Coming up. But I want to live. I want to find that edge where life happens. Because this world, I'm telling you, it's out to suck all of that out of everything, right? And what sickens me the most is when the church begins to suck all the life out of things. You music. This is our first episode of On the Table. And the whole idea is to put something on the table and talk about it. So we thought it'd be fun to actually bring something and put it on the table. It doesn't have to be exactly what we're talking about, but it can be something that we reference. So okay, I'm going to start off, and I'm going to have, I'm going to put this picture on table, so if I can make it stand up straight. So should show to the camera. Credit, Deanna Martin, and here's my thinking on that. So why do I have a picture on the table? I also was going to have a Bible, but you'll just have to. I don't have one around here, so, and that's probably not the right representation anyway, but my inspiration for this is to just talk about, like the body of Christ, about like just being a Christian, just like I look at art and I think it's beautiful, it's creative, it's expressive, it's alive, you know? And it doesn't matter, we don't have to leave the picture so much. But, oh, sometimes life is just upside down. It's not always perfect, no, but no, that's the thing I was thinking about this. And my point of inspiration is to talk about just the fact that, what are we looking for when we come to God, when we go to church, when we get when we look at Christianity? It's the question that I think that Nicodemus was asking when he approached Jesus, he was like, you know, there's all sorts of sermons about that and everything else, but when I look at it, more and more that I just see what he's just, he's just groaning inside. He's like, coming to Jesus, like, he's, he's, he's a Pharisee. He's done all the religious stuff. He's done. He's, he's followed the letter of the law. He's doing all this stuff, but he's empty inside. He's asking Jesus, you know, what is it I'm what's the secret sauce? What's the thing? What's What do I? What am I missing? What do I, what do I need to do to get the real stuff? And of course, Jesus tells him, you know, hey, it's not you've got to be born of, of the Spirit, you know? And I just think when just to get honest and real about this, because that's what we're trying to do here. Is the thing I want to put on the table and have a discussion about, is, why are we missing that? Why are so many people looking to whether it's going to church, trying to read the Bible, whether it's going to a fellowship, whatever it is? What are we missing? Why are so many people not getting filled with something that meaningful, that really changes their life, because that's what they're wanting, right? I mean, maybe not. Maybe some people, I can't judge people I don't know, maybe people go to church sometimes just because it's like, oh, I, you know, my parents told me I should go to church, or they're trying to check some box off. And we always make that claim. But I, I think a lot of people are going to church because they, they just are. They're looking for something. They're looking for, something real. This world's just so mundane sometimes, and it's just, there's high spots and low spots, don't get me wrong, but there's a lot of the world that's just rigged around, kind of just death, just things that are dying or dead or just dead inside. And you know, I don't I've been to church services where they were alive and active, but I've been to a lot of them where they're just, it's like, it's, it's not bad, like the music might be really good, like the the sermon might be engaging, it might be interesting. You might learn something. But I don't walk away going, Man, I encountered the living God there. I might even get chills. The music's so good, or whatever else. But it didn't change my life. It didn't, it didn't, it didn't connect to God. And I just, I, I want to talk about that, because I know in my life I found that I found the thing. I found the juice, the secret power, the stuff that's life, you know. And sometimes I think we're looking for the artwork, we're looking for the expression. We're looking for something more real than just words on a page or, you know, here's a bulletin, and we're gonna go through this point and do this, and then do that, and then you can sign up on Wednesday to do this service, and you can do a lot of stuff. And it's like, I know there's all that going through the motions, but there's just stuff that's deeper. And I think, I don't know if it's COVID or what, but something just busted something inside of a lot of us, and we're sick and tired of the I know, for me, I can't talk to you guys, but I think I'm just tired of just stuff that doesn't have a lot of deep meaning to it. You know, I'm just going through the motions. So I think I've, I kind of feel like I know what the difference is, but I'm but. That's what's on the table. I want to, I want to just have a really honest discussion, because that's what we're doing here. We don't have any we don't have to live up to anybody's expectations of what we believe or don't believe, or how we talk about it, or what we say or what we don't say, or which scriptures we use, or that kind of stuff. And that's the beauty of this thing, right? Is we're just saying we can just have an open discussion, because people have real thoughts and they're afraid to have open discussions. They're afraid to, oh, what if I don't say it right? Or what if, you know, what if I'm not supposed to think that way? Or, what if I'm not supposed to ask those kinds of questions. So if you're listening to this today, that's, that's the, that's the whole idea is we hope that we can just have honest, open, engaging discussions and not worry about that. You know, let's dissect this thing down to the parts that matter, and just put the parts back in the matter. So I'll just put that on the table and say, what it I don't know if anybody wants to just jump in. Like, what you could start with? What are you looking for? Like, what? What's your Nicodemus experience? What? What if you were gonna approach Jesus, or approach the church, or maybe not asking that, right? But what's the longing of your heart? What do you what are you looking for when it comes to God? And your experience with God? I think that connection, like you were kind of mentioning, is, like, it's a big thing, like you're saying sometimes you can go through the motions of being at a church service or whatever else, and you you're kind of missing that connection. I think it's like a, I don't know, like a relationship instead of just a experience or a, I don't know what else you want to call it a class, yeah, like where you're connecting with other people, you're connecting with God. And it's real, it's honest. There's no pretenses. There's no wall that's put up. It's like real, I don't know, discussing the difficult subjects, it's getting deep into what's on your mind and you're struggling with, or something you need encouragement for, something you need prayer for something that you can connect with each other on a deeper level than just, Hey, how's your Sunday? How's the weather, kind of conversation, or, I don't know, yeah, I like that. Have you been to churches where, and I'm not, I'm not asking any names. I just, I know we've been to different ones. We've had a church and had different experiences. But if, have you guys been to a church where you felt like it, there's lot that there's just certain things you couldn't bring up, or that would just not be something you could talk about in church. Yeah, for sure, but I don't, I don't know if that's because there would have actually been a bad reaction to the question, but more so a idea in my head of what the I don't know how the how the pastor would react to my question, or how what the congregation would think, but, you know, I've never asked those kind of, like, any kind of question in church where I'm like, Whoa. Like, his response is really negative. I shouldn't talk like this here. I don't feel comfortable. I think it's actually more of a judgmental, like, pre like, even judging the church a little bit like, oh yeah, they will react bad if I ask something, or if it sounds like I'm doubting something, or asking a question that's going to make them stumble with, like, how to answer it? Like, that's not welcome there. Like they wouldn't be upfront with me about the answer. But again, I've never that's pretty fair. Like you're saying you're already pre judging them, that maybe, maybe they would, maybe certain places would be open to whatever you had, whatever your struggle was, and just actually come around to you. And I know that's true. I know. I think the body that we had, you know, years ago, would have definitely done that. I think you could have brought up anything, and we would have just surrounded somebody and prayed for them, for sure, that's what welcomed me to the church I was younger. You're talking about what cross Correct, right? And what do you think? I mean, what do you think causes that pre judgment to think that you wouldn't be safe to do that? Is there certain things that, you know, Christians can really come across judgmental, but I feel like it's also one of the things where you notice it more, because they're supposed to be the people that aren't being so judgmental. So it's like, it's like, a higher standard. Yeah, exactly. Because, like, you talked, I talked to anybody, like going to public school, and everybody was judgmental, like every single person who talked to your neighbors. So we talked to judgmental, but because someone's supposed to be representing Christ, it's funny, even the people that say they don't believe in Christ, they're automatically like, Hey, that's not how God would act. Yeah, you know, I, I can't help but think and that some of that comes from the fact that just a misunderstanding of the gospel, I mean, that's that's become a big part of our whole ministry, right? Is, I think that if people that spoke in church would open the door to more honest discussions, it would help the people be feel more comfortable, you know, but I, honestly, I still stand by this. I think in a lot of churches, if the pastor, for instance, or the worship leader, were to just stand up there and say, I just had a crappy week, and I just really was raging in my flesh. And I just, man, I I really screwed up this way and that way. And I really, I yelled and screamed at my kid. And I used to, you know, the F word 30 times in my wife's face. And I, you know, can you imagine going to church like that, and someone just saying that up on a stage? I can't, because, I mean, I can, because I think I said things like that, but when I was a pastor, but I've never been to a church where they did that. But why? Because, I'll guarantee you, because I've been to pastor prayer meetings. I guarantee you that they did it. I guarantee you they had those days in those weeks, and so did everybody out there. But it's because we don't understand our dual nature, and we have this concept in Christianity that, basically, I kind of thought about it earlier Laurel and I were talking about this concept of duality, and we were talking about it. It's like, I think the basic perception of of being a Christian is thinking of you having a gage, you know, you think of a gage in your car, and it goes from, like, empty to full. And if you kind of think of a gage of, like, sort of bad on one side, on this side, I guess, and it goes out to, you know, righteous or amazingly good. And so, the idea, I think, that most people believe in Christianity is, you know, it's you're trying to make your gage go closer to the good person thing, right? And so if you were to kind of come in and admit, oh, man, I really screwed up, or I had this problem, whatever, then I think you would feel like, oh, people, you know, everybody, no one else is saying that. So I would just feel terrible to say that, right? The problem is, it's a bad it's bad doctrine. The Bible says that we have two different gages. Now, once we come to Christ and we're born from above or born again, we have now a one Gage, as we're a new creature in Christ, Jesus, and that Gage is pinged to righteous 100% all the time. Can never leave that and the other Gage, really, you might be able to flicker a little bit off of bad but our flesh isn't ever really going to be made straight, and that's the reality. So the truth is, if I have a terrible day and I flesh out and I've made the choice to walk in my flesh, it hasn't touched who I am in Christ, the eternal part of you, right? The part of you that's going to live on in heaven forever, the part of you that's been made new and righteous. And, yeah, I think that's like something that a lot of people don't get, and that makes it really difficult. I've never heard thought in another church. I don't think I've ever heard the term duality or to a new being. And when I feel like I have, it's always more of just like, oh, well, now that Jesus died and rose from the dead, you're going to heaven, so you're new in that way, yeah, because you believe, but it's like, they're not making it like a, a real, almost, like physical, tangible thing of like, no, like, it really is separate. Because I think the whole idea of like, spirit and soul and consciousness and that kind of whole like, almost seems like mystical world is, like almost removed from the church. Yeah, maybe it's almost scared to be talked about, right? A lot of churches don't even that I've been to recently, don't even mention the Holy Spirit and and I, and I understand their trepidation of talking about the spirit, because oftentimes the spirit is because he is kind of mystical, kind of, you know, because he's ethereal, he's spiritual, you know, and he's not really understood. And so I think there's this fear that if, if people talk about the spirit, then it can go into some pretty weird things. Sure has in some doctrines, you know. And so I think I don't know why I'm assuming, which is probably wrong, as you know, but I'm assuming that it's because they're afraid that if they talk about the spirit, then then they're gonna churches that do talk about the spirit focus on one thing that he does, and they make that their whole ministry, like healing or right? And so they say, Well, we're we're not that. So they don't even talk about the spirit that much, let alone our difference in in our own being. Now, I think you're right, but, I mean, let's be honest, being a spiritual being is what it is to be Christian, right? There's nothing outside of that. Getting back to the Nicodemus story, Jesus tells him, dude, you're you're looking the wrong direction. There's nothing you can do into this person that you are to make any, you know, amount of difference at all. I mean, I'm paraphrasing for Jesus, but he was saying is, you got to be born of the Spirit. That's the only thing that's going to get you spiritual. He says the same thing at the woman at the well, right? He's like, hey, you know, she's like, Hey, well, should we be worshiping here in Samaria at our temples and our wells, in our situation or, or is it Jewish thing? She wants to get into this sort of physical here and now stuff. And he tells her, no, the true worshippers worship in spirit and in truth. And it doesn't matter where you came from, what your blood is, how what you did yesterday or five minutes ago, it matters your faith in the living Jesus, the living God, put your faith in Him. And then in second Corinthians, we talked about that scripture I talked about a minute ago, where you become a new creature in Christ, Jesus. That. It's the same area where it says he gave us his righteousness, by the way. Do you think that go back to that meter again? Do you think Jesus righteousness ever kind of starts to fade? Is it ever sort of like, Ah, it's only about half righteous today. So if we having, if we have become the righteousness of Christ, the actual righteousness that Christ had just by faith, then that can never be tarnished, that that isn't just, oh, that's the one that's going to heaven or the one that's eternal, that's right now. The kingdom of heaven is right now. As soon as you put your faith in Christ, you have living in you this beautiful get back to this picture that's on the table today. This beautiful new creature that's Jesus, says in that John three Nicodemus story, he gives this reference to the Spirit. He says, By the way, the spirit, nobody knows where it's come. It's like the wind. It kind of blows in. Nobody knows what direction, and they don't know where it's going. That's the beauty. It's limitless. It's powerful. It's amazing. Paul says in Romans eight, you know, he's like, I had this, you know, prior to the my Christ experience, basically, I was under the law, and the law basically brought me down. But now I have this new law in Christ, the law of life and liberty in Christ, Jesus and I've lifted up, and it's just all the all the barriers are gone, and that's the way Christian that's why Christianity is good news. But the minute we begin to muddy the two and mix the two gages and start to go, hey, you know what it's, oh, you know what? You're a bad Christian today, and you're, oh, you're a little better tomorrow, because you didn't do all that sin or something else. Then we take away from the fact that if I give into my flesh and people do on a regular basis, it, it doesn't touch the fact that you could stand right back up five seconds later and do something spiritual, because you're also the full, full on Spirit of God. You you have any the ability, every second of every day to express the real power of the Spirit, which tongues are great, healings are great, and we're not here to knock those things right. But the real power of the Spirit is to love one another. The power of the Holy Spirit is to provide for us a pure, holy love that God had for us, which is based on grace. And so that's why I think for me, what I'm missing so often when we come to the body of Christ, whether that's a church that's brick and mortar or a group of people that calls to be a Christian, or Bible study, or whatever else is that I want to find life. I want to find life abundantly, life everlasting. I want to have people that are just willing to be themselves and let go of all of this garbage and this filth that the world has put on us and all these rigid barriers and everything and after, oh, I've got to talk a certain way. I can't I can't drop this, or I can't say that, or I can't be myself, right? Oh, I might be judged for that, whether like you said, I like what you said, maybe they wouldn't judge you, sure, but because of, because you, because we do see them judge people, because the Christian community judges gay people. So often, I say the Christian community like it's representative of everybody. It's not. But what we see these public, Big Mouth versions of it are really out there bashing whole people groups, which is not anything that Jesus would ever want, right? I think about the Super Bowl this last year had some ads, and I forget the name of that group. Does anybody remember they put out some new ones too? I forget he gets us. Is that it gets us? Yeah, I think that's it. And it's this powerful ad. And we saw it, and we're like, oh, that's so awesome. They're just going, you know, they're like, they're washing the feet of like gay people and of various different kinds of situations. And I thought this is so awesome. It's in the Super Bowl, right? And then the day after a bunch of Christian groups start going after this group and saying, That's not Christian at all, and all this other stuff. And you're like, what? How? How is that not Christian? I just don't understand. Yeah, I don't get it either. And so I'm, I'm, I'm excited about what it is to be Christian, but I am all together mad about what it's become. I, you know, I think, you know, you're talking about the point about, you know, the two different gages and and I think we sometimes almost think of Christianity, almost like a stair step, like I'm slowly stepping up the steps toward Christ, and I'm getting better and better and and I think getting back to our discussion at the beginning of, like, judgment and stuff, I think, you know, it's easy when you have that mindset of, I'm stepping closer to God to then look down at the steps below you and be like, Oh, that person down there, they're not as high as I am up here. And or to look down on yourself and be like, Man, that person I know is way up there. I'm never going to make it to their level, steps that you used to be on, yeah. And it just it causes, I think, this judgment of comparison versus if you realize that no by faith, I get all the way to the top because of Jesus like that takes away. It levels the playing field of everyone, and it takes away that comparison that we constantly live in. And I think it also frees us when we're not so focused on that all the time. Time of like, trying to better ourselves and trying to work at that, and failing and winning, and then failing winning, it's like that frees up our mental capacity to, like, have the ability to then focus on living and loving and the true life that you're talking about. There's nothing to prove to anybody, and then going off of that. If we look at that gage of our flesh, then too it keeps us out of judging, because we realize, like we all have that Gage. We all have. If you're in Christ, you all have the the Jesus righteousness Gage, the new you and so. But if we look at our fleshly gage and realize, like everybody has that Gage, and wherever your your needle is on your gage, it doesn't matter, because it's all forgiven. And so that's why you don't judge people groups. You don't judge people who are struggling with addiction. You don't judge people who you know still have a foul mouth. You don't judge whatever, whoever that you that we have a tendency to look down on at those lower stairs, you know, because we realize we all have that Gage, and some of us, our needle is in a different place than other people. But the point is, it's still in the flesh Gage. And that flesh gage we own. We all own it. And we can't, right? We can't sit above anybody, because we realize, yeah, it just has different forms, right? Paul put it where I was at. He said, like in your in my flesh, nothing good dwells. And I think, I think that's just true. And I think if we were super honest about that, and we were also super honest about the fact that in my spirit, nothing bad dwells. And we could encourage one another in that. And we could actually just, I just want to put the challenge out there to you guys and anybody listening to this. I just challenge anybody that calls themselves a Christian. First of all, I hope that you understand that to be a Christian means you put your faith in Jesus for His righteousness, which will bring you salvation. It also brings you righteousness, and it brings you sanctification and holiness in a brand new person, all the way 100% there's no progression towards that through your life as you work hard, because the minute you begin to mix and match those two doctrines, and you start to say, Oh, it's my works. That's gonna make me a little holier, then you're gonna blame you if you get holier and like you said a minute ago, or you'll blame you when you don't, yeah, and that's where's your focus, then on you and others, instead of on man, I'm a screw up, like everybody else, but Jesus won the war, so now I'm not just to screw up. That's the old me that's dragging around until my bodily death, and then I finally get to chop that loose just be the new me. But in the meantime, the more I understand that in my life, the last 20 or 30 years, the difference is that I can just chop that loose at any given point, and I can just start to say I'm free in that and I don't waste time condemning myself over my stupid, rotten flesh. It's just out to kill me every day. Yeah, it's like, Paul says, right? He says to put off the old man. Put on the new man. That's any moment like you just said, Any moment we can choose that. Yeah, put it back on if we want and do something horrible or hateful or whatever else. It doesn't feel right, though, that's why we're trying to encourage it, right? Because how do you really feel like you just blow it and, you know, you've just, you've just, like, you're just fleshed out. Do you feel like, like, maybe you've been around this doctor long enough that you just throw the light switch on? But I think, I think for a lot of people, it's hard to kind of think, oh, man, I don't, I'm not in a good place, you know, I've got a Don't, don't, don't expect me to do anything. You know, Christian, right now, I'm like, a little while to recover before you're using, yeah, I've got to do some work to get I've got to, I've got to, I've got to, you know, and really, what you're saying is you've got to pay for that. You've got to pay some price for that. And the minute you say that, that's spitting on the blood of Jesus, He paid the price for that, it's like we feel like we have to pay penance for our sins in the moment. We have to wallow in our shame. Yeah, if I'm not acting shameful enough for long enough, then maybe I don't really feel bad for what I did or something, right? When really you're just wasting time that you could be now putting on the new man, walking in that walking in love, making that choice to go, okay, yeah, maybe I just blew up at my kid because it was the last straw of my patients, and I just yelled at them, maybe I custod them, whatever. That doesn't mean that the very next moment, I can't go do something loving for them, or I can't right, apologize and say, Hey, I'm so sorry. I cannot be better if you did that instead of wallow in the in the Oh god, I'm so sorry. I'm not, I'm gonna, I'm gonna, you know, do this, that, and the other thing, when he's like, I paid for that. You are well equipped. Go do the good stuff. Stop wasting time trying to make up for the bad stuff. That's what I shed my blood for on the cross. And that's life like to me, I think, like when we do that with our kids, that's building a relationship, that's love, that's real, that's reality, and they learn that. That mommy yells, and Mommy gets in her flesh, and Mommy has a breaking point and But mommy also humbles herself and apologizes. That means child realizes that mommy respects child as a human being. Because, you know, the child goes, Oh, wow, somebody actually loves me and respects me enough to apologize to me, you know, that I have value, and then you're just all of that good, beautiful, spiritual stuff develops in that relationship. And that's, that's the reality, that's the juice, and that's the real stuff, you know, like, that's, that's the beauty of the real power of the Holy Spirit, is that, that He loves us, he's with us. He, you know, Jesus died for us. We can have grace for people. We can. We're living in a hard world where our flesh is against us, the world's against us. All that stuff that's like, real stuff, like, and I want to talk about that stuff with people. When I get together with Christians, I don't want to talk about, I don't want to just sit a certain way and go, Oh, and then whatever, you know, maybe there's more rock and roll. It's a church. You know, our country like you, like mine. But you know what I mean? I want to laugh my ass off. Sorry. Maybe I'll cut that out of the video. I won't, but I want to laugh. I want to I want to have fun. I want to enjoy stuff. Maybe I go too far, sometimes, whatever. But I want to live. I want to find that edge where life happens. Because this world, I'm telling you, it's out to suck all of that out of everything, right? And what sickens me the most is when the church begins to suck all the life out of things for the sake of the fact that they just don't believe in grace enough, that that's I'm just gonna put it where it's at. They don't believe in grace enough. And for some churches, not all. I'm not going to I'm not going to point this finger at everybody for sure, because this isn't the case, but I know it is the case with a lot of churches, and God forbid, if you're this kind of church, some people know innately that by preaching against sin and by keeping people condemned on their sin, that they will continue to come back to your church, and they will continue to put money in the coffers and that sickening beyond belief and that that just that needs to be obliterated. And if you're at a church like that, you need to wise up and read the Bible yourself and figure out that is not what Christ came to do. That is not what the church is supposed to be doing. Yeah, you know, I'm not, I'm not going to name names. I bet I've been to those places, and that's absurd. That's just absurd. You know, like, I'm just, I'm fired up about this because, because I know people right here at this table, and other people in the world who have been freed by the gospel of grace, and they're the most loving people. They're the most full of the Spirit people. And when you're full of when you meet someone that's full of spirit. They're alive. They're not always like, I'm being today and I'm being all gregarious. It doesn't mean they're just always, you know, peeing into the top, yeah, always joyful, or always walking in your spirit, or what you know, but there's some level of reality, because you don't, you're not afraid anymore, yeah, about what everybody thinks, because you're like, you know what? God thinks so highly of me that he made me his son. He made me a son of the living God. He adopted me as a son like that can't be taken away by me or anybody else you know. And that's beautiful. And I just think people are beautiful. They're real. They have warts, they have problems. And man, if people and they want that connectivity you've talked about, but, but we don't get it, because it's not real. We have this big we have these layers of things that are they're not real. That's how we interact with each other. Yeah, and that's like, Man, how do we do to just break through that? It's interesting. You were talking about people, certain churches, motivating people to come back by making them feel bad about their sin. And I think it's like, you can motivate people with fear or you can motivate people with love. And I think it's like, I think the motivating with love is so much stronger and better to both churches. Yeah, the one I missed is the one that we had before we ended up moving, you know, but that was because it was welcoming, you know? It opened and nobody was going to judge you, no matter what. I mean, people came in that church on a regular basis that were drug addicts, that were, I mean, let's face it, we're all addicts, something, we're all addicts. And I've noticed, I don't know, but you guys have noticed, like, the older I get, I realize, not only is there nothing good in your flesh, but your flesh is out to kill you. You notice that, like, it's not like, it's not like you crave sweets or donut or something, because, oh yeah, I like to just have a sweet ever so often, if left, left its own devices, you would just eat a whole box, and you get diabetes cookies. I mean, everything you think about the flesh, everything about it, or you'll get it, you'll get hooked on something late at night, and then all of a sudden you get on getting enough sleep, and that's gonna kill you. You eat too much, you drink too much, you do all these things, like, have you noticed the flesh is never satiated? So it's always shop. It's always, you know? Yeah, it can be shopping. It can be whatever it is. Is, it can be playing. It can be on your phone. It can be playing. And I'm not saying those things to condemn people to do those things. I'm saying that we're all real, and we all have our stupid, stinking, rotten flesh. But to me, I just think it's funny, because I've just started laughing my flesh, because it's not it's always sold as, man, that's going to make you feel good. The marketers do that, right? The marketers, they play on all these things, you guys, you go to the store, what's on the ends of the aisles, all the stuff you shouldn't eat, all the salty chips and all other stuff, because they know that's how they're going to make the money, right? Because they know that we're all addicts one thing and another. And so, you know, I don't know about you guys, but I can't just eat a couple of chips. If I get if I get a bag this big, I'm going to eat that many chips. I need to get a little bag, you know? And just one, yeah, cuz I was gonna say, you get the little bags. And they're like, Oh, that wasn't much. I could have a second bag. I was over here, like, babysitting a couple months ago, and I'm like, Hey, you have a theater room. We're not We're not charging them for babysitting. I'm gonna pay myself a snack a couple hours later. We're like, just literally turn the bag up salt at the bottom. Yeah, anyway, crazy stuff, but, yeah, but that's all right. We're all like that. I'm not trying to make I'm not, by the way. I'm not trying to say, oh, you know, whatever you do is okay, and it doesn't, there's consequences. That's what I'm saying. Yeah, it left our own devices. We would just kill each other and die ourselves. Like it's not it's not good. We hurt each other with some things we do. Yeah? But I also think that the church has gone so far with this concept of condemnation, instead of the concept of forgiveness, the concept of grace, that we've developed so many rules and regulations against things that are written and not written. Laurel's done a great job in her book talking about this. She calls it the code, but I think it's really powerful description of the fact that we have these sort of unwritten codes about what's good and bad. And we've been talking a lot about some of those, like, I'm really kind of curious, like, a lot of those things that everybody thinks are so bad I'm not even sure their sins. Just, be honest, I'm not a whole nother topic for another, but I do kind of wonder, sometimes we've defined sin as, like, basically anything fun, yeah, and it's like, yeah. I've definitely gotten the impression from various church or Christian groups that, yeah, anything like emotions are bad altogether, or that, yeah, doing anything that's not specifically God focused basically, is just fleshly and a waste of time. And, oh, I've heard that recently, and I think it's, it's toxic, like it can suck the life out of things like you're talking about, like it's, it's just, yeah, I hate that, and yeah. And the opposite is like, okay to be like, Oh, you shouldn't watch that certain TV, you know, series, or whatever else that you guys are watching that's, that's bad, or whatever else, or you shouldn't get into hockey, or you shouldn't do that, you know, those are hobbies. How does that directly benefit the Lord? And yet, I've been over here on your hockey nights, and guess what I see? I see a loving family is whooping and hollering and having fun, and I see a loving Christian experience. And you know what I think I think of when I see that, I see God up there enjoying your life, because that's what it said. He said he made us for his enjoyment. So yeah, and I think it's so backwards sometimes, and yet somebody would look at that so, you know, it's kind of like they're with Jesus, like, hey, couldn't we do something better with that money or that time? Or how come you're eating with those people? You know, there's always somebody that's wants to make it sound like there's some big, better thing you should do. The bottom line is, he did the big, great thing, and it was the Pharisees that were doing that to him. And those, they were the legalists of the day, you know, yeah, and we have, we have, I think most people understand that obviously, that we can't follow the old covenant law because, well, there's no temple for one thing, we can't sacrifice animals. We try to mix and match it a little bit. Yeah, thou shalt obey the 10 Commandments. We hear a lot, but I don't know where I was going with this thought. Oh, but the you know, so, so we just, we kind of put Yeah, we kind of make up our own rules. We make up our own things that we Thou shalt not, you know, and they'll shout dues and and it just it sucks the life out of life comes the focus. Yeah, that's definitely happened to me. I go through phases even understanding grace. Sometimes I go through phases where I'm like, what about this? Or how should I feel about that? Or I don't know what I think about this yet, like I haven't come to a conclusion yet, and I should, or I feel bad that I haven't come to a conclusion on it like I don't know, I have a great example, but, yeah, no, I agree. But logically speaking, I just keep falling back to the point that just if Grace isn't the the way that we are accepted by God. Yeah, then, at least for me personally, I'm screwed like I have no chance. So yeah, so I, you know, I'm either wrong, and you know, it's not about grace, and I just don't, I'm not capable of being good enough for God. I'm not. I'm just not. I gave up on that a long time ago, and thought I was giving up on God, and that's when I actually found God. Actually found God, but, but I will never go back to that, trying to please, trying to live up to some standard for God. Once I recognized that it was his standard that he set for for us, that was so high I can never achieve it. And then he achieved it for me. Yeah, why would I want to go back under trying to achieve it again? In fact, it's insulting to him. I'm gonna compete with you, Jesus, see if I can get close to your righteousness on my own. Like, you know, I feel like, wow, a lot of people read and I, I understand why they do this. It's very there's some things in the Bible that are very difficult to comprehend, like, it's just hard to sort through, that even if you've looked at a woman then, like, if you're just reading it, word per word, and you're not, I don't know. You don't have people to talk with about it, and you don't have that, you know, like, I don't know. Maybe you're not really feeling the spirit when you're reading it, or getting, like, I don't know, thinking through it properly, which sometimes I read a verse 100 times, and it's 100 and first time that I finally get get something out of it, like, right? Like, it's not always every verse is some big epiphany. But I feel like a lot of people read, you know, a lot of Jesus's teachings, and they focus on the whole like, like his thoughts, like, Hey, this is what the law was saying you shouldn't do. But even if you did this, thought it's just as bad as murdering or it's just as bad, yeah, as committing adultery. And I think people hear that and they're like, well, then I shouldn't be lusting, or I shouldn't be angry. And don't get me wrong, I get with their hearts at and that's good, right? Yeah, sure, it's not. We shouldn't be wanting to hurt people and kill people and hate them, like, because it doesn't benefit you or them, right? Like, but I think it's, it was the heart of Jesus, though, the heart of God, that was like, You're not benefiting anybody by wanting to sleep with your neighbor's wife, like, you're gonna hurt somebody. It's not loving. Like, that's the whole thing. Like, is it loving? Is it? And I think that the whole law was kind of covered, and now there's some things in the Old Law. Like, I'm like, How is it on loving to to not smear the blood exactly in this exact way? I'm not, like, mixed materials in your Yeah, that's a whole other topic. God was a stickler for some things that I don't quite understand why, but thankfully, we're not under that old law. But I think that people forget that the reason he's saying those things is because of the big miracle that he's about to perform, which is, like, this is why you needed me, if you wouldn't have shown the purpose of the law, right? People just thought, Oh, I'm reading the law, so I get the purpose. Like, no, I don't think you really did get the purpose until Jesus explained it. But now people are just reading what Jesus said the law was about and then taking that is now their new law. Yeah, when it's like, hold on, like, No, it says that the law was nailed on the car, like it's gone, like Jesus fulfilled it. He nailed it. That's exactly good description. That's exactly right. I mean, he was goading people who felt like they were obeying the law. You're talking about Sermon on the Mount. When he was talking about that, he nailed it. He was he I love what you said. He's not like what he was saying was wrong. He never said anything was wrong. It's right. You shouldn't. You know, have hatred in your heart towards your brother, and I don't think he was exaggerating in his perspective at all to say that that's in because it's because he's always been about the thoughts and intents of your heart, not so much just about what you do the spiritual being, not just and so, so that's true, but if you look at but you have to look at the context of it like you're saying, and you have to understand what he was understand what he was doing. He was goading people to say, Oh, you think you're following the law, but you're not, you know, because you're, you're still committing murder because you've got this hatred in your heart, for instance, right? And he goes on to to ultimately say, in fact, in order you got to be, you got to be more righteous than the Pharisees. You got to be perfect. Like your father in heaven is perfect. He sets a standard so high in that same sermon. Yeah, that if you really want to follow that, oh man, I gotta not hate people, you know in my heart, yeah, dang, what a jerk I am. Oh, here I'm hating myself. Wait, yeah, I just killed myself. Oh, yeah. His whole point, I think you just nailed the mic, was to let you know you're all sunk, yeah, and that there's no way out except for something he could do. And of course, at the time, he hadn't died yet, sure, and they were, and he was talking Jews, and they were under that lawns, but, but you're right, he was just setting the scene. I love the way you put that so that, you know, a few months or a year later he was gonna, you know, he was going to do that, and then the Spirit was going to come and fill people with the truth about what East was talking about what happened. And then they can write these letters and say, hey, you know what? Add all this up and realize, now, wow, yeah, you know, I don't have to actually perform even better than the Pharisees, because God gave me. His righteousness. It would have been hard to be honest, it would have been hard to do everything even the Pharisees did, if you want to talk about like, a checklist of following the law, Oh, yeah. Oh, I would have been sunk, like, even compared to them. So it's like, I mean, the Gentiles are out of luck, right? The Gentiles didn't even have the law. So it's like, everyone would have been out of luck if we're under the same law that people are still trying to put us on, which is, like, I don't know, it just it's crazy to me. Yeah, well, that's what Paul talks about. Like you were just saying. He says, like, the law was only given as a tutor to teach people that they couldn't do it. And now he says, Now we're not under that tutor anymore. We don't need to be told that we're bad anymore. We know that, like you've been he showed us that for however long the law was in effect. Now we know like, hey, they couldn't do it. We couldn't do it. We don't need to do it. We can't even if we want, actually, we don't need to. So why are we trying? So I thought it was interesting in the readings we've been doing that, Solomon said that straight up, I hadn't caught that before. Right before he gives that temple prayer, he's just praying to God himself, and he's and he says, You know, God, no one's ever been able to actually live. So thank you for being so gracious. And I'm like, Oh, that's cool. Yeah. So many people say that David says that, you know, not early on in the Psalms. I always get a kick out of David's at first in the Psalms. The first, earlier psalms are like, kill all those unrighteous people, unrighteous. Then he commits more and more sin, you know, and does the Bathsheba thing and all this stuff. And this is the later Psalms. They're like, Thank you for being done, not imparting, you know, the penalty for my sin forgiving. That a cool picture of the way that we go through, like our relationship with Christ. And I think a lot of times we do start out pretty, you know, self righteous and and, and then we kind of realize, as we get older, okay, I keep I keep goofing out. I keep failing. This is not good. Then we start just praising God for His grace and His Yeah, Mercy definitely been that way for me, for sure. Older I get, the more I see how sinful I am and how thankful I am that God gave me grace and but that's the thing. You're turning that into a positive thing than a negative? Yeah, the feeling right? Yeah, yeah, feeling that way, yeah. I don't know a lot of people. It's funny. You're saying, like, oh, people start off like being judgmental, but I the only way, reason I disagree a little bit is like, I remember growing up, I started just with the being told how I should act, to be like God through the churches I grew up in, and then that made me very judgmental. And then it was like, that made me not want God. And that was like, why I just kind of was like through my teenage years, like, Nah, I'm good. Like, and he came back, you know, thankfully, but I don't know. I just want you understood grace. Grace is the leveler of that. I think because you, because I was thinking that same thing when she said that, I know people that have just gotten more and more pent up, more and more judgmental the older they get, but that's because they never actually got grace. I think that, yeah, well, that's the thing. I think that's what I'm saying. This thing changes, David. David is a beautiful picture of that, right? Oh, if you get grace, if you get grace, if you don't, you just get more and more bitter. Let's face it. I mean, we all know some bitter Christians in our lives, and they just get more and more bitter as time goes on. Yeah, sorry. I think because people feel so much shame, I think because if you don't have grace, then you have to have shame. You have to have guilt that you're just not laying down. You have to have, I think, that that you just live in that. And I think some people, depending on the kind of person they are or their background, some people just kind of get defeated in that and walk away from or feel shameful. But then there's this other class of people that just looks it's the latter thing they they feel the shame, and you know how they deal with it, they say, but I'm not as bad as that guy, right? Yeah, it's like the Pharisee in the Jesus story, where he's like the one Pharisees going, God, thank you so much for not making me like that sinner over there, and the other guys beating his chest. Then Jesus says that guy is the guy that's gonna gonna go to heaven, not the Pharisee. So it's kind of funny stuff. Kind of loops back around to what you were saying earlier about, you know, I we'd love to go to a church where the pastor is being real about being, like, having flesh and, yeah, that. And it's like, That guy, that's a great example you're giving that Jesus was talking about, yeah, and he, he just gives the preference straight up, like, that's the guy, that's the guy I'm listening to, the authentic guy, yeah, the guy who's real. He's not impressed by our works towards righteousness at all. I think it just actually upsets him. Well, in Isaiah, the end of Isaiah, he says, It's like filthy rags, or righteousness. What kind of filthy rags? So, yeah, well, look up the words women's, uh. Menstrual rags. That's probably don't smell so great, probably back then especially. But well, that's, that's what's on the table. I just, for me. Just wrap it up for me. I just, I want something deeper. I want, I want real stuff I don't. I want to cut through all of the make believe playing church stuff, I don't. And because we have grace, we don't have to worry about all that. We don't have to have all these pretenses of, oh, we have to have a certain way, or it's going to be upsetting to God. It's like God wouldn't have died for us if we're upsetting to God. God loves us, and we need to actually love other people like that. And get down to where we just talk to people and listen to them and and when they're telling you a story, instead of, oh, yeah, you should work harder on that, instead of saying that. Say, man, yeah, you know, you know what I struggle with and this, tell them that, and that's going to cut through. You know? I just, I don't know. We have that here. We have it in our own family, to whatever extent God would grant it. I'd love to just share that as many people as we can. Yeah, I agree. So hit subscribe, so you can get the episodes and come join us again and find out next time. What's on the table? Yeah.