Brenton
 Welcome back to Further. I am Brenton Grimm. Chris Carr, welcome back.

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Brenton
 Thanks.

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Chris
 Good to be back. Good to be back.

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Brenton
 Yeah. Yeah, I want to start this episode with just a little housekeeping. So we are going to be on the 17th. That'll be our next release. And then after that, we're not going to be back until the 14th of January.

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Brenton
 So yeah, a lot of this is kind of holiday time related, and then just getting back into the swinging of things in the new year, as well as we are starting another all-in miniseries. It'll be a two-week series. And so the first week of that will be when we come back here. So Chris, what are we going to be doing in this miniseries? Well, we're going to continue

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Chris
 studying the Great Commandment.

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Chris
 And we've talked about what it means to love the Lord with our heart and with our strength. And now we're going to talk about what it means to love Him with our mind, which is a really very important topic for us to discuss. It'll be a great way to start off a new year and get us going as maybe it'd be time for us to get renewed in pursuing the Lord with how we think and how we engage the brain He has given us.

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Chris
 And we're going to find out that there's a pretty close connection between the brain, the mind, so to speak, and the heart. So I think it's going to be really good for us, and again, a great way to get going in 2026.

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Brenton
 Great.

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Brenton
 All right, well, jumping into John 17 here,

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Brenton
 I don't know, you had made the comment that this is going to Jesus's last will and testament,

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Brenton
 at least the beginning of it. And you even spent some time talking about just how important this text is. And in it, we see this conversation between two members of the Trinity. And it's something that we don't really get in many places in the Bible. And so it's a really special thing to study. But it's essentially his final words before he goes to the cross as well. So as you kind of sat with this text this week, what most stuck out to you?

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Brenton
 And what was on Jesus's heart during these final moments?

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Chris
 Well, you know, this text, I feel a little bit like when you go to Pizza Ranch or some other buffet, it's like, where do you start? Like, you know, there's so much here.

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Chris
 And there was so much that we didn't actually address that we could have addressed. And some of those things Jesus will come back to. He's going to come back to this concept of glory numerous times throughout the rest of chapter 17. We'll see that again this coming Sunday. But just, you know, like even personally, how the,

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Chris
 if we understand this, the warp and woof of reality, if I can say that, all of reality is about the glory of God.

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Chris
 We see and we'll get into this in a little bit. But in chapter five, it's just Jesus saying, like the father and the son had always lived in a relationship where they were giving actually glory to one another, receiving glory from one another. We know from chapter 16 that the Holy Spirit is actually involved in this. So the Trinity has from all time existed inside of relationships amongst the three of the members of the Trinity in which they are celebrating one another's goodness.

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Chris
 And which is maybe a new or strange thought to us. We can get a little bit more into it in this discussion, but to answer your immediate question here is just like, if this is what God is about, then obviously as one of his creatures, then this is what I'm made to be about too.

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Chris
 And my life is only truly gonna find its true meaning and purpose and fulfillment as I give myself to what God has given me for, the purpose for which he has created me. So that's kind of what struck me the most. And just to go a little bit further there, just to see Jesus as he's about ready to go to the cross, he's not actually primarily thinking about himself. He's praying for himself in these verses, but he's praying that the Lord, the Father, would give him what he needs in order to bring glory to the Father. So his priority is on glorifying God, which of course Jesus is not only our Savior, he's also our model, he's our example. And so, yeah, that's probably what was resonating the most with me.

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Brenton
 Was there anything that you would have wanted to get into but didn't have time to?

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Chris
 Yeah, I mean, kind of what I just hit on there is just talking here more about the Trinity.

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Chris
 And I just, because there's a lot there for us, and yet it really was the buffet illustration. It's like, if I try to cover too much here, we're probably gonna just get overfed, so to speak, and not really be able to grasp much of anything. That was a little bit facing that challenge.

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Brenton
 For sure, yeah.

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Brenton
 You defined glory very simply as God's goodness on display, and the word glorifying as celebrating that goodness. I think we've talked about this on here before, that glory is one of those words that maybe a lot of people don't even realize that they're using it as much as they are, and would have a very hard time explaining it. So I appreciate the simple definition. But how, I guess just more broadly, how does viewing God's glory as a number one priority change the way that we view the Christian life, one, but also view God Himself?

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Chris
 Well, that's a big question.

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Chris
 It's a big question because in part, this concept of glory is very complex.

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Chris
 There's many different angles from which to come at it. So another way to understand glory is weightiness,

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Chris
 like value.

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Chris
 And so you can talk about God is the most weighty, valued, heavy,

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Chris
 and so it's connected to His holy. We talk about holy, holy, holy, and so you go down that route, which is connected to His justice, which I did talk about in the cry-me. So this is like,

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Chris
 one of the reasons I think we struggle with it is the word is a little hard to grasp, but it also can be talked about in so many different ways and has so many layers. I think it layers the meaning, it's probably the best way to explain it.

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Chris
 But I think that if we, so we'll go back to this, and maybe this is where we get into verse five, where Jesus says, "Father, glorify me in your presence with the glory that I had with you before the world existed."

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Chris
 So the Father and the Son, and again, from other texts, we include the Holy Spirit in here, that the members of this Trinity have always been in this relationship where in essence, they have been giving glory to one another. And this is where I think it's really helpful to understand it is celebrating their goodness. So they are good, and they are mutually celebrating one another's goodness. They're expressing love towards one another.

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Chris
 They are in some ways serving one another. And I should also say, as I get into this, this is really like, we're treading in very deep, deep water here, okay? And so try to, you know, that is how God always has existed and always will exist, which has many implications. One, it means that God didn't create the world. They didn't create the world because they had need of anything. They had everything. They weren't lonely. They weren't needing affirmation.

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Chris
 They weren't needing love.

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Chris
 And so they created the world, not only for their glory so that we may glorify them, but also to share. Like we might share in their glory. When man's created in God's image, what does that mean? Like it means that A, we're created to do what the members of the Trinity do, but we're also created to experience

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Chris
 the celebration of goodness, to give that, but also to receive it.

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Chris
 And Jesus is actually gonna say,

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Chris
 later in here in chapter 17, I'm shared, Father, I've shared my glory. Like I've given them glory. I guess that's a really, really, the glory that I have. You've given to me, I've given to them.

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Chris
 What does that mean? Like, okay, like that's big, but that actually is where I ended that,

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Chris
 the message with that second Corinthians 3.18, where as we gaze at Him, we are transformed into His image from one degree of glory to another. We're gonna come back to this, I think at the end of the podcast.

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Chris
 But I know it might seem like I'm all over the place, but I'm trying to make the point is like, like all of life is, we say here, around here, we'll say like all of life is worship. That's the same thing as celebrating goodness. It's the same thing. And the reason all of life is worship is because that's what God, like God is about it.

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Chris
 And the members of the Trinity have created us to participate in that, both as a giver and a receiver. Now, we're not a receiver of worship in the sense that like, God's worshiping us or other people should worship us, but they do have created us to be able to experience like that we are good and then we feel love and just, this is where the relational dynamic comes into it. Like this is eternal life. And so I guess at the end of the day is like, if this is what God is about and this is what He's made us for, then life is only ultimately gonna make sense as we give ourselves to it. And we talk about this, you and I, I don't know how many times, half a dozen or more times talked about this over the course of this podcast,

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Chris
 which we're going on, you know,

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Chris
 we're getting on three years here.

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Chris
 We just talked about this as like, we're going to worship something,

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Chris
 right?

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Chris
 So the great, not the great command, the 10 commandments, you shall have no other gods before me. Like God assumes like, we're going to have something, someone that we're gonna worship.

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Chris
 And so it's a matter of whether we're gonna worship

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Chris
 as we were created to and then to function and to experience the life as we were created to or whether we're, it's better between life or death.

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Chris
 You know, Moses, I'll end on this, this question. Moses and Deuteronomy, as he's wrapping up, he's going over the law again,

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Chris
 he's basically re-preaching sermons and some of his final words to the people of Israel before he dies is like, now here I've set before you life and death and choose life. And what is life? Not sure I've know the gods before me. All the other 10 commandments flow out of that one.

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Brenton
 Yeah.

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Brenton
 Yeah, that's a lot of good stuff there. I think that it is common and I think it's easy for us to kind of make man the main character in the Christian story. And I think that has been done for a long time that we're kind of the object that we're, our salvation is like, you know, it's for us. When in fact, I think that scripture is clear that like primarily Jesus came so that he would be glorified, right? So like we are heirs with that and we have, and I think there is great rejoicing that salvation has been accomplished from God. But I think that we kind of get off track if we become the main characters in the story here.

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Chris
 So yeah, all that's to say. Yeah, no, yeah, it's a fantastic point.

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Chris
 Which I think is why we struggle with this, what we talked about on Sunday. Like I think it's, I could be wrong, but I even sensed that Sunday there was a real like,

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Chris
 unsure,

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Chris
 people seem to be unsure about what I was talking about.

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Chris
 And I think that's necessarily anything new, but to see it so just clearly went out, it's like Jesus is going to the cross. He doesn't say, "Now Father, save the world."

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Chris
 Yeah, for sure. He says, "Glorify your son that the son might glorify you." And then, you know, there's eternal life for all who believe that that's how it happens through the salvation of people. But the salvation of people is not the ultimate end of the cross, it's the glory of the Father and the Son.

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Chris
 That's hard for us, and it's not what we've grown accustomed to thinking

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Chris
 about salvation in terms of, but it's a really good corrective because, and I found this in my own life, as long as we are the center, we make ourselves the center, we're going against the fabric of reality.

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Chris
 And if you go against the fabric of reality, things are bound to go wrong.

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Chris
 For sure.

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Brenton
 Yeah, I feel like a lot of these questions are kind of getting interwoven, because I think in some ways, like that comes back to what the definition of eternal life is too, because I think that we often struggle with the idea of it's our way out, right? So Jesus' sacrifice is the way that I can avoid punishment, and that's kind of where it ends. And I think that the church has taught that for a long time,

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Brenton
 but we'll get back to that in a little bit.

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Chris
 Anyway. Well, yeah. Okay, I'll let you get back to it, because I want to talk about it.

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Brenton
 For sure, no, we'll hit that right after this one. This one's also pressing.

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Brenton
 And I think maybe this is the reason that it's hard for people to hear some of this, is as Jesus prays, "Father, glorify your son," that the son may glorify you. I think for some people, it can sound strange. And you even addressed this very briefly on Sunday, that Jesus is asking to be celebrated, right? So the idea of God seeking His own glory is even actually used as an argument against Christianity, we have the idea that God is kind of self-serving, and if we were to act that way, it would be seen as selfishness.

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Brenton
 But thinking through kind of a, through an apologetic lens, like how should we think about this issue of God being jealous for His own glory? And why is it acceptable in this case?

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Chris
 Yeah, I mean, this is, I think, an important topic to dive more into, which makes the name of our podcast here further appropriate, because again, like you said, I just briefly touched base on it, but it really gets back to if God is, is He the most glorious? Is He the goodest is not a word, but is He the greatest person, the greatest thing, the most deserving of glory in the universe, and by definition, that's what it means to be God. Well, then if it is, like it's fully right for Him to seek that, to desire that, because that's what He deserves. And in fact, if God didn't desire it and didn't pursue it,

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Chris
 then He would be worshiping something else.

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 (Laughs)

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Chris
 Because again,

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Chris
 I love the quote Bob Dylan, "You gotta serve somebody." And not that God's gotta serve somebody, but like we,

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Chris
 that's just, that's reality is if God's not seeking it for Himself, then who, what is He seeking it for? And there's nothing else that's more deserving than He is. And so,

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Chris
 and then I just gotta further, really the question is, does God deserve it?

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 (Laughs)

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Chris
 And if He does deserve it, then, you know, we also don't, we don't have a problem celebrating the goodness of things.

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Brenton
 Yeah.

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Chris
 Right? Like nobody does. It might be different things. It's one thing for you, one thing for me. Sometimes they're similar, but we all have different things that we celebrate the goodest. Everybody does it.

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Chris
 I've never met anybody who doesn't celebrate the goodness of something. So we just by nature do it because we know that there are certain things or we feel that there are certain things that like call forth praise from us. Well,

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Chris
 if we truly understand who God is, then that's just the only natural response that we can give them.

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Chris
 But I mean, like you can talk about,

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Chris
 through an apologetic lens,

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Chris
 I just go back to the 2 Corinthians 4 passage and the quote on Sunday is like,

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Chris
 unbelievers, they're just not, they're never going to, you can have the best apologetic in the world. They're never gonna agree with it because they're blind to it.

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Brenton
 Agreed, yeah.

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Chris
 And it has to, it's literally a work of this, it's literally a work of the spirit. So I'm not saying that we should do apologetics. We do do apologetics, but our apologetics on this issue in particular, I think are gonna fall short

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Chris
 as long as the spirit's not involved in working. I don't know, I mean, you're the apologetics guy.

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Brenton
 I think where you landed is probably where I'd go with it is gonna call God selfish, by what standard is he selfish, right? Like I think that,

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Brenton
 yeah, I think that you're right that he is the only one deserving of it. And I think often in apologetics, I think often in apologetics, we can get caught up in defending God when we don't actually need to. That's not actually our job. Yeah.

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Brenton
 We let the truth speak for what it is.

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Chris
 And so- Yeah, let me just say one thing. I think trying to, and we even see this in this passage, trying to help people see that God getting glory is for our good.

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Chris
 Yeah. Like glorify me in Jesus saying, Jesus not just saying like, just worship me for no reason, like cause me to be worshiped, glorify for no reason. And he specifically pointed to the cross and like Jesus being glorified through the cross is what ultimately leads to our eternal salvation. And if we were created for his glory, then him getting glory is the means to which we are fulfilled and we're doing what we were created to do.

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Brenton
 Yeah, I did a little reading on this before cause I was a little at a loss of how to answer that too. And that was actually Piper's response was that, you know, through God glorifying himself, that the byproduct of that is our salvation. And so in that, like there is a lack of selfishness in the way that is like poured out for us, right?

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Brenton
 But again, I would say that's still not primary, that even if he just wanted to glorify himself, it would still be right, right?

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Chris
 Sure, well, again, he used to go back to this, he,

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Chris
 God doesn't need us. And that's a, there's another needed corrective there.

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Chris
 He didn't need us. He didn't have to create the world. Why did he create the world? Yes, he created the world for his glory, but he also as we see, so he can share it with us.

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Brenton
 Yep, all right, onto the one that you wanted to talk about. So you said, you think John 17.3 might be the most important verse in the whole gospel of John because it defines eternal life as knowing the only true God and Jesus Christ.

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Brenton
 How does that definition correct some of the shallow ways that we tend to think about getting saved or going to heaven when we die?

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Chris
 Well, I think this is another, like such a needed corrective.

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Chris
 And I gotta be careful, God, I feel strongly, very strongly, and I've been growing in my feelings about the significance of this for quite some time, but that eternal life is knowing, knowing God, knowing the one true God and knowing Jesus Christ.

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Chris
 And it doesn't say knowing about, and it doesn't say anything about heaven, right? This is eternal life. Like, and John 3 16 is a great, is a great verse, but we have taken it to mean

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Chris
 that we focus on the perish part, not perishing part,

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Chris
 instead of understood what it means to have eternal life.

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Chris
 And have missed this theme that runs all throughout John, that Jesus came to earth to show us the Father.

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Chris
 I love the first Peter 3 18 passage, where Peter says that Christ suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous. And then here's the last line, that He might bring us to God.

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Chris
 Why did Jesus die for us? So that we might be brought to God. And if we understand this is where biblical theology is so important, and just want you to tell everybody the difference between biblical theology and systematic theology real quick, which is to be helpful for everybody to know.

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Brenton
 Yeah, systematic theology is essentially like you're picking topics, things like the theology proper, who is God, what is God's character, and soteriology, the study of salvation, and running through that systematically, whereas biblical theology is more about the entire Bible and the themes throughout it. So starting with creation and fall, and redemption and restoration,

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Brenton
 what does the Bible have to say about God specifically?

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Chris
 Yeah, that's good.

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Chris
 Good job, back to a regularly scheduled question.

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Chris
 This is where biblical theology, understanding what the Bible's story is from beginning to end is that Adam and Eve were made to live in relationship with God. They did, they walked with God. Genesis 1 and 2 tells that. Our sin came in and disrupted that, and so they were exiled from God's presence.

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Chris
 God said, "I'm going to send one day a rescuer, "a redeemer to undo what sin and Satan has done."

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Chris
 And that's why Jesus came to pay the penalty for our sins, not just so that we can have a nice live happily ever after kind of thing up in the clouds somewhere with our friends and family members and all of that.

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Chris
 Those are all side benefits.

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Chris
 He came and died so that we could be restored to a relationship with God, and that restoration is both already and not yet. And what I mean is like we are restored, but we are not currently experiencing the full benefits and blessing to that. But that's the end of the story is, and we see in Revelation 21 and 22 as the Bible is ending, the new heaven and new earth is coming down.

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Chris
 And God says, "Now the dwelling of God is with man."

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Chris
 That's where it ends. The dwelling of God is with man. We focused on the heaven in the physical place, and it is a physical place. And it will have a lot of incredible delights, but the greatest one is gonna be restored to the Creator. So, you mentioned Piper Piper's got a book called God is the Gospel.

[00:30:54:19 - 00:30:54:20]
 (Laughs)

[00:30:54:20 - 00:30:56:11]
Chris
 And I love that title.

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Chris
 And so I think the problem,

[00:31:03:10 - 00:31:21:15]
Chris
 one of the big problems when we think of eternal life simply as going to heaven when you die is like, we just separate our Christianity from our relationship with God. And we don't think about it in those terms. And it's just not what it is.

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Chris
 And so I think that's gonna play a part in things that Jesus is gonna address in the rest of John 17. Like this, we're gonna see about sanctify them in truth. That word is truth. Like what's Christian life about?

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Chris
 Large part is about sanctification.

[00:31:38:05 - 00:31:38:06]
 (Laughs)

[00:31:38:06 - 00:31:55:14]
Chris
 But if it's, if salvation is we just go to heaven when we die, well then, okay, I'm in, I'm in and like I can kind of go on and live my life the way I want to. I don't really need to worry about Paul and Christ. I don't really need to worry about, you know,

[00:31:57:06 - 00:32:23:21]
Chris
 all the church sharing the gospel, communion with Christ and all those kinds of things. And then I think we end up quite frankly in a place that we are in the church in the West today, where we have an, largely we have an anemic Christianity where we look a little different at times from the world.

[00:32:26:12 - 00:32:27:08]
Chris
 And so,

[00:32:28:23 - 00:32:39:16]
Chris
 and I think there's also then, I'll finish, here's the biggest danger is we got a whole swath of people who think because they prayed a prayer at some point, walked an aisle, got into baptism,

[00:32:40:21 - 00:32:45:11]
Chris
 baptism will tank, will die, ask Jesus into their heart.

[00:32:46:15 - 00:32:53:03]
Chris
 That that means that they're saved.

[00:32:55:03 - 00:33:14:02]
Chris
 And because that's all, that's just that, instead of like, no, what do you know? Do you know God? Like not just about him, but do you have a relationship with him? And as I defined it on Sunday, which is an experience of his goodness

[00:33:15:05 - 00:33:22:04]
Chris
 and celebrating his goodness and a lot of different things that are entailed in that. So, yeah.

[00:33:23:09 - 00:33:23:15]
Chris
 Yeah.

[00:33:25:08 - 00:33:27:18]
Brenton
 I think all that's really important.

[00:33:29:16 - 00:33:43:23]
Brenton
 Then I think, yeah, no, you're definitely right about that last one. And even like, you know, evangelicals weren't the only ones to do that stuff too. They had a lot of, I remember a lot of confirmations happening when I was young and those were, you know, those are still used as.

[00:33:43:23 - 00:33:50:00]
Chris
 Yeah, yeah, it's not just, No. Yeah, I'm just right.

[00:33:50:00 - 00:33:53:16]
Brenton
 I lived through those days too, of ask Jesus into your heart and raise your hand and yeah.

[00:33:53:16 - 00:33:55:07]
Chris
 Yeah, I mean, it's just like,

[00:33:56:11 - 00:34:05:00]
Chris
 I hope this won't sting too bad, but there's nothing in the Bible where we're ever told to ask Jesus into our heart.

[00:34:07:13 - 00:34:30:22]
Chris
 And no, we're asked to surrender to his Lordship. We're asked to place our, you know, like we're called to place our faith, like which means to trust him, turn our lives, put our lives into his, his hands and so, but at the end of the day, what the point of all of that is like God,

[00:34:33:00 - 00:34:42:02]
Chris
 God created us for relationship with him. And he loves us so much that he sent Christ so that that relationship could be restored. That's salvation.

[00:34:44:06 - 00:34:55:12]
Brenton
 Yeah, yeah, Jesus calls to us, we're far more scary than let them into your heart. I think the, you know, pick up your cross and carry it and repent,

[00:34:56:12 - 00:35:11:00]
Brenton
 right? These are, in verse four, he says, "I glorified you on earth, having accomplished the work that you gave me to do." What work is he talking about there since it's in the past tense and he is not crucified yet?

[00:35:11:00 - 00:35:32:19]
Chris
 Yeah, so one thing, if you study this passage, you'll find that there's quite the gamut of different interpretations about all kinds of things in this text and that's particularly true with verse four. Of course, the two primary ones are Jesus is talking about,

[00:35:34:06 - 00:35:41:07]
Chris
 you know, his teaching and his miracles and cleansing of the temple and just all of those things to date.

[00:35:43:00 - 00:35:53:17]
Chris
 And then the other one is where Jesus is basically looking looking forward and he's speaking, you know, like,

[00:35:55:05 - 00:35:55:16]
Chris
 I have,

[00:35:56:21 - 00:36:06:20]
Chris
 as I am about to, I'm going to, and so as I do this, that's glorify me, that's on my glorify you.

[00:36:08:19 - 00:36:16:06]
Chris
 I think it's tricky to know exactly which one is correct. I would lean to that he's speaking

[00:36:18:18 - 00:36:31:17]
Chris
 as if like it's already been accomplished. And he's talking about, I believe, you know, and I say this tentatively that he's talking about the finished work on the cross, even in that verse.

[00:36:33:18 - 00:36:41:13]
Chris
 And just give him what he says in verses two and three about eternal life. So yeah, I mean,

[00:36:43:01 - 00:36:47:19]
Chris
 I don't know, I don't think it makes a ton of difference.

[00:36:49:07 - 00:36:49:12]
Chris
 No.

[00:36:49:12 - 00:36:54:14]
Brenton
 Yeah. No, but yeah, there's always those verses that just read a little weird.

[00:36:54:14 - 00:36:59:08]
Chris
 Well, and he says, you know, I've accomplished the work that you gave me to do.

[00:37:00:16 - 00:37:19:02]
Chris
 I don't know, like, if Jesus had just stopped to work it, like if the work had stopped at that point without the cross, that's God didn't just send Jesus to preach and perform some miracles. So, but yeah.

[00:37:19:02 - 00:37:25:22]
Brenton
 Fair enough. All right, you will end with this one. So you ended by quoting 2 Corinthians 3.18.

[00:37:27:08 - 00:37:55:20]
Brenton
 You said that as we behold God's glory, that we're being transformed from one degree of glory to another and that's verbatim from the text. And that as we celebrate God's goodness, we ourselves become good. And these are some things that you've mentioned already in the show today, but I'm curious, where have you seen that transformation play out? Maybe in the life of our church, maybe personally, like what examples can you give of that?

[00:37:57:23 - 00:37:58:14]
Chris
 Well, I,

[00:38:00:01 - 00:38:22:09]
Chris
 thankfully, and I'm so grateful that I get to see this happen in so many ways. And really, when I say ways, so many different people's lives about how they are transformed into people who more and more reflect the image of Christ.

[00:38:24:05 - 00:38:38:20]
Chris
 And again, like that is the Christian life. Like in the 2 Corinthians 3.18, we're being transformed into His image, the image of Christ, which is the Christ, you know, he resells, he's the image of the invisible God.

[00:38:40:11 - 00:38:43:04]
Chris
 And so this just takes place as, you know, we see,

[00:38:44:07 - 00:39:04:18]
Chris
 you know, on Sunday, I interacted with a guy who, a few, you know, not too long ago within the last couple of years, had really messed up his life, his marriage, and the Lord used the people in our church.

[00:39:06:06 - 00:39:23:01]
Chris
 To like bring him back and to see the marriage restored. And I mean, this is one of those things that breaks marriages and things. And like, and so there's that kind of story. I interacted with a young man who,

[00:39:25:03 - 00:39:51:15]
Chris
 he's in his early 20s, but just a few years ago, he was going down a really bad path. He's one of those long shots, like we talked about in our all in journey. And like people were like, no way. And then he's here, like his life's been changed. And a lot of other people, like he's like on fire. And so that's good, like, there's goodness being there. Then I see our people, sacrificially loving,

[00:39:53:14 - 00:40:05:06]
Chris
 giving generously. I mean, again, we're in this all in journey and people like have really, really committed significant resources in order to be able to see that happen.

[00:40:06:11 - 00:40:26:07]
Chris
 I see it on a regular basis, the people just laying down their lives sacrificially for the least and the lost here in Southeast Iowa, West Central Illinois. Today in our staff chapel, you know, like you'll be got to spend some time with some of our field staff that are ministering in one of the most difficult places on earth,

[00:40:27:07 - 00:40:39:15]
Chris
 where, you know, we can't say too much. And like, I guess I need to leave it at that, but people are making very significant sacrifices.

[00:40:41:08 - 00:41:04:01]
Chris
 And it just goes, it goes on and on and on and on. Yeah, so I could tell stories all day, but like our counseling ministry, it's just like going gangbusters. I mean, like there's a lot of need, so it's a hard space.

[00:41:05:04 - 00:41:42:03]
Chris
 Maybe I'll just, I'll finish with this one. Last Friday, I did the funeral for an eight year old girl in our church who's has very serious disabilities, mental and physical disabilities. And you know, many of us here at Harmony have watched our parents for almost nine years, just, I mean, it was hard, really, really hard. And they just, and they tell you, it was really, really hard. They didn't shy away from it, but that's goodness.

[00:41:43:04 - 00:42:11:08]
Chris
 And there's goodness in that. And there's a goodness in our people who have loved them and supported them and prayed for them. And it's just, you know, we have at least two other people in our church, probably more than this, I'm sure, but like in the front of my mind who are literally dying from cancer, like they may not make it through the end of the year.

[00:42:13:19 - 00:42:20:11]
Chris
 And our church is just like come alongside and love them. And that's goodness.

[00:42:22:14 - 00:42:32:17]
Chris
 And yes, you see some of that goodness in the world. I'm not, you know, they're just common grace, but this is a different level and from a different motivation.

[00:42:34:08 - 00:42:35:00]
Chris
 Sure. Yeah.

[00:42:35:00 - 00:42:39:04]
Brenton
 It's good. We'll wrap it there. Appreciate it, Chris.

[00:42:39:04 - 00:42:39:15]
Chris
 Yeah.

[00:42:40:22 - 00:42:52:09]
Brenton
 Yeah, we'll be, like I said, we'll be back next week and then be taking a break. But if you do have any questions, please feel free to send us an email, ask at furtherpodcast.com. And we'll talk to you next week. Thanks everybody.

[00:42:53:15 - 00:42:56:16]
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