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

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Chris
 OK. Here we are, full into the Christmas season. Actually, this is our last podcast of the year, I believe. Is that right?

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Brenton
 Yeah. Yep. So-- Last one.

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Chris
 Yeah, I want to say thank you to you, Brenton, and also Tank. Sure. Nobody hears from Tank, unless he laughs. Now and again. True. And we're not that funny, so-- But he's in the room with us, and helping make this go. So thanks to you guys, and appreciate all your work on it. And looking forward to another year ahead.

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Brenton
 Yeah, for sure. Yeah, Tank has taken a lot off my plate with this. He's started to edit all the episodes, and take care of the back end of it. So really appreciative of him.

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Brenton
 Also, you got a birthday coming up, right? I do. This weekend. This weekend. You want to talk about it, or-- I mean, it's just-- Just don't move on.

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Chris
 I mean, it's just another one at my age. But it's like--

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Chris
 I've been talking about this, but I do have a grandson that's coming sometime here shortly. And he's due the day after my birthday. It'd be pretty special if he's more on the-- Happy birthday, buddies. Yeah. But obviously, the big thing, mom and baby to be healthy, and it'll be great no matter when he's born. So-- Yeah.

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Brenton
 All right. Well, happy early birthday. Thank you. All right. So I want to start the same way we did last week with so much. It's such a dense passage here. What are some topics from this passage that didn't make the cut for your sermon?

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Chris
 Well, we may get into this this week. I have some big decisions, again, to make exactly what we're going to talk about from our passage. If you're wondering why I say that, there's just more than can possibly be covered in one sermon. And that's true most weeks, but it's especially true here in John 17.

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Chris
 And so one big thing that Jesus keeps coming back to is he talks about the world over and over and over again.

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Chris
 There's a few words in John 17 that are repeated numerous times. We've talked about one glory. We talked about another one this past week, give, like the Father giving us to the Son, and the Father giving the Son his words, and the Son giving us his words. And we're given eternal life. And so we got that. But the world here, especially as we get to the latter half of the chapter, is a topic that Jesus keeps coming back to.

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Chris
 And maybe as a reminder of what the world is, it's not talking about the earth, but rather people as opposed to God,

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Chris
 people that are outside of his people. They aren't his people, or at least haven't become his people yet through faith in Jesus.

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Chris
 And people, Christians have different approaches to the world. And as normal, there are two opposite extremes.

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Chris
 There's the one that don't see any distinction between us and the world. They don't see themselves as distinct from the world, or at least they don't live as if they're distinct from the world. And whatever the world gives itself to, they give themselves to. That's obviously in error. We can even see that from our passage. The world should,

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Chris
 you know, we should experience some hatred from the world, or opposition maybe is a better word. So that by nature means that we're not, you know, associated with the world in the sense of everything that they do, everything they give themselves to, every way that they think. Then the other extreme is where Christians just say, we're gonna completely separate ourselves from the world, and we're gonna kind of live in our own little Christian bubble as much as we can.

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Chris
 That temptation can be really appealing, and can be understanding why we want to do so. So we're just gonna completely,

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Chris
 and there's different measures of this. Some people go completely, we're gonna separate ourselves from the world as much as possible,

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Chris
 kind of like the Amish approach.

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Chris
 And then there's different levels of whether it has to do with how much we're gonna interact with the world, period. But Jesus says, like, I'm not praying that you would take them out of the world, but to keep them from the evil one. And so what we see here is we're to be in the world, but not of the world. And we're to be in the world, actually for the sake of the world. Jesus actually just says, not only are you in the world, I'm sending you into the world. And that's a really, really, really tough thing, is how are we in the world for the sake of the world without becoming like the world?

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Chris
 And that takes a great degree of intentionality.

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Chris
 For sure. So I don't know, we can go a lot, many ways with that, but that could consume this entire episode, but I'll put

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Brenton
 it back to you then. I even find that it's easy to accidentally fall into this kind of separation between your kind of Christian circles and outside of that, because those of us who are really involved with our local churches, it's really easy to completely fill up your schedule with church activities, right? And so at that point, you almost need to make like an actual concerted effort to go outside of that to have any effect on the world around us, right? And I think I've just found that in my own life that I'm on staff here at the church, and so I'm surrounded by believers almost all the time.

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Brenton
 And it's, you need to recognize how much time like you are actually spending pouring into people that needed outside of the church as well, so yeah.

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Chris
 Yeah, yeah, and I mean, this impacts all kinds of things like education choices for our children.

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Chris
 And I'm not advocating one approach or another.

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Chris
 We take different ones. Yeah, we do, and I think that that's permissive. I think that the Bible gives parents the freedom to conscientiously and prayerfully make decision about how their children should be educated.

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Chris
 I think, but it also applies, you know, like as we think about our work and the places that the Lord calls us there and the opportunities there, and even parents who choose to homeschool, like you do, I know, your kids have activities, right? And so-- Too many. Yeah, but there are opportunities that are there, and we even just have opportunities. Like one thing I'm trying to do more is you go out to a restaurant, you gotta wait at a waitress, and like how can I even just minister to them? And one of the great things I've seen recently, like there's a waitress at one of our local restaurants that I've known for years and years, and just, you know, she knows me by name, and I know her by name, and she started recently to come. And that's not because of me, but I just, you know, you do try to be kind and gracious and give people like, okay,

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Chris
 maybe there is something here that can help attract them to the Lord and to give an opportunity to preach the gospel. So anyway, I mean, there's a lot of, there's just like, again, I think that we gotta be really, really careful, because I think there's a lot of Christians who are just like, we're in the world, and we're gonna give ourselves what the world gives us too. And we're gonna give ourselves what the world gives us too, and we really don't see like there should be any distinction in the places that we go, the things that we listen to, watch,

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Chris
 and experience. And I just think that that's just very obviously should be from Scripture, like problematic. But then there's the other thing is like, we're just gonna pull out, and we're gonna hunker down and wait till Jesus comes, and we're gonna make sure that nothing from the world stains us, and the problem there is then what happens so often is that we ignore that there's still the world in our hearts, even if we completely separate it. And so,

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Chris
 yeah, and the mission, like the mission, like we, and we are gonna talk about this this Sunday,

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Chris
 but we have a mission that we've been given.

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Chris
 And that is for the sake of the world. Yeah, for sure, okay.

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Brenton
 This is probably something that I should have asked last week, but why is John 17 referred to as the high priestly prayer?

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Brenton
 You know, we obviously like refer to Jesus as the prophet, priest, and king. What is this priestly role?

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Chris
 Yeah, I mean, I'm not terribly crazy about this label. Interesting, okay.

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Chris
 I mean, okay, great, but I'm not a big fan of labels. That's probably not a shocker at this point.

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Chris
 But a priest is someone who goes before God for you.

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Chris
 So that, I mean, that's what Jesus is doing, but his priestly role is his,

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Chris
 in terms of like, he's the mediator. And so he is praying for us, but we gotta be careful that we don't get the idea, like, okay, Jesus is praying for me. So I,

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Chris
 you know, he's praying for me. So I'm good like over here in that sense, like we can go directly. For sure.

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Chris
 Through Christ, like through Christ, but directly to him. So I mean, the priestly role, he's praying for us, he's interceding for us. We get the heart of our priests. I just don't find it terribly helpful. I mean, it isn't like, okay, great.

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Chris
 Yeah, interesting. I have mentioned overnight, like he's praying, these are his desires for us, but like for you, what does it mean, what does it mean for you?

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Brenton
 Yeah, I mean, I think some of those labels come from, especially the priests, like comes from the Old Testament. So the priests were the intermediaries between men and God.

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Brenton
 And now Jesus fills that role in that, we come through him as we pray. But also like, I think that this is like special passage where we actually get to see him interceding how he actually intercedes for us. Yeah.

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Chris
 So, yeah. And that's fair. For me, I like look at the passage and I say, there's nothing in here about Jesus being our priest. And so it's just like, that's something we look at and say, okay, we put that label on here. And it's true, like it's not wrong to look at it that way. It's just, it doesn't seem to me to be the main point that we're supposed to take from it. I get that.

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Brenton
 All right, so you said that one thing that concerns you is that Christians are often shocked when persecution comes.

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Brenton
 And you said that the response a lot of times can be to go on the offensive rather than to do what Jesus calls us to do which is to rejoice.

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Brenton
 Can you just kind of unpack that a little more? What are you trying to get across there?

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Chris
 Yeah, I mean, we go to the Sermon on the Mount,

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Chris
 the last beatitude, blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are you and others revile you and persecute you and are all kinds of you against you falsely on my account. Rejoice and be glad for your reward is great in heaven. For so they persecuted the prophets who came before you.

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Chris
 And so, you know, what Jesus is saying here is like, this is a sign that you're in the kingdom.

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Chris
 Great is your reward in heaven. There's actually blessings that don't come because you are persecuted, but because of what the persecution actually reveals about you, that you're in the kingdom and that you're willing to endure persecution for the sake of Christ.

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Chris
 And so that just like, I just,

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Chris
 I see Christian on a regular basis, like just like sometimes losing their minds over the fact that the world is like, you know, on the offensive or attacking or like saying things about us that often aren't true,

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Chris
 misrepresenting things, or in some ways, you know,

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Chris
 most of our persecution here in the US is mild,

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Chris
 comparatively speaking, and a lot of times it's just words.

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Chris
 And some people might push back on that, but also our persecution, like the Christian media oftentimes blows up

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Chris
 things to make it worse than it really is. And so I just like,

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Chris
 I think we've got to be really, really careful that we step back and we say, okay, like what is this, what's really going on here? And what does this really, really mean? I'm not saying it doesn't mean we shouldn't be concerned. It doesn't mean that we don't, especially as American citizens stand up for our rights and the freedoms that we have as citizens, but just like, how do we do that? What's kind of attitude? Where's our heart? Is it a fear or is it okay?

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Chris
 You know, how are we going to engage in this conversation?

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Chris
 And how do we respond when people, when we're wronged? Yeah.

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Chris
 And I see a lot of it, oh, okay, you're going to push, you're going to push us, we're going to push back, and we're going to push back twice as hard. And that's just not, that's not what Jesus modeled. And that's not, not only what he modeled, it's not what he taught. And I think that that's a really important point is sometimes we go, well, that was Jesus, but it's not only what he did, it's what he actually taught. And the beatitudes in particular are Jesus, like, this is discipleship, like discipleship 101. Yeah.

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Brenton
 Yeah, and that was kind of my followup to this too, is like how, how can we balance like standing firm against opposition? And, you know, we, we have a responsibility to impact culture, right? And so we want to, we don't want to shrink back from any of that, but, but not do it in a retaliatory way. Like how do we see Jesus fulfilling what he's preaching there in the way that he impacts culture as he interacts with, with the Pharisees and with, with his opposition. How does, how does he fulfill that?

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Chris
 Well, let's, let's talk about maybe Pilate,

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Chris
 which we're going to get the opportunity to do. Like, like what is, what is Jesus, what's his interaction with Pilate? Like he, first of all, he, he recognizes Pilate's authority

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Chris
 and, you know, no authority would be given to you unless it was given from above. But, but he doesn't say you don't have authority. He says, you, I'm recognizing it, but, but then at the same time, where's the authority come from? Okay. So there's that. He speaks truth to Pilate. Like he, he, he clearly declares it. And of course Pilate says, what is truth? But, but he, he, he's speaking the truth, but then he also, he's not fighting back in, you know, like, and we go to the Garden of Semany, we'll see at the beginning of chapter 18, Peter takes out the sword, cuts off Malchus's ear and like, put your sword back in here, you know.

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Chris
 And, and then Jesus also says to Pilate, and I think this is really important, my kingdom is, or Pilate says, are you a king? And he says, yeah, I am.

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Chris
 There's a, like, that's, that's true. But my kingdom is not of this world. And I think that that's really important is like, we have a king, but we gotta realize that his, his kingdom is, is not of this, this world. And what are the, what is the king? What does that kingdom look like when we're, we're praying and here's another prayer,

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Chris
 that what's known as the Lord's Prayer, your kingdom come.

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Chris
 Yeah. What does it look, what is it going to look like for his kingdom to come in this situation?

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Brenton
 So. That's interesting. So what do you mean by that? Obviously Jesus says that his kingdom is not of this world, but what, what do you think the implications are of that?

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Chris
 Well, I think he, he's just trying to say, I'm not at this point a political king. Okay.

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Chris
 I'm, I'm, I'm, he's, because that's what the Jews want him to do, right? They want him to overthrow the Romans. And what Pilate would have been worried about,

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Chris
 and with the Romans as whole, we've been worried about is these,

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Chris
 especially with the Jewish people,

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Chris
 a Messiah, a king trying to come and usurp authority. And that's what, you know, the Jewish people, especially around this time, there, there, there was repeatedly these, these guys who would, I'm the Messiah, I'm going to come the king and all this, and all that kind of stuff. And then the Romans would have to put down a, a basically a political revolt. And so Jesus says that's, that's not, that's not me.

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Brenton
 Yeah. Yeah. I'm just reading ahead a little bit here, verse 36 in chapter 18, says, my kingdom is not of this world. If my kingdom were of this world, my servants would have been fighting, that I might not be delivered over the Jews, but my kingdom is not from the world. Yeah.

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Chris
 I mean, it's, it's tough. I think, I think I, if I'm wrong here, you can redirect me, but I, but I think what you're going to add is like, how do we as Americans when, you know, how do we stand for the, for what's right?

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Chris
 And, and, and, and yet at the same time,

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Chris
 not, not fight as the world fights. And that's a, that's a, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's difficult, but it's, it's, it's ultimately like our allegiance is to, is to Christ. And, and that, that, that doesn't, that actually will mean being political sometimes, because there are political issues that are, that our King would call us to, to fight for. And so discerning what those are,

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Chris
 and, and, and what are the things that,

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Chris
 that are really not. And then the big thing underneath it all, what is our attitude? What is our approach? And how do we, how do we, how do we speak about these things?

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Chris
 Yeah.

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Chris
 What words do we say? And how do we actually, how do we actually say them? Yeah.

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Brenton
 Yeah. I think there just could be a concern, like you talked about earlier, kind of us separating from the world to, to kind of have an attitude of like, okay, we just got to turn the other cheek. Everything's fine, right? Jesus is going to rescue us. I think that's, that's not what Jesus calls us to do either. Right?

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Speaker 3
 So yeah.

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Chris
 Yeah. Okay. Yeah. I mean, I mean, there's a whole host of issues that we can, we could talk about.

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Brenton
 Okay. You, you also talked about opposition coming from Satan. And this is based on verse 15, where Jesus prays that the father would keep his disciples from the evil one.

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Brenton
 When we look out at our culture, we look at, you know, the evil that, that we are seeing every day, how, how should we think about the role of Satan in, in all that versus it being like, just the consequences of our own sin.

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Brenton
 Can I say, I don't know. Yeah. And I don't even know what answer I'm looking for here. I just maybe kind of a personal, cause I just like, I kind of struggle, like my, my first reaction to a lot of the stuff we see is like, well, that's just us, like, wretches being wretches, right? And so, but I think there can be the other side of that, of like, everything is Satan's fault.

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Brenton
 How should we kind of think about balancing those two things?

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Chris
 Right. I don't know if these two things ever operate independently of one another. Okay.

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Chris
 And so back to the first Peter five,

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Chris
 Satan's like a roaring lion,

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Chris
 looking for someone to devour. Well, how does he devour us? I think inherent there is he devours us through, tempting us to sin.

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Chris
 And I must say that that's the only way that he operates. It could be through like trying to through persecution.

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Chris
 And I think we even have evidence that he does have the power to impact us physically.

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Chris
 I think there's instances in the New Testament that would bear that out. I think that that's limited. And I don't think we should think that that's the primary way that he actually acts, but I do think that that certainly can be the case. And we see that from Joe, like even in Job's story, it's obvious like God does at times give Satan the ability or the, I mean, I'll call it the authority to

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Chris
 bring physical harm to us.

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Chris
 But I do think most of the time, and we see this bear borne out in the New Testament repeatedly is he's like, even with Jesus, he's tempting us to sin. He's bringing things into our life. And I think, so let's bring the world into this.

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Chris
 How does Satan do that? A lot of times he does, he bring tempts us to sin through the world, through his influence. He's the God of this world.

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Chris
 And so,

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Chris
 whether it's through, I mean, one of the major ways in my opinion, he's doing it right now is through pornography.

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Chris
 That's sin, the sin of people, but there's no doubt that he is influencing it and trying to use that to destroy. And he's being very, very successful at it. So in short, I think the answer is,

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Chris
 yeah, I don't think we can ever step back and we can just say, you know, Satan, he's there and it's all him and we have no responsibility.

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Chris
 And yet I don't think we can simply say all of,

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Chris
 I mean, Jesus wouldn't say keep from the evil one.

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Chris
 If he wasn't real and if he didn't really know,

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Chris
 attack us.

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Brenton
 You gave an illustration that I think was really helpful of you holding your grandson's hand and protecting him from, in this case, the train.

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Brenton
 And your point was that, you know, our safety rests not in our grip on God, but in his grip on us. And so why is it important for us to realize that truth, that it's actually God holding on to us?

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Brenton
 You know, there's a lot of people that would disagree with that, right? So why is it important for that to be true?

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Chris
 Yeah,

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Chris
 so first,

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Chris
 and this might be alcohol of course, but I think it's important that we always affirm this. This is what the Bible teaches.

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Chris
 And I just wanna say, I know that there are good, godly brothers and sisters who disagree with that statement.

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Chris
 But I would say it very, very strongly, like this is what the Bible teaches, and over and over again, and we've seen it in John literally time and time again.

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Chris
 And I know that there are some passages that might make us say, well, no, it seems like you can. But I think if you look at the, we talked about biblical theology as a whole last week.

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Chris
 And if you look at the Bible as a whole,

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Chris
 and the passages that might seem to teach that we can lose our salvation,

[00:29:02:13 - 00:29:07:19]
Chris
 they need to be interpreted in light of the very clear teachings specifically of Jesus.

[00:29:09:09 - 00:29:23:17]
Chris
 So when Jesus says, my sheep are in my hand, and not only in my hand, they're in the father's hand, and no one can take that hand. It's like, you gotta really interpret these other passages in light of that.

[00:29:25:01 - 00:29:27:02]
Chris
 But then with that said,

[00:29:29:06 - 00:30:02:08]
Chris
 it's so important for us to realize that because if we are the ones that secure our salvation, then our salvation can be lost because we all know that we are flawed, we are weak people, and we may have a hard time admitting that, but it will create fear. And this is what it does, is it creates fear in people that somehow I'm gonna lose my salvation because if it rests on me, I know what I'm capable of.

[00:30:04:17 - 00:30:26:03]
Chris
 And I know what I'm also incapable of. Look at it both ways. And so I think if we're the ones that secure our salvation, that means our salvation is at risk. And if our salvation is at risk ultimately, that means that God's word and His promises to us may be found to be untrue.

[00:30:27:14 - 00:30:55:04]
Chris
 And yeah, I think it just creates fear. And it doesn't actually, I think, lead to, or it can harm our ability to have a solid foundation of hope and trust in the Lord that frees us from this burden and fear of being lost.

[00:30:55:04 - 00:30:58:23]
Brenton
 Yeah, there's a lot of responsibility. I mean, why would you answer the question? Why would you say it's important

[00:31:02:08 - 00:31:19:11]
Brenton
 to you? Well, I think you're right that given the Bible's anthropology, right? We have no ability in ourselves to save ourselves. And so how would we have any ability to hold on to that salvation?

[00:31:21:11 - 00:32:05:00]
Brenton
 But I think that there is a weight that comes off knowing that no matter what, that Jesus is the one that secures our salvation. I mean, we saw in John six as well, you quoted John 10, but John six says that all of the ones that the Father gives me, I will raise them up on the last day, right? And like that is, that coming from Jesus is, I think all the security you need knowing that that's not my job. It's not my job to raise them up. To raise me up on the last day. It's Jesus that promises to do that. And so there's just a amazing amount of security that comes with that.

[00:32:06:03 - 00:32:14:09]
Chris
 So, yeah. Well, the more and more I work with people and I study,

[00:32:15:15 - 00:32:31:07]
Chris
 the more I recognize that security is so important to us. Security is so important to a healthy Christian life, really to a healthy life period. And that everybody has some level of insecurity

[00:32:33:07 - 00:32:36:12]
Chris
 and the more secure that we feel in Christ,

[00:32:37:19 - 00:33:03:04]
Chris
 probably the healthier we are gonna be. Because when we're insecure, or I mean, there's all kinds of like, we have anxiety, we end up with anxiety. We end up oftentimes living in fear. And then we also end up giving ourselves to things in developing habits and harmful behavior to try to make ourselves secure.

[00:33:06:18 - 00:33:16:16]
Chris
 Like this thing over here, if I can have that, I can give myself to that or whatever. I need to be secure. We all want to be secure.

[00:33:18:22 - 00:33:46:19]
Chris
 One of the, I think the greatest difficulties, and that's not even right, the word that sin has brought into us is taken from us the security that Adam and Eve experienced in the garden in their relationship with the Lord. They just walked around, they had no fear. Like literally, we're good, we're safe, we're secure. They sin and instantly that's gone.

[00:33:47:21 - 00:33:56:16]
Chris
 And we live in many ways trying to get back to that security, whether it's money, relationships, success,

[00:33:58:01 - 00:34:03:00]
Chris
 whatever it would be. And those things never give it to us, right?

[00:34:04:09 - 00:34:13:23]
Chris
 They just don't, no matter what it is, they can help, especially the relational component of that.

[00:34:15:01 - 00:34:28:17]
Chris
 But ultimately, all those things can be taken from us. And only something that can't be taken from you gives you ultimate security. And so that's why, like, if your salvation is in question, you don't have that ultimate security.

[00:34:30:18 - 00:34:42:20]
Chris
 And I just like, people again, I try not to be too strong because of, I do know like there are godly people who disagree on this.

[00:34:44:12 - 00:34:46:18]
Chris
 And yet what I see is that when people

[00:34:48:14 - 00:35:07:10]
Chris
 don't believe they have a security of salvation, it's not, it causes struggles and challenges for them. And then on the opposite hand, when like, okay, I am, I am, I have that, that just gives us just something to be able to move out into the world

[00:35:09:22 - 00:35:13:06]
Chris
 with this trust because I know I have a safe place to go back to.

[00:35:14:18 - 00:35:31:20]
Chris
 I mean, and this is like, I just read "Seth Shevel" this morning, Psalm 46, "God is our refuge and strength, a very present help and trouble." Like he's the refuge. And we're getting off track here, but you've got me on a topic I feel very passionate about. But it is, you talk about children.

[00:35:33:00 - 00:35:58:01]
Chris
 When children have a secure home, that gives them the freedom to go out into the world and even to fail at times without a fear of failure somewhat, because they know that even if they fail, they've got a safe place to go home to because they're, and the more secure kids are at home generally, the better that they do. Okay.

[00:35:59:19 - 00:36:20:16]
Chris
 And we know what happens with insecure children is that they're always out, like they live in this world of anxiety and trying to fill that, and that causes all kinds of issues. And so that just mirrors, I think, our spiritual life is that when we're secure in the Lord and in His salvation,

[00:36:21:17 - 00:36:34:05]
Chris
 that enables us to face the challenge of this world to fail, but also to experience great difficulty, and yet to know that we're going to be okay.

[00:36:35:22 - 00:36:36:14]
Chris
 So anyway.

[00:36:36:14 - 00:36:37:18]
Brenton
 Good.

[00:36:39:14 - 00:36:41:17]
Brenton
 We'll wrap up with this.

[00:36:43:11 - 00:37:04:05]
Brenton
 You talked about sanctification toward the end of it, and you described it not primarily as moral improvement or whatever, but as being set apart. You emphasized that the goal is to be holy dedicated to God, W-H-O-L-L-Y, holy dedicated to God.

[00:37:05:19 - 00:37:06:15]
Brenton
 Thank you. You're welcome.

[00:37:07:23 - 00:37:39:01]
Brenton
 I think all of us have had times where we try to make certain sins off limits to God, and I think that can happen maybe without us realizing it, that there's these sections of our lives that we kind of wall off and won't give up. What kind of encouragement can you offer to someone who maybe knows they've been holding on to a part of their life for a long time that just can't see a way out of it? They can't imagine giving that up.

[00:37:39:01 - 00:37:39:19]
Chris
 Mm-hmm.

[00:37:41:18 - 00:37:47:17]
Chris
 Wow. I mean, there's so much we can talk about here, so many different ways.

[00:37:50:08 - 00:37:53:07]
Chris
 Sanctify them in truth. That word is truth. Yeah.

[00:37:55:23 - 00:38:03:18]
Chris
 And this holiness is actually, that's eternal life.

[00:38:04:20 - 00:38:26:16]
Chris
 And again, I've said it, I know everybody's going to stick out of it. It's not primarily a quantity, but a quality of life. Okay, so, let me back up. Sanctification is a process. So what Jesus is actually putting out, I didn't emphasize this too much on Sunday, but it's a process where we increasingly become more dedicated to God.

[00:38:27:16 - 00:38:36:16]
Chris
 Being wholly dedicated is the goal and honestly will not be fully experienced until we're with Him. Okay?

[00:38:37:16 - 00:38:52:05]
Chris
 But what Jesus is praying for here is that the disciples, and hence we, would be increasingly in our lives more and more dedicated to Him, which I take to mean that we will more and more experience in the here and now

[00:38:53:07 - 00:39:28:02]
Chris
 what that eternal life is that He has given us, what Paul calls the life that is truly, I mean, he talks about this, like, that we may take hold of the life that is truly life. That's eternal life. And that is holiness. Because the more dedicated that we are to God, the more we actually experience the blessings of the relationship with Him and who we were truly created to be. And so, I guess part of this would be like,

[00:39:29:07 - 00:39:37:07]
Chris
 you're holding on to that because you think that you need it for life. And actually what it is is sucking the life from you.

[00:39:40:01 - 00:39:43:16]
Chris
 And this is so much easier said than done, right?

[00:39:46:00 - 00:39:53:05]
Chris
 But so there's that tack that we could take. The other tack we could take is that Jesus died so that you could put that sin to death.

[00:39:55:00 - 00:39:58:22]
Chris
 So for us to say, I'm not going to go in there,

[00:40:00:23 - 00:40:15:04]
Chris
 it's just fundamentally problematic, right? Like, and this is where we get to the authority of Jesus. And we could use to talk about this a lot more, like, He is, He's King.

[00:40:16:13 - 00:40:20:10]
Chris
 He's Lord. And so it's not like we get to say to Him,

[00:40:21:14 - 00:40:22:02]
Chris
 don't think so.

[00:40:23:11 - 00:40:40:11]
Chris
 And that's the more of the truth side. I gave the grace a little bit, but there's both of those things that we need. And we need, and I need a greater understanding of the holiness of God.

[00:40:43:19 - 00:40:49:20]
Chris
 Like, holy dedicated to Him comes in direct proportion to how holy He is.

[00:40:52:02 - 00:40:59:08]
Chris
 And then His command, you know, Peter talks about this, 1 Peter 1, 13, I believe, referring to the Old Testament.

[00:41:00:18 - 00:41:07:05]
Chris
 So what God said to the people of Israel now applies to us as believers, "Be holy as I am holy."

[00:41:09:04 - 00:41:09:11]
Speaker 3
 Yeah.

[00:41:10:23 - 00:41:15:18]
Chris
 So like, what am I missing out on, but also what am I called to?

[00:41:17:04 - 00:41:37:06]
Chris
 And truth and grace, maybe, in both of those things. Again, that's something we've done well a lot. But yeah, I think what's so interesting, I don't know if it's interesting is the right word, but it's like we want in our day the blessings of eternal life

[00:41:40:03 - 00:41:57:02]
Chris
 without recognizing how that comes to us. And it comes to us by recognizing the life that we are pursuing is not actually eternal life. We have to change, we have to repent,

[00:41:58:17 - 00:42:11:20]
Chris
 and we have to submit. And those are none of those words or words that we are terribly fond of these days, but it's killing us. Absolutely. Yeah. I mean, just go back to the devil and sin.

[00:42:13:06 - 00:42:19:02]
Chris
 Ultimately, what it is is sin's killing us, and we gotta be willing to give it up.

[00:42:19:02 - 00:42:19:12]
Speaker 3
 Yeah.

[00:42:19:12 - 00:42:27:10]
Chris
 Okay. Easier said than done, right? For sure. Amen. Anyway, Merry Christmas, everybody. It's still at that point.

[00:42:28:18 - 00:42:40:17]
Chris
 It's good. It's a hard transition. It's heavy, but I do end with that because it's a reminder that we don't have to reach for God, that God has come to us.

[00:42:41:18 - 00:42:52:14]
Chris
 And in all of that, even with repentance, is that we can repent because He has made it possible, and that's what Christmas is about. For sure.

[00:42:52:14 - 00:42:53:12]
Brenton
 Yeah.

[00:42:54:12 - 00:42:56:20]
Brenton
 All right. Yeah. Thanks, Chris.

[00:42:57:23 - 00:43:01:11]
Brenton
 We will be back mid-January.

[00:43:03:04 - 00:43:10:02]
Brenton
 I'd say if you do have any questions, feel free to email me. We'll see what we can get back to in January, but ask it for thepodcast.com.

[00:43:11:05 - 00:43:14:01]
Brenton
 And yeah, we'll talk to you next year. Merry Christmas. Yeah.