00:11:51:00 - 00:11:55:15]
Brenton
 Welcome back to Further. I am Brenton Grimm. Chris Carr, welcome back. How you doing?

[00:11:55:15 - 00:12:05:15]
Chris
 Pretty good. I feel like I should ask you how you're doing. You always ask me. I'm doing-- That's true. I don't know if we have time for that. I know you love to share your feelings. And--

[00:12:06:19 - 00:12:07:00]
Chris
 Not good.

[00:12:07:00 - 00:12:10:18]
Brenton
 It's coming down to back to school.

[00:12:10:18 - 00:12:12:16]
Chris
 Yeah, your kid's back to school yet?

[00:12:12:16 - 00:12:22:04]
Brenton
 Kind of. We didn't totally stop through the summer. But yeah, my wife stays busy. She is currently gearing up for our oldest--

[00:12:23:05 - 00:12:24:06]
Brenton
 he's going into seventh grade.

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Chris
 Wow, man.

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Brenton
 Yeah, his school is going to look a lot different this year. No, it's good though. Summer was nice.

[00:12:33:05 - 00:12:34:01]
Brenton
 Feels like it's over already.

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Chris
 I'm waiting for mine to begin. But maybe it will-- You'll get there. Don't worry.

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Brenton
 Yeah.

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Chris
 You'll read the text soon.

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Brenton
 All right, so we did-- I'm going to start with a submitted question.

[00:12:49:14 - 00:12:57:13]
Brenton
 She said that you said there are 100 plus Old Testament prophecies that were fulfilled by Jesus.

[00:12:58:18 - 00:13:02:13]
Brenton
 Six were major messianic prophecies of the coming Messiah.

[00:13:04:10 - 00:13:14:11]
Brenton
 She said, I know Isaiah 53 is one of them, and there are about 10 prophecies in that chapter alone. Can you share the other five major prophecies and the biblical references?

[00:13:16:07 - 00:14:39:12]
Chris
 Well, I think I probably need to clarify some things. And maybe I just didn't make it clear. At least I meant to say that there were actually 60 major messianic prophecies. And the number eight I used was just for illustrative purposes. I just said that you'd take random eight of them. But there's roughly 60 major ones. And it depends upon how you count it. Some people will say 40. Some will say 50, 55. Then there's 60. And there are literally hundreds of potentially minor ones or illusions anyways we might call to the Messiah. And it just depends upon, you know, do you see in the temple, you know, a prophecy about the Messiah? I mean, it points to Him. So it just depends upon how you do it. But there are roughly 60 major ones. And obviously, yeah, Isaiah 53, maybe even be the one that we would be most familiar with and most clearly, directly, we can see it. We'll put something in the show notes that will point you to some place or places that you can go to kind of get a list that has been compiled in regard to that. And again,

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Chris
 you know, just depending upon the source that you read, it just depends upon who is making the list and what's the make a decision. Some of them are obvious like Isaiah 53.

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Chris
 But then when it goes further and deeper, it just depends upon who's making the list.

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Brenton
 Okay. All right, yeah, we'll add something in the show notes for you.

[00:15:04:23 - 00:15:17:00]
Brenton
 So sticking with prophecies, you made some comments about the probability of one person fulfilling all of these prophecies, you know, by coincidence is incredibly small.

[00:15:18:16 - 00:15:43:02]
Brenton
 I'm curious though, from the other side of this, what would you say to a skeptic who would believe, either Jesus would have known the Old Testament prophecies and intentionally fulfilled them just to gain a following? Or I think another argument would be that the gospel writers just twisted the facts to fit the prophecies once they actually wrote their gospels. What would you say to those groups?

[00:15:45:02 - 00:15:54:08]
Chris
 Well, I think I'd begin by acknowledging that, yeah, Jesus did intentionally fulfill some of them.

[00:15:55:21 - 00:16:07:21]
Chris
 But that actually shows that He viewed Himself as submissive to His Father, and that His Father said like beforehand,

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Chris
 in some instances, thousands of years, like this was going to happen. And Jesus was showing by His intentional fulfillment of that, like some of the things that He would say or do,

[00:16:23:05 - 00:16:26:21]
Chris
 that He was submitting to His Father's authority.

[00:16:27:21 - 00:17:05:11]
Chris
 So that's really not a way to argue against the reliability of this. It actually goes to show just how, as Jesus has told us in John, He and the Father are one, and that He is submissive to His Father's will. I think that the argument falls apart a little bit that once you get past a handful of them and the ability for all of these things just to come into place. So for example, where Jesus was born in Bethlehem is a great example.

[00:17:07:06 - 00:17:14:11]
Chris
 From a human perspective, in His humanity, He had no control over where His parents- Yeah, if He's just the charlatan.

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Chris
 There's no intention. And the gospel authors, they're just recording facts, they're just recording history.

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Chris
 And so yeah, I mean, I think it's an easy objection to say, like they're just saying that He did this, but you also have a multitude of witnesses. And I think Luke has a lot to say to us here. If you open up to Luke or Acts and or both of them, you'll notice that Luke's talking about all these witnesses that he went and talked to and verify. And Luke's a doctor, he's a scientist. And so he's going out and he's fact checking these things.

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Chris
 And we do have other historical sources. I mentioned a guy named Josephus on Sunday,

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Chris
 who's not a Christian, wasn't a Christian,

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Chris
 but a Jewish scholar who just verifies some of these things

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Chris
 that were true about Jesus. And so yeah, if you take one or two, three things, and if you just look at it in one lens, it's like, okay, well, John was going here and saying this, okay, but then you get four different authors. You've got one of them who's talking a bunch of witnesses. You've got other kinds of sources. And I think it all falls apart. If you look at the evidence as a whole.

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Brenton
 Yeah. Yeah, okay. Yeah, I just wanted to get your thoughts on that. I did appreciate your points on the Old Testament. You talked about that for a little bit. You brought up one pastor. I don't know if I can even say his name, but his name's Andy Stanley. I guess you can. Yeah, I guess so. I'll beef it out.

[00:19:04:04 - 00:19:09:04]
Brenton
 And he was the one that said that we need to unhitch ourselves from the Old Testament,

[00:19:10:06 - 00:19:16:12]
Brenton
 but he's not the only one either. You pointed out on Sunday though, this is largely due to pragmatic reasons.

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Brenton
 Evangelism being one that it's hard to communicate

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Brenton
 these hard truths to people that aren't already Christians.

[00:19:27:17 - 00:19:29:07]
Brenton
 However,

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Brenton
 it's incredibly clear that Jesus doesn't shy away from the Old Testament at all. In fact, he very quickly embraces it in so many instances. So what are some resources that you would suggest to help people study the Old Testament and actually begin to understand its connection to the new one?

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Chris
 Sure.

[00:19:53:01 - 00:20:24:11]
Chris
 If I may, I would like to just address a related issue that I didn't have time to talk about on Sunday very quickly. I wouldn't even say so much related issue is actually at the core of the issue. And so just to explain a little bit more about Andy Stanley and others position is that there are things in the Old Testament that make it hard for modern people

[00:20:28:05 - 00:20:55:14]
Chris
 they're basically stumbling blocks, so to speak, in the way of people hearing the truth about Jesus or coming to faith in him or following Jesus. And so in other words, so we gotta, let's just put that aside and then let's, let's talk about the resurrection. I mean, that's really, this is what it is. Let's talk about the resurrection, you believe in the resurrection and you don't have to believe in that stuff in the Old Testament to believe in the resurrection.

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Chris
 And I think in some ways the motivation is, the desire here is we wanna see people

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Chris
 come to know Jesus. The problem with that is that what you win people with, you gotta keep people with. And so it's problematic to say, you don't need to believe any of that, but then you come to know Jesus, well following Jesus, then all of a sudden you do have to believe that. I think that's problematic just evangelistically. Fate and switch. Right, but the other problem is that, yes, I would agree. Like we're not gonna start talking to people about Leviticus and say, okay, let's talk about all these laws in here and you really need to understand and grab hold of all of this stuff first.

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Chris
 And then we'll talk about Jesus. No, you talk about Jesus, you talk about the cross, you talk about the resurrection.

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Chris
 And then I do believe then you can go with that as okay, now Jesus is Lord. And that, here's what that means.

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Chris
 But to begin by doing away with the foundational document for Jesus' life, because he quoted it all the time. And again, some of them out, I can come to abolish it, I can to fulfill it.

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Chris
 And actually I think that there's a lack of understanding about the Old Testament, even by some of these leaders in terms of, okay, as I mentioned, not all parts of the Old Testament are equally applicable to us. So let's explain that. It's to explain how Jesus does fulfill these ceremonial laws. And there's actually, it can be some really great way to grab people's attention, help to make points and truth about Jesus and to show how applicable, not only to Jesus, but to the Old Testament as well. So that's a big, long topic, but I just think it's just an error from pretty much every direction.

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Brenton
 Well, it feels like those people don't wanna wrestle with it themselves, right? Like do, have they actually thought through those issues well enough to be able to talk about slavery in the Old Testament? Like can they work through that themselves? And maybe that's partly...

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Chris
 Yeah, and unfortunately,

[00:23:35:09 - 00:23:50:11]
Chris
 this is another, it's a very closely related topic. A part of it has to do with what the Old Testament says very clearly about some matters surrounding marriage and sexuality. And so that is, oh,

[00:23:51:18 - 00:24:31:00]
Chris
 and a lot of times these leaders are fudging or squishy at best on those issues. And so it's like, okay, here's an easy way and like follow Jesus and all of that, but yeah. Yeah, so as far as resources. So resources, yeah. So I'll give you the kind of different levels here and don't laugh at this, but a great, like very, very introductory books, especially of your parents, the Jesus storybook Bible, which I know,

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Chris
 I would bet a lot of us can learn some things about Jesus storybook Bible. Every, there's kind of a tagline, every story whispers His name. And so a lot of Old Testament stories and just how they point towards Jesus.

[00:24:49:23 - 00:24:51:09]
Chris
 But from that,

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Chris
 what we really are talking about in many cases here is biblical theology.

[00:24:58:11 - 00:25:04:23]
Chris
 So maybe to just briefly, why don't you tell everybody the difference between systematic theology and biblical theology, right?

[00:25:04:23 - 00:25:30:10]
Brenton
 Well, I mean, my understanding, biblical theology is really walking through the Bible and what can we pull out of it? There's systematic theology, which is more of a look at the individual topics and what we know about them from scripture. But if we walk all the way through the Old Testament to the New Testament, what do we learn? What connects to each other?

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Brenton
 What is the Bible trying to say as a story? Sure. Does that make sense?

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Chris
 Yeah, so I think you think of biblical theology in terms of themes and systematic theology in terms of topics and both have their place. Sure. When this question is really a biblical theology question. So Tom Shriner has a great book called "The Big Picture,"

[00:25:59:03 - 00:26:35:17]
Chris
 which is a good introductory biblical theology book. There's another one called "According to Plan" by Graham Goldsworthy. And then there's one specifically related to the Old Testament by Jason Derushi, how to understand and apply the Old Testament. There's also a how to understand and apply the New Testament. But yeah, so they're very kind of similar, but that last one on the Old Testament focuses a little bit more simply on kind of the topic where we have at hand here.

[00:26:35:17 - 00:26:55:02]
Brenton
 What would you say to someone that really hasn't spent much time in the Old Testament? What is there to gain from studying it that helps us understand the new better? Like is it, it's obviously not ideal to only spend time in the New Testament, but what are we missing from the Old?

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Chris
 Yeah,

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Chris
 I mentioned this on Sunday. You hear me talk about it on a regular basis.

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Chris
 But I think it's really, really helpful you talk about biblical theology, but creation, fall,

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Chris
 redemption and restoration.

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Chris
 And the Old Testament is what gives us our major teaching about creation, not only in the first three chapters, but also in the Psalms.

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Chris
 And then it also tells us the story of the fall. And it gives us lots of illustrations about how the fall has impacted all of creation. And so just even on those two, and like the New Testament, without the Old Testament, we are left with,

[00:27:55:14 - 00:28:09:22]
Chris
 it's just an incomplete explanation, description of creation and fall. But also in the Old Testament, we have a lot of restoration we have pictures, some teaching,

[00:28:11:03 - 00:28:15:04]
Chris
 the prophecies about redemption and restoration.

[00:28:16:04 - 00:28:22:22]
Chris
 But we also have a lot of illustrations like with Abraham and Isaac taking,

[00:28:24:16 - 00:28:29:01]
Chris
 going up the mountain. And that's just one, and this is all over the place.

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Chris
 And so in people, we just by nature,

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Chris
 we're narrative, we're story people.

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Chris
 That's why movies and TV shows and streaming and like is so big business is because we love stories. And that's what the Old Testament largely is, is full of stories. And so it has a way of capturing the imagination sometimes more than some of Paul's letters do.

[00:29:02:23 - 00:29:03:14]
Chris
 True. Right?

[00:29:05:03 - 00:29:33:12]
Chris
 And so there's so much there. And I mean, the thing about the Old Testament is you can kind of just read it, like most of the New Testament outside of the gospels and Acts, you gotta kind of really think and lock in and study. The Old Testament, you can also read a lot of it and just kind of grasp some things without doing that.

[00:29:34:19 - 00:29:43:23]
Brenton
 Yeah, maybe to our detriment sometimes, not having any understanding of the context of that time though too. Right, sure. I think it can be confusing too.

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Chris
 Which is why I study Bible. One of the things I didn't mention earlier, but a good study Bible,

[00:29:50:18 - 00:29:57:21]
Chris
 my favorite is the ESV study Bible, but there are quite a few good ones. It just can be really, really helpful to,

[00:29:59:07 - 00:30:07:02]
Chris
 okay, here's what's going on. And here's where the people of God are at this time. And like we talked about Zachariah,

[00:30:08:16 - 00:30:30:15]
Chris
 that was written in a certain context, the post-exile, this is the people had returned. They are living in Jerusalem, but the temples lies in ruins and they're in a difficult situation. And coming down to the last prophets are for 400 years till the time of Jesus. So all of that, that's important.

[00:30:30:15 - 00:30:50:23]
Brenton
 For sure. Yeah, I guess one other thing to add is I think that if we stick only with the New Testament, I'm not convinced that even Jesus's sacrifice really makes that much sense. I mean, if you don't have the background of the old covenant and the sacrificial system at that point,

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Brenton
 I could see someone today coming in cold to the New Testament being like, what in the world?

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Brenton
 Why did Jesus have to die here? But there's so much background of what God required and I think it brings so much of the New Testament into focus if we understand that stuff.

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Chris
 Well, and it brings evil into focus.

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Chris
 And we fail to see a lot of times I think that the cross is God's defeat of evil.

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Chris
 And that's, you know, not to, but I'm going to go back to our earlier discussion about kind of putting the Old Testament to the side. One of the places that's come from is we've become, like it's about a personal,

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Chris
 like personal human centered kind of thing and not understanding that like there's, it's not only about my personal salvation on the cross,

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Chris
 which is wonderful, but it's about the defeat of evil

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Chris
 and God's actions to restore not only humanity, but all of creation,

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Chris
 just everything, to restore everything.

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Chris
 And yeah, that's a big topic that I could talk a long time about, but that's why built Testament is important as well.

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Brenton
 Yeah, okay.

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Brenton
 You, you know, specifically in the story, you talked about how the crowd misunderstood what Jesus intention was.

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Brenton
 They expected a political solution to their problem and that's not what Jesus was doing. So in, in what ways do you think that's, this happens today? What, what expectations do we put on him that he has no will to, to fulfill?

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Chris
 Well, I think if I can just be simplistic and blunt, it's nearly the same. I find that we're nearly doing the same thing.

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Chris
 And that, you know, he, his plan is here is to make,

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Chris
 make us free and to, you know,

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Chris
 to bring us political salvation or freedom. That's, that's his, you know,

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Chris
 predominant plan and view and our preeminent concern. I don't know that most people would say, most Christians would actually say that explicitly,

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Chris
 but in terms of what do we get more concerned about, spend more time on and get more upset about when it doesn't happen the way that we want it to.

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Chris
 And it's just, I mean, are we, are we more concerned about things like the, the next election or the economy or taxes or,

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Chris
 and then, you know, maybe causing myself trouble here, but, you know, things like the second amendment and, and all,

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Chris
 or are we more concerned about like, we've got hundreds of millions of people in our country and billions of people in the world that don't know Christ.

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Chris
 I mean, and, and I'm not saying like, again, it's really easy, I think, for, for people maybe to come back at what I've just said, in terms of, as if I'm saying that God doesn't care about politics.

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Brenton
 Yeah.

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Chris
 And that we, we shouldn't be concerned about things like

[00:34:49:18 - 00:35:00:15]
Chris
 immigration and our national security and like, or it's wrong to want our country to uphold the constitution.

[00:35:02:06 - 00:35:08:05]
Chris
 Absolutely. I mean, like, and our government has a responsibility to do that and we should hold them accountable to do that.

[00:35:09:11 - 00:35:09:16]
Chris
 Right?

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Chris
 And, and yet what, where's our hope at? What's our focus at? What did Jesus promise us? Like, I mean,

[00:35:21:01 - 00:35:22:15]
Chris
 and historically speaking,

[00:35:24:11 - 00:35:27:00]
Chris
 you know, the Roman empire fell.

[00:35:28:22 - 00:35:34:02]
Chris
 And if the Lord fails to return,

[00:35:36:01 - 00:35:38:02]
Chris
 you know, in the next three or 400 years,

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Chris
 it's probably going to happen to the United States of America.

[00:35:43:15 - 00:35:47:07]
Chris
 It's not going to exist as the preeminent country in the world for,

[00:35:48:08 - 00:35:58:16]
Chris
 you know, and, and so- Talk about prophecy. Well, I mean, it's not a prophecy. It's just, you look at history and, and that is,

[00:35:59:22 - 00:36:04:16]
Chris
 you know, and you go to Psalm two, the nation's rage and he laughs.

[00:36:07:00 - 00:36:32:01]
Chris
 That's, that's the Bible. So I'm just saying like, again, I hope everybody here, and I'm not, this again, a place for nuance. Yes, politics are important. Yes, God cares about them. Yes, we're American citizens and our government has responsibilities and we should hold them accountable to that, all those kinds of things. But where, you know,

[00:36:34:01 - 00:36:47:20]
Chris
 what flag are we waving first and foremost? Is it the cross and the gospel or is it, you know, our national flag?

[00:36:47:20 - 00:36:50:20]
Brenton
 Yeah. All right. Well, speaking of that, on to the next one.

[00:36:52:06 - 00:37:25:05]
Brenton
 You did, you warned about, you know, letting our love for America supersede our love for Jesus and the people he's called us to reach. You mentioned that, you know, in, even in this passage, we see that, that God desires all nations, right? So why do you think it's so easy, especially for American Christians and maybe, you know, maybe we're not the only ones to kind of confuse the cultural identity with the spiritual identity?

[00:37:26:08 - 00:37:26:12]
Chris
 Sure.

[00:37:28:05 - 00:37:29:18]
Chris
 We're definitely not the only ones

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Chris
 and we have even examples from that, from the news this weekend that I could point out and historically is also the case. But I think there's a number of different reasons. One, I think it's easy because we have a lot of pastors,

[00:37:52:14 - 00:37:53:21]
Chris
 maybe even theologians,

[00:37:55:17 - 00:37:59:12]
Chris
 people who are looked at as spiritual leaders who do not help us here.

[00:38:01:04 - 00:38:05:00]
Chris
 And they wrap the cross in the American flag,

[00:38:06:07 - 00:38:23:22]
Chris
 just to put it succinctly. And they, yeah, they take, political sides in such a way where, and I've talked about this before, I believe they compromise, actually compromise the gospel in doing so.

[00:38:26:02 - 00:38:33:00]
Chris
 And that's not, again, it's not, doesn't mean that it's wrong for any individual personally

[00:38:34:00 - 00:38:50:07]
Chris
 to take a political stance on something. But when a pastor does it from a pulpit or an evangelist does it from a, you know, an arena or whatever, you just by nature giving people this idea.

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Chris
 I think it happens because we consume too much media that has found that this is a way to make a lot of money.

[00:39:04:15 - 00:39:14:07]
Chris
 And then I think it's also easier to make money to make the other,

[00:39:17:19 - 00:39:22:00]
Chris
 it's easier to identify the problem

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Chris
 as being somebody else other than my sin.

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Chris
 And when I end,

[00:39:36:07 - 00:39:41:01]
Chris
 it's also, we all, whether we want to admit it or not, we're looking for a savior.

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Chris
 And we need one, but the problem is that when we don't see that we need a savior from our sin, then what we're gonna do is we need a savior from this over here. And then nowadays the strongest person that we feel is gonna be able to save us, that's who we're gonna rally around.

[00:40:12:03 - 00:40:16:22]
Chris
 And I'm not speaking, like that's forever, like literally, that's not,

[00:40:18:16 - 00:40:24:20]
Chris
 that's true for every political party here in the US. And it's true, it's happening in a lot of other

[00:40:26:07 - 00:40:27:09]
Chris
 parts of the Western world.

[00:40:29:18 - 00:40:31:11]
Chris
 Yeah, so yeah.

[00:40:31:11 - 00:40:40:01]
Brenton
 This idea of, you know, our citizenship is in heaven, right? Like this is something that's said often,

[00:40:42:01 - 00:40:57:02]
Brenton
 how can we actually order those things correctly? Like how can we cultivate like a kingdom first mindset with still acknowledging that we are very fortunate to live where we live, right?

[00:40:59:18 - 00:41:10:11]
Chris
 Well, I think the kingdom first mentality, something that is really helpful to me. And I think it Jesus meant it to be is the,

[00:41:11:12 - 00:41:16:07]
Chris
 is what we call the Lord's prayer, I think it's better called the disciples prayer.

[00:41:17:11 - 00:41:26:05]
Chris
 And it's a pretty simple step by step. And Jesus literally told the disciples pray this way. They teach us how to pray, okay, well here's how you pray.

[00:41:28:10 - 00:41:37:12]
Chris
 And, you know, not to go through it all, but in the middle of it is thy kingdom come, thy will be done. Now, here's really important is a quick teaching moment.

[00:41:38:15 - 00:41:40:08]
Chris
 When we would say, okay, what does that mean?

[00:41:42:01 - 00:42:02:18]
Chris
 That's Matthew six. Well, you back up to Matthew five, you have the Beatitudes. And the Beatitudes are like blessed are the poor and spirit for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. So that's the first one starts, blessed are you when you're persecuted for righteousness and for yours is the kingdom of heaven. So the brackets of the Beatitudes are,

[00:42:04:04 - 00:42:25:00]
Chris
 yours is the kingdom of heaven. So pray thy kingdom come. So those are the kind of things. So what I will do is when I'm praying for the Lord's prayer is when I get to that kingdom come, that will be done. I go back to those Beatitudes and ask and pray. So here's what I'll pray. I pray those things for myself. I pray those things for my family and I'll pray those things for our church.

[00:42:26:16 - 00:42:33:04]
Chris
 Like, and so that I think is how we, there are other ways for sure,

[00:42:34:13 - 00:42:52:03]
Chris
 but personally how we can help to form our church and our seat of kingdom mindset formed in us is by doing really what Jesus told us to do and praying what he taught us to pray. And then I think at the other,

[00:42:53:13 - 00:43:06:02]
Chris
 and I know I'm just like a broken record here, but this idea of nuance is like, because there are people who will go and will say, well kingdom mindset and then like this just trashing,

[00:43:07:10 - 00:43:24:20]
Chris
 trashing like the country. And like there are so many things to be thankful for. And so can we come to the place where we can live in attention of, you know, thankfulness, but also concern.

[00:43:26:07 - 00:43:28:08]
Chris
 You know, thankfulness without love,

[00:43:29:14 - 00:43:32:03]
Chris
 appreciating the gift without worshiping the gift.

[00:43:33:21 - 00:43:44:15]
Chris
 And that's just, that's really, that's the Christian life. And that's the crux, I think a lot of the Christian life is how do you, how are you thankful for created things without worshiping created things?

[00:43:46:08 - 00:43:47:11]
Brenton
 Yeah, a lot to think about there.

[00:43:48:22 - 00:43:52:05]
Brenton
 You ended by asking if we've grown numb to the gospel.

[00:43:54:06 - 00:43:58:11]
Brenton
 What do you think actually, what's behind that? What causes this to happen?

[00:44:00:02 - 00:44:00:07]
Brenton
 Hmm.

[00:44:02:14 - 00:44:08:10]
Chris
 I think there are a lot of answers to that question.

[00:44:10:18 - 00:44:11:02]
Chris
 You know,

[00:44:12:14 - 00:44:35:14]
Chris
 well, to play off of my last point, we live in a country that we're gonna be really, really thankful for all the access that we have to the gospel and the resources that we have. So you're sitting here with me in my office and you're facing my book shelf, which has hundreds and hundreds of books. And that's not to mention the thousands of them I have electronically.

[00:44:37:02 - 00:44:54:12]
Chris
 So it's just, you know, prior to even 20 years ago, what I have now would have been more than almost anybody in the world has ever had. Just me, and there's people who got a lot more than I do.

[00:44:55:18 - 00:45:04:12]
Chris
 But almost everybody listening to this podcast has two, three, four, five, six Bibles and you know.

[00:45:05:12 - 00:45:09:13]
Chris
 And so we can be really, really thankful for that.

[00:45:11:00 - 00:45:22:00]
Chris
 And I don't think we even understand how thankful we can be until you go to some other place in the world where they literally have no Bible in their language.

[00:45:23:09 - 00:45:26:21]
Chris
 The Roma that the Dingadins are, you know,

[00:45:28:16 - 00:45:47:18]
Chris
 ministering to, they don't even have a written language, let alone a Bible in their language. And the Martins who are translating the New Testament for the accolades and Papua New Guinea, I mean, like, so thankfully the Lord's allowing that to happen, but it's, you know, here we are in 2025. It's not a New Testament, it's not even done.

[00:45:49:00 - 00:46:01:02]
Chris
 And they may never even get an Old Testament. We can be really, really thankful. And yet then here's the danger is like, we hear the, we got the cross is literally everywhere, tattoos, necklaces, earrings,

[00:46:03:05 - 00:46:04:17]
Chris
 it's on logos,

[00:46:06:01 - 00:46:16:14]
Chris
 right? I mean, I black, you know, you watch a baseball or football game, this is like everywhere. And so it's just ubiquitous. And that's the,

[00:46:18:05 - 00:46:25:13]
Chris
 that's what causes it. What causes it, I think to happen as well as, you know,

[00:46:26:14 - 00:46:47:22]
Chris
 well, maybe I'll just transition and say, this is why we work really, really hard. And it is our priority that every Sunday we're gonna sing the gospel and pray the gospel and preach the gospel. And many Sundays we'll be doing one of the ordinances, whether it's, you know, baptism or communion,

[00:46:49:05 - 00:46:57:17]
Chris
 we've reinstituted a taking of the offering, literally taking it up and just as, just another opportunity for us to be reminded

[00:46:58:20 - 00:47:03:17]
Chris
 of what the gospel really is, the depths of God's love for us and Jesus.

[00:47:05:11 - 00:47:10:03]
Brenton
 All right, well, we'll wrap there. One thing before we do,

[00:47:11:16 - 00:47:24:11]
Brenton
 this Sunday we're going through John 12, 27 through 43. And astute listeners may notice that we're skipping verses 20 to 26. And I'm assuming we'll have some questions over that. So why are we skipping it?

[00:47:24:11 - 00:47:30:18]
Chris
 We're skipping it because I preached that passage back in the last Sunday of our All In series.

[00:47:32:06 - 00:47:36:01]
Chris
 The Sunday before Easter.

[00:47:37:05 - 00:47:43:06]
Chris
 So if, and if you don't remember, I'm hurt.

[00:47:45:02 - 00:47:53:12]
Chris
 But you can check that out. It's on our podcast. And I'm pretty sure we did a, we did a podcast on that too. I'm sure we did.

[00:47:54:15 - 00:48:02:03]
Chris
 But that would be why it's a great passage, but figured that it was only three months ago.

[00:48:02:03 - 00:48:03:12]
Brenton
 That's when we got our acorns, right?

[00:48:03:12 - 00:48:11:01]
Chris
 That is the day that do remember stuff. So yeah, hopefully oak trees are growing all over Southeast Iowa. All right, sure.

[00:48:11:01 - 00:48:18:00]
Brenton
 All right, well, if you do have any questions, ask at furtherpodcast.com and we will talk to you next week. Thanks everybody.

[00:48:19:01 - 00:48:23:02]
 (Upbeat Music)