Brenton
 Welcome back to Further, I am Brenton Grimm. How you doing, Chris?

[00:02:30:14 - 00:02:44:02]
chris
 Pretty good. Like I said on Sunday, it was a heavy week last week. It's starting out a little bit better this week, but yeah, for sure. I think we're still feeling it a little bit at least and that's good, I think, in many ways.

[00:02:44:02 - 00:02:58:03]
Brenton
 Yeah, you started out on Sunday with some words about what's been going on and it's been a heavy week for sure. I think some of this hit me harder than I expected that it would.

[00:02:59:03 - 00:03:04:08]
Brenton
 And we had texted a little bit about maybe doing an episode on it.

[00:03:05:08 - 00:03:17:03]
Brenton
 But honestly, I don't know that I have anything to say that hasn't already been said. And so yeah, I appreciated your words, but I think just walking away, I don't know,

[00:03:18:12 - 00:03:28:19]
Brenton
 somewhat just encouraged to have courage in these days, right? I think there's so much,

[00:03:30:03 - 00:03:37:17]
Brenton
 there's a legacy there of bold faith. And so I think that's something to walk away with here.

[00:03:38:17 - 00:03:46:07]
Brenton
 But no, I really appreciated what you had to say. We did actually have a submitted question about your words at the beginning.

[00:03:48:18 - 00:03:57:08]
Brenton
 She said, you urged us to listen to your pastor more than social media, including Christian media, ministries and social media.

[00:03:59:08 - 00:04:14:10]
Brenton
 She said, I think I understand the crux of the statement, but I also know a great number of people, myself included, listen to other Christian ministries outside of HBC, not just sermons, but podcasts as well. So I guess she's looking for some clarity on what she meant by that.

[00:04:14:10 - 00:04:23:10]
chris
 Yeah, sure. I mean, first I want to go back and just say, I think there is a time to talk about

[00:04:24:16 - 00:04:32:15]
chris
 this situation that happened last week more. I don't know that now is the time actually to do it.

[00:04:33:23 - 00:04:37:00]
chris
 And what I mean by that is, is like everybody rushes, I think,

[00:04:38:01 - 00:05:03:10]
chris
 somewhat to judgment and rushes in. And in some ways it's understandable because it's very emotional. And when we get emotional, we have a tendency to sometimes respond in a somewhat spontaneous, spontaneous, is that a word? Spontaneous. Spontaneous. Spontaneous way. And I see I am tired, Ray is not exactly working. But,

[00:05:05:13 - 00:05:29:03]
chris
 and so some of the deeper discussions really need to be put off, I think, till later, till we have more time to process and to think a little more clearly. And some of the more of the facts come out. And we also need to mourn and agree even to feel.

[00:05:30:12 - 00:05:34:05]
chris
 And so maybe at some point we can talk about it more.

[00:05:35:09 - 00:06:09:23]
chris
 But for now, this question, I would just clarify that the word more is important. I'm not saying don't listen to voices outside of your local church, but I am saying you should listen to your pastors more. And the reason for that is pretty simple, is that God has called you to be a part of a local church. And in that local church, He's called you to be under the leadership of elders

[00:06:11:03 - 00:06:22:08]
chris
 and specific men who lead that church. And so there is a unique relationship between the shepherd and the sheep. And the pastors, elders,

[00:06:23:09 - 00:06:30:09]
chris
 their job, a part of their job is to care for, watch over, lead, teach,

[00:06:31:09 - 00:06:42:10]
chris
 it's a big part of it, the flock. And so these other Christians, whether they be pastors, Christian leaders, authors or whatever,

[00:06:44:07 - 00:06:48:17]
chris
 they don't have the responsibility to teach us.

[00:06:50:01 - 00:07:16:13]
chris
 They do, and that's good. And I listen to other people, I read a lot of books, and all of that. I'm not discouraging that at all, but they don't have responsibility for us. And we don't have a responsibility to them. And so that Hebrews 13 passage that I quoted on Sunday says, obey your leaders and submit to them as ones who must give account.

[00:07:18:08 - 00:07:23:04]
chris
 So Matt Chandler, for example,

[00:07:24:08 - 00:07:36:13]
chris
 Matt Chandler is not going to give an account for anybody at Harmony Bible Church about how he's shepherded to them. I am. And likewise, so it goes both ways,

[00:07:38:05 - 00:08:06:20]
chris
 the members of Harmony Bible Church are going to give an account for how they have followed the leadership of our church. And so now again, and I said this on Sunday, that means as long as we are leading the church in a God honoring direction, and we're being faithful to what we see in Scripture. I'm not saying that we just follow anybody blindly.

[00:08:08:10 - 00:09:15:20]
chris
 And I think in all of this, there's a passage in Acts where we're told about the Bereans and the Bereans were more noble, Luke tells us, than the Thessalonica, because they took what Paul was teaching them and they went back to the Scripture to see if what he was telling them was true. And so that's true for anything that anybody will hear being taught them at or through Harmony Bible Church. But I just want to stress that that's also true about those outside of our churches as well. And there should, I believe, be more trust in the people that are called to lead you and that you interact with and then somebody on some streaming platform or your podcast or something like that. So I do want to give a further qualification.

[00:09:18:00 - 00:09:33:21]
chris
 I do think there's a difference to the people and the organizations that were listed here. I see a difference even into how much weight we should give to people mentioned there. So for example,

[00:09:35:20 - 00:09:40:09]
chris
 Turning Point is a political action organization.

[00:09:41:11 - 00:09:58:10]
chris
 This is not a Bible teaching organization. So I think that we also have to have discernment in regards to that and not all pastors,

[00:10:00:03 - 00:10:13:08]
chris
 Bible teachers, authors, ministries have equal biblical integrity. So yeah, discernment and all of it. For sure.

[00:10:13:08 - 00:10:44:02]
Brenton
 Yeah. Well, I mean, there's obviously a special charge that you and the pastors here at Harmony have over our people. And that is who our people are called to submit to first. And so I think it follows that the influence should come from our pastors first of all, but then not to discount. There's a lot of wisdom outside of our walls too, right?

[00:10:44:02 - 00:11:10:17]
chris
 Yeah, absolutely. I mean, 100%. I guess my point was like in saying, I encourage you to like our first place that we should go when we're looking for help in discerning what's going on and how to respond to this should be to our local church leaders, not to somebody on the internet.

[00:11:13:11 - 00:11:45:08]
chris
 And I think there's a real danger today and where we start to listen more to the people that we ... And the challenge is like they're very gifted. Many of these, almost all of them are very gifted. And what I mean is like they're charismatic. They've got great speaking gifts. I mean, I'm not trying to have any false humility here, but there are a lot of people that are better preachers than I am.

[00:11:46:14 - 00:12:02:08]
chris
 And so I think that the danger in that is like we get captured by the charisma or the ability of these people. And because we're separated from them and maybe we don't actually know their theology,

[00:12:04:22 - 00:12:53:00]
chris
 below the surface, so to speak, then we can be caught up in ... And I see that honestly happen on a regular basis. We get caught up like these figures and oh yeah, we love these guys or these ladies. And because there's a separation, we sometimes fail to see like where they are theologically and they may have some real issues there. And so in the local church, we have a much better sense and grasp of the theology of the people who are speaking the Word of God to us. And not only that, but hopefully the character as well, which is just as important. So yeah.

[00:12:53:00 - 00:12:53:18]
Brenton
 Okay.

[00:12:54:20 - 00:13:04:12]
Brenton
 All right. Moving on to John 13. So in this passage, Jesus ties humble service directly to his identity as Lord and teacher.

[00:13:05:14 - 00:13:23:01]
Brenton
 You briefly brought up Luke 22, where he gives his account of the Last Supper. The disciples are asking Jesus, "Which one will be the greatest in his kingdom?" And Jesus responds with, "Let the greatest among you become as the youngest." And he points them to humble service from that.

[00:13:25:13 - 00:13:29:15]
Brenton
 What does this tell us about the kind of leaders that the church should raise up?

[00:13:30:19 - 00:13:37:18]
Brenton
 And alongside that, the kind of leadership all of us are called to emulate in our homes, in our workplaces, in our ministries.

[00:13:37:18 - 00:13:43:12]
chris
 Yeah. This is a very good question and I think a very important one.

[00:13:44:20 - 00:13:49:07]
chris
 I love the Mark version of this conversation.

[00:13:50:13 - 00:14:48:05]
chris
 Actually, I should clarify, it probably happened on more than one occasion because Mark relates that happening before the Last Supper. So it seems like the disciples just kind of had this continual issue. But in Mark, Jesus says to them as they're arguing over who's going to be the greatest, you know that those who are considered rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them and they're great ones exercise authority over them. And then Jesus says this verse 43, "But it shall not be among you, but whoever will be great among you must be your servant, and whoever will be first among you must be slave of all. For even the Son of Man came out to be served, but to serve and to give his life is a ransom for many." And it really just goes back to the thing we talked about on Sundays, that Jesus is the example that we're to follow. His life is the pattern for our life.

[00:14:49:11 - 00:15:11:07]
chris
 So Jesus is very strong in Mark 10, 43 through 45, "It shall not be so among you." The way that the world does it is like, we've got the power and we're going to use it and you're going to serve me and I'm going to just wield that. And that's admired.

[00:15:13:09 - 00:15:42:16]
chris
 And Jesus says, "It's not the way of my followers, not the way of my followers because that's not the way that I live my life." And he gives the perfect example. He says, "Hey, I came to serve and I did it by giving my life as a ransom for many." So I think that applies to pretty much any relationship that we are in, but specifically in the relationships where we are in a position of authority.

[00:15:44:02 - 00:16:00:15]
chris
 And most of us are in positions of authority over someone or someones and some of us in multiple positions of authority. So yeah.

[00:16:02:12 - 00:16:14:08]
Brenton
 Yeah, I think that sometimes it can kind of be hard to parse this out because what Jesus is saying is so opposite of what we live in.

[00:16:15:17 - 00:16:33:07]
Brenton
 How can we kind of avoid this idea of living in service to others as not being weak, but actually that being our strength, right? Like how do we make sense of that given the world we live in?

[00:16:35:12 - 00:17:00:10]
chris
 Yeah, I mean, I think it's like continually going back to the fact is that's just not the way that Jesus conducted himself. And we're going to see this repeatedly as we get to the end of the Gospel of John. So you go in the Garden of Gethsemane and Peter starts hacking people's ears off as Jesus is being arrested.

[00:17:01:12 - 00:17:03:22]
chris
 Jesus is kind of like, "Hey, Peter,

[00:17:05:04 - 00:17:06:09]
chris
 if I wanted to, I could call."

[00:17:07:13 - 00:17:10:14]
chris
 It's an infinite literally number of angels down.

[00:17:11:19 - 00:17:23:19]
chris
 And so Jesus had all the power in the world. He did not have to serve people. He could have and yet he chose to. And that is not weakness.

[00:17:26:05 - 00:17:36:16]
chris
 That's strength. I mean, what real strength is, is having the power but choosing not to use it for the good of other people. Now, sometimes we have the power and we need to use it for the good of other people.

[00:17:37:17 - 00:17:55:21]
chris
 So it's not just always like, "Okay, I'm just going to sit back and let it happen." That's actually his weakness. You can be strong and be weak in the sense that you have the ability to do something about some injustice and you don't.

[00:17:57:12 - 00:18:10:06]
chris
 But the strength that we're talking about here and that Jesus modeled is that he did something about injustice, not by exerting his authority and power, but by refusing to do so.

[00:18:11:11 - 00:18:29:05]
chris
 And so we've got to try to get rid of this idea of Jesus as kind of a wallflower a week, man be, pam be. Man, he just like, he wasn't that physically, for going to say he was a construction worker essentially.

[00:18:30:12 - 00:19:33:16]
chris
 And he allowed himself to be like he even talks about, I don't, let me take some of my life from me. I lay it down. I'm giving it up. And we just like over and over and John's going to bring us back to that. So first of all, we recognize that the way of the world is not the way of Jesus. And then understand what the way of Jesus is and that that actually is, it's strength is not weakness. I mean, it just need to think about this. It requires like, at least for me, it requires a lot more self-control and strength to not exert my authority than it does to exert it. Like because of where the Lord has put me in my life, I'm in positions of where I do have a fair amount of like, I hate to use the word power, but like responsibility and authority. It's much easier for me to just to say, "Hey,

[00:19:34:17 - 00:19:46:14]
chris
 do it. I need you to do this. Could we do it?" Or this like, "Hey, this is what we like." And it takes much more strength actually to resist that natural inclination.

[00:19:48:07 - 00:20:14:11]
Brenton
 No, I appreciate you bringing it up. Just Jesus still at times certainly did use his authority and was, you know, he still is absolutely powerful. And I think, you know, we have probably no better place to look than John's last book, Revelation of what the future is going to look like and him is exerting his power and authority. And so certainly there are times where...

[00:20:14:11 - 00:20:22:11]
chris
 Right. We're going to see this week where he looks at Judas and says, "What you're going to do, do quickly." Right? Like he's completely in control.

[00:20:25:01 - 00:20:34:03]
chris
 And actually we see Satan says that when Judas takes the morsel, Satan enters into him. And then Jesus says, "What you're about to do, do quickly."

[00:20:35:07 - 00:20:36:13]
chris
 Who's he talking to there?

[00:20:38:13 - 00:20:45:20]
chris
 Like it's Judas, but it's also Satan. And so, yeah.

[00:20:46:23 - 00:21:01:02]
Brenton
 Yeah. Yeah. Well, like you said, we can have this view of Jesus that's very weak. And I think that separating this stuff and being clear about what we mean by being a servant without taking away his strength and without,

[00:21:02:07 - 00:21:06:22]
Brenton
 you know, yeah. You're right. Okay. Let's move on.

[00:21:08:04 - 00:21:23:04]
Brenton
 You mentioned that our self-focus often leads us to help people in the way that we want to and not in the way that they necessarily need. So how would you say this typically plays out?

[00:21:24:20 - 00:21:43:23]
chris
 Well, I mean, I try to give a personal example on Sunday, but we tend to be just even self-focus in the way that we are helping. We're thinking about ourselves and what we can do and what we're going to do for this person

[00:21:45:18 - 00:22:18:04]
chris
 or these people. And instead of thinking about like them and trying to see them and see the person, not a problem. And so I think just a lot of times, you know, and here's a great way to kind of discern this is like, what do you do when people don't respond the way that you want them to your helping?

[00:22:19:20 - 00:22:24:19]
chris
 When they don't appreciate it, they don't say thank you or worse, they just rebuff you.

[00:22:24:19 - 00:22:25:09]
Brenton
 Yeah.

[00:22:26:10 - 00:23:06:03]
chris
 How do you respond there? It'll tell you everything you need to know about whether you actually are trying to truly serve them and love them. I mean, it's really hard. And if you react negatively, then that means like you weren't just doing it because like I'm called to serve and I want to be, I'm doing it in the spirit of humility. It's actually like, I'm looking to get something out of this. And that really is, I think at the end of like, are we looking to give something really, ultimately, or are we looking to get something? Now, Jesus does say, bless her if you do these things,

[00:23:07:22 - 00:23:10:11]
chris
 but it's the humble surface.

[00:23:10:11 - 00:23:13:00]
Brenton
 Yeah, we'll talk about that a little later. Yeah,

[00:23:15:16 - 00:23:27:02]
Brenton
 I think that kind of brings us into this next one. So you quoted Spurgeon saying that, "That demon of pride was born with us and it will not die one hour before us."

[00:23:29:03 - 00:23:46:18]
Brenton
 Since pride can be so subtle in our minds, what are some ways it presents itself without even realizing it? And maybe that, going back to that last question, maybe that's one way it shows us is that we want to serve the way we want to serve and not necessarily what people need, but what

[00:23:46:18 - 00:24:22:05]
chris
 are some other ways? Yeah, I mean, I think again, it's the way that we respond when people don't respond the way that we want them to, or we were hoping that they do. I would back up on this one and say, I think we should all just assume that we have pride in our hearts and it in some ways impacts virtually everything that we do, every relationship we have. It's with us all the time, even if it's not obvious to us or to other people.

[00:24:23:06 - 00:24:31:13]
chris
 And that's not to say that it dominates our lives or that it's out of control, so to speak,

[00:24:32:22 - 00:24:49:19]
chris
 or that it's something that we need to walk around with our heads hung low because we're just terrible people. But we all ought to be self-aware, hopefully, enough to realize it's lurking.

[00:24:52:00 - 00:24:59:08]
chris
 So I just think that other ways it presents itself is just self-promotion

[00:25:00:17 - 00:25:09:16]
chris
 in the ways that we say things and hoping that people are going to respond or give us attention.

[00:25:11:04 - 00:25:12:16]
chris
 Or recognize us.

[00:25:15:16 - 00:25:29:17]
chris
 It's present in thinking that we deserve something all the time. Like we're owed it, we're deserved it. Pride is there when we believe that God's not being fair to us.

[00:25:31:20 - 00:25:40:13]
chris
 When life doesn't go the way we want it to go, it can well up because we get angry

[00:25:41:16 - 00:25:47:11]
chris
 and pride is lurking in how we respond to our spouses, to our kids, to our co-workers, to our neighbors.

[00:25:50:02 - 00:25:55:20]
chris
 And for me, maybe the best example of this is...

[00:25:58:08 - 00:25:59:08]
chris
 Well,

[00:26:00:10 - 00:26:07:19]
chris
 I'm going to tell them myself here. And on Sunday afternoon,

[00:26:09:16 - 00:26:20:10]
chris
 I went out late afternoon, and I went to the farm king to buy some hunting things because the season is nigh. Praise the Lord.

[00:26:20:10 - 00:26:21:01]
Brenton
 You're getting close.

[00:26:21:01 - 00:26:24:23]
chris
 Praise the Lord. And somebody pulled,

[00:26:26:09 - 00:26:47:16]
chris
 you know, like they were in front of me turning, and they were in front of me, and then they literally stopped in the middle of a four lane, you know, road, like literally stopped. And I like almost ran into the back of them. And well, you can imagine what I did. I laid on the horn and I'm like, and then I look and I saw I pulled around them and

[00:26:49:14 - 00:26:54:04]
chris
 lo and behold, it was somebody I knew. So,

[00:26:56:06 - 00:27:07:04]
chris
 you know, and I don't think they recognize me, but I know, I mean, I'm telling myself we're laughing, but it's like,

[00:27:08:16 - 00:27:29:12]
chris
 I pulled into the farm king bargain lot and I sat in my car and just like, okay, and, you know, Lord and I were, had a moment there. And because that's like, I literally appreciate a message like four hours, five hours before on humility. And then that's, that's like,

[00:27:30:16 - 00:28:03:03]
chris
 you know, I can blame it on I'm tired. It's the lowest part of the week for me Sunday afternoon and all that kind of stuff. But what is that? It's like somebody's inconveniencing me and they did something that like just irritated me. That's that, that's, I don't think I'm probably the only one that has those kinds of experiences. I think you might be. But yeah, yeah, but yeah, I mean, we're thankful. We're blessed here to in Southeast Iowa to live where there's not a ton of traffic.

[00:28:04:16 - 00:28:08:16]
chris
 So this is a lot easier for me than when we lived outside of Chicago.

[00:28:09:20 - 00:28:13:23]
chris
 And so, but anyway, remove temptation. Yeah. Right. Yeah.

[00:28:13:23 - 00:28:47:07]
Brenton
 Yeah. Okay. So you, you did bring up Philippians two, toward the end. And, you know, specifically talking about Jesus, he did not count equality with God, a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself by taking the form of servant. With that in mind, like, how do we actively recognize it and confront pride in ourselves? I know we've, we've talked about this probably many times on, on the show, but

[00:28:48:11 - 00:29:02:06]
Brenton
 is it, is it just a matter of keeping that in mind? Like, are we just focusing on, on what Jesus did in his, in his divineness and giving, you know, putting that aside?

[00:29:03:17 - 00:29:10:17]
Brenton
 Do we look to his example for that or what, what can we do to, to really recognize that and confront it in ourselves?

[00:29:12:14 - 00:29:24:15]
chris
 Well, I think it's really helpful to have people in your life who are willing to, you know, speak the, speak the truth to you.

[00:29:24:15 - 00:29:24:20]
Brenton
 Yeah.

[00:29:26:08 - 00:29:28:07]
Brenton
 It's not easy with a prideful person.

[00:29:29:18 - 00:29:53:08]
chris
 No, it's, it's not, but, but that's where if we, where it takes humility to even receive it when, when somebody is, but in saying, okay, I'm going to, I'm going to give you the freedom to ask me about this and, and, or to point this out in me.

[00:29:54:22 - 00:30:02:21]
chris
 And, you know, I, I, again, it's, I don't know if there's any real,

[00:30:04:13 - 00:30:32:07]
chris
 answers further than what I would go back to all the time. This is where prayer and the word and, and it's, it's so important. And, you know, Proverbs is just full of, I mean, I just repeatedly talking about the dangers of, dangers of pride and the Bible does it over and over again. So maybe I'm not being terribly helpful there and given any, any new things, but the word prayer, people who can, you know,

[00:30:33:15 - 00:30:39:14]
chris
 willing to love you enough to speak the truth to you when you, when you see it.

[00:30:39:14 - 00:30:40:23]
Brenton
 Yeah, for sure.

[00:30:42:23 - 00:30:46:05]
Brenton
 You did spend a little time talking about serving difficult people.

[00:30:47:10 - 00:31:11:01]
Brenton
 And this can obviously be incredibly discouraging, especially when we, we don't see the change or the fruit that we want to see in that person. I think we can, you know, especially as, as we do ministry, I think that that can be a hard thing to, to deal with. How, how would you encourage someone who's growing weary of, of serving

[00:31:12:11 - 00:31:18:13]
Brenton
 in this way that, you know, we're hoping to see results from it, but are not?

[00:31:18:13 - 00:31:19:04]
chris
 Hmm.

[00:31:20:15 - 00:31:56:03]
chris
 Well, I mean, I'll just speak from the vocational ministry part, but this also applies really honestly to anybody who's deeply involved in ministering to people is you, and this actually will get to this on Sunday, where Jesus says, "A new commandment I give to you that you love one another is just recognizing that we were called to, to love and praying that the Lord would give us a love for people. A love, you know, Peter says for us, Peter 4, love covers a multitude of sins.

[00:31:57:08 - 00:32:02:03]
chris
 You know, he's talking about above all, like love one another because love covers a multitude of sins.

[00:32:03:09 - 00:32:06:11]
chris
 And it's, yeah, I mean,

[00:32:07:20 - 00:32:52:08]
chris
 it's just tough. And, and sometimes it's like, okay, you also got to think about boundaries and you got to think about do I have, am I getting enough rest? And, and am I trying to, to do too much? Am I trying to help too many people? Am I, do I have too many difficult situations, relationships that I'm in at any one time? And there may be time for, to take a break or to, to recognize that, you know, we have limits and we need to, as best we can live within limits. But I think also though, it's, it's who are you actually ultimately serving? Are you serving these, the people?

[00:32:53:14 - 00:33:06:06]
chris
 Are you serving the Lord? And, and if you can't, if you have a hard time loving people for themselves, then the times we just need to love people, be out of love for the Lord.

[00:33:07:08 - 00:33:08:08]
chris
 And so,

[00:33:08:08 - 00:33:32:15]
Brenton
 yeah, I think, and maybe that gets more to the base of like, what, what service is in this context. But, you know, as we think about serving other people, are, are we doing that? Should we be doing that with, with their good in mind with them growing because of our service? Or is it purely an act of obedience to, to Christ?

[00:33:33:16 - 00:33:37:21]
Brenton
 Like what, what is, what's our motivation in that? Or what should it be?

[00:33:37:21 - 00:33:50:20]
chris
 Yeah. Well, no, I think that is a really good question. And it's, it's not one to answer necessarily. There's a quick answer to it, but I'll try to be pretty basic here. Pretty simple.

[00:33:52:09 - 00:34:08:21]
chris
 The goal of serving people is that they were help. I talked about that, like it's on Sunday, serving is humility and helpfulness. So helping them and helping them to, to an appointed end of, of growth and specifically growth in Christ.

[00:34:09:21 - 00:34:23:21]
chris
 So there does come a time where if people are not willing to be helms, that, that might put a limit or an end, at least for a time being on our serving them.

[00:34:25:01 - 00:35:00:21]
chris
 And there, there is, there is time for that. Where, where people just like, we're trying and we're doing our best, but they, they do not want to change and they, they, so they don't really want to be helped. And then we may have to step away and say like, we're going to go, I'm going to go serve someone in a way where people really are leaning in. And, and you know, like for me, it's, you know, there, there's time to chase people and certainly you have a wandering sheep or whatever, there's time for that.

[00:35:02:09 - 00:35:13:01]
chris
 But at other times it's like, oh, there's, there's a lot of sheep that are here and they, they, they, they want to be shepherded and they want to be served. So I need to lean in with them.

[00:35:13:01 - 00:35:16:05]
Brenton
 Yeah. Yeah. Okay.

[00:35:18:02 - 00:35:47:17]
Brenton
 Um, yeah. All right. Uh, you, you ended on verse 17, which says, if you know these things, blessed are you if you do them. Uh, your point here was that if we humbly serve others, we will receive joy and fulfillment. Um, in your sermon, you differentiated between happiness and this blessing that Jesus is talking about. Can you define, uh, what you actually mean by joy and fulfillment here? Like what actually comes from our service?

[00:35:49:15 - 00:35:50:22]
chris
 Yeah. Um,

[00:35:52:06 - 00:36:12:00]
chris
 I think that fulfillment means that like, yeah, my, I'm giving myself to things that really do matter. They're meaningful. I have a meaningful life, a full, fuller, fuller life. Like it's not,

[00:36:13:02 - 00:36:18:14]
chris
 um, I think that if we just are serving ourselves and it's just about,

[00:36:19:16 - 00:38:15:01]
chris
 you know, things like accumulation and all of that, like those things eventually become empty. And one of the ways we know they're empty is there's, they're never, we're never satisfied. We're, we're, we're never full. But when we actually pour ourselves out for others and the blessedness is like, like, yes, yes, this, this means something. Yes. This is, this is making a difference. This is what I was created for. Um, because we were created to serve that's, you know, the original creation mandate, you know, go out and fill the earth and subdue it and all of that. And, and so that's the, uh, that doesn't mean that things are hard and it doesn't mean aren't hard. And it doesn't mean that, um, we're always going to be happy. So the difference between happy and blessedness is today. Anyway, happy is a feeling. It kind of comes and goes. Um, and, um, it can go really, really quickly. Um, this blessedness is a joy and contentment and fulfillment that is there even in the midst of, um, the hardness. And so, you know, my, my example here is, is that, uh, there, there can be a lot of difficult days for, um, uh, pastors. Um, and, and, and yet sometimes my most difficult days are also my most blessed days, fulfilled days, because what the Lord enables to happen through the difficulty is that people's, um, you know, lives actually are changed where, whether it's a marriage being saved, um, or, um, someone who, um, is caught in sin and they're restored and they find, you know, forgiveness.

[00:38:16:18 - 00:38:26:12]
chris
 And, and so this can be really, really hard situation and circumstances. But when I have the opportunity to, to serve and see the Lord use that,

[00:38:27:20 - 00:38:30:06]
chris
 even though I might go home and not say I'm necessarily happy,

[00:38:31:15 - 00:38:36:13]
chris
 but I can be like, yeah, I'm blessed to be able to be a part of this. Yeah.

[00:38:37:13 - 00:38:48:19]
Brenton
 Okay. Well, good. I think we'll wrap it up there. Thank you, Chris. Um, if you have any questions, ask it further podcast.com. Thanks tank for producing.

[00:38:51:01 - 00:38:52:15]
Brenton
 All right. Have a good week.