00;00;40;05 - 00;00;55;06
Brenton
Welcome back to further. I am Brittany Grimm, and we got a full house today. Starting on my left, Matt Mitchell. Hello. How are you doing? Back again, but two weeks in a row. It's great to have you, Andrew Weise. You preached in Danville. How's it going? Yeah.

00;00;55;06 - 00;00;56;07
Matt
Good. Hello, everyone.

00;00;56;14 - 00;01;15;28
Brenton
And then we got Paul Fischbach, who preached in Burlington. Glad to be here. Yeah. Thanks for coming, guys. I feel like I say this every time we have multiple preachers, but I love that, you know, we get three different kind of views on the same text. And especially with this show, we can come in and discuss it back and forth.

00;01;15;28 - 00;01;41;00
Brenton
And so, yeah, really appreciate all your work. Coming into this. And I want to start with, you know, briefly, you know, you guys in some ways took different, took different routes to get to the same place this week. And so, from each of you starting with Matt, I guess. What what stood out to you the most as you were, prepping?

00;01;41;02 - 00;01;48;16
Brenton
What was, you know, another kind of kind of familiar passage here in the middle of John. But what what stood out to you?

00;01;48;18 - 00;02;11;23
Andrew
Yeah. I think for for me this morning devotional. Lee, then personally, in this, in our passage this week, we've got Jesus saying in response to the Jews, you are from below. I am from above. You are of this world. I am not of this world. And I've I've known of this verse for a really long time.

00;02;11;23 - 00;02;32;15
Andrew
Not in this context. I'm not of this world. Jesus repeats this again when he's like, before Pilate, I think I use language like this. But I was just kind of meditating on that passage a lot, and some of my outline came from that. I'm just thinking like, yeah, he's he is from above and we're not. And so we better listen up and I better listen up.

00;02;32;15 - 00;02;41;06
Andrew
So I think that's what stood out most to me. And that doesn't seem super profound. But it was just as I was meditating on this week that was encouraging. That kind of came through my sermon.

00;02;41;12 - 00;02;44;05
Brenton
Yeah. Thanks, Andrew.

00;02;44;07 - 00;03;19;21
Matt
Yeah, I, I like to, one of the first things I do when I'm preparing for a sermon is print it off and then mark it up. And so I get out my highlighters, and I like to find key words, repeated words, phrases, ideas. And I think what jumped out to me in, for this week was how tied so much to the previous passage, with Jesus talking about he who sent me, this idea of, you know, where I'm going and this the the follow me, but you can't follow me.

00;03;19;21 - 00;03;40;03
Matt
And it just seemed like just flowed right out of the last passage. So that was that was enjoyable to go back and review and try to preach just this passage and not just make it. Last week's passage, part two. So that was yeah, that was enjoyable and and fun to, to navigate. Go.

00;03;40;06 - 00;03;41;06
Brenton
Paul.

00;03;41;08 - 00;03;48;22
Paul
Oh, well, first, I think when I first approached this passage, I was trying to think, Jesus keeps saying, you're going to die in your sins. And I was thinking, Happy Mother's Day.

00;03;48;22 - 00;03;52;22
Brenton
Never. I we tend to do that a lot. Yeah.

00;03;52;24 - 00;04;10;14
Paul
So just trying to figure out like, how does the how is this going to work on Mother's Day and how do I approach this passage, which is why I chose to do it the way I did. But kind of tying into moms having to repeat themselves. But, I think, one of the things that really stood out to me is Jesus is obviously frustrated.

00;04;10;14 - 00;04;30;03
Paul
He has had to repeat himself, over and over, and they're just not getting it. And yet he's still persistent and he's still persistent in telling the truth and what they need to know. And trying to help them understand who he is and call them to faith. And, that's that's just really encouraging.

00;04;30;06 - 00;04;57;21
Brenton
Yeah. Good. All right, Matt, I want to move on to, your sermon specifically framed the sermon around three points. You said, wisdom warning and welcome. Yeah, I have that alliteration again. Why did you choose that structure? And, you know, how how did those kind of movements or those points help us better understand Jesus and his his message in this?

00;04;57;24 - 00;05;25;16
Andrew
Sure. Yeah. So I just kept coming around, you know, there's there's, there's some themes of judgment. Certainly. I'm going to, come to judge. You're to die in your sins. And I kept thinking, what's, that's one of the the things it's emphasized the most. And, I think that as I was thinking through it, wisdom was coming to mind, and I thought, well, judgment and another word for judgment is a warning.

00;05;25;16 - 00;05;51;05
Andrew
And so I started to a little bit, and, and then welcome. But yeah, just wisdom being Jesus from above, we're from below. And he's the incarnate wisdom in front of us, and fleshed and then the warning being, you're going to die in your sins if you don't believe. And, but in context of the whole letter of the Gospel of John and even in our own passage he talks about.

00;05;51;07 - 00;06;11;15
Andrew
But when the Son of Man is lifted up and that's this, you know, this obvious gospel piece of things are going to make sense eventually when the Son of Man is lifted up and nobody knew what that meant. And when you when he said it. But, eventually they did. And so, that's just kind of how I ended up walking through it.

00;06;11;15 - 00;06;14;05
Andrew
And those seem like big themes in the passage.

00;06;14;08 - 00;06;32;01
Brenton
Yeah. Paul, you specifically spent a lot of time in your message talking about sin. Actually, one of your quotes was, sin doesn't just make us bad, it makes us dead. Can you elaborate on that a little bit?

00;06;32;04 - 00;06;54;12
Paul
Yeah. I can't, claim that phrase, Origen originality. But, I've been using it for many years. I forgot where I first picked it up. But, I think when you ask people about, you know, if they're going to go to heaven or things like that, most people talk about whether or not they're good enough to go to heaven.

00;06;54;14 - 00;07;16;15
Paul
And so they frame it in the context of good or bad, you know, bad people go to hell, good people go to heaven, that kind of thing. And, and just that's just the way most people think about it. So, but biblically, it never even talks about it that way. It talks about, you know, it makes us dead and we're dead in our trespasses and sins, and the wages of sin is death.

00;07;16;15 - 00;07;38;05
Paul
And we just see that over and over. So just trying to help people, to see a biblical definition of sin and what it does to us, I think, is healthy to have a proper perspective because when you really understand what sin is, then you see how beautiful the gospel is and what Christ has done for us, because you have to see how bad it really is.

00;07;38;05 - 00;07;39;14
Paul
In the first place.

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Brenton
Yeah, you you went to great lengths in your sermon to, to lay that out. You even went through the, the Old Testament, and really to the whole Bible, to explain that. And that was really helpful, you know, the to understand the weight of our sin and how how serious it actually is when you when you look over kind of the, the church in general today, the universal church, how how do you think that's viewed today?

00;08;10;04 - 00;08;20;11
Brenton
Do you think that people really take their sin seriously, or do you think that there's kind of a, I don't know, maybe a lax days ago approach to, to our own sin?

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Paul
I, I probably agree with that. You know, in, in general, we probably do take it a little bit more lackadaisical approach, I think.

00;08;28;18 - 00;08;57;04
Paul
It's uncomfortable to talk about. And I mentioned that in the, in the sermon, like we don't want to talk about we don't want to think about this stuff. And we tend to use different terms for sin. So we'll talk about mistakes or I misspoke or, you know, just shortcomings. Shortcomings. Yeah. This is just we have all these other terms that we we'd like to say and without really wrestling with the graft because it makes us feel better about it.

00;08;57;04 - 00;09;25;06
Paul
It doesn't feel as bad. And I don't think God necessarily looks at it that way, not in a condemning kind of way to us when we're in Christ. Right. But it is serious. And I did take quite a bit of time in my sermon. Hopefully it wasn't to over heavy, but I did take some quite a bit of time to just try to help people really think about how bad sin is.

00;09;25;08 - 00;09;27;20
Paul
Yeah, yeah, in the place it puts us in.

00;09;27;22 - 00;09;48;21
Matt
Yeah. I'd say it's always easy to find somebody who's worse than us, is it? You know for sure someone in our family, someone in our neighborhood, or, you know, you can go further if you need to, but, we we can justify it pretty simply and play the comparison game and make ourselves look really good in our own eyes.

00;09;48;27 - 00;09;49;23
Paul
Yeah.

00;09;49;26 - 00;09;56;06
Matt
And without doing some of that introspection, that's kind of where we'll default. I think.

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Brenton
Yeah. So knowing all that, you know, and maybe, you know, especially in American Christianity, I think we do see, just a, a view on sin that it's not all that serious. And, you know, God will forgive. And, you know, how how do we, knowing what we know, communicate that to a culture that really doesn't want to hear it?

00;10;20;24 - 00;10;29;06
Brenton
And how can we do that without heaping shame on them?

00;10;29;08 - 00;10;51;24
Paul
I think, I think we have to speak the truth in love. So I remember a couple of weeks ago, Chris talked about, are we grace givers or truth tellers? And how Jesus is both. And I tried to point that out in this passage, too. He tells us the truth about sin, and the truth about him is the way I phrased it.

00;10;51;27 - 00;11;11;28
Paul
And so he. But but we have to understand to to really grasp the beauty of the gospel. We have to understand the weight of our sin. And so I think it's being honest with both of those things, with the people that we talk about and talk to and share with. But we do that in the sense of humility.

00;11;12;00 - 00;11;35;20
Paul
We come to this topic realizing we are sinful ourselves, like it was. I talked about how it was my sin that held him there. And I like everybody else, I'm in the same boat. But unless we wrestle really with the truth about sin. I don't think we fully embrace how beautiful the gospel is and what Christ has done for us.

00;11;35;22 - 00;11;59;00
Paul
And for me. I keep coming back to that. I, you know, Paul talked about how he was the worst of all sinners. And I think he really grasped the weight of his sin. And we can see some of the terrible things he did in Scripture. And yet he was one of the most prolific gospel missionaries that has ever lived.

00;11;59;03 - 00;12;04;09
Paul
But he didn't shy away from the weight of sin.

00;12;04;11 - 00;12;27;29
Brenton
And I think that's something we've we've talked about on, on the show before. But, you know, the idea of as we it's kind of a result of sanctification, right, that we start to realize how much sin is actually in us the more we grow. And so, you know it. Would you you kind of expect that from maybe like a new believer that isn't, isn't seeing all the sin or the depths of his depravity.

00;12;28;01 - 00;12;35;15
Brenton
But as we grow and I think that's what we see with Paul, it's like, oh, man. Like everything in me is is his dark?

00;12;35;17 - 00;12;35;28
Paul
Yeah.

00;12;36;05 - 00;13;01;24
Matt
So yeah, I think of lists of sins in the Bible. Paul has a lot of them in the New Testament, and we like to focus on certain ones. And I don't think that's all that helpful. You know, where murder and adultery and, you know, some of these big ones that maybe are more painful in terms of who they affect and maybe affect the culture at large?

00;13;01;26 - 00;13;39;00
Matt
We tend to highlight those. But in some of those lists, Paul lists things like disobey, those who disobey their parents as well. And it's like, I think most of us probably haven't repented of not honoring our father and mother in a long time. But that's something that grieves God's heart, too. And so I think not focusing on certain sins when we're talking to people and talking about sin broadly in all of its aspects, can be really helpful to someone who culturally might be sensitive to a personal sin that they're dealing with.

00;13;39;03 - 00;14;01;22
Matt
And it for them, it's a nonstarter. Like don't touch that. And they need to realize that their sin is is so much more than just that one thing that our culture has made a big deal. Yeah. I'm thinking of sexual sin as I talk about that. Like that's kind of the, that's the don't touch that baby. It's like okay well let's talk about other sins.

00;14;01;22 - 00;14;09;11
Matt
And once you realize all your other sins that other one is just one of many at that point.

00;14;09;14 - 00;14;30;01
Andrew
Yeah, that's a good point. And, I like what Paul said earlier too, about, you know, we've got to understand sin if we're honest in the beauty of the gospel. But then also, I think we're doing a disservice. And we're not being Christian at all if we talk about sin. But then don't talk about the gospel, you know, and that's kind of a bad caricature stereotype.

00;14;30;01 - 00;14;52;11
Andrew
But there is a brand of I called Old Time Christianity that still exists. But just like I'm going to point out all the sin, but I'm not going to lead you to the cross. And I'm like talking to you about grace. And that is that's going to ever bring change. And so, you know, the imperatives in the New Testament, it's always like, because, like God is better, Jesus is greater.

00;14;52;11 - 00;15;11;01
Andrew
You know, he brings more joy and fulfillment, you know, put off the old, put on the new because you are new. So just having those two together, you can't the gospel is not the gospel. If you don't know, maybe he's sin, but, there's no, there's no benefit of just talking about sin and not lean people to the cross.

00;15;11;01 - 00;15;38;27
Paul
So yeah, yeah, yeah, we don't want to stay in our condemnation or shame. That's not the intent at all, right? And we can on one side and just focus on sin and hell and all the consequences of that. And, you know, use that in a way that's manipulative or, I can't think of the other word I'm trying to find, but we're not we're not trying to manipulate people into the gospel.

00;15;38;29 - 00;15;56;16
Paul
But if you just talk about God dying, oh, Jesus dying on the cross and his resurrection without talking about sin and say, well, what did he do all that for? What's the purpose of all that? And we have to understand why he came in the first place. And what what that did.

00;15;56;18 - 00;16;26;10
Brenton
Yeah, right. Andrew, I wanted to clarify something with you. In this passage, we see the the Jewish, audience kind of responding with the question of, was he going to is Jesus going to kill himself? Right. So and you kind of gave that perspective of how how the Jewish people would have responded to something like that. And you said that, you know, their view is kind of there's a special place in hell for people that that take their own lives.

00;16;26;13 - 00;16;29;18
Brenton
How should we actually view this topic?

00;16;29;20 - 00;16;31;04
Matt
Yeah, yeah.

00;16;31;07 - 00;16;33;00
Brenton
So everyone can chime in on this as well.

00;16;33;02 - 00;16;55;20
Matt
Softball question for me. Thanks, Brant. Sure. No, I, it's a great question and something I think there is a lot of confusion on. You know, I think I think some things get repeated so much in our culture through movies or media or whatever songs that we kind of tend to think that's the way it is, but don't really have a reason for it.

00;16;55;22 - 00;17;21;25
Matt
And I think it's always important for big issues like this. What's the Bible say? And frankly, the Bible is pretty quiet on suicide itself. Like it's not listed. There's references to suicide. So falls on his sword, in battle as a way to probably take the glory away from the Philistines who are trying to kill him.

00;17;21;27 - 00;17;43;21
Matt
So there's instances like that, but there's not really commentary on it. And I think what's important for us to remember is, the people who are in heaven are those who had genuine saving faith in Jesus Christ. And so, you know, Jesus, Jesus says, I'm going and you can't come. And the only way to come is to believe in me.

00;17;43;24 - 00;18;09;13
Matt
So suicide or not, those in heaven are those who have genuine saving faith in Jesus Christ. Those in hell are those who never did. And so then it becomes, I think it becomes a secondary issue of can someone who has genuine saving faith in Jesus get to the point where they can take their own life? And I think that's that's where the conversation should happen.

00;18;09;13 - 00;18;34;13
Matt
Not it's an automatic. They're in hell because they did it. And, you know, I think the Bible speaks to it in different ways. One, you know, there's there's the image of God or creating God's image. There's there's prohibitions against murder. Taking your own life is is self murder. So it's certainly a sin and not pleasing to God.

00;18;34;15 - 00;19;03;12
Matt
But there's other sins Christians do that are serious. I think as pastors, we've all dealt with people that we would say are genuine believers and have done things that, I think would make most Christians blush. And, and I think in the in that process, we, you know, when it's not suicide, we have the opportunity to talk to them and see if they're repentant and, and dig in more with that sin, whatever it is.

00;19;03;12 - 00;19;33;25
Matt
Unfortunately, with somebody who's taking their own life, there's there's not a way to follow up with them and clarify any of that. And so, personally, I think that there are genuine believers who maybe are disconnected from the body and don't have support and get to a point of depression and, frustration with life. And I think it's possible for a genuine saved person to take their own life.

00;19;33;27 - 00;19;54;29
Matt
And, and I think as, as the church, I think going to be aware of that. And we need to love those in the family of God. Well, so that's, that happens at a very, very minimal, doesn't happen very much. And I think we have a responsibility as believers to, to love and care for one another.

00;19;54;29 - 00;20;15;11
Matt
And, and then it's not a I'm not saying that as a way to, second guess ourselves and say, we should have known and we should have seen it. And because I think there's a lot of times people are really shocked and surprised and after the fact, maybe we start to oh, or maybe that was a thing and maybe that was the thing.

00;20;15;13 - 00;20;33;04
Matt
But I think there are times where we do see brothers and sisters in Christ struggling. And, I think when we do, we absolutely need to come alongside him regardless of what the issue is. And, and love and carry each of those burdens.

00;20;33;07 - 00;20;35;16
Brenton
Yeah. That's helpful.

00;20;35;19 - 00;20;54;16
Andrew
Yeah, I was just I agree with everything Andrew said. And I just have Romans eight, the end of Romans eight on, on my mind. And it's I've got in front of me now who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Somebody truly is in Christ, and they are a believer, you know. And then Paul gives us great list shall tribulation, distress, persecution, famine, nakedness, danger, sword.

00;20;54;19 - 00;21;12;11
Andrew
He goes on, says, no, all these things are more than conquerors through him who loved us. He gives even more. He says, for I am sure that neither death nor life, angels or rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers. And then he says, nor height, nor depth. And there's a lot of ways you could take this as nor anything in all creation.

00;21;12;11 - 00;21;41;11
Andrew
But I just think, you know, nor height, nor depth. I Christians do have, these depth moments, these dark moments. Where dark night of the faith, despair and, like Andrew said, are isolated and however, nothing can separate us from the love of Christ if they, if they truly are in Christ. So, tragedy. Absolutely that someone would get to that place.

00;21;41;11 - 00;22;01;01
Andrew
But, that is not, that does not equate our eternal destination, our, our faith and our, our reliance on the Lord. Does. So I would just I would just add that it is a good passage to, to lean on and to comfort people if, if they can relate.

00;22;01;03 - 00;22;22;15
Paul
I agree, and I think, we need to remember there's, one unforgivable sin, and that's not to believe, you know, that God calls us to believe in Jesus and all sins are forgivable. He died for all of our sins, past, present, and future. And when Christ died, all my sins were future. I wasn't even alive at the time.

00;22;22;15 - 00;22;46;28
Paul
So, That's right. When someone takes their own life, God knows. Not that he would condone that. I, I think we've all probably had people in our life where we've had to wrestle with this issue. A few years ago, one of my cousins took his own life. And so our family wrestled with that issue.

00;22;47;01 - 00;23;13;24
Paul
And I think we take comfort in the truth is, did they or did they not believe that Jesus is the Christ and that he is their Savior and Lord? And like Andrew and Matt were saying, like, you know, if they might have gone through a dark season, where it did lead to that. But that doesn't necessarily mean that they are in some special place in hell.

00;23;13;26 - 00;23;16;17
Paul
God, God can forgive that.

00;23;16;19 - 00;23;23;01
Brenton
Yeah. That's, that's a heavy topic. I appreciate all your wisdom on on that. Yeah.

00;23;23;04 - 00;23;46;15
Matt
If I could say one more thing on that, I'd say, you know, for for listeners, if somebody is going through something, they're struggling with something, whatever it, whatever it may be, and, you know, because they're kind of in that dark spot that Matt's talking about and you just don't know what to do. We've got a great elder team, pastoral team that would love to walk alongside you with that man.

00;23;46;16 - 00;23;52;08
Matt
We've. Yeah, an amazing counseling ministry that's probably going to need to get involved.

00;23;52;11 - 00;23;53;13
Paul
Please reach out.

00;23;53;15 - 00;24;03;24
Matt
Yeah, we'll work through that. So there's great resources we have here at this church. And and, Yeah. Make ourselves available.

00;24;03;25 - 00;24;04;03
Andrew
Yeah.

00;24;04;07 - 00;24;05;00
Matt
I agree with them.

00;24;05;00 - 00;24;22;09
Brenton
Absolutely. Okay. I got a few left. So, Andrew, one of the things that you touched on for a little bit was this idea of easy believers. Can you expand on that a little bit? What do you what do you mean by that?

00;24;22;16 - 00;24;52;12
Matt
Yeah, I think there's, this idea especially in American Christianity, and it's it's very pushed by secular media, and probably some preachers as well, but just this idea that, hey, just just say the words and you're saved. Repeat after me, and you're good to go. And it doesn't matter what comes after. Just kind of this.

00;24;52;15 - 00;25;23;14
Matt
Yeah, I, I said that or I sent it to that. I, I agreed with that at one point in my life. And I don't think that's what, I don't think there's a scripture teaches certainly in our passage when Jesus says, follow me, there's this ongoing thing, nature to it, you know, and belief isn't a instant in time event that is isolated from everything else.

00;25;23;16 - 00;25;53;07
Matt
It's, it's a transformational change or beginning of a transparent informational change that happens that changes the trajectory of our eternity. And so for somebody to say, oh, I you know, I believed that back in whatever elementary school or high school or whenever some point in the past, but their life hasn't shown any indication that it's changed in any way or very little.

00;25;53;09 - 00;26;16;04
Matt
Then I would say that someone who's fallen into this idea of easy believers, and, and we see it culturally with there's tons of people walking around with cross necklaces and earrings and, tattoos or even t shirts or, or singing songs that have Christians in them. I did one of you mentioned country music or I heard that.

00;26;16;04 - 00;26;19;06
Andrew
That was me. Yeah. I hate hate mail. No, no, I don't.

00;26;19;06 - 00;27;08;23
Matt
Know, but, but there is a huge ear to your point. Country music and Christianity have long been married in our country, and it's hard to separate sometimes. What's in a country song and what's biblically true. And so, yeah. So I think that's that's the idea of easy believers, is I think a lot of people are self deceived and supported by kind of this, this cultural dialog, echo chamber of sorts that convinces them that, yeah, I have saving faith in Jesus when really they just like the idea of what Jesus offers but haven't really dealt with their sin.

00;27;08;23 - 00;27;13;20
Matt
They haven't really, looked at what it means to follow Jesus.

00;27;13;23 - 00;27;38;26
Brenton
Yeah. Yeah. I think it comes back to the idea of the lordship of Jesus. Right? You know, with when you, when you become a Christian, part of what that means is submitting yourself to to the lordship of Christ. And that means he gets to tell us what to do now. And that's, you know, the book of James has a lot of a lot of things to say about, a faith that doesn't produce works.

00;27;38;29 - 00;28;11;26
Brenton
Yeah. Right. So, yeah, I think it's a really important, especially in our, you know, American culture. I think we've been going this way for a long time. But there is, so much just cultural Christianity still in our, yeah, in our country. Okay. Paul, at the end, you, you drew a connection between Jesus's relationship with the father and how we're called to live.

00;28;11;28 - 00;28;34;23
Brenton
You know, Jesus said, you know, that's a common theme in John is and throughout the rest of Scripture, but Jesus is always kind of putting himself under submission of the, of the father. Right. So what does it look like for, for us as Christians to live with that same kind of intimacy with, with God and obedience?

00;28;34;25 - 00;28;56;13
Paul
I yeah, I think I know Andrew talked about this as well, and I'm not sure if, Matt hit on it or not. But I, I think we both were kind of saying the same thing that Christ's description of his relationship with the father is. First of all, I just think it's a beautiful description of the intimacy of the Godhead.

00;28;56;15 - 00;29;16;19
Paul
And, you know, when I was reading through it, in the like I said, I felt like that could have been a whole nother sermon. But when I was reading through it, I was like, yeah, there's so much in the New Testament that calls that describes our relationship with Jesus in very similar ways, or calls us to have that kind of relationship in very similar ways.

00;29;16;19 - 00;29;39;27
Paul
And so that's why I tried to take a moment to point out the various passages in, in the New Testament that describe our relationship with Jesus, just like Jesus described his relationship with the father. And it's just beautiful to see that. And for me, it just kind of a light bulb moment. Like, Jesus isn't calling us to do anything that different than what he did.

00;29;40;00 - 00;29;58;15
Paul
And, and to have to know that he's God the Son with God the Father, the intimacy of the Triune God that way and that he hopes and wants and desires to have that same kind of relationship with us that's attractive to me. Like I'm drawn to that, like, wow, you know, he wants to have that with me.

00;29;58;19 - 00;30;07;14
Paul
Yeah, that's that's something I want to pursue. And so I was just trying to inspire people to see how they that's shown in the New Testament.

00;30;07;20 - 00;30;17;03
Andrew
If I could interrupt real quick, that's like the the center of his prayer in John 17, like the high priestly prayer, is that we would have the same love and fellowship that he has.

00;30;17;03 - 00;30;18;04
Paul
Yes.

00;30;18;06 - 00;30;29;00
Andrew
By the spirit, you know, and, yeah, absolutely. It's what's more inspiring than that. That's it's remarkable. So exciting. What do get there to John 17. Yeah. That's walking through that. But yeah.

00;30;29;00 - 00;31;02;15
Brenton
Yeah sure. Okay. Let's let's end with this one. It's for all of you. So I want to hear from each one of you. But in verse 24, Jesus says, unless you believe that I am he, you will die in your sins. And it doesn't get much more clear than this from Jesus. And so I'd like to get, just your thoughts and maybe, you know, even if you can think of some examples of how you've dealt with this in your, in your lives, but how can we communicate that clearly?

00;31;02;17 - 00;31;28;01
Brenton
To a culture that really pushes back against exclusive claims. Right. So yeah, you know, our culture is all about inclusivity now. And this is not really an inclusive idea here. This is this is setting up very, very, strong guidelines of how how people are going to be saved. And so how can we communicate that?

00;31;28;01 - 00;31;34;00
Brenton
Well to people?

00;31;34;02 - 00;31;59;03
Matt
I was, I just saw something this week. It was, I think it was supposed to be someone who's a Christian look like they were holding a Bible and someone who is representing a muslim holding the Koran or or something like that. And they were both saying they know the, the speech bubble that says, I believe you're going to hell.

00;31;59;03 - 00;32;36;22
Matt
The other one said, I believe you're going to hell. And I think the point of the cartoon, was they can't both be right. Yeah. So I think people get that, like deep down, both of those claims can't be right. Or they actually, they can both be right because there could be a third option. Right. That's fair, but there is this idea that, and with exclusive claims like Christianity, Christians are if they're right, then it's really uncomfortable.

00;32;36;24 - 00;33;05;10
Matt
If we're wrong, then there's there might be something else out there, but, I think I think for, for me, with people, when you have a chance to sit down and talk to them, it becomes about why, what makes you uncomfortable about exclusive claims and really dig in with them personally? Is it because of the echo chamber they live in?

00;33;05;13 - 00;33;27;14
Matt
And that's what other people have told them to think about exclusive claims? Are they uncomfortable with the outcome of what I'm claiming for them? Or what's kind of underlying that? Have they really given thought to it, or is it just something that's like, let's just I don't want to talk about that because I don't I don't like it.

00;33;27;16 - 00;33;47;18
Matt
And I think, I think with individuals you get a lot of different variety there, some people that are very eloquent and very thought out about why they believe certain things and not others. But I think there's a lot of people who just go along with whatever they're hearing other people say, and they really haven't dug in.

00;33;47;18 - 00;34;12;05
Matt
And I think those those are the people most of us rub shoulders with. And there's a I think if we take the time to just to have conversations with people and ask questions and find out where they're at, we can get a lot of ways, a lot of ways down the road into deeper things with them. Because we're, we're by asking those questions, we're going to make them engage with it.

00;34;12;07 - 00;34;38;11
Matt
And, so I think just to sum up, get to know people, ask them questions and find out if they really object to your exclusive claim or all exclusive claims, because there's a lot of a lot of things out there that are factual that they would agree with. They just need the right evidence. And, and so if if that's the case, well, it's like I got a lot of evidence for the Bible.

00;34;38;13 - 00;35;03;08
Matt
I got a lot of evidence for the truth in it. If they're willing to pursue that. But if they're just going to put up a wall and claim exclusivity is out, then I might have to take another approach with them. Going to be a much longer, conversation. And how good of a relationship I have with them is going to depend on if, if it's going to probably go anywhere.

00;35;03;10 - 00;35;05;04
Matt
Yeah.

00;35;05;06 - 00;35;24;08
Andrew
Yeah. That's good. I was just thinking through this in real time right now. But I think there's this what seems to be a virtue of like if you're inclusive with everything then that's going to bring unity. And like we really accept each other yada yada. Like that's what's like honoring. That's what's virtuous. That's what's good.

00;35;24;11 - 00;35;58;24
Andrew
But, that's not going to happen because there's all these different camps and all these different convictions globally, all these different tribes and religions and sex and people that want to, you know, can I camp out with their group? But I would just be a counterpoint. There's like an apologetic that, Christianity and Jesus being Lord of your life is the most inclusive way to bring unity, on this earth, that you can and and the way, you know, case in point is, you know, Jesus says, go make disciples of all nations.

00;35;58;26 - 00;36;18;11
Andrew
And then the New Testament we see, it's like, no, there's not Jew and Greek. There's not male and female, there's not slave and free like we're one in Christ. And it brings all these people with all these differences together under one perfect Lord who's from above. And he's not from below, you know? And so just kind of like, what you really want isn't the way you're going to get there.

00;36;18;11 - 00;36;42;11
Andrew
It's actually through this crucified and risen Lord. That like when you think about it that way, it's like it starts to get really beautiful because like, yeah, there's God wants to bring all these differences together. But in him, and the world's way isn't going to get there. You might find some, you know, people to protest with and stuff, but that's actually not that big of a group.

00;36;42;14 - 00;36;45;13
Andrew
Like there's always going to be others that aren't standing with you.

00;36;45;13 - 00;37;14;29
Paul
So I think we can look back at, Jesus's time and see there's a lot of similarities with how the culture received his message. Yeah, sure. They didn't like his exclusive claims either. They were resistant to that. They questioned it. They wanted to know what authority he had to even say those things. And, so I don't think we need to think like the world is completely different than when Jesus was talking about this.

00;37;15;01 - 00;37;43;25
Paul
Sure, the cultures are different and that kind of thing, but I think a lot of it is, when we talk about how do we speak the hard truth in a loving way, I think that comes back to what Andrew was talking about. And I think that maybe as our posture, and how we say things matters and, the approach that we come into that with, if we're if it's a condemnation tone, I'm holier than you tone, that's not going to be received very well.

00;37;43;26 - 00;38;11;05
Paul
But when we, when we come, to people in genuine relationship out of love for them speaking the truth in love, doing it as Peter talked about, with gentleness and respect that and and the idea that we are in the same boat as they are, that we need salvation just as much as they do. Then we also are saying, I believe I'm going to die in my sins unless I believe, who Jesus is.

00;38;11;07 - 00;38;22;05
Paul
But I have. And because I love you, I want you to experience this and have this as well. And that's a desire for the best for them, not a condemned nation.

00;38;22;08 - 00;38;48;08
Brenton
Yeah. Yeah, it's it's interesting. And as we've talked over this last couple of weeks, you know, this idea of condemnation, we are certainly not the ones condemning them, but we are communicating to them that they are under condemnation. Right. So so, you know, we need to be communicating that clearly, but with a motive to see them come and repent.

00;38;48;14 - 00;38;48;21
Paul
Right?

00;38;48;21 - 00;38;55;25
Brenton
Yeah. So yeah, there's a line there, but it's, and it definitely matters how we, how we communicate that to them.

00;38;55;27 - 00;39;04;16
Paul
Well, I think we all talked about in our sermons. We don't have to die in our sins like Jesus has given us an out. We have a choice. Yeah, there's another option.

00;39;04;16 - 00;39;05;05
Andrew
Unless.

00;39;05;05 - 00;39;13;27
Paul
Yeah, yeah. So that's the beauty of of the gospel. And we're trying to tell people, hey, choose the other way. Yeah.

00;39;13;29 - 00;39;39;12
Brenton
Yeah. It's good. Any closing thoughts from any of you. Nothing. Right. Well that's good I appreciate you guys coming in. And again thank you for your for your work on preaching. I know it takes a lot of prep. You guys at home. If you have any questions feel free to contact us, ask it further podcast.com and we'll be back I believe with Chris car next week.

00;39;39;12 - 00;39;42;06
Brenton
Right. I think that's true I think so we'll be right.

00;39;42;06 - 00;39;42;27
Matt
Yeah.

00;39;43;00 - 00;39;44;24
Brenton
All right. Thanks for listening. We'll talk to you next week.