00;00;13;04 - 00;00;40;05
Chris
That's why we've got to know God's Word and why theology really, truly does matter. And why I love to preach God's Word and why I try to do it so passionately. Because it's not just facts or things that that don't really matter to the day to day program of our lives. They literally matter in everything we do, every environment we live, every relationship that we are in.

00;00;40;08 - 00;00;45;09
Brenton
Welcome back to further I in Britain. Grimm. How are you doing, Chris?

00;00;45;12 - 00;01;05;27
Chris
It's a great question. So I am tired, but grateful, I guess. Yeah. So it's, it's been a long, couple, couple of months. So it has meant a lot of good things, but some real challenging things. And obviously, last weekend is kind of a microcosm of that. Yeah, we do cap it off. Yeah, yeah.

00;01;05;27 - 00;01;22;20
Chris
I mean, I woke up, Friday morning, actually went to bed Friday morning and woke up Friday morning. It's a University of Iowa Children's Hospital, which is always a fun experience. You know those hospital beds? They're they're. Yeah, they're great, especially as you you age.

00;01;22;20 - 00;01;25;00
Brenton
So it's been a while since I've had to sleep in one.

00;01;25;00 - 00;01;39;20
Chris
Well, you know, of my, my first experience with, with that was when my children were being born and I was half the age that I am right now. And you got a lot more energy. And it was there for exciting reasons. This,

00;01;39;22 - 00;01;40;16
Brenton
This wasn't exciting.

00;01;40;16 - 00;02;05;27
Chris
Or more recently, it's there's nothing in the, the reason that, I've been there, so but, and then, we had a great Sunday, so, just, just a great day. I think for me, one of the, most exciting and, I don't know, funnest is word, but definitely thrilling, days that I've, that I've ever had, as a pastor.

00;02;05;28 - 00;02;06;11
Chris
So.

00;02;06;13 - 00;02;31;29
Brenton
Yeah. Yeah, it's really good to see us meet our goal. And I think it's, it's been a very productive about two months. So I appreciate your leadership do that. And, yeah. So on to John eight. You opened the sermon by acknowledging that John eight, one through 11, the section that we covered has some unique challenges from a textual standpoint.

00;02;32;01 - 00;02;51;00
Brenton
I guess why did you feel it was important to address that from the pulpit rather than skipping over it? It seems like there there have been cases where, you know, maybe it just seems easier to not even talk about the issue and just assume that it's Scripture. Why? Why did you feel compelled to to bring it up?

00;02;51;02 - 00;03;21;15
Chris
Well, yeah, it would certainly be easier and more time, efficient, so to speak, to, to just skip over it. But I, I think pretty much everybody, if you get a Bible, unless you've got an old King James, you're, you're just seeing, you know, there's double brackets here and there's footnotes and like, all of this. So, and even like in the English, our version even before but before the Texas, it literally says these verses are not in the earliest manuscripts.

00;03;21;15 - 00;03;47;02
Chris
So naturally people are me thinking like, what's up with that? And I think if you don't address it, you can potentially, undermine, maybe, the authority of, of Scripture, in people's minds, if you're just not willing or at least you can lose maybe some credibility if you're not willing to tackle the hard, harder questions and, and address those things.

00;03;47;02 - 00;03;56;00
Chris
So I think there's, hopefully, it was helpful to people at least to get, some explanation for what's going on.

00;03;56;00 - 00;04;22;08
Brenton
There for sure. Yeah. You, you brought up, you had three reasons why you thought that, it was authentic. And I know, you know, there there are differing views on this. I did think it was interesting. And I'm sure we'll get into this a little later, but, you know what you brought up about Augustine's view? That it was, it was left out.

00;04;22;08 - 00;04;43;09
Brenton
He thought it might have been left out because it would have seemed like Jesus was dismissing sin or dismissing adultery at that point. And yeah, it is interesting because I think, you know, in in some ways it has been used that way like that. That is a common saying that, you know, you without sin cast the first stone like that has been used in awful ways.

00;04;43;09 - 00;05;13;28
Brenton
Right. And so, but, you know, being being specific about this and keeping it in line with, with Jesus character, I think has been, important. So this this isn't the only major textual variant we have in Scripture. You know, there's there's many minor, textual variants, but, as far as the major one, you know, there's there's also a significant one at the end of Mark, how should we in general kind of think about these variants?

00;05;14;00 - 00;05;44;08
Chris
Yeah. I mean, this could obviously be, a its own podcast. And I'm not talking about just one episode, but here for a reason. So, I think just to, to understand, when we are talking about these textual variants, not to, to begin with, recognizing that none of them, involve any foundational doctrines of the Christian faith.

00;05;44;08 - 00;06;09;25
Chris
Right. And so if you looking at the New Testament in particular, less than 1% of the New Testament is like when you say variant in doubt, like less than 1%. And none of the things that are in doubt, again, have have anything to do with, what we call a gospel issue, a change, the gospel issue.

00;06;10;02 - 00;06;43;16
Chris
She's the gospel or really changed the fundamental doctrines of the faith in, in like, any way. So, many of them or even just, you know, punctuation and, you know, letters or the spelling of a word and like, the different manuscripts have, you know, something in that word in a different order or something like that. So, you know, we, we believe that the, the word of God is inherent in its original manuscript.

00;06;43;16 - 00;07;12;11
Chris
So the original writings are inerrant, not the copies and copies of copies that we that we have. But we do believe that God's Word has been preserved. Preservation is is a big word so that we can, be very confident that God, has conveyed to us what he what he absolutely wants us, to know, and these these two passages, Johnny.

00;07;12;11 - 00;07;42;26
Chris
And the end of the gospel of Mark are the two, you know, the largest sections, by far. And that's included in the Old Testament, too. But we have, you know, if you go back to the there's over 5000 different manuscripts of, of the New Testament that we have that have been preserved, for us in the, the, the agreement between those different manuscripts is just incredible.

00;07;42;28 - 00;08;20;20
Chris
And I'll just use just one example. The, we talking about historical doctor, documents. The only the documents. And that's in second place of, an ancient document that's been, preserved, for us is, Homer's Iliad, which maybe I don't know if you remember that from, your, your undergrad or whatever. But, it it is, there's only about 600 manuscripts of, of that and they're, they're more than like, I believe 400 years.

00;08;20;20 - 00;08;56;14
Chris
The copies that we have are 400 years after it was originally written. You go to the New Testament, we have, copy of like the of the Gospel of John, actually from 125 A.D., which is within 30 or 35 years of when John was actually written. And so, and not to get caught in the weeds here, but if you were to go to the University of Iowa or Iowa State and in your case, and you would go to the English department and you would ask a professor there, hey, are we confident that we have a reliable copy of Homer's Iliad?

00;08;56;16 - 00;09;16;16
Chris
And they would go, they they look at you and say, of course, we know. We know this. We know exactly what what it is. Well, the not only the New Testament, but the Old Testament as well. So there's a little bit of a different story about the Old Testament. But, but, it could be as compelling, quite honestly.

00;09;16;19 - 00;09;52;27
Chris
Yeah. There's, there's so much more evidence, so many more manuscripts. And, and the copies that we have are so much closer to the time that the, the Bible was written in the New Testament case that we can just be, more than confident, more than any other really ancient document by by a long shot. And just a mention, one quick note, in regards to the Old Testament for, for a long time, it was about 1300 years between, the, you know, the last book of the Old Testament was written around 400, BC.

00;09;52;28 - 00;10;21;23
Chris
The that's the estimate, for for many, many years. It wasn't until 980, 900 A.D. where the first like copies manuscripts that we had. But then in 1947, you had the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls, which are a fascinating story. If if any of you are familiar, if you're not familiar with the Dead Sea Scrolls, how it was discovered, in all of that and in the three scrolls in 1947, it was found like 100,000 different fragments.

00;10;21;26 - 00;11;13;19
Chris
One of them was from Isaiah 53, which is the the famous passage in which we have the suffering servant and, you know, just coming off a Good Friday and Easter, we've all heard it, and and so in these, Dead Sea Scrolls, they're, they're literally a thousand years, older than the previous manuscripts. So, so much, much closer to the time of the old test that the Old Testament was, was, was written, and in Isaiah 53, after a thousand years, there's 166 different, actually letters, Hebrew letters in the, Isaiah 66 and of those, Isaiah 53 and of those under 66, words are only 17 letters in question,

00;11;13;19 - 00;11;41;06
Chris
166 words, only 17 letters in question. After a thousand, I probably confuse everybody here, a little bit, but Isaiah 53, there's 166 words in Hebrew. After a thousand years, there's only 17 different letters that have, that are in question that they may be have, variants in them. So that what I want to point out here is just this is a critical example of how God has preserved, his word.

00;11;41;06 - 00;11;45;17
Chris
There's a lot of, a lot of other things we can go into, but for sure, we give the kind of the big picture meaning.

00;11;45;21 - 00;11;53;07
Brenton
Yeah, it's a fascinating study. It can I think it can get a little dry once you once you get to the scholarly level of.

00;11;53;07 - 00;11;54;06
Chris
Strength.

00;11;54;09 - 00;12;23;04
Brenton
Of actual textual criticism. But, I don't know, I think I think the, the people on the other side of this argument make a very big deal about these variants. But I think that, you know, if we actually believe the transmission of, of Scripture over this many years with, with that many people, being, you know, being the scribes, being the copyist, you, you would expect to see this stuff, right?

00;12;23;04 - 00;12;54;03
Brenton
It would be maybe more of a concern if we saw no issues, because then, you know, it's I think all of this stuff is within reason to, you know, reasonable expectation that we would have some of these textual variants in here. Yeah. But again, most of these are spelling issues or punctuation. That said, do you do you have any resources on this topic that that has been helpful to you as you've, looked into it, you'd suggest?

00;12;54;05 - 00;13;11;07
Chris
Yeah, I'm, I'm going to recommend kind of a popular level book, so to speak, like it's not, overly, scholarly work, like you're going to get lost in the weeds. I do not recommend the author, so I just want to put an ad out.

00;13;11;07 - 00;13;12;05
Brenton
On the show that.

00;13;12;07 - 00;13;36;25
Chris
But, the book is, I think, really, really helpful, especially for, for a lay, person. So it's called God Wrote a book by James McDonnell. So, it's a it's a pretty short read, but it's just it's a great place to get started. And then from there, you can kind of kind of work out from that.

00;13;36;27 - 00;14;00;20
Chris
And, one of the things that I really appreciate from that is, just a reference to archeology and it's interesting how more and more our archeology is, is helping to prove the reliability of what the Bible tells us. So for, you know, years and years, there was lots of question about these, you know, stories in the old Testament.

00;14;00;21 - 00;14;22;07
Chris
It's like there's no historical evidence of a King Solomon. Well, then they find King Solomon's seal and there's no evidence of King David. Well, then they find King David's name written in stone. And, and, one of my favorites is that there's no mention of these people, the Hittites. And then they, you know, like the only place in the world where there's any record of the Hittites is the it's the Bible.

00;14;22;07 - 00;14;46;09
Chris
And then they find archeological evidence that the Hittites actually existed exactly at the time that the Bible tells us. And there's just continued examples of that in our modern scientific age is actually, where oftentimes is, you know, is used against Christianity. Now it's actually helping to, to, I don't know if you can prove it, but, but at least to, to help to verify some of these things.

00;14;46;09 - 00;15;16;11
Chris
So yeah. So I would start there. There's another great, book that's well respected called Jesus and the eyewitnesses is by Richard Barkham. And, so that that's more like the, the Gospels and, and but it's an examination of these gospel accounts, and, so that's a great place. The guy who I wouldn't necessarily recommend all of his writing.

00;15;16;11 - 00;15;34;07
Chris
I know you're you're familiar with him, written, but N.T.. Right. And, the resurrection of the Son of God. Now, you're going to have to. Really have some time when you're wide awake and and really to to think on that one.

00;15;34;07 - 00;15;36;19
Brenton
But he can be a little dense.

00;15;36;21 - 00;15;41;12
Chris
He can. He's brilliant. And,

00;15;41;15 - 00;16;05;00
Brenton
Yeah, I I'll throw out one name just for some bite size, resources on this is a guy. He's kind of been, getting pretty popular on YouTube and has gotten himself into some fun discussions recently, but his name is Westhoff. He's actually been really helpful, and he's putting out a lot of contact content on textual criticism about Scripture.

00;16;05;00 - 00;16;27;21
Brenton
And so, yeah, I encourage you to, to look him up as well. All right. Moving on from textual variance. If we haven't lost everyone yet, so you talked for a while about the need for both grace and truth, in your experience, which one do people tend toward more?

00;16;27;23 - 00;17;11;08
Chris
That in large part depends upon how old they are. Okay. Yeah. So, not that's not, I'm, I'm painting with a broad. Yeah. Stripe there, so to speak, or Swath, but, you know, I think, generally speaking, older people would have, more of a truth based approach, and, and younger people would have more of, what they, they may say a grace based approach or a love kind of based approach.

00;17;11;09 - 00;18;02;15
Chris
You know, love and grace are not not the same thing, but there's they're they're close. You know, grace is how we show love. And, you know, if you give grace people, they're going to feel loved, hopefully. So. Yeah. So that's again, that's not that's not universally true, but but generally speaking. Yeah. Yeah. So I, I, I mean I, I'm, I'm fairly sure that on Sunday that the, the younger people, by and large, probably would have on the grace part would have been more apt to say yes and amen and, and, and that our older people would generally when it comes to, to the truth.

00;18;02;18 - 00;18;03;10
Chris
So.

00;18;03;13 - 00;18;23;03
Brenton
Well, it's it's probably in part at least your personality. I think there's, there's people that are confrontational and those people are far more, you know, more likely to to call people out and to give the truth. And people that want to avoid confrontation would be much happier just saying, you know.

00;18;23;03 - 00;18;53;21
Chris
Yeah. Well, and and also, that this is impacted by what kind of church history you have, background that you come from and then also the culture and, and so younger people have been influenced more by the culture, by current culture than older people, generally speaking. And older, you know, our older people have been influenced maybe more by, church, culture that is more truth focused.

00;18;53;28 - 00;19;01;01
Chris
So again, I'm using generalities here to answer your question, but.

00;19;01;04 - 00;19;16;04
Brenton
You talked about how often we are harsher on others, because we're harsh on ourselves. Why do you think that self-condemnation makes it harder for us to extend grace outwardly?

00;19;16;07 - 00;20;04;22
Chris
Well, I think that, when you are. Continually, condemning yourself and judging yourself, it's going to be hard to get out of that mode when it comes to relating to to other people like you going to flip a switch. And you know, I'm not I don't have a condemning spirit any more. It's just to me. But I also think it's like what I talked about on, on Sunday is we, we we, you know, judging ourselves and feeling condemned is a heavy weight, and it's a heavy burden to carry.

00;20;04;24 - 00;20;32;29
Chris
And if if we're not going to give that to Jesus, then I think the natural result is we've got to give it or do something with it. Living under that, it's just just too much weight, too much pressure. And so, the, the next, the next best thing. And it's not really a best thing, but we're just going to like, we judge people because then at least it makes me feel better.

00;20;32;29 - 00;21;01;02
Chris
It makes me feel better about myself. Like what's judgment and about Jesus is I'm elevating myself above somebody else, right in I'm judging you because it makes me feel better, about myself. And why do I need to feel better about myself? Well, because I'm not actually, realizing what God says. The truth of what God says about me through the gospel.

00;21;01;05 - 00;21;07;07
Brenton
So what's the solution to that, then? Believe the gospel.

00;21;07;09 - 00;21;37;15
Chris
Well, yeah. It's. Yes. If if you mean by believe more than simply acknowledge the facts, about it. And this is, you know, this the whole all in for the one series is, is, is about this is like, this is, there are there are habits, that we have to give ourselves. There's work. We have to there's work we have to do here that's I think is often missing.

00;21;37;15 - 00;22;04;13
Chris
And you know, we we can especially in, in, in as a church and the people who believe in the gospel is, you know, by grace we are saved through faith. So justification is not by works, but sanctification is and so and what I mean by that is, is, yes, it's still sanctification happens by God's grace, but it's a grace in which we, we, we work alongside him.

00;22;04;13 - 00;22;29;28
Chris
That's that's Philippians 213 and 14. And so it it it takes effort and it takes work. And part of that work is things like why, why am I? Why do I live under this condemnation, even though I know the gospel and believe the facts about the gospel? Why, when, when I hear, you know, Paul, there is therefore no now condemnation does in Christ Jesus.

00;22;30;01 - 00;22;51;17
Chris
Why does not not make it past my, you know, my intellect, my brain, into my to my heart? Why do I still feel that what's going on there and and how do I actually appropriate the the grace of God into my life? And, and I think we only begin to scratch the surface on that in the on, series, and we'll have more opportunity to talk about it in the days ahead.

00;22;51;17 - 00;23;12;10
Brenton
Yeah. Well, yeah, you did mention on Sunday, I think that that was helpful, that we need to, you know, you had given the the common trope of give yourself some grace. Right. And your point was like we need to appropriate or we need to apply the grace that that's already there for us as Christians to our lives. And that needs to change how we think about this.

00;23;12;12 - 00;23;12;20
Brenton
I mean, if.

00;23;12;20 - 00;23;48;15
Chris
I could just add like, like one thing that maybe will help to answer this is why the culture question that we're talking about is an issue. Maybe not a question, but issue that I was talking about is so important is like it's it's going to be really hard for us to do this by ourselves, apart from being in a church and around a group of people who are going to show us grace and we're going to see people be given be given grace.

00;23;48;18 - 00;24;12;00
Chris
In other words, if we if we can be a part of a culture where we see like that, it really is true that the gospel is for everyone and that that regardless of what someone has done, they can, find grace and like, experience that grace in Jesus through a group of group of people. So we're not just talking about it.

00;24;12;00 - 00;24;53;17
Chris
We're actually we're actually practicing it, which is one of the things that like the these stories of videos that you, you put together, hopefully are so, so helpful in. So like many of these stories of people who have had some very real significant struggles, challenges, sins that they were, in bondage to. And yet the Lord freed them and they part of the church, and they've been loved and and brought in and and the more we can see that and the more we can, like, see that given to other people and just see, see that and be a part of that, the more it will help us to, I think, to experience

00;24;53;17 - 00;25;25;23
Chris
it, for ourselves. So that's why this gospel culture is so, so important in, because we're most of the time, I mean, I can get up every Sunday for the next ten years and keep preaching justification by faith. But if it doesn't trend, translate into how we we relate to other people, right? I mean, that's that's not going to going to resonate, with, with anybody.

00;25;25;26 - 00;25;39;14
Chris
Ultimately, now we might believe, again, like people will be believing the gospel, but are they actually going to, to to experience what it means to live without feeling condemned all the time?

00;25;39;16 - 00;25;48;04
Brenton
Yeah. So what what are the steps to get to a culture like that?

00;25;48;06 - 00;26;18;09
Chris
Well, I, I think we're living it out right now. I think it's happening. I mean, the, Oh, you know. Okay. So $80 million. Great. I'm thankful for that. Really thankful for that. What I am much more thankful about is I think that what I've just explained is actually been taking place for, for some, for some time and continues to, to grow and to to flourish.

00;26;18;09 - 00;27;01;02
Chris
So in, we have to keep preaching it. You have to keep talking about it, because it's, it's, you know, it's just and that that is the gospel. And so we're just going to continue to do that. But we also need to tell stories. And we, we need to continually be be transformed. And it it goes from how do we how do we treat people who, who come in and who, maybe are different than us, who, maybe struggle in ways that we don't, or they wouldn't feel comfortable somewhere else, or they don't dress like we, we dress or whatever.

00;27;01;06 - 00;27;31;25
Chris
Is this going to be a place where people, who can come in and we're again, we're not going to tiptoe around the truth, but we're not like, going to start with, you have to believe like we live. We believe, and you have to live like we live. In order for this to be a place where you can come in and feel that people really, absolutely, care for you and are not going to that we're going to tell you the truth, but we're not going to judge you.

00;27;31;25 - 00;27;50;04
Chris
And that's that's where it gets it gets this is something you hit on earlier that I didn't. We're in the middle of something else. There are people who, in this passage who will look at this and say, okay, well, none of us are without the without sin. We don't get it. We don't get to, you know, to tell anybody else they're sinning.

00;27;50;04 - 00;28;18;12
Chris
That's not actually the point. The point is, is they were being hypocritical and you're saying you're hypocrites. You've got you're not dealing with your own sin. And so you, you, you don't get to judge this woman. He's not saying that. We don't get to say like, okay, this is what is right, and this is what is wrong, and this is what it means to to be a follower of Jesus.

00;28;18;14 - 00;28;37;18
Chris
You know, and it's the Matthew six passage, you know, to judge not lest you be judged. Okay. Yes, but the the point there is get the log out of your own eye first, and then Jesus actually says, and then you will be able to see, to help your brother get the, you know, the the, the toothpick, so to speak, out of, out of his eye.

00;28;37;18 - 00;28;47;20
Chris
So it's not it's not that we don't. Speak the truth. It's just like we speak the truth to ourselves first.

00;28;47;23 - 00;29;14;23
Brenton
So, yeah, there's a lot there. I, I think, you know, our our job. And maybe we should talk about this a little bit is we do have a responsibility to judge with righteous judgment. Right. We have a we have a responsibility to, to, judge others, in, in an attempt to bring them into, into relationship with, with Jesus.

00;29;14;23 - 00;29;33;15
Brenton
Right. So what what does that responsibility look like as we, as we are seeking to be, you know, both grace givers and truth tellers, how do we how do we mix those two? Well, and you know, what kind of wisdom is required as to how to do that?

00;29;33;17 - 00;30;04;11
Chris
Yeah. Well, first, I didn't say I think that we have to be careful with the word judge, like, I. I know what you're saying, and you're right, I mean that. Well, but the word is right. Right. But but the word judge can give us, can give the idea, like we're we're not condemning. Sure. And and in fact, Jesus says, I didn't come to condemn the world.

00;30;04;14 - 00;30;30;12
Chris
The world's already condemned. I think that's really important that we've seen that in the Gospel of John already. He says the the world already stands condemned. People are already condemned. We don't we don't need to condemn any and condemn anybody. But we do need to say that we're we're under condemnation for our sin. And here's what sin is.

00;30;30;15 - 00;31;01;21
Chris
And so if we mean by judge, you know, what's right and wrong and all this kind of thing. Sure. Is, is where, where it's really, really tough. I think that sometimes we get this idea that what people primarily need is to stop, you know, maybe stop drinking or taking drugs or being greedy or, you know, looking at porn or, you know, giving themselves to homosexual acts or things like that.

00;31;01;24 - 00;31;27;00
Chris
Like, that's what we got to get people to stop doing. And that's, that's, that's a, that's a, a fruit, not a route. The root issue is they need to come under the lordship of Jesus Christ, which we could talk about like the Lord. Like it's not just believing in Jesus, it's coming under his lordship. And then then, like, do you believe that Jesus, the Son of God, who died and rose again from for you to believe?

00;31;27;03 - 00;31;57;00
Chris
Like, if that is the case and you're coming to him for salvation, that means that he's in charge now. Okay, so so he's in charge. Then let's talk about what that looks like in all of these areas of your your life. And so I think a lot of times we get it, we get focused on these issues that are real and legitimate and we need to speak to, but they're not like it doesn't do, and the end of the day, it doesn't just use the alcohol thing.

00;31;57;00 - 00;32;30;04
Chris
An alcoholic doesn't do an alcoholic any good. Ultimately, for them to stop drinking and just to find sobriety, right? If they don't actually come to know Christ. So I don't know that I'm answering your question. I think it's really, really it's it's really, really hard. And we're going to get it, not perfectly right. And people are also going to you're going to open yourself up for, for criticism even when you do it.

00;32;30;04 - 00;32;59;19
Chris
Right, because people are just like they're going to say you're you're you're being judgmental. No, no, it's not it's not just mental for me to say that there's two genders and that if, you know, it's it's wrong for a, for a man to want to call himself a woman. That's not wrong. I'm not judging anybody. I'm just saying that that's, that that that's that's the truth.

00;32;59;22 - 00;33;19;18
Brenton
Well, so so give me kind of the the division here between judging somebody and whatever the other word you're saying. So, you know, like, ideally we're telling someone the truth about, like, their situation. When do we cross the line into what you're calling judging someone?

00;33;19;20 - 00;34;01;26
Chris
I think when we're when we're doing it in a way where we are just interested in calling out the sin rather than showing, helping the person to experience the grace that Jesus offers. So where I can say to, to someone, hey, and really, here's where I would start. So, you know, one of the, edged swords of my position is, is I know a lot more than most everybody else does about the people that come in to our, to our church.

00;34;01;29 - 00;34;38;06
Chris
And, and so, what what, you know, if I am talking to, live for, for example, say I'm talking to a woman who is in, a lesbian relationship. Okay? And this is a reality that I have before, I'm not going to to start out by saying, here's your problem, like, here's your problem. And that is I'm going to I'm going to share with them, hey, let me tell you about Jesus.

00;34;38;06 - 00;34;58;17
Chris
Let's talk about the let's talk about the gospel. Let's talk about you were what you who you were created by him, what you were created for and, and and really even before that, just trendy. What's the like? What's what's what's going on in your life? Where, where, where are you at? And most of the time, if people are going to come talk to me, there's some hurt, there's some pain, there's some struggle.

00;34;58;19 - 00;35;30;23
Chris
Right. And and so we talk about the gospel and, and and and what does God have to say. Because again that issue is, is not the, the, the sin, so to speak, the specifics. And it's, it's the lordship of Jesus Christ. And so to get to your and to your question here, I think it's, it's what is our starting point and what is our goal is our starting point, the gospel and is our goal to see them come to know Jesus?

00;35;30;23 - 00;35;54;27
Chris
Or is it simply to to like, this is the truth and this is right and wrong. And here I just like because in that and I think a lot of times when it's about telling that simply about telling the truth, and it's about us. Yeah, yeah. And again now I'm always when I'm talking about this at it is May very well women.

00;35;54;29 - 00;36;22;06
Chris
So I'm always somewhat at risk of people are going to thinking oh well you're just, you know, you don't really care about the truth. That's, that's not that's not the case at all. I mean, I think try to be really clear about like, this is where we stand. This is where I stand. This church is. But again, that's that's not, our our goal is not ultimately to be to be right.

00;36;22;08 - 00;36;25;25
Chris
Yeah. Like we're right.

00;36;25;28 - 00;36;47;00
Brenton
Yeah. No, I think that's a helpful way to put it that we we should be looking for, especially when we're talking to nonbelievers. Like, our goal is to bring them into the kingdom. Right. So our goal is not to just leave them in condemnation. You know, with that, though, like, our job is to explain that they are under condemnation.

00;36;47;00 - 00;36;50;12
Brenton
Sure. Right. So so that has to be a part of it.

00;36;50;15 - 00;37;14;28
Chris
But, but but here's the thing. I 100% yeah, you know, on the same page of this, but that's true of everybody that's not a believer in Jesus regardless of like they could be the, the kindest, the warmest, you know, nicest, you may say God fearing people that they are.

00;37;15;01 - 00;37;16;08
Brenton
That they're offering. Yeah.

00;37;16;10 - 00;38;01;11
Chris
Right. But, you know, they can be married to someone of the opposite gender. Yeah. Faithful husband, wife, great kids, you know, they're great community members, and yet they are as much under condemnation as the person who's transgender, or the person who's a drug addict or or whatever. So we're, you know, a lot of times we get caught up in this Romans chapter one passage, you know, and we think where Paul is talking about the wrath of God and we zero in on the the homosexuality part.

00;38;01;11 - 00;38;29;15
Chris
Well, there's a lot of other things, including disobedience to parents underneath that. Like it. So the yeah, you and yes, the, homosexual acts. I always say I like when that's another conversation. So hold off on that. But, You know, Paul does give that special attention there. He does. Yeah he does. He gives a special attention.

00;38;29;18 - 00;38;39;02
Chris
But in the same breath, he's also talking about other sins that we are all like we're all guilty of. And that all puts us under condemnation.

00;38;39;08 - 00;38;42;02
Brenton
Yeah. Yeah, I remember talking about that a couple of years ago.

00;38;42;06 - 00;39;09;16
Chris
Romans one. Right. So it's it's not, there are ordered sins and there are disordered sins, which is another conversation. And so but they're still yeah, they're still sins. Yeah. And so I think that that's the. Yes, we have to talk to people about as we're sharing the gospel, we're under condemnation and, and and so but that's the issue.

00;39;09;19 - 00;39;19;03
Chris
It's not the specific sin so much that makes us under condemnation, although we're going to need to get to that. So I'll finish with this because we.

00;39;19;03 - 00;39;19;21
Brenton
Can.

00;39;19;23 - 00;39;48;01
Chris
Keep going. Yeah. This is probably way longer than your plan today, but, we we we we don't leave people there. So here's the other thing. So once people do come to to faith in, in, in Jesus, and they trust in, then pretty quickly there's a conversation going to go on. Okay. Now you've trusted in Jesus.

00;39;48;01 - 00;40;10;26
Chris
Now let's talk about what that means for how you're living in your life. Yeah, yeah. And so it's it is it? There's a lot I, you know, I talk about nuance all the time. So we've got to we got to get better and better at nuance. So we start with the gospel, not with, you know, the condemnation part as part of the gospel.

00;40;10;26 - 00;40;39;15
Chris
We do have to talk about how we're under condemnation for our sin people place of faith in Jesus. And now they've got these things in their life that are going to need to be transformed. And sometimes those key things can be really very significant holds on their life in ways where they are just truly out of line with what the Bible has to say about sex, gender, you know, substances, you know, various things encountering idolatry.

00;40;39;17 - 00;40;47;01
Chris
We don't just say, okay, you know, you're you know, you love Jesus. So just continue in the way that you live for sure. So.

00;40;47;03 - 00;41;09;06
Brenton
Well, that was something you touched on Sunday was, you know, Jesus models here that it's it's grace first and then and then it's sanctification. But you know that that sanctification is still imperative to the Christian life. Sure. So he says, go and sin no more, right. That that's still a very important step of this. And we cannot ignore our responsibility.

00;41;09;06 - 00;41;38;16
Chris
Right? Right. And also recognizing that people are still going to struggle in most cases, for sure. I know very few cases of someone who's been struggling with with sin in a very significant way porn, alcohol, drugs, you know, homosexual relationship, transgenderism, who they're saved and all of a sudden don't have that problem anymore that happen. It happens.

00;41;38;17 - 00;41;58;04
Chris
Yeah, it does it. Those are the exceptions. Not not the rules. And so that gospel culture is a culture where we even after like we, we have room for people to struggle and to struggle mightily. Sure. Yeah.

00;41;58;07 - 00;42;01;27
Brenton
All right. We'll wrap it there. Thank you. Chris.

00;42;01;29 - 00;42;27;28
Chris
Well, thanks for bearing with me. You, Brenton and everybody. So it's a big, big I, I believe this is absolutely essential, though, to a healthy church because if we really do, you know, our, our culture here, southeast Iowa, central Illinois, like, people need, they need to hear the truth. So without the truth, none of this matters.

00;42;28;01 - 00;42;56;10
Chris
Like, this is all just a what are we doing? But people, if we don't have a culture where there's grace embedded in that culture, then we're just going to work. You know, it's just religion and the church is people have known and have, I think, in many ways, rejected it for a long, long time now. Some ways people are rejecting the church, and I'm not talking about harmony, but the church because there's no truth.

00;42;56;12 - 00;43;16;11
Chris
Sure. Yeah. In some ways they're rejecting it because there's no grace. So yeah, if if we can get that sweet spot of being grace givers and truth tellers, that's I think the, that's what sets us apart.

00;43;16;14 - 00;43;31;15
Brenton
Okay. Good. Yeah. Got any questions? Ask it further. Podcast.com. All those resources that we talked about will be in the show notes here. So, yeah. Let us know if you have any thoughts or questions or talk to you next week.