is actually like self-righteousness a little bit, and being like, whenever I felt like I was good in my relationship with God, like there would always be a little bit of pride that crept in, which is like the dumbest thing to be like, I don't know about you guys, but I'm kind of close to Jesus and I'm like super humble about it, but I'm not being humble about it. Like, and it wasn't like putting that on other people, but like in my in my brain, it was like, Wow, but I'm doing pretty good, you know. And it was like, okay, that's really not the point of any of this. Granted, um, that was we've made some jokes about this with some friends um recently, but that was AJ. That was before I went by Archie. That was my young, young years, anyway.

SPEAKER_03 4:35

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 4:36

Um, but I so I think we're really like poking at one of these things, and I think that um I have a good question coming up, but for me, I didn't really understand it, and I didn't take time to understand righteousness, and I just thought, this is a word, and I didn't realize how much it like actually pertained to like how I was living and you know what what was going on in my in my mental framework. Um, but what is the difference between like trying to prove that we're righteous and receiving righteousness through faith in Jesus?

SPEAKER_02 5:13

Well, I think trying to prove that we're righteous is when you get into works-based faith, when you get into like legalism, where it's it's all in your own strength and power and willpower of okay, here's this set of behaviors, here's this set of rules, here's this archetype of what a good a good Christian is supposed to look like. So I better force myself into that archetype, or else I'm a failure and and unrighteous. So that's the like, I'm never gonna swear, I'm never gonna gossip, I'm always gonna say the exact right holy thing at all times. I'm gonna wear the exact right thing. And and you know, all those things that people think of when they think of Christians, where people are, you know, grumping about how people live their lives. Like that all comes from people trying to make themselves righteous and look the right way and sound the right way and live the right life and make no mistakes and just do everything perfect, which of course is silly because we can't for various reasons of you know, we've fallen world and sin exists, our sin and the sin of others, and it it all impacts us and our ability to behave or react a certain way, and you know, then you throw in like trauma responses and triggers and things like that that can really impede your ability to force yourself to be perfect and good and right. Yeah, so I think that's what that looks like. Um but it's it's unattainable. Like the Bible tells us you can't make yourself righteous for all of sinned and fall short of the glory of God. Yeah, well there, yeah, there's that.

SPEAKER_01 7:19

There is, but it's like I I feel like there's a lot here because oh my gosh. So with maturity, with spiritual maturity, with the depth of relationship with the Lord, your actions appear as like fruit, like you're bearing fruit in maturity, yeah. And and that's where I think it gets a little bit sticky. Fruit, sticky fruit, look at there we go, okay. Um, I'm too happy about that. But um it's it's the thing that is your actions are showing what's on the inside. It's not the thing that your actions are saving you, right? It's and that's where we get mixed up.

SPEAKER_02 8:03

It'd be like trying to just wash the outside of the cup and not the inside of the cup and then calling it clean. Which funny enough hits Jesus accused the Pharisees of doing that. Yeah. Because of this very issue. They based all of righteousness on their behavior, on their sacrifices, on their you know, tithing, on their address, on their education. That's all what made them righteous, but they weren't dealing with the heart.

SPEAKER_01 8:31

Well, I'm glad we've all learned that lesson, and no one does that anymore.

unknown 8:36

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 8:36

But I think that's the perception and culture, though.

SPEAKER_02 8:39

Human nature, that's what we do with righteousness when we don't have God involved. We always turn it into this weird, I can prove I'm good because of X, Y, and Z. Right. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 8:55

So, I mean, a lot of that reminds me of if you're in very structured religions, I'm versions of Christianity, I should be very specific. If you're in a denomination that's very structured and very traditional, I'm not attacking you. But some of those, like, go through, you have to do all of these specific things in these orders and all this kind of stuff as part of the practice of that denomination, whatever that is. Um, I feel like that doesn't do you any favors into trying to like live in the truth of what righteousness really looks like. And for me, that's what made much more like overly structural, overly traditional worship experiences feel stifling. Is that to me, I'm like, where's the freedom, where's the joy? But it also is just this like you have to follow all of these practices and pray a certain way and do everything a certain order and say these things together in order to be a good version of this Christian, instead of like this actually just being a thing that we do that actually has no bearing on your salvation, has no bearing on your spiritual maturity, and you're giving me a face like I'm getting everything wrong over here.

SPEAKER_02 10:26

I'm just trying to follow you, and I'm getting a little lost, which is a very good thing.

SPEAKER_01 10:30

So where this where this is going is I'm saying that's like Old Testament, it's like Jewish law, and that and that um expressions that are very legalistic is very easy to slip into a works-based faith.

SPEAKER_02 10:48

Well, right, because then we can prove it to ourselves and others that we are what righteous. So here's our systems, here's our structures, here's our rituals, yeah, here's everything that we did. That's what I meant earlier by saying it's in your own strength. Right. It's something that you strive to do. It and you leave God out of it, yeah. In the in the striving. And I think what you're driving at kind of goes back to even the definition you read off of Webster's website of right relationship with God. I for me, the first time I kind of had the light bulb moment with what righteousness means. This is a little bit embarrassing because I was in my 30s.

SPEAKER_01 11:37

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 11:38

Early 30s, but still, you should be so five minutes ago.

unknown 11:43

Oh my gosh.

SPEAKER_02 11:44

At least at the time, I was like, I should be grown and know what life's about, but I didn't.

SPEAKER_00 11:50

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 11:51

And I went through the Bible in one year, that that app or from HTV in London, where he gives you a little portion out of Old Testament, New Testament, and Psalms and Proverbs every day. And then the pastor Nikki Gumble wrote like some commentary to go with each portion for every day. And it was perfect for the phase I was in in motherhood to get back into reading the Bible after, you know, survival mode of baby phase. I was in Littles phase.

SPEAKER_00 12:20

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 12:21

And he was talking about righteousness, and he said, he said that same thing from the definition right relationship. He rephrased it from this word that was always so abstract to me. Right. And he tied it to something that I could grasp and then apply to when I was reading the Bible, apply to when I was praying, apply to when I was listening to like a sermon where they're talking about righteousness. And I realized it has nothing to do with the acts, has nothing to do with the rituals, has nothing to do with behaviors. Yeah, it's the relationship and the quality of your relationship with God. And it was just like I said, a light bulb moment where it all made sense finally. Because I always knew that faith was really about a relationship with God through Jesus and you know, empowered by the Holy Spirit.

SPEAKER_00 13:23

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 13:24

But I'd never tied it to all those church words that they too are about relationship. And it's and I could understand being in a right relationship. That means when you do something wrong, you have to own it, apologize, and then do repair in that relationship for it to move forward. And all of a sudden I was like, that's what repentance is. That's just saying, Oh, my bad.

SPEAKER_01 13:48

Sorry. Sorry. I'm gonna do my best not to do that again.

SPEAKER_02 13:52

Right. Exactly.

SPEAKER_01 13:54

Because I don't want to hurt you.

SPEAKER_02 13:55

And and it made me realize, okay, well, how much when you're in a relationship and you don't own your mistake and you just continue to like bludgeon the other person with why you're right.

SPEAKER_01 14:07

This is starting to sound a lot more like marriage.

SPEAKER_02 14:09

Why that's probably why the Bible uses marriage so much as an example.

SPEAKER_01 14:16

Interesting.

SPEAKER_02 14:17

But it was like when you really love someone, you don't do that. You don't sit there and just argue with them when they tell you, hey, this was wrong, hey, this hurt my feelings. You don't sit there and argue about why you're right, but that's what we do in church to God.

SPEAKER_01 14:35

That's what we do to God. Yeah, we just sit there and go, Well, you know, I mean you can't blame them.

SPEAKER_02 14:39

And why you just have to deal with all the stuff I won't deal with.

SPEAKER_01 14:43

So here's what I'm doing. Bless me. Yep. Yeah, that's totally the thing. And then, of course, every time you say something, I'm fighting just singing along.

SPEAKER_00 14:52

But you were like, if you really love someone, and my brain's like, if you really love somebody so much, you can't which is probably a culture reference that you won't get. I have no idea what you're singing.

SPEAKER_01 15:01

Yep, that's about right. Okay. Um, but back on track. Uh, so you reminded me too, in explaining that one of one of the scriptures that is like buried in my heart and burned on my brain is Abraham believed God and it was credited to him as righteousness, and he was called a friend of God. And if I use your language and I reframe that, I feel like it is so it translates so much easier into our modern context. So if we say an Abraham believed God and it was credited to him as a right relationship with God, right? And he was called a friend of God, it's like saying, Because Abraham believed God, then he decided to be friends, and God decided to be you know, it's like that.

SPEAKER_02 15:43

The trust started the relationship, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 15:46

Which is what I did with us, and that's like it's such an important thing to start with that building of trust, and like of course, it makes all of the same sense that that's how God interacts with us relationally because he created the idea of relationships and anyway, and and then that's how he expresses um and he gives us that model and the understanding of marriage, I think, is a really helpful lens um that a lot of people can probably relate to um long-term committed relationships.

SPEAKER_02 16:20

Well, and I think that that ultimately is part of the beauty of what Jesus did on the cross when he died for our sins and then resurrected, breaking the power of sin and death. Yeah, I'm struggling to remember which Pauline epistle it's it it it's in, but Paul's explaining righteousness, he's explaining what Jesus did for us, and he called he says that before God, like we are wearing the righteousness of Jesus. So when God looks at us, he just sees the righteousness of Jesus. And I think that Jesus did that because he knew we can't do it on our own, he knew we can't um force ourselves into that archetype or earn it or create it, or because we have that handicap of sin and the fallen world and the trauma and whatever else it is that gets in our way and trips us up. Like he knew that. So him coming to live the perfect, sinless life and then die for our sins and then return to the Father after he resurrected, he was able to give us what we can't get for ourselves. He's able to give us um this ability to have a right relationship with God. And even as we're failing, he gives, you know, he shares that righteousness with us so that when we're standing before the father, in whatever capacity that is, I'm not gonna get in the weeds of that. All the father can see is that everything that was wrong was made right. And we can have that relationship. We can start with that trust.

SPEAKER_01 18:21

Yeah, he sees Jesus and what Jesus did instead of seeing our separation from him and our disobedience and our right. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 18:34

Um it it gives us that starting point that we could never get to on our own.

SPEAKER_01 18:40

Yeah. Turn the veil. Um if you're if you're listening, um, Edda just took us to church, which is perfect. This is great. We're getting the we're getting the whole gospel. Um, which if we're getting anything right, that's what we need to get right. So it's good. Um, I in my actual scripture references that I collected, I didn't have the one that you mentioned, so I should have expected that. Um but I do have something related. So 2 Corinthians 5 21 is for our sake, he made him to be sin who knew no sin. That's a good one. So that in him we may might become the righteousness of God. So that's a good one. It's not exactly the one that you were going for.

SPEAKER_02 19:28

No, that might be it.

SPEAKER_01 19:29

Is it okay?

SPEAKER_02 19:32

Um, I can't remember though.

SPEAKER_01 19:34

So here here, I'll give us a little follow-up that gives us a little bit more, a little more spice on it here. Uh, Philippians 3 9, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which comes through faith in Jesus Christ.

SPEAKER_02 19:50

Why don't you unpack that a little bit?

SPEAKER_01 19:53

Okay. If I have to. Um, so this is the same thing we were just talking about when the Father looks at Jesus, but this is like, hey, the righteousness that I actually have that I carry is because of Christ in me, hope of glory. It's because Holy Spirit is indwelling, because of what Jesus has done, and because I've chosen to have a relationship with God. So this righteousness that I have, I should pause for a second because I think that was actually there's more there. I think a big part of what we do in in our in our expression of how we have put process around Christianity and people getting saved is hey, you pray the sinner's prayer and now you're saved. Right. And we have a big emphasis on um bringing people to Jesus in evangelism, which is beautiful, but it's a beginning. Right. And it's it's the first step. Um, but we have this like, you know, you prayed this prayer and you've decided to have Jesus in your heart and all that kind of stuff. Um, but I think a very critical component of what that actually is saying is this piece of righteousness that just says, I choose to have a relationship with God, and He chooses that. He's always wants that with us. Yeah. But it's it's this mutual choice, just like you would in a in any kind of a relationship or a friendship, a marriage, a dating relationship, where you're both choosing to be in that relationship with each other. Yeah. If one person isn't choosing that relationship, it's not a relationship, right? It doesn't exist as a relationship, it's it's admiration and and you know, arm's length, or at least or you know, or leave me alone, whatever it is, on the other side. Um, okay, so going back to Philippians 3, I felt like that was a thing that we need to get into. But okay, Philippians 3, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law. So in the Old Testament, they follow the law, yeah, and they're trying their best to account for how do we make Sacrifices to cover our sin. And I think we mentioned this on a previous one anyway, but to the extent where they went so far as to every year they're they're doing a sacrifice for anything that they may have missed. Like this is for unknown sin or things we're not aware that we did. That like and you know, like Job would do it on behalf of his kids. Like people, people would do that type of thing in the Old Testament to try to get that righteousness to try and just cover their bases because they didn't know trying to get to the starting point that we're just given through Jesus.

SPEAKER_02 22:35

Right.

SPEAKER_01 22:36

Um and so this is like you know, this righteousness is not my own that comes from the law, but it comes through faith in Jesus Christ. And so in that, all this free gift of God is in Jesus and having faith in him.

SPEAKER_02 22:58

Well, and I think too, it's trusting that it's real.

SPEAKER_01 23:03

What's real? What's that mean?

SPEAKER_02 23:08

Okay. I'm trying to think of a good metaphor. I think okay, well, let's take it back to the marriage analogy.

SPEAKER_03 23:22

Sure.

SPEAKER_02 23:23

At least back in the 80s and 90s when we were kids, and we were playing dress up and pretend, and we would just mimic what adults did.

SPEAKER_01 23:32

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 23:33

Inevitably, there would be a wedding.

SPEAKER_01 23:35

There was a lot of weddings.

SPEAKER_02 23:37

A lot of weddings. And sometimes it'd be full get up, usually on the playground. We're getting into mom's makeup and it's involved, and we're getting into her shoes. Like it went to some pretty far extremes of mimicking that type of relationship and promise and the whole, but was that a real marriage?

SPEAKER_01 24:00

Right.

SPEAKER_02 24:02

It was play. It was play, but if if you look at it in, oh, but that counted, oh, but that was real, that's a farce. There's nothing about that was real. So imagine trying to go into a relationship with God with that level of mimicry. We're doing a and pretend where it's a play act, it's not real. There's nothing real about that. How can you trust that? How can you put your life on that? How can you put the weight of everything that's in the deep places of you into that relationship if you are thinking it's the equivalent of a play wedding?

SPEAKER_01 24:51

It's interesting too in that example because that also comes with the immaturity of youth of, you know, you're eight years old and you're like, we're getting married. Um, but you really have no concept of what that means.

SPEAKER_02 25:06

And it's well, that's why it's sweet and innocent when you're thinking of the kids doing that. But I'm saying But as an adult, as an adult, it's almost like you can't even laugh about it. It's too tragic.

SPEAKER_00 25:20

Right.

SPEAKER_02 25:20

So through Jesus, we're trusting that it's real. We're our faith is we're trusting that we're not going into this in a play wedding or going into this with a real commitment, with a real relationship, where you know, I'm gonna give my heart and soul to Jesus, to God, you know, and walk with Holy Spirit in the same closeness and the same dependence, the same trust of kind of life or death in a lot of ways, and trust that he's gonna catch me, that he's gonna show up, that he's gonna be there, that he's not gonna leave me hanging.

SPEAKER_01 26:02

He won't let you fall from the sky.

SPEAKER_02 26:04

Yeah. Yeah, I know you're quoting him. But you know, that he's gonna show up, that it's real.

SPEAKER_01 26:11

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 26:13

I can put my weight on it.

SPEAKER_01 26:16

Going back to the weight thing. Um okay, so I feel like circling back a little bit to something we were talking about earlier, because I think this is such a distinction that is a it's it's a subtlety that's it's tricky to navigate, is the whole works thing versus like our our actions totally matter and the fruit should be shown. But it's really I feel I feel like so much our our culture gets mixed up in that because they care so much about how they're perceived and how they and how everyone portrays themselves. And if you're not upset about something everyone's supposed to be upset about, then there's something wrong with you, and you're a bad person. And there's there's a lot of interesting things that have gone on in that space. Um, but let me let me focus this in a little bit more. So here's who I'm gonna ask, and I may unpack this a little bit first for you. How should being how should being made right with God change the way we live, treat people, handle conflict, and make everyday decisions? So to me, this is the stuff that is in the everyday mundane of if you are operating out of a place where your relationship with God, your, you know, your give and take, your nearness with him, and that conversation is like healthy and it's in a good place. And like, let me give you this based on my experience, he's always working on you. There's always gonna be something you can grow and you can get better at, and you can get closer to him. So don't feel like it's like, oh, he's really putting me through it. So I don't think it's good right now. No, that's that's actually a sign of it being good that you're working on something, you're growing. Yeah. Um, but I think that this really shows up that the you know, the righteousness in shows up in all the little things in the day-to-day, in the how you treat people, in the I don't know, I'm trying to remember everything that I said. Um, how you handle conflict, how you make decisions. Um and like everyone who's been married for any period of time will tell you all the things that they learned about that person after they got married and after they lived together and they spend more time together and they spend all this time together and they realize, oh, I didn't know that you played video games this much. That's one for us.

SPEAKER_02 28:40

Um, I didn't know you were a gamer till we were married.

SPEAKER_01 28:44

Well, you knew I played, you didn't know that I'm gonna be.

SPEAKER_02 28:45

That's the difference of being a gamer.

SPEAKER_01 28:47

Yeah. Anyway, so that was a that was a thing that that was one for us. Um, and then I also realized just how much of if I didn't have something that I was doing, how you really wanted that time. If I didn't need to be doing something, you're like, well, then we should be us, we should be together, and which is a sweet thing. Anyway, I'm getting way off track, yeah, to the point, which is the everyday space. What does that look like in the everyday a right relationship with God? Yeah, how does that overflow into your everyday?

SPEAKER_02 29:23

I think that like in any relationship, when you spend a lot of time with somebody, they influence you. Like there's that leadership rule of thumb where if you look at somebody's five closest people, yeah, that's who you are.

SPEAKER_00 29:40

Yeah, that's who you're becoming.

SPEAKER_02 29:42

That's who you're becoming. Yeah, so it's the same with God. If you're spending quality time with him, what some people like to say, quiet time, devotional time, the secret place.

SPEAKER_03 29:53

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 29:54

If you're spending quality time with him, where you're like actually trying to get to know him, and part of that's through reading the Bible where he tells us who he is. Yeah, part of that I think is praying, having encounters with the Holy Spirit, where you're having an experiential knowledge of who God is.

SPEAKER_00 30:12

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 30:13

So if you're having all this quality time with him and he's one of your closest friends, he's influencing you and changing you, and that's who you're becoming.

SPEAKER_00 30:21

Right.

SPEAKER_02 30:23

Which is in I think it's First Corinthians three, where it's we behold as in a mirror the image of God that we're being transformed into. That's what that verse means, is we're looking at him, we're close to him, we're being influenced by him, and we're becoming who this person is because people we're close to influence us and change us. So the fruit of that is it is just showing up in our mundane time of well, I don't want to watch the raunchy movie because I just don't have a taste for it anymore. Because I'm spending all this time with somebody who doesn't like raunchy humor.

SPEAKER_01 31:14

Your filter changes, your filter changes changes.

SPEAKER_02 31:17

It's not that, oh, I'm not gonna watch that movie because it's unholy.

SPEAKER_01 31:22

Right.

SPEAKER_02 31:22

It's that my filters change and I've lost my taste for it. I've tasted something better.

SPEAKER_01 31:28

Yeah, I don't I don't want to ruin anyone's favorite things, but it's why I just I don't I don't have any desire to watch horror films. Yeah. Because it's just some part of it is like this is so far from where I want to be putting my mind, and then we get into that whole like you know, whatever is pure, whatever is honorable, whatever is right. Like all of these things, all that kind of thing.

SPEAKER_02 31:48

Horror movies is celebrating destruction and fear, and whether it's physical or emotional, or even just the sense of safety, horror celebrates destruction. Yeah, and God is a a creative God, he celebrates creation, he's not gonna celebrate destruction and death, he's not gonna be entertained by that, right? So because he's one of my closest friends and has influenced me, I'm not really interested in that celebration either. I'd rather celebrate creation and life.

SPEAKER_01 32:21

Um, you you made a song stuck in my head from like two minutes ago, but I think it's exactly what you were saying.

SPEAKER_00 32:29

It's the come and behold him. Isn't he fascinating?

SPEAKER_01 32:34

But it's that it's that idea, it's that beholding him, and like you're truly just you're so captivated, you're fascinated. Like, oh my gosh, God, you're so incredible. Yeah, and I think there's um something I've been working through in the last couple years is trying to really understand the beauty of God, because in our cultures, and this is such a huge sidetrack, but it's fine. Uh, in our culture, we give beauty this very like feminine expression, and we we treat it as like a very feminine thing, and we're told, you know, God is father and he's son and he's holy spirit, and we assign those to what we would consider in Western civilization, like male gender, and like that's the example um that he chooses to relate to us as father, and and there's a lot of beauty in that, but some people get into this, like just trying to behold and understand like how beautiful God is, and I had to wrestle with that because the masculine side of me, and maybe this is you know the whole maybe it's culturally whatever it is, is like can I really can I really look at another um you know, another man and be like he's beautiful. Um, and then of course a bunch of hilarious examples like pop into my head because I've known some beautiful men, and there's some beautiful men that I wouldn't mind being friends with, like Phil Wickham. Um But it it's like funny because like in a lot of Christian culture, like we kind of play with that and we have a good time with like you know, complimenting other men and being like this is a beautiful man and like encouraging and stuff like that. And it's like to be kind of joking about it to make it okay. Yeah, you're kind of joking a little bit, and you're like kind of hoping you're gonna make them a little bit uncomfortable, and that's like half of the fun. If you're uncomfortable, but you project that you're comfortable and that makes them more uncomfortable, and that's the whole joke. This has been going on forever. Um, anyway, this is also what you get from going to a Christian university. Um, but that was like a just a wonderful time. Um, anyway, the point I'm trying to make is it's still somewhat an awkward, uncomfortable thing to call another man beautiful to some extent, or just in in earnest. Just in general, yeah, in earnest. And so that's a thing that I've been working through because the beauty and the splendor of God and his glory, and like it's just beyond what I can actually comprehend. And he's not bound by beauty that is one type, like it's it's so multifaceted that I'm not that's what I was just about to say.

SPEAKER_02 35:10

I didn't know you had that wrestle. It didn't even occur to me that other people had that wrestle. Because in my mind, there are different types of beauty, and there is the feminine beauty, but I always always had a masculine beauty as well, where it's beautiful, but it's a different kind of beauty, yeah. Like when you go to Colorado and you see the Rocky Mountains, that is beautiful, but in my mind, that's a masculine beautiful chisel dabs where it's rugged, it's kind of hard, yeah. It maybe kill you.

SPEAKER_01 35:43

It's dangerous.

SPEAKER_02 35:44

There's a danger element, yeah. It's beautiful, but it's nothing like a feminine beauty, it's nothing like a flower.

SPEAKER_01 35:51

I mean, there are some beautiful flowers there too, but yeah, I know I'm just saying.

SPEAKER_02 35:55

If you're comparing the two things that we both call beauty, one is you know, soft and delicate, and what we would say is feminine, and one is hard and dangerous, and the Rocky Mountains are to me are kind of overwhelming because there's nothing like that where we live. Yeah, so in my mind, that's like a masculine beauty, and I thought everyone else could see that, but now I'm realizing that's not true.

SPEAKER_01 36:24

We gotta go to the top of the mountain to pray, so that's masculine. But no, just kidding. But then there's like, oh my gosh.

SPEAKER_02 36:34

But God manages somehow to be both, yeah. He's both kinds of beauty.

SPEAKER_01 36:39

There, there is there's all of the the fragrant aroma and the the rose and the just I mean, there's there's so many different analog things that are coming up in my mind, and and even the words that the Lord uses to explain things to us where it it also has it contains that, and it yeah, okay. I didn't think we were gonna get into the beauty of God and horror films in our conversation today, but here we are.

SPEAKER_02 37:05

But that's all the kinds of things that go into a relationship, and if you're gonna be in the right relationship, you need to understand all this stuff.

SPEAKER_01 37:14

All right, I just got another thing. So there's different types of love, but one of the conversations that always transpires when people are talking about romantic relationships is well, but are you attracted to them?

SPEAKER_02 37:28

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 37:29

And uh, I mean, that's sometimes that's just where it starts. And so when I first saw you, I was like, hello, I want to get to know her. And that is that first, second like attraction of like this just grabbed my attention. But we're not gonna pretend like um uh what is it, Eros love? I'm gonna get the types of love wrong. But what is Eros? Yeah, okay. So um, but that like the more that's you know the physical, the physical, like erotic love, like yes, that's where we get the word erotic, yeah. So that version of love, I'm not gonna pretend like I mean God created that, but that's not what we're like necessarily talking about here. But I think there is something in the space of trying to have a right relationship with God where you are attracted. There is some version of pull where it's like I there is something about God that I need that I don't have. The attention is grabbed, and the attention is grabbed, yeah, and that can be like a starting point. Like sometimes you realize something is missing, and I don't know what it is. Well, that and that leads you to be seeking.

SPEAKER_02 38:40

That was the thing for C.S. Lewis, what he called joy, he later realized was when he was getting a glimpse of the Lord in life, and he was always chasing these glimpses, and then when he got saved, he realized he'd been chasing God, and he was because he named his autobiography Surprised by Joy. Because he was reluctant to get saved and fought it.

SPEAKER_01 39:12

Yeah, for us, that was you were surprised by Archie in a lot of ways.

SPEAKER_02 39:17

I wasn't looking for you, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 39:19

I mean, you'd already known the Lord, but you were definitely not looking for me. You were actively not looking for me.

SPEAKER_02 39:23

I was actively not looking for love. I had planned on being alone.

SPEAKER_01 39:27

Yeah, the Lord had another idea, and he sent his servant Archie to intervene.

unknown 39:34

Oh my gosh.

SPEAKER_01 39:35

And now, um, and now the world is blessed through you, um, and our children. Uh and if you know our children or you've encountered them, they will they will bless you in funny ways.

SPEAKER_02 39:48

Um and sweet ways.

SPEAKER_01 39:51

Well, yes, especially the cheesy ones. Okay. Uh all right. I want to kind of bring us back around a little bit. This has been actually even better than I expected. So I feel like we talked about this a little bit, but I think the tail end of this question might still land. So, where can Christians confuse righteousness and religious with religious performance? Self-righteousness or appearing spiritually impressive? And I think that the thing that is really easy to get hung up on in any kind of a community is trying to have the appearance of being spiritually impressive so that you have a voice or what you say carries weight, or that you feel a little more important than maybe some other people, or that everyone will listen to you, or you'll be a leader, or they'll do what you say, and all that kind of things that go into why people try to make themselves appear spiritually impressive. And obviously, the Lord is not going around like, well, observe my servant Archie, who is spiritually impressive. Like, no, that's not that I am, because I'm not, but also that's not what he cares about. But we easily slip into caring about thinking that's what it's all about.

SPEAKER_02 41:14

The fruit. You're saying we think the fruit is what's important.

SPEAKER_01 41:17

Or if we really want to get to some hot takes here, people who have certain gifts or anointings, and then all of a sudden we treat them more spiritually impressive. But they're not necessarily Christian celebrity, Christian celebrity, or people that have certain gifts that we wish that we had. And not even to get into the jealousy of it, but like sometimes the gifting is so glorified.

SPEAKER_02 41:48

And you're saying that's why people might pretend to be righteous to look like that.

SPEAKER_01 41:53

I think that might be what I'm trying to say. I don't know.

SPEAKER_02 41:57

I'm not fully sure what you're trying to say.

SPEAKER_01 42:00

I know, that's the face I'm getting. No, what I'm trying to say is God's idea of a right relationship is a lot different than all the things we try to masquerade and pretend, like your example of kids playing marriage. What we try to pretend is looking like we have that right relationship. But some people can function in some version of ministry for long periods of time, even, where they're playing. And sometimes, granted, different things happen, sometimes the Lord will use that anyway, because we're imperfect, and he'll be like, I can still use this, I can still use you to you know bring people to the kingdom and to bring them into more maturity in different ways, or for them to go like, Well, there's something good I can get. Um, this person's blessing me in this way, maybe not the other way, but and then in other cases it can lead to you know, it can be ruined or whatever. But the point is our idea of how we want it to look. We want it to look like we have this relationship and we're acting in that way.

SPEAKER_02 43:10

But like, you know, the Bible always says like God looks at the heart, like He sees how your actual I think that gifting and righteousness are two different things.

SPEAKER_00 43:20

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 43:21

And I think playing at those two different things are for two different outcomes. So which one are we talking about? Gifting or righteousness and pretending.

SPEAKER_01 43:35

Let's go to the hot spot of pretending of gifting for a second.

SPEAKER_02 43:44

Well, I think that pretending to have gifting or to take some piece of legitimate gifting and just ride on that without anything beneath it, any substance beneath it, but I think both of those. Are not about a relationship about God or a relationship with God, but it's about what we get from other people from that gifting. That's getting the praise of man, that's filling the holes in your heart with the accolades of man. That is, I think, worse than pretending to have a right relationship with God. I because you're using God to get from God's people the things that should be given to God.

SPEAKER_01 44:43

My brain just did a spin, and that's like saying you're trying to justify with people instead of being justified with God.

SPEAKER_02 44:53

Well, yeah, like you're yeah, you're justifying yourself through praise of men.

SPEAKER_01 44:59

Attempting to, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 45:01

But you're also trying to get that praise of man instead of redirecting that praise to God. And if you're in a ministry position, that should be what you're trying to do. Direct people's eyes and hearts and praise towards God and not yourself at all.

SPEAKER_01 45:21

Right.

SPEAKER_02 45:23

So there's that problem. Pretending a relationship with God, I think, is the equivalent of well, it could be so that you can be, you know, in the club of church. Yeah. It could be that. But I also think it could be a little bit of self-validating where it's not for the praise of man, it's just for the pure sake of I have receipts of goodness.

SPEAKER_00 46:02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 46:03

And whatever torments going on in my head, whatever, you know, verbally abusive relationship I'm in, I can show up with these receipts and say, I'm a good person.

SPEAKER_00 46:14

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 46:15

Or you can sort of maybe fudge some questionable gray area behavior. But then you can come back and say, But I'm a good person because all of this stuff is fine. So it's it's self-validating, not for the praise of man, it's almost for the praise of yourself. You're justifying yourself to yourself.

SPEAKER_01 46:36

There's probably a lot of that.

SPEAKER_02 46:38

There's a lot going on in that. Yeah. Um but anyone, I think most people can tell when people are pretending to be righteous and just playing the part. Unless they themselves are also pretending and playing the part, and then that's all they know. And then they're like, Yeah, you're good. And then they're just sort of justifying each other's fakeness. When I think about trying to fake a right relationship with God, I think of this Teeny Bopper book I read when I was a teen about this, of course, teenage girl going through tough stuff, and she had, you know, her family was kind of poor and struggling, and they had this cherry tree that her mom loved and it never gave any fruit. And this girl like did all this work and bought cherries at the grocery store. Oh, and taped the cherries to the tree, right? So that when her mom woke up, she'd see fruit on this tree that she loved and it would make her mom happy.

SPEAKER_01 47:42

Oh my gosh.

SPEAKER_02 47:43

And it was like this beautiful moment of her mom getting everything she wanted, and then her mom says, Let's go pick some. And the dog, you know, this girl starts panicking because she knows it's tape.

SPEAKER_00 47:54

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 47:54

She knows that it isn't real. And the mom, sure enough, goes out there and is crushed and hurt that it wasn't that it was fake, but she was also really mad that her daughter spent all this money to create this fake moment when they could have used the money for something else.

SPEAKER_01 48:12

As a parent, my I'm like trying to put myself in that situation. And I would I can understand that, but I think I would also be like, okay, I I love that you tried so much to cheer me up that you went through this much effort.

SPEAKER_02 48:28

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 48:29

But like, it's not the same thing as the real fruit from our tree.

SPEAKER_02 48:33

Right. But I I think that's what we do is we tape fruit to our trees, and then we go, look, we're righteous.

SPEAKER_01 48:41

Oh my gosh, that's killer.

SPEAKER_02 48:44

Because to actually grow fruit, you actually have to have kind of the vulnerability of a flower that's then pollinated by a bee.

SPEAKER_01 48:54

And the ruggedness of a mountain. No.

SPEAKER_02 48:58

That then turns into a hard little green knob. Like I'm thinking of our apple tree.

SPEAKER_03 49:03

Right.

SPEAKER_02 49:04

That's extremely unoppressive and benefits no one.

SPEAKER_01 49:09

For a while.

SPEAKER_02 49:10

And that apple has to slowly grow and stretch and grow from like hard and sour, and bitter even, to something that's juicy and sweet and pleasant to eat.

SPEAKER_01 49:23

That you turn into delicious pies.

SPEAKER_02 49:25

So you go from bitter to sweet. You go from small and hard to someone who has a big heart and is like generous and giving. Like that's why fruit is such a good analogy. Not just because the end result is, oh, that's attractive. Oh, that points our eyes to God. Grow in that gift. It's the process of growing it, it's time. It's we want shortcuts. It's kind of ugly. Like the fruit on our tree right now is really ugly and unappealing.

SPEAKER_01 49:55

I think it's cute, but it's not doing anything for anybody.

SPEAKER_02 49:57

It's not going to be good for a couple months yet.

SPEAKER_01 50:00

Yeah. It's more for me the hope of what it's going to be.

SPEAKER_02 50:03

Right. I love the hope in it, but if I were to pull one of those green knobs off, I'd be like, ew, well, to pull it off before it's ready. Well, yeah. But the point is, is like going through that relationship of being influenced by God, of letting him persuade you into why he is the way he is, why he thinks the way he thinks, and why that's right. And having to say, Oh, I was wrong about that. Oh, I see why you're right. And I'm actually gonna change my mind to align with that.

SPEAKER_00 50:34

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 50:35

Instead of my own stuff, and like the time, the process, this the stretching and sweetening. That all like you said, there's no shortcut to that.

SPEAKER_00 50:48

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 50:49

And when we pretend we're just taping fruit on.

SPEAKER_01 50:53

Yeah, growth is not comfortable and it takes time.

SPEAKER_02 50:59

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 51:00

And until it is in fullness, it's probably not gonna be what you want.

SPEAKER_02 51:08

Or what anyone else wants.

SPEAKER_01 51:10

Yep. And then when it is actually in its fullness, um you may find that it it doesn't exactly do what you think.

SPEAKER_02 51:24

True.

SPEAKER_01 51:26

So or it still costs you something. And it's still um it's good.

SPEAKER_02 51:33

Well, because you have to keep buying and taping the fruit, if you will. You have to keep maintaining the facade.

SPEAKER_01 51:42

Well, yeah, if it's yeah, if it's the fake. I'm saying the real stuff.

SPEAKER_02 51:45

Oh, the real stuff? Yeah, that's gonna cost you in a different way. But but I think in the end, it's better. It's an easier cost.

SPEAKER_01 52:00

Yeah. Um, so we probably could have spun like multiple episodes off of some of these topics, but I'm gonna I'm gonna circle back. So I think if I explore and try and bottle up a lot of the stuff we were talking about, that righteousness and that right relationship with God actually looks like having a real relationship with Him and wanting it to be whole from the perspective of both parties, because that's what real relationships are like. Like if we have something like whether it's intentional or accidental, it's like if we wrong each other or we upset each other, it's like the first thing is like one of us wants the other to say they're sorry, and then we can start there. And like it seems like such a silly thing, but it's like, you know, am I talking to God? Because if I'm not talking to him, then I'm definitely not saying sorry, right? And I'm not even starting with whatever has made me not want to talk to him, right? And then am I am I willing to listen to him? Am I willing to like find out what he thinks about could be whatever? And that's just relationship. And so I think the important piece of this whole righteousness conversation for me is demystifying that we should treat God completely differently than how we would treat people that we care about. And we should really approach that. We say this all the time: faith, you know, Christianity, it's not a religion, it's a relationship. It's like this thing that's been spun around for years and years. But like the reality is it's like having a real relationship with God and being real with him and letting him be real with you. Yeah, that's all I got.

SPEAKER_02 53:46

That's the good part to have. It's worth getting.

SPEAKER_01 53:51

Yeah. Um done.

SPEAKER_02 54:01

You're not gonna pray.

SPEAKER_01 54:04

I forgot. We're supposed to pray because that's what we do at the end of the podcast. So, Father, we just thank you for. Um, I was about to say this food, but that's my autopilots, and maybe I'm getting hungry. Um, but we do thank you for food because fruit is a food, and that totally connects with what we were talking about, but now we're gonna do real prayer. Okay. Father, we just pray that um that anyone in listening and anyone encountering any part of this conversation today, um, would just want to pursue that deeper real connection with you, a real relationship, that they would learn to look at you, to look upon you, um, to picture you, to have dreams and visions of you where they would see your beauty, Lord, where they would come to grasp and and have that desire. Like if I could just hide in the cleft of the rock and see the train of your robe, that would be amazing. Um, just to just to hold you in such a place that we want to look and grasp and and understand and see, but also we want to know you deeply. We want to know your thoughts, we want to know uh how you feel about things, how you see things. And so, Father, I just pray that you would make people hungry and thirsty for you, and that you would invite them and pursue them into that real and right relationship, that close friendship. Um, and like Jesus says, that um we get to know the master's business because we're friends, we're not just subservant, like he wants us to partner with him. And so, Father, we just thank you for all these things. In the name of Jesus, amen.

SPEAKER_02 55:49

Amen.

SPEAKER_01 55:53

Thanks for listening to the Archie and Edda podcast. We hope this conversation encouraged your faith, challenged your thinking, and pointed you back to God's word. Until next time, keep walking with Jesus, keep loving well, and keep leaning into what God is speaking.