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Brenton
Welcome back to further. I am Brenton Grimm. Chris, how are you doing today? Pretty good. Good. Yeah. How's, how's your summer going so far?

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Chris
What summer?

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Brenton
It's been warm the last two days.

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Chris
Yeah, well, I'm glad that Clay Baker is back. From sabbatical. So maybe there will be some kind of a summer for me. But not really good to have him back. And we're looking forward to some some things. Coming up here, we've got all all of my family. Like, the car side of my family is getting together in Des Moines this coming weekend.

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Chris
I have a niece that is graduating from high school. And so literally, I think everybody, in my, you know, my siblings and their kids and my dad and all of my kids and grandkids. So it's going.

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Brenton
For a high school graduation.

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Chris
Well, yeah. I mean, we don't have a whole lot of times to get together. And since, it's not that far for them and obviously not that far for us. And so, yeah, so there's like close to 40 people I think so, but thankfully we won't all be staying in the same house. And then, you know, Peyton's headed to Texas here and, a little over a month.

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Chris
So, I get to go visit that state I talked about. Go sundaes again.

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Brenton
I'm sure your favorite.

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Chris
And hopefully it's a good thing that people in Texas don't listen to, my sermons because, I won't get any, you know, nasty, greetings down there, but.

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Brenton
All right, well, I'm going to start here. You know, we wrapped up John eight, and, so I think, you know, just my thoughts over going through John eight. I think it's been really good. I think there's been a lot of, you know, this is a very, important talk that he has. And and Jesus lays out a lot of truths about him.

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Brenton
So, yeah, hopefully this is, this is a good conversation to wrap this up, but, verse 56 says your father Abraham rejoiced that he would see my day. He saw it and was glad. Is is this a specific reference to the Old Testament? Was there something in there that he was referring to, or is he just kind of speaking of Abraham, looking forward to a new covenant in general?

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Chris
It's a great question, and I really wish I had more time to talk about this on Sunday. I think that was, even waffling as I was preaching literally like, okay, I, I really get into this because it's a pretty deep topic, but it's a, I think, you know, fun might not exactly be the word, but I think it is, there are many different moments in his life where it could be, I first of all point out, you know, Jesus says Abraham rejoiced to see my day.

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Chris
And, the Jews actually kind of turned that and said, you saw his day, implying like, you know, that, it was in reverse of the way that Jesus said it. And it doesn't really make a difference in the end. But, a lot of difference in the end. But really, he says that, Abraham was was looking forward to him, rather than, like, Jesus.

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Chris
And it was, you know, like a live back then. Now he goes on to say, before Abraham was, I am so that this is where he goes with it. But, that's not actually kind of where, where he was, starting. But with that being said, I think it's probably best to see that this is just the overall direction, of of Abraham's life from the moment that God showed up in Genesis chapter 12, and called him until till the day he dies.

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Chris
But we do see it like a lot of different times in literature history. So you've got that Genesis 12, God says, hey, you go and I'm going to bless you. And and in you all the families of the earth will be blessed. And then we go to, chapter 14. And there's this story of Melchizedek. We'll get into that.

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Chris
But like, which comes up in Hebrews, and where is the blessing and all of that? And Melchizedek is a type of Christ there. We know from Hebrews. Then you go to 15, where God actually establishes the covenant with Abraham. And there's this thing where, you know, God has, a, I believe it was a, a bull cut in half.

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Chris
And, and God is actually speaking to Abraham and making this covenant, and we can talk about that covenant. There's a lot of neat, things that that points to as well. And, then you can go on to, 17, where there's circumcision, and Isaac's birth is promised and, Abraham and then and, he laughs in chapter 17 and Abraham or Sarah laughs him and verse, chapter 18.

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Chris
And so, you know, it just goes on and on and on and on. And, I think it's probably best to just kind of see, this is like there were just many, many times where God made promises to Abraham. Those promises always included that, from him was going to, to come, someone who, was going to bless all the families of the earth, all the peoples of the earth, and, we know that, there's also this story where God takes Abraham out and it's looking at the sky and says, as, stars in the sky, so your offspring be.

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Chris
And this is just all of these things, the Abraham is looking, looking to it and filled in, with joy and his hope. And Jesus is saying like, there's also the really important part in Genesis 15 where we're told that Abraham believed God, and he credited it to him as righteousness, which is just a huge, you know, passage in, in the Old Testament.

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Chris
And then obviously in the New Testament, specifically in Romans, that really teaches justification by faith and shows us that Abraham wasn't saved by what he did, but but through faith in God's promise. And that is we. You know, he's the father of all believers because not because of what he did or who he was or his race or whatever, but simply because he, was the man of of God, the man of righteousness, that was credited to him because of faith.

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Chris
So, that's a lot there. But to answer your question, I just said, Abraham's who life is worth a deep study, and someday I think we probably will do a whole series on that, because there's a lot of a lot of different ways that we see Jesus in his story.

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Brenton
Do we have any like, you know, we'd point to, Moses in the burning bush as, Theophany, right? That that was actually Jesus showing up in that form. Does do we have any of those kind of specific stories of Abraham where we see Jesus specifically show up?

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Chris
Yeah, I think that the story in chapter 17 and 18 where three men show up, and, and they make the announcement to Abraham about Isaac. I think it's very likely that Jesus is is one of them. There's another again, I talked about where, God tells, you know, makes that covenant with he's speaking to Abraham on a regular basis and like it is that actually Jesus speaking to him?

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Chris
The the father is it the son? I don't know that we can know specifically.

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Brenton
So but yeah that's interesting that would be that would be an interesting topic to do a deep dive on. A lot of stuff that happened in, in those few chapters. Yes.

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Chris
Yeah. There's 12 chapters in there packed. Yeah.

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Brenton
Okay. You mentioned that after Jesus was being insulted by these Pharisees, he responded calmly and graciously, what what can we learn from his response as we kind of encounter that, that sort of attitude today?

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Chris
Yeah. This is another great question. You're like, I'm fire with the questions today. This is another thing I thought about and kind of pulled back out of the sermon.

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Brenton
I was a little surprised you didn't go deeper with it on Sunday.

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Chris
Everybody, here's your update, right? My, that's why we call it further, right? I think there actually is a lot of practical, I say advice, but for practical things that we can we can take from this, like, you really put this into practice because all of us have experiences right where we people are coming, coming at us, and to to one degree or another.

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Chris
Sometimes it's certainly more intense and, heavy nasty than, at other times. But, you know, this is what Jesus does is he says my father is my judge. And so he is, if we put it in our terms, like, my justification and my which I, my, my being right, is not, you know, based upon what other people think about me or say about me, it's about what God says about me.

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Chris
And as God's children, you know, he he says that we through faith in Jesus, we are, we are, we are right. Even if at times our actions and our attitudes and our words are are wrong, we're still right with him. And nothing can take us away for us. And there's no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.

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Chris
And so oftentimes when people are coming at us, we feel the need to defend ourselves, to justify ourselves, to make our case, you know, to put things right. And there is time to defend ourselves. And I think Jesus actually does defend himself in, in this passage, but he doesn't, rely ultimately on himself. He relies on his father.

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Chris
And that's where his trust and his hope is in. And that's what Paul's talking about in Galatians six when he says, you know, I'm going to boast. And if I'm going to boast of and boast in the cross of Christ, it's so, so hard for us, to do. But, and I do say, you know, there are times for us to walk away.

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Chris
I don't I don't think, you know, this is a wholesale. Like you should always stay, take it, and then just reply calmly and graciously, either. There are times to to step away. There are times to maybe more, specifically defend yourself, but I think it's more the attitude and the peacefulness. So to speak, with which Jesus, responds here that we can we can learn from.

00;12;09;28 - 00;12;39;21
Chris
But you can only do that if you are really rooted in your father's love and your father's approval of you. And the more that we do that, the more that that will enable us not to to be able to defend ourselves. And here's where it's different for for Jesus. I think that in most instances, even when people are criticizing us and coming at us, there probably is something that we can we can learn.

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Chris
It can be a good. And again I want to point this is different from, from Jesus. But you know we're not perfectly he's perfect. So they're accusations were completely 100% false. They wrong. A lot of times you know people may not may be unjust in what they're saying or how they're saying and or whatever, but, you know, is it I just find it helpful.

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Chris
I really and I'm not saying that I'm great at this by any stretch. You you just great to be able to sit back and say, okay, is there something here that I need to let humble me and I need to, I need to to hear here and I need to listen here. It doesn't mean there always is the case.

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Chris
Yeah. But instead of immediately jumping on and going like no. Okay. Let me, let me first respond with grace. Probably talks about, you know, heaping burning coals on someone's head. And we can talk about that too, but, you know, but but but there's also just like, okay. Yeah. You know, I could have said that differently.

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Chris
Done that differently. And, and I think it's always good just to check what's going on in my what's going on in my heart.

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Brenton
So would you say that, you know, in, in part, this is kind of a people pleasing attitude on our side that we're kind of looking for these people's validation of ourselves and that, you know, you what you said is, you know, we we root ourselves in, in who God says we are, not who others. But I think it's such a tendency of ours to look to other people for our validation.

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Brenton
That's right. When we get pushback than ever.

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Chris
Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. And, it does something to our ego. Yeah. And when your ego gets bruised, it's, If you it's good if you can recognize it, because it can help you actually grow in humility. But if you don't recognize that, it can be, you just inflame. There's another or so the general answer turns away wrath.

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Chris
And again, that that the proverbs are not, you know, laws like it's always happens that way. But, it's a general principle.

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Brenton
Yeah. Okay.

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Chris
Trust me, it doesn't always. It doesn't always work. Yes.

00;15;05;11 - 00;15;24;15
Brenton
That's true. Yeah. Okay. On to the next. You said that if if Jesus isn't God, then there's no forgiveness, no eternal life, no heaven and no hope. Why do all of these things fall apart theologically without his divinity?

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Chris
Yeah, there's there's two levels of, response to this. The first is simply, the word of God is not true. Jesus, his word is not true of. And he's not true. He's a lot like he is a liar because he claimed to be, God. And so if he's a liar, then everything, you know, I'll be totally God's a liar.

00;15;44;16 - 00;16;15;15
Chris
Then everything falls apart. The other part of it is, and this is actually really, really important. And I'd be interested even what you can add to this. We needed a perfect sacrifice in order to pay the penalty for our sin. God, that's what God required. And, so Jesus had to be both God and man in order to to be that sacrifice.

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Chris
He had to be man, because we had to have someone, a man to die for us, human to die for us. But only God is perfect. And so, Jesus, I had to be God because no human is perfect. So. So he had to be a perfect human. And only God is perfect. And so if Jesus was just a man, he wouldn't have been perfect.

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Chris
And, if he wasn't perfect, he could die for our sins. He was just another, you know, would be like, you dying or me dying. It's not salvific in any way. Might be sacrificial, but it's not salvific. Sure.

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Brenton
Yeah. Yeah. Well, I think a lot of this is, you know, was set up in the Old Testament, right, with the, with all the sacrificial laws that they had at that point. This, you know, at that point it was animals, but it was always the best. It was the, the ones without blemish. And so again this you know Jesus being a fulfillment of that.

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Brenton
It, it takes that to you know what, what is, what is a perfect human right. And the only option there someone that isn't born of what we would call original sin doesn't have any of sin, any stain of sin on them. And so, yeah, we would in that way, if that's going to be our perfect sacrifice, if that's a fulfillment of Old Testament sacrifices, then then we need someone that is able to fit that bill.

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Chris
You know.

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Brenton
Anyone born under Adam is under the curse of Adam.

00;17;58;25 - 00;18;21;22
Chris
Yeah. Well, this is another deep topic. But one, you know, I think a lot of times we have a hard time like, what is what's going on with all the sacrificial stuff and all the ceremonial stuff in the Old Testament. You know, all the things that they had to go through and all the things that they, they couldn't do and they had to do what's, what's all of that?

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Chris
And there's a lot to it. But at the heart of it is just like God is holy and we're not. Yeah. And so to come before him to come in a relationship with him, there needs to be there needs to be cleansing. And Hebrews some go back to Hebrews again, you know, talks about how the blood of bulls and goats, it only did.

00;18;43;17 - 00;19;04;09
Chris
It only did it temporarily. And we need an eternal, you know, an infinite, so to speak, cleansing. And that's why Christ had to come and and be a man and a perfect man. And so it was all, you know, you mentioned those bulls, goats and lambs and they had to be unblemished and all that kind of stuff.

00;19;04;12 - 00;19;25;29
Chris
But but even still, they want the perfect sacrifice because there's, there's still an infected by the fall too, as well. Sin I mean, they're not sinful, but they're impacted by the fall. So yeah, they can only, you know, kind of cover over until Christ came and point him to.

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Brenton
Now, that is an interesting objection that you that you kind of brought up with. You know why why, why was it even made that way in the first place, I think. You know, that's an objection that I think comes up a lot today of, you know, why is a blood sacrifice even required here? I think you're right to point to it.

00;19;45;22 - 00;20;15;01
Brenton
It shows, you know, the seriousness of our state before God and shows his holiness. And what what is required. I think you know, the maybe the, the point kind of buried in there is like, could God have created this world in a, in a different way that didn't require those things? I don't know if I have an answer for that, but it's an interesting it's an interesting way to look at that, especially from like an atheistic perspective today.

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Brenton
Looking back on a, on a system that was so different than what we encounter today. And then, you know, us bring that into.

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Chris


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Brenton
You know, Jesus sacrifice.

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Chris
Well but but yeah I mean. The whole question could he have. Okay. I mean like I'm sure we could theorize about that stuff all day long, but he didn't. So but I think we can also miss is that the reason for the, the blood sacrifices is because the the blood sap, you know, symbolizes life. The life our life is in our in our blood.

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Chris
And and so, the penalty for sin is death. And so the remedy for sin we actually also find in, in death. And we see the sacrifice from the very beginning, Adam and Eve sin. And one of the first things God does, he sacrifices. And it doesn't say he sacrifices an animal but there's animal skin. So.

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Chris
There's, there's an animal, there's a sacrifice. In Genesis three. You know, unless we think that God just kind of created these and or skinned clothes which he, he could have done, I don't, I don't think that the whole ark of the, the Bible would, you know, indicate that that's what happened.

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Brenton
Sure. Yeah. Fair enough. Okay. So sticking with Jesus's divinity, you know, many groups today, even, you know, they won't call themselves Christian sects, like Jehovah's Witnesses or Unitarians or the LDS, affirm Jesus in some way, like he's in all of their, you know, all of their stories, but they deny his divinity. Given the the clarity that we as Trinitarian see in Scripture, especially, you know, like here in John eight, why do you think so many different groups reject it?

00;22;16;01 - 00;22;20;14
Brenton
What's what's the motivation behind that? Do you think?

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Chris
I'll start with the ultimate reason. And then we go to the secondary one. The ultimate reason is because the God of this world is blind to the mind of unbelievers, so they can't see the glory of God in the face of Jesus. They can't see that Jesus is God. And so, all of these, groups and I just to say this as gently and as graciously as I can, but they, they're heretical.

00;22;47;22 - 00;23;25;16
Chris
They're teaching something false about Jesus, which is the pinnacle of heresy. And that the devil masquerades himself as an angel of light. He's a liar. And they all espouse, you know, lies. And and we we want to be gracious, but we can't be overly cautious about just being direct about that stuff. So that's first. Second, you know, there's the Trinity, the words not in the Bible, the concepts of the early church, 3 or 400 years to, you know, to work through.

00;23;25;19 - 00;23;45;07
Chris
And it's easy, I think, for us as the believer, life. Definitely. You know, you and I, to look back and say, okay. Yeah, here it is, and here it is, and here it is. Here it is. But that wasn't the case for the, you know, the early, early Christian. I'm not saying they didn't affirm and.

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Brenton
Sure. Yeah.

00;23;45;29 - 00;24;10;26
Chris
But but they can putting it into words and you know there's big, big debates and, and controversies surrounding us. We'd be really thankful for a guy named Athanasius. There's a name for your next, child. Athanasius. We'll do that. Tell him. Why don't I? Kids for grandkids name for a grandchild. But he did a lot. A lot of work, around this, and we can be thankful for it.

00;24;10;26 - 00;24;31;04
Chris
So I think that that's the other, you know, reason is that, I don't think it's it's difficult to see how it's it's possible to get the wrong idea if you don't really study, though, the Bible and what it says as a whole. You know, this issue. Yeah.

00;24;31;06 - 00;24;38;00
Brenton
What what do you think is a helpful way for us to interact with these groups directly?

00;24;38;02 - 00;25;02;02
Chris
Yeah. I mean, I think it's that's a really, really great question. And I believe that there are people in our church who probably could answer this a lot better than than I would. I mean, we do have former Jehovah's Witnesses in our church. And, obviously I have quite a LDS, influence. And in our area. Yeah. Unitarians, maybe a little bit less.

00;25;02;02 - 00;25;29;07
Chris
But, I, I think, ultimately it comes down to if, if you can try to actually look at, look at Scripture, if you can kind of buff up on your apologetics and, you know, a Jehovah's Witnesses, you know, we we already talked about this, the first, very first verse of John and how they interpret that and where that goes and, and all of that.

00;25;29;10 - 00;25;38;16
Chris
And, I, I don't know that I have too much more helpful things here to say than that. Yeah. Anything to add there?

00;25;38;19 - 00;26;12;28
Brenton
Oh, I don't know. I think. Yeah. I mean, always brush up on your apologetics. I think that's good advice. But yeah, I, I think that there it's such a big division between us, you know, Bible believing Christians, whatever you would put in that category, Trinitarian. That's a huge chasm between between like, where we're at and where these other churches are.

00;26;13;00 - 00;26;43;21
Brenton
And I think so much of that belief, you know, especially in the LDS, comes from extra biblical sources mainly, you know, the Book of Mormon, right? That there there was so many stories written after that that has taken precedent in their mind. And so a lot of times that's that's hard to to have that conversation because we, you know, just kind of outright dismiss any, any of their, their extra biblical stuff.

00;26;43;21 - 00;26;53;11
Brenton
And so there's a lot there. There's a lot, a lot of conversations they have there. But I think that's a that's a hard wall to climb with a lot of those guys.

00;26;53;14 - 00;27;20;10
Chris
I don't know what you think about this, but my experience tells me. And again, I could be wrong about this, but especially with Jehovah Witnesses and and those in, in the LDS, they, they're pretty hardcore. They, they, I think they tend to be like, you like Muslims? You can get kind of nominal Muslims. You definitely have nominal Catholics.

00;27;20;10 - 00;27;38;12
Chris
And we would take the nominal, you know, Christians. But I, I don't know if that is as much the case when it comes to, to Mormons and to those and, the, the, the, Church of Latter day Saints. So,

00;27;38;14 - 00;27;41;14
Brenton
It's interesting. Yeah. I mean, you know, let.

00;27;41;14 - 00;27;43;06
Chris
Me Jehovah's Witnesses. Yeah. Yeah.

00;27;43;07 - 00;27;44;15
Brenton
So well, there.

00;27;44;18 - 00;28;04;03
Chris
And, you know, there really they seem to be the ones that I, you know, like free like firm and Hart Hart like, entrenched in that, more so than, I would say in some of the other religions that I've encountered.

00;28;04;05 - 00;28;22;23
Brenton
Well, they're big on evangelism, right. So there's a there's a lot of prep that goes into that. I would assume, you know, there's we all know what what LDS elders look like. And, you know, they're out and around on their on their bikes. And, you know, I've had I live kind of in the middle of nowhere, and I've had Jehovah's Witnesses show up at my door.

00;28;22;23 - 00;28;24;29
Brenton
And so like, that's that's not necessarily.

00;28;24;29 - 00;28;27;21
Chris
Talking about your house. Yeah. This is right.

00;28;27;24 - 00;28;46;05
Brenton
Yeah. So that one, so I, I would assume that there's a lot of prep that goes into that and that's kind of been, you know, made into a system, how how they disciple their people and how they're bringing them up in those, you know, in those truths that they have.

00;28;46;06 - 00;28;46;27
Chris
Yeah.

00;28;46;29 - 00;28;55;11
Brenton
Maybe truth is the wrong word. There. But, yeah, maybe we can learn something from that too, that, you know, if. Yeah, we need to be better prepped.

00;28;55;16 - 00;28;56;12
Chris
Yeah.

00;28;56;14 - 00;29;20;28
Brenton
With a response to that. And, you know, with our evangelism. So, All right, you said toward the end of your message that, we treat him meaning God, as if he exists for us instead of living as if we exist for him. Can you flesh that out a little more? What are what are some practical ways that we do this?

00;29;21;01 - 00;29;44;08
Chris
Sure. I think one way is we can treat him like a genie in the bottle. You know, we say the magic words, you rub the lamp and he's going to do it. You know that there's a way to get him to do what you you you want him to do. And then if he doesn't do what we want him to do, we question his love or get angry or whatever.

00;29;44;10 - 00;30;07;05
Chris
I think that another way we do it is we, we we don't have a right understand the meaning of suffering or we respond to it. Think about it in the wrong way. And the Bible is very rich in what it has to say about suffering. We don't like a lot of it. Because it goes against what we want to believe is to be true.

00;30;07;05 - 00;30;49;26
Chris
And and, how we think that the the world and God works. I go to job and, you know, Joe goes through incredible suffering, loses virtually everything. And he says, the Lord gives the Lord takes away blessed be the name of the Lord. And and I don't know if I, you know, like. I don't know, I can't say that I'm there, but but I think that underlies the, the idea that we don't, affirm really or in our, in and in the deepest part of us that everything is God's, everything our breath.

00;30;49;28 - 00;31;19;06
Chris
And extending from that literally everything, that we have and, and in this world. And so it's his right to, to do with it what he wants to do with it. And, and, we just really don't, we know like that. And, and and instead of looking at what we do have and see it is, you know, how good and gracious he's been to us in just in so many different ways.

00;31;19;09 - 00;31;39;29
Chris
And even when I was trying to point to on Sunday with all the the nerdy science stuff, it's just like we just don't even we don't even rec. I mean, it's like, just all that he is doing and and even his, you know, we talk about common grace or creation. Grace is just like, it rained today.

00;31;40;02 - 00;32;11;10
Chris
Like, we we can grow up and complain about the rain, but, but what happens if we don't if we don't get it? The farmers certainly know, but, and that's just one little instance of of all of those kind of things. And so, I think we want easy life and, and we and, and so just in all of those different ways that we, really put ourselves in the center instead of putting him in this in the center.

00;32;11;13 - 00;32;49;02
Brenton
Yeah, yeah. I think, you know, there's there's something that we would all affirm about God. You know, we call it his the society that he is, self-existent, that he needs nothing outside of himself to, to exist. And we're the opposite of that. And we, we depend on everything. We depend on God to exist. And so, you know, I think we would all affirm that as, like a theological truth, but that is very different when we take that to, day to day that we we have to acknowledge that we're, we're not actually self dependent.

00;32;49;03 - 00;32;54;07
Brenton
We we exist. Solely because he allows us to exist.

00;32;54;14 - 00;33;23;14
Chris
Yeah, but we want to be independent, right? Yeah. And this is actually where our, American, you know, ideal of liberty and freedom, like we talked about a few weeks ago, goes, goes haywire. It's a good thing that goes haywire because it's it's now become, you know, I'm free to do whatever I want. This my life, I can yeah, I can do.

00;33;23;16 - 00;33;43;20
Chris
I could quote a Bon Jovi song for you now too. It's you. I, I, I kind of forgot about all that, but. Yeah, we don't need to talk about you to anyone who didn't even, but, I mean, this is so easy to talk about, like, for me to talk about, but it's so hard. It just so, so hard, to live.

00;33;43;22 - 00;34;04;04
Chris
Which is why a passage like we study this Sunday is so, so important. It was it was important for me. And it's just a good reminder. Like he is. Yes. He's savior. Yes. He's gracious. Yes. He's loving. Yes. He's kind. Yes. He's good.

00;34;04;06 - 00;34;31;04
Chris
But he's he's also God. It's not like those things in are opposed to each other. They are all wrapped up together. But he is like, literally the one who created everything, keeps everything together by the word of his power. And, we I just like how often do I even not, like, think about what he wants in a situation makes my day.

00;34;31;04 - 00;34;58;11
Chris
I get to say what I do, where I'm going to go and how I spend my money, and all of those kind of things. Instead of saying, and I'll finish with this, this is where I think our prayer lives come right to the forefront. Is I think, how often we are we are praying. And I'm not just talking about, you know, your your devotional time is just like conscience.

00;34;58;11 - 00;35;29;25
Chris
You're speaking and acknowledging him actually shows really where we're at on this. Just because my temptation is, I can I can do my time in the morning and praying and reading, and then it can be 2:00 in the afternoon. And I'm I haven't really thought about consciously, you know, him and and what he's kind of directed me to for 5 or 6 hours.

00;35;29;28 - 00;35;30;13
Brenton
Yeah.

00;35;30;16 - 00;35;38;20
Chris
And so again, that's like I'm independent. I don't need I'm not in need.

00;35;38;22 - 00;36;04;01
Brenton
Yeah. I think you made a really good point a minute ago of, you know, we spend so much of our time thinking about the, the way in which God deals with us, which is gracious and loving and like we would think of that as a very, from a, a perspective of self. Yeah. And not necessarily that much time thinking about God as he is.

00;36;04;03 - 00;36;04;20
Chris
Yeah.

00;36;04;22 - 00;36;21;07
Brenton
And I wonder, you know, how, what encourages us to, to not think of God, you know, as who he is and puts, puts, puts the, the emphasis on ourselves and how God treats us more than, more than that.

00;36;21;09 - 00;36;53;16
Chris
Yeah. A lot of places that we could, we could go here. But this is why I mean this has so many different applications for the way that we do ministry from preaching to, our corporate worship, the songs we sing, the elements there and, and that, the counseling that we do is that, in, in much of the American church has become very, man centered.

00;36;53;18 - 00;37;11;29
Chris
And if you listen to and I'm going to step on toes here and you make may literally as some of other than this, but you listen to a lot of Christian radio and, and you listen to listen to the songs folks and just listen to like What is God? The center is his worship and his praise.

00;37;12;02 - 00;37;20;14
Chris
Are these songs God directed? Are they about us and even what God does for? And another saying that there's not a place. Well, those are.

00;37;20;14 - 00;37;21;23
Brenton
Good things, right?

00;37;21;25 - 00;37;53;02
Chris
For, for for that. But what is the what is the overall kind of kind of theme. And in this has massive, massive consequences because we have, come to the place where now, most people view church and worship and all of that, and even preaching is about me and what I'm getting out of it. And you know how it's helping me.

00;37;53;07 - 00;38;18;13
Chris
And, instead of, how is this all form me, me into the image of Christ in such a way that that my life is, is a mere more and more a mirror of him and and is about praising him. Worship him in him is a huge, huge battle. So, I don't know how he ended up there, but, yeah.

00;38;18;16 - 00;38;19;00
Brenton
There's it's it's.

00;38;19;01 - 00;38;28;15
Chris
Really, really, it's really, really important. And it's, it's a huge, huge issue. And, and so, Yeah.

00;38;28;17 - 00;38;44;12
Brenton
Okay, good. Well, let's wrap it there. Thanks. Thanks for your time today. Thank you. And, thanks for listening. If you have any questions, ask it for the podcast.com, and we will be back with you next week.