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CHRIS

 That's why we've got to know God's word in my theology and really, truly does matter.

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CHRIS

 Why I love to preach God's word and why I try to do it so passionately, because it's not just facts or things that don't really matter to the day-to-day of our lives. They literally matter in everything we do, every environment we live, every relationship that we are in.

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BRENTON

 Welcome back to Further. I am Britton Grimm.

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CHRIS

 How you doing, Chris? Pretty good. Getting ready to head out to the East Coast here in about 24 hours.

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BRENTON

 Oh, yeah?

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CHRIS

 Yeah, my son's getting married this coming weekend.

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BRENTON

 That's exciting.

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CHRIS

 Yeah, middle sun. So that's awesome. Yeah. So big trip, long way.

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Speaker 3

 Where's it at?

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CHRIS

 Lynchburg, Virginia.

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BRENTON

 OK.

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CHRIS

 It's about 13 hours. Yeah, it's a long drive. Drive time.

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CHRIS

 Course, it's summer almost, so it'll be construction zones.

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Speaker 3

 Who knows how long it'll take me. My wife gets to fly. My wife gets to fly.

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BRENTON

 Oh, nice.

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CHRIS

 Zane and I are taking wedding stuff

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Speaker 3

 with us. Are you pulling a trailer or something? Well, I'm hoping not, but I just got a text where, hey, we need to bring something else. We'll see.

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BRENTON

 The only thing that could make 13 hours in a car more miserable is pulling a trailer.

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CHRIS

 Well, yes, it could also be a bunch of small children. OK.

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CHRIS

 Put them in the trailer. Potentially. I don't know. Is it small children or teenagers or worse? Because small children maybe can sleep. My kids are perfect, I don't know. Yeah.

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Speaker 3

 Right. So yeah.

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BRENTON

 What would you know about them? What would I know? Yeah. Yeah.

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BRENTON

 Actually, at the top of the show, I do want to just give some acknowledgment here. Our producer of the show, Tank, Nathan Tankersley, is actually moving on to another job. He's moving back home.

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BRENTON

 And we're happy for him. We're excited, but that does mean that we're losing a producer here. So yeah, just wanted to acknowledge that you've been behind the scenes here for a long time. You don't even have a mic right now, so you can't actually say anything. But I just wanted to say thank you and acknowledge that there's a lot of people that don't even know that you do this, but been a huge help to what we're doing here.

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Speaker 3

 For sure. Yeah. Let's make it a good one. Yeah.

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BRENTON

 OK. We'll try. Might hand the mic off to him.

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BRENTON

 All right. OK, so I want to start very broadly. And you're probably just going to laugh at this question. But I want to get your thoughts. Why is submission or surrender just so hard for us? Like, what is the biblical answer to this?

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CHRIS

 Well, I think, I mean, just to be pretty generic about it, it's our sin nature that just automatically rebels against the idea, the thought,

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CHRIS

 perhaps even a feeling that someone is going to be in charge instead of us.

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CHRIS

 And that's really at the root of the sinful nature, is we want to do things.

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CHRIS

 As old Frank Sinatra used to sing, "My Way."

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CHRIS

 And so I think that that is really the root of it, is we just don't want anybody to tell us what to do.

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CHRIS

 Yeah. For sure. It's control.

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BRENTON

 Yeah. Yeah, control is something that came to my mind a lot. We just grasp onto control as much as possible.

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CHRIS

 Yeah, I mean, it is the original sin, so to speak, right? Is that Adam and Eve just decided that they didn't want to do it God's way. And they basically wanted to be like God.

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CHRIS

 And the ironic thing, it's the very sad, tragic thing, is that in wanting to be like God, they actually became less like Him.

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CHRIS

 We understand the image of God and what that sin did to the image didn't destroy it, but it certainly tarnished it significantly drastically.

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CHRIS

 So I think that that's ultimately at the end of the day. And I think if anyone is honest, they

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CHRIS

 know that that's a struggle, a deep struggle for each and every one of us. Even those of us who are followers of Christ, we still wrestle with that. And the battles against the Spirit and the spirit against the flesh. And I think Paul talks about that at length.

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CHRIS

 And I think that really is the battle, is who's going to be in charge here, the spirit or the flesh?

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BRENTON

 Yeah. Well, so that made me kind of go to a different direction here too. Like on top of that, toward the end of your sermon, mentioned earthly authorities, right? And that probably doesn't stop at church leadership, but also does include that. Why does the necessity of submitting to earthly authorities make this even harder for us?

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CHRIS

 Well, I mean, so it's hard enough with a holy, just, righteous God, who's also loving,

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CHRIS

 perfect in all of his attributes. So it's hard there. Well, when you talk about earthly authorities, and primarily in this discussion in terms of the church leaders, well, they're fallen. And so there's two really aspects of this, as many of us, may even say most of us, had bad experience with church leaders in abusing authority or misusing it or mistreating us. You know, it's not the same thing. We can be mistreated without being abused. But we just have bad experiences with authority. We have plenty of bad examples of how church authority is misused.

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CHRIS

 And so that just, like, on top of our already, we struggle with authority. And then you had like, well, I have a bad experience, or I don't trust the authority because of something that I've seen or gone through or whatever. And so, yeah, I mean, I'm not saying-- I wasn't trying to say it's easy by any stretch of the imagination.

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Speaker 3

 Yeah.

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BRENTON

 Yeah.

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BRENTON

 Do you think--

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BRENTON

 I mean, it's the same remedy for both, though, right? Like, submitting to Christ will cause submission to earthly authorities, though.

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CHRIS

 Sure. I mean, I would want to hear, just to put a caveat, is like we should only submit to really any authority, any man-made or human authority, as far as we can do so without sinning.

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CHRIS

 Or as far as they are fulfilling their role in the way that God has established them to,

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CHRIS

 and using the authority that God has given them to. So it doesn't mean like we just wholeheartedly and without any--

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CHRIS

 I'll say it this way. It doesn't mean that there aren't any times where we shouldn't submit to our authorities, some earthly authorities, church authorities. And it doesn't mean there aren't times where maybe we should leave a church. Yeah. OK. So we just need to be clear about that. But at the end of the day,

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CHRIS

 a failure to submit to our authorities God's established,

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CHRIS

 as long as they are fulfilling their role as they should,

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CHRIS

 is a failure to submit to Him.

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CHRIS

 Yeah. That's a mouthful, I know. But yeah.

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BRENTON

 Yeah. I'm sure that brings up a lot of kind of case-by-case issues that need wisdom and fulfillment.

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BRENTON

 Yeah.

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BRENTON

 It'd be kind of hard to keep going in that conversation.

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CHRIS

 Well, there is a-- yeah, that's good. I'm glad that you brought that. There is a lot-- it's hard because there should be nuance to this situation, right? Like in terms of-- even you talk about our civil government, it's like, OK, at what point are we free to actually not submit to their authority? When does that come in? What situations? What circumstances? Obviously, they're permitting-- or not permitting-- if they are prohibiting us from doing something that God has called us to do. Sure. Or they're trying to compel us to do something that God has told us not to do. Those are easy cases of what you don't submit. It's a little-- there's a lot of other gray areas, though, too, where we need wisdom and discernment in that.

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BRENTON

 So-- Yeah. Yeah, for sure.

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BRENTON

 OK, so you made the point that it's not only secular culture that often-- or maybe in the case of secular-- always denies the necessity of the cross today, but also many churches are doing this, too. What does it typically look like for a church to deny this? Is it always outright and explicit, or can it happen in ways that aren't always obvious?

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CHRIS

 Sure. So let's talk about explicit, and then we can talk about implicit. So an example of just explicitly denying the necessity of the cross is a relatively common teaching of mainline churches today that penal substitutionary atonement is just even harmful. And just to define terms again, penal substitutionary atonement, that Christ died in our place as the penalty for our sin. So substitution in our place, penal, He took the penalty atonement to make us right with God.

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CHRIS

 And many, maybe most-- I don't know if you could even--

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CHRIS

 I won't say all, because again, there's so many different varieties here these days. But many of the mainline churches are denying penal substitutionary atonement. They call it things like it's just divine child abuse.

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CHRIS

 But that is a very explicit denial of the necessity of the cross. Jesus didn't die to pay the penalty for our sins. He died as an example to us, a model of self-giving love and all that.

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CHRIS

 Implicitly, though, is actually in some ways the more dangerous error, because people may affirm that, yes, Jesus did have to die on the cross for our forgiveness, our sins. But what they do is they so water down the preaching of the cross, they really don't even hardly talk about it so much. It is a lot more of-- like I was talking about the therapeutic gospel here. And so most of the most, if not all the preaching is, is like, here's how to be a better husband. How to have a better marriage.

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CHRIS

 Here's how to become wealthy, be successful, how to have a positive mindset, and all of those kinds of things. And so it's not outright denial of the necessity of the cross, but just simply by the fact that you really don't talk about it and you point people to the hope and the center is not what Christ did for me on the cross.

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CHRIS

 But rather, you know, what I need to do to be a better person.

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BRENTON

 Yeah. What do you think-- and maybe it's two different motivations between those two, but what do you think the motivation is behind this?

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BRENTON

 Is it just to make the message more palatable? Is it just uncomfortable?

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BRENTON

 What do you think's behind it?

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CHRIS

 Well, I'm not so sure that it's always thought out, like intentional. Yeah. You know, I'm eventually thinking about it.

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CHRIS

 I think Paul's answer in 1 Corinthians is appreciating the cross is an offense. It's offensive, and it's offensive to human pride. And so this idea that there's nothing I can do to earn my salvation and nothing I can even do to add to my salvation, like I am spiritually dead in my transgressions and sins and spiritually bankrupt, and there's nothing I can do on my own to earn my salvation to make me right with God. It's offensive. And so, you know, I even find, you know, there's times where I preach about, and I regularly do talk about how we're dead in our transgressions and sins and say things like, what can dead people do? Nothing. Like people can get irritated about that. Even in our own church. And why? Well, because it doesn't do anything for the human ego. And so it's much more comfortable for people to hear messages about how we can be better people.

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CHRIS

 And, you know,

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CHRIS

 we can talk about the cross and Jesus is great. He died for me. Okay. But if you really get down to what that means,

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CHRIS

 that's where it can be really hard to take.

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BRENTON

 Yeah. Yeah. I don't know. In some ways, like I think, like you said, the implicitness of some of this can be more dangerous where it's not necessarily in your face, but it's more of like what's not said. And I wonder, you know, if there are,

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BRENTON

 and, you know, our audience is this church. And so obviously that's not the case here that we're not talking about those things. But I think it's possible for us to be kind of sucked into podcasts or other kind of media that would downplay this stuff. I just wonder like, what are some warning signs that we could look out for that we're kind of being pushed away from the necessity of the cross?

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CHRIS

 Well, I actually think that this is one of the reasons understanding that all of scripture is actually meant to point us to Jesus and the passage in Luke 24, where Jesus repeated list of post resurrection. He met a number of appearances and he repeatedly says to his followers, his disciples, like all of the Psalms and all of the prophets, like they're all about me. They were all pointing to me. And so where we read the Bible from front to back

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CHRIS

 with a Jesus centered and really even a cross centered lenses, so to speak, through which we see and we interpret all of that and because it's very possible.

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CHRIS

 And I grew up in churches that were solid churches for the most part, but those Old Testament passages were very much taught in a moralistic way. It's like, you know, dare to be a Daniel, like slay your giants like David and all of those things and just kind of missing the point. And so it's again, like all the churches I grew up to affirmed the necessity of the cross. But yet, a lot of times in how we actually taught the Bible and practice even ministry is the cross is not actually in the center. It's, it's, it can be peripheral become periphery.

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CHRIS

 And so it's just, it is, you know, the word crucial literally comes the crux, it comes crux from the cross. It is crucial. It is the crux of everything. And that's includes for our salvation and for our sanctification. Yeah.

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CHRIS

 Right. So it's not just like for my past salvation, it's also for my present

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CHRIS

 sanctification, which is part of my present salvation.

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BRENTON

 Yeah.

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BRENTON

 Okay. Yeah.

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BRENTON

 Jesus spoke about losing our lives now in light of eternity later. And you especially see this in verse 38,

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BRENTON

 where he's talking about, you know, if, if you're ashamed of, of me and my words now, then I'll be ashamed of you essentially at the end. Do you, do you think that some of our unwillingness to surrender now is due to a low view of eternity?

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CHRIS

 Yeah, sure. Yeah.

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CHRIS

 So why do you ask that question?

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BRENTON

 Well, I'm wondering what the solution is to it. Because I think

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BRENTON

 that that is probably the case. We, we place so much gravity on now, right? Because obviously like we're living now and this feels more important than, than later, but like how, I think this is something we've talked about on the show before too, but like, how can we

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BRENTON

 put more of an emphasis or more of a priority on what life is going to look like then rather than now?

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CHRIS

 Well, one thing I think would really help us if we paid more attention to Jesus and his teaching, because he talked about the future quite a bit. Yeah.

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CHRIS

 And I think it would do us a lot of good if we, we really took Jesus more seriously about some of the things that he said, and that would be one of the things at the very top of the list.

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CHRIS

 And this is going to be a battle though. I mean, I think we just have to recognize that is that we, you know, we're here, we're here in the present and it's, it's, it's, it's, it's very hard to get our, you know, press our minds into that, that future, especially when we've got so much going on in our, in our lives.

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CHRIS

 I do think that

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CHRIS

 at the risk of, you know, talking about C.S. Lewis too, too much, but not possible.

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CHRIS

 This is reading, one of the reasons reading his fiction, work of fiction is so important is because he was just pretty much all the time pointing to the future.

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CHRIS

 And he's not the only one, you know, you can talk about Tolkien too,

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CHRIS

 and some of the other, like unfortunately they're mostly writers, it seems, of the past.

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CHRIS

 And so,

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CHRIS

 but I think this ties into another area. I didn't really get to on Sunday, but the surrender of like, let's be careful about how much stuff we're accumulating

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CHRIS

 and how much we are, you know, consumed by the things of this, of this world. You know, Paul talks in Philippians 3, he says, but our citizenship is in heaven.

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CHRIS

 And from there, are we a way to Savior? And so just remembering that, like we're, as Peter says, 1 Peter, we're exiles here, like, this is not, this is our temporary home. And it takes intentional work and effort to remind ourselves of that and to think about,

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CHRIS

 turn our hearts towards the future city that's to come. Yeah.

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BRENTON

 Yeah, I just, I think it can feel so abstract to us sometimes. We just, maybe it's a lack of understanding, maybe, I don't know, but I mean, it's obviously, I think we all know this, it's so easy to get sucked into everything around us.

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CHRIS

 Well, I think this is another topic that we could, it would actually be good for us to spend more time on this. But it's why I think understanding like this, this world, and I've talked about this a number of times in the past, is that this world is going to be renewed, not destroyed. And so,

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CHRIS

 you know, there used to be a saying, you might be too young for this, but you're, you know, you're too heavenly minded to be any earthly good. And it's actually just the exact opposite, the more heavenly minded that we are, the more earthly good we will be. Let me explain what I mean by that is if we recognize that the heaven is actually the future earth,

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CHRIS

 then as we are thinking about like what that future earth is going to be,

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CHRIS

 we can work with God in the here and now to

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CHRIS

 see to the redemption of this earth,

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CHRIS

 not the destruction where we just let it go to pot, so to speak. And I could talk about that a long time, but I think if we recast our vision of what heaven and the future really is, it could help us a lot.

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BRENTON

 Yeah. I like that a lot. That sounds interesting. You should read a book.

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CHRIS

 There's better books that have been written.

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 (Laughter)

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BRENTON

 Uh, so back to verse 38, Jesus gives a serious warning about being ashamed of Him and His words.

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BRENTON

 What do you think is actually in view there? Is that still a direct response to Peter's words, do you think?

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CHRIS

 I absolutely do. I think Jesus is saying, "Hey, listen, if you're ashamed of the cross, that's essentially what He's saying.

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CHRIS

 Then, you know, then you actually, you know, when I come, I'm not gonna, I'm not going to be welcoming you into my kingdom."

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BRENTON

 Do you think that that was Peter's response to what Jesus was saying? He was ashamed of it. He was afraid people would,

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BRENTON

 how they would react to that?

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CHRIS

 I don't know exactly the answer to that, but I think that, like, the cross was shameful to the Jewish people, to Hebrew, the Hebrews. And so, this idea of suffering, and especially in the way that Jesus really emphasized it in our passage, and Peter's like, "No way." Like, that, I don't, I think He very well could have been saying, "I don't want to be affiliated with a Messiah like that."

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CHRIS

 Because that can't be the Messiah. So, like, if that's who you are, like, you know, I'm out.

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CHRIS

 And we don't know exactly, obviously, Peter's motivation. We do know that he was, at times, confused about things. And so, yeah.

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BRENTON

 Okay. Well, let's take that to today, then.

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BRENTON

 Is being ashamed of Jesus always, like, an outright rejection? Or, I mean, obviously, it could show itself in a more subtle way. What are the ways that that shows up today for us?

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CHRIS

 Yeah, I mean,

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CHRIS

 it can be just a simple

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CHRIS

 outright rejection, for sure.

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CHRIS

 But it can also be where we kind of waffle when we're in front of people and not to take a bold stand for Him or for what is true. It can be, like, we don't want to deal with texts like we wrestle with. It's like we're just going to either ignore it or we're going to try to say things like that. Okay. Jesus is talking about there's two different classes of Christians. There's those who come to Him, and then there's those who come after Him, right? You can come to Jesus, but not follow Jesus.

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CHRIS

 And I think that's actually fairly common.

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CHRIS

 And we certainly can want a Jesus, or really a Christianity, that is more comfortable than the actual Jesus of the gospels reveals Himself to be. I will say,

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CHRIS

 just to be fair to Peter, by the way, it's much easier for us

[00:26:42:22 - 00:26:48:09]

CHRIS

 here in the sense that we have the full story.

[00:26:49:10 - 00:26:50:20]

CHRIS

 For sure. Like, I mean,

[00:26:52:00 - 00:27:03:21]

CHRIS

 there's literally nothing in his background that prepared him to expect Jesus to say the things that he did.

[00:27:03:21 - 00:27:07:00]

BRENTON

 Well, and likely the other disciples were thinking the same thing.

[00:27:07:00 - 00:27:10:12]

CHRIS

 They're right there with him in it, 100%. He just told him to talk. Right.

[00:27:11:23 - 00:27:12:06]

CHRIS

 I mean,

[00:27:13:14 - 00:27:25:21]

CHRIS

 we really need to face this. It's like, here Jesus is doing all the things that He was prepared to this point in His life.

[00:27:27:00 - 00:27:50:20]

CHRIS

 This is the Messiah. Clearly, I can see it. And He accepted that, and the other disciples did way more than a lot of the other Jewish people did. Okay, so for sure. And there's nothing in their upbringing or their instruction in the synagogue or anything that would lead them to,

[00:27:52:01 - 00:28:06:21]

CHRIS

 in fact, just the opposite that the Messiah would actually suffer and die on a cross. And so, we can look back and we can say, "Oh, of course. Like, how did you miss this?" Well, we would have missed it too.

[00:28:06:21 - 00:28:15:06]

BRENTON

 Well, on the other side, it kind of leaves us less room to be ashamed of these things, right? Because we are on the other side of it. Right. Yeah.

[00:28:15:06 - 00:28:16:23]

CHRIS

 Yeah. No, you're right.

[00:28:18:05 - 00:28:21:15]

CHRIS

 It does. No, I think that that's true. Absolutely.

[00:28:21:15 - 00:28:23:09]

Speaker 3

 Yeah.

[00:28:24:12 - 00:28:31:21]

BRENTON

 Okay, Jesus doesn't merely tell us to deny sinful behaviors, right? I think

[00:28:32:22 - 00:28:45:04]

BRENTON

 this can be something that's pretty common for us that we're kind of playing this whack-a-mole our whole lives, where we're killing these individual visible sins, right? He's really calling us to deny ourselves.

[00:28:47:08 - 00:29:04:21]

BRENTON

 And that is the root issue. What would you say the difference between fighting sins, like I was talking about, and actually surrendering ourselves to Him? Is Jesus calling us to something more than just stopping certain behaviors?

[00:29:06:23 - 00:29:17:10]

CHRIS

 Well, he wants us to have, ultimately wants us to have a new heart, right? Like that doesn't just settle for outward conformity,

[00:29:18:10 - 00:29:26:02]

CHRIS

 but rather that we have a heart transformed that actually wants to surrender to Him.

[00:29:27:07 - 00:29:46:23]

CHRIS

 And that really is where the battle at the end of the day is at, and why we actually need Him on a day-by-day basis, which we can go back to earlier in the series, is that we don't just come to Jesus one time, we had to come to Him over and over again, blessed are the poor in spirit.

[00:29:48:22 - 00:30:16:00]

CHRIS

 You know, is like, in the way Jesus says, you know, the John 15, we talked about this, "Without me, you can do nothing. I'm divine, you're the branches, you got to remain in me." And so that our heart and our desires get transformed. And so, like, the transformation happens from the inside out, instead of like, "I just need to stop this, or get this under control, or I just need to surrender this." Now,

[00:30:17:01 - 00:30:18:17]

CHRIS

 yeah, there are times where

[00:30:19:20 - 00:30:26:22]

CHRIS

 our heart is only going to be halfway there or not even that way. And we've got to put our will,

[00:30:27:23 - 00:30:38:21]

CHRIS

 our will has to be willing to even when we don't want, when we don't want to. Like, if you only surrender Jesus when you want to, well, you're going to be in trouble, right?

[00:30:40:11 - 00:30:48:06]

BRENTON

 Well, and I think intellectually, like we probably understand that. It seems like that's something we talk about in Harmony a lot, is like the need for a heart change, right?

[00:30:49:07 - 00:31:15:18]

BRENTON

 I think practically, it can often work out to where we're, you know, if I could just get this one sin under control, that's, I think, practically how we treat sanctification a lot, rather than like a more fully encompassing surrender to His Lordship. And I think, I don't know, I don't know exactly what that means practically, but it seems like it would be a different approach.

[00:31:15:18 - 00:31:36:12]

CHRIS

 Sure. No, I think we have talked about this a little bit before, but it's been so helpful to me and honestly, it's been transformative for me, is to ask the why question. Is like, why don't I surrender? Like, why am I not surrendering to Him?

[00:31:37:20 - 00:32:13:09]

CHRIS

 Why am I struggling here to want to do it? What are the reasons for this? And actually asking the Holy Spirit to reveal those things to us. You know, why is this such a big struggle for me? Why am I... You know, and when we talk about surrender, I think we should probably also spend some time talking about trust, because the reason that we don't surrender is, at the end of the day, because we don't trust Him. We don't trust that His way is the best. We don't trust He's going to take care of us. We don't trust that He's in control.

[00:32:15:09 - 00:32:29:02]

CHRIS

 And so, when we do trust Him, you know, and in fact, I would say that is the key to surrendering, right? Is to trust that this is right.

[00:32:30:02 - 00:32:45:21]

CHRIS

 Like, He is the King and the King with cross. And so, if I take up my cross, that's actually going to be where I'm going to find who I truly am. But why don't we trust? Why do we have trust issues?

[00:32:47:08 - 00:33:14:16]

CHRIS

 Right? That's a good question. Well, but I mean, we all have trust issues and somewhat the root is the same, but actually, it's not completely the same for you as it is for me, because you've had different experiences than me, and you have a different makeup than me. And so, I think exploring that and trying to figure out the why can be really helpful to us.

[00:33:16:04 - 00:33:19:18]

BRENTON

 All right. We'll wrap on this one.

[00:33:21:02 - 00:33:28:22]

BRENTON

 At the end of the sermon, you gave some specific and practical areas of surrender, like baptism, church membership, serving,

[00:33:30:12 - 00:34:08:01]

BRENTON

 confession, generosity. And I'm curious for like, for someone, you know, I think, I think again, this can be an abstract topic of surrender to God, but when you get it to these like practical steps of like, why, why aren't I submitting in this one specific area? For someone who feels hesitant toward those kind of commitments, what are, what do you think are some common fears or misunderstandings that, that might be under that? And how, how would you kind of help them to, to get to the point where,

[00:34:10:00 - 00:34:12:09]

BRENTON

 to lay down whatever those concerns are?

[00:34:14:10 - 00:34:32:20]

CHRIS

 Yeah, this is a big topic, and it's a difficult one. And part of it goes back to what we started with is that we have fears and misunderstandings oftentimes because of bad experiences that we have had.

[00:34:33:23 - 00:34:40:08]

CHRIS

 And, and I have a lot of compassion for people.

[00:34:42:01 - 00:34:42:12]

CHRIS

 And that might,

[00:34:43:22 - 00:35:05:21]

CHRIS

 might be questioned. I know, but I, but I really, really do. And every, every time I refer to that Hebrews 13 passage that I quoted on Sunday, obey your leaders and submit to them, I always do it with a little bit of a tentative heart because I know how I can easily come across to people.

[00:35:06:23 - 00:35:22:20]

CHRIS

 And yet I've, I've also experienced it on a number of different occasions in some very, very painful ways about being mistreated by people in authority over me in the church.

[00:35:24:16 - 00:36:08:02]

CHRIS

 And not here, so just to be clear, but, but in the past in some very, very significant ways. And yet that Hebrews 13 passage says, obey them and submit to them as ones who must give account. They're watching over your souls. And, and so whenever I refer to that passage or think about this, that passage, it's like, I'm, I and the other leaders are responsible for the souls of people. And we're going to have to give an account to the, to the Lord for like how we've carried out that, that shepherding. And that's, that's a really, it's a great privilege. It's also a heavy, it's a heavy load to, to, to, to think about that.

[00:36:09:09 - 00:36:28:09]

CHRIS

 And what I would want people to understand is like your, your soul needs a shepherd, needs shepherds. It just does. Mine, mine does too. Okay. None of us are out. That's the way that God has, has called about it, has, has established it. And the Lord is my shepherd Psalm 23,

[00:36:29:09 - 00:37:03:01]

CHRIS

 but we go to the New Testament and, you know, like first Peter five, Peter says, hey, to my fellow shepherds, like your, your under shepherds under the chief shepherd, Jesus is the chief shepherd, but they're under shepherds. And that's how God has established his church because he cares about his sheep. And, and, and so he gives them under shepherds to, to care for them. And that's going to be challenging. Those under shepherds are going to get things wrong at times. It's very possible that they're going to hurt us.

[00:37:04:10 - 00:37:14:20]

CHRIS

 And, and so while it's, it's, it's very understandable why we might be like, no, I don't need this. I don't want this. I can't do this. And yet the,

[00:37:15:21 - 00:37:25:23]

CHRIS

 the, we gotta recognize, first of all, this is what Jesus called us to and how he's established it. And second, it's very dangerous for a sheep to be without a shepherd.

[00:37:28:15 - 00:37:46:10]

CHRIS

 And, and like, and, and so it might be at times hard for us to trust and it might be hard depending on where we're at in life, for us to find a church where there's going to be good shepherds.

[00:37:47:13 - 00:38:45:08]

CHRIS

 But we can't, for our, really for our own sake, just say, well, this is not important or it's not significant. I need to pursue this and I need to seek this out. And I need to also seek to have the kind of attitude in the heart where I'm going to be gracious and forgiving and, and, and recognize that like, these are, these are fallen men, just like I'm a fallen man or woman. And so like, they're not going to be perfect, but I have a shepherd who is perfect. And I can know, as I trust him and walk with him, that he's going to see, he's going to see me through and he's going to leave me besides still waters. He's going to restore my soul as I continue to walk with him. And I know that that might not suffice it for everyone, but I will say this. I do think a lot of people never, never give the local church a real fair shake.

[00:38:47:01 - 00:39:52:08]

CHRIS

 And what I mean by that is like, I'm going to, I'm going to give myself to this. I'm going to do, do my best. Like I'm going to be in there and I'm going to connect and I'm going to join and I'm going to serve and I'm going to participate. And I'm going to try to live in community with other believers. And I'm going to be long suffering and patient. And, and, and so we, we, I think we, we oftentimes just put a huge, huge load on the church and we're not willing to, to actually do our part to, because it takes it, it is a two way street. Yep. Right. And if, I just think we got to be careful that we're not like, we're just going to go in and have that somewhat of a consumer mindset that the, that the church is about it exists for me. And as long as it's given me what I want, I'm okay. But if it at any point doesn't, I'm going to, I'm going to pull away.

[00:39:53:17 - 00:39:53:21]

CHRIS

 And,

[00:39:55:08 - 00:40:03:02]

CHRIS

 you know, I'll end in this. Yeah. The, your relationship with local churches is a lot like marriage.

[00:40:04:05 - 00:40:04:10]

CHRIS

 Okay.

[00:40:05:20 - 00:41:09:16]

CHRIS

 You, you, you in some ways are going to get out of the local church, which you put, put into the local church. And a good marriage requires a lot of work and sacrifice and, and graciousness and patience. And, and where there's not that, then it just from both, from both parties, husband and wife, where there's not that like, it, it just doesn't work. And so we need churches and we need churches with, with the leaders in those churches to shepherd the flock well and to sacrifice for the flock to lay down their lives, to be patient, kind, gentle preach, the word minister care, all of those things. But we also need sheep that are willing to, you know, allow themselves to be shepherded and then to join in with, with, with the work. And where those two things, and we have this, we have a lot of this, I'm so thankful. Where, where those two things go together, you have healthy churches and healthy people. And where you don't have those things on either end or both ends.

[00:41:10:19 - 00:41:19:17]

CHRIS

 Well, I can give you lots of examples. And we probably also can do that. But even I said it was lasting, but famously,

[00:41:20:21 - 00:41:22:20]

CHRIS

 even in the healthiest churches,

[00:41:24:15 - 00:41:28:09]

CHRIS

 there's an old saying, the best of men are men at best.

[00:41:29:09 - 00:41:41:01]

CHRIS

 We include women in there, but we'll just specifically, this is true for, for maybe even men more is like, we're just, we're just men, which means that we're going to get things wrong at times.

[00:41:44:13 - 00:41:47:11]

BRENTON

 It's good. A lot of good stuff in there. Appreciate that.

[00:41:49:14 - 00:41:51:13]

BRENTON

 All right. Thanks for, thanks for today.

[00:41:51:13 - 00:41:52:14]

Speaker 3

 Yeah, no problem.

[00:41:53:17 - 00:42:03:08]

BRENTON

 Yeah. Tank, thank you for your work here. We're going to miss you. If you have any questions, ask it for the podcast.com. We'll talk to you next week.

[00:42:16:10 - 00:42:19:02]

Speaker 3

 Tank out.