Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Foreign.
We're back. It's. Let's talk life, Carl. We have been talking Life now for 27 episodes and we are talking a life message is it's Christ as life. Christ is everything. Jesus is everything. Christ in me. The hope of glory.
[00:00:24] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:00:25] Speaker A: Colossians 1:27. So it's been a journey.
Life in Christ is a journey. It's just a reality.
We're always going to be on this journey. I think in this phase of time and life that we experience.
That's what steps us into our topic today is it's a done work.
The joy of that is this phrase, I think that we've come to many times, Carl, in our discussions. The Christian life begins at the finish line.
And so kind of a beginning question or maybe a question that we can ponder throughout this time together is starting. If we're starting at the finish line, what does the finished line living or the finish line life look like?
[00:01:18] Speaker B: What does it look like? Right.
Yeah, yeah, it's, it's fascinating.
[00:01:22] Speaker A: I don't know, just a beginning thought.
[00:01:24] Speaker B: Yeah, well, it's fascinating that when, when you grow up in the church and again, it's very interesting when you have conversations with people who didn't grow up in the church.
You know, my story, your story is similar, a little different. But people who didn't grow up in, in a Christian home or didn't grow up going to church sometimes don't have the same struggles of performance based living that growing up in the church people can have. And I just, I just found that very interesting. And so for me, you know, thinking that people have arrived, I mean, how crazy is that, right? Because the Apostle Paul says I haven't attained. Like, like I haven't, I'm not there yet. Like I haven't reached full maturity. And yet. And especially in the Western church, there's this idea that, well, so and so's arrived and, and, and so those are the expectations. So if I'm still struggling, if I keep doing the same thing, if I just keep getting lost in my flesh, then I'm just feeling, well, I'm never going to make it. I'm never going to be good enough, right? But the idea of starting like, like that I have to finish the race and I have to run the race set before me. But Jesus has already made me the winner. He's already made me the champion. So, so I'm running the race up before me. But instead of starting at the beginning, I got to work really hard and strive and earn and perform. I'm Actually beginning at. In the winner's lane at the, at the, at the finish line. I don't know if that makes any sense.
[00:03:00] Speaker A: It. It totally does. And it's just so phenomenal. Yeah, we, we do. To get in the way or to place ourselves really back under religious law.
Oh, man. I. So the couple things that are going to really relate. I think I found that I sent you this picture of the inside of a book cover that our grandpa, who was a pastor, and he had a library of, you know, all of his study materials. Much different, I'm sure, no question about it. Different than what we have today with the Internet and with podcasts and with all the different teachings and stuff that you can get to. But he has this library and I took a picture and sent it to you with a little note that actually he had written from the library of David H. Records. That was our grandfather. And he said this, the gospel begins this. He wrote in the book, the Gospel. Sorry. The gospel brings us not to a work to do, but a word to believe about a work done.
[00:04:05] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:04:06] Speaker A: And I don't know how that sat with you. You know, just, first of all, I think just seeing that something hit, I think deeply for both of us and you can talk to that if you want to as well. But just seeing that, I think you wrote something back about just seeing his handwriting kind of, he passed away, so it's kind of this flashback of his life and our life and you know, old memories of, of just growing up within the context of our family. And so there's a lot that, that kind of comes up with all of that. But just so awesome too that something that he wrote in the COVID of his book just touched our lives right this week. And this is such a beautiful picture. And it's like saying what we're really preaching now as well, which I think is really sweet as well. So I don't know what you think about that.
[00:04:57] Speaker B: Just the whole idea of work. Right. Just. And, and I had a great walk with Jennifer the other day and, and she said something and it just made me click in my mind of how in evangelical churches. I don't know who's listening to this podcast, but evangelical churches were very quick to say, well, we're not like the Catholic Church. We, you know, we don't, we, we don't teach works. And yet if you just look at what we've done in the American church system, it's like grace gets you in barely. And then it all works. It's all merit based. And those that that have been there the longest or those that have the loudest voice or those that give the most. Whatever it is, they're the ones. And so I just love this whole idea. The gospel brings us not a work to do again, in our circles, Zach, everyone's, what do I do now? What do I do now? What do I do now? And we get it from Bible. I mean, all the things from Bible. Solitaris says, what do you want me to do? What do you want me to do? So he said, well, what do you want me to do? And. And it's just what to believe, to receive.
To receive this gift.
[00:06:06] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:06:07] Speaker B: So. Yeah, I appreciated that, too, just seeing that in his. His handwriting.
[00:06:10] Speaker A: Right, Right.
Yeah. It's amazing. It's a finished work. It's a work that's already done.
So it's a done work. And, man, we don't have to strive for it. We just simply need to trust. And I think that that in itself is very difficult because we come from Even a culture of. And we come from a lifetime of independence.
[00:06:34] Speaker B: Yes.
[00:06:34] Speaker A: And living the way that we feel is best for us. And. And we're, you know, doing something for God, and we're asking God to come and put his blessing on it. And we have it all kind of backward, for sure. But this week I was reading, too, and this just kind of relates, you know, just in regards to the law. I wasn't even reading it led me to read it, of course, but I was listening to a little teaching on Galatians chapter two, and it brought me to Galatians 2:19, which, when I first read it, kind of is like, man, I gotta chew on this. I gotta think about this. This is right before the profound, real answer to how do we live the Christian Life in Galatians 2:20.
[00:07:16] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:07:17] Speaker A: It's no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me. Amen. But the verse right before it says, for through the law I died to the law, so that I might live to God. And so it just. Right away, I was like, I have a hundred questions like, what? What does this mean?
[00:07:36] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:07:38] Speaker A: And so through the law, I was just like, what is through the law I died to the law. Like, what. What's going on here? And so. And this is what's so enjoyable about the journey is that the biggest part of the journey is saying, okay, God, I'm really confused by this.
You speak.
[00:07:55] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:07:55] Speaker A: You talk to me.
[00:07:57] Speaker B: Right.
[00:07:57] Speaker A: You know, I want to hear from you, God.
[00:07:59] Speaker B: Right.
[00:08:00] Speaker A: And it's so different than the journey of we just have to conclude what we can conclude, and then we're going to push it as dogmatically as we possibly can to make everybody else believe the same way that we believe about it. Right.
And so through the law, I mean, this, basically, what it's saying is like, every attempt to live according to the law really has left us empty. It's left us failing to do so, unable to do so. And that's really the, the work of the law. It's really the purpose of the law is to bring us. It's the tutor, it's the guide to lead us to Christ to say, you can't do this on your own. You need Jesus.
And so it really refers to the role that the law played in Paul's life here as he's writing, and to this realization that he has a need for Christ and new life in him.
And then, I love this. This is what I heard. This is what led me to really study this passage, was the phrase in there says, I die to the law. And the guy was saying, it's really better translated as not the law, because that is going to take me back to the Mosaic Law. It's going to take me back to the moral law, and it's going to give me, you know, these lists of things. Okay, yes, I'm dead to those things. But what he said is better translated as I died to law. And there's significance in just this alone because we like to create our own law and build our own systems and follow this, do these things. And I think that we're just really good at creating laws. And so man likes to create a system to follow and to adhere to. And what this is saying is we've died to even man's attempt to create law.
[00:09:51] Speaker B: Yeah, and it's, and it's fascinating. We don't, we don't really think we're doing it. We don't really see it as that.
[00:09:56] Speaker A: Right.
[00:09:57] Speaker B: You know, like, like, for example, as you, as you, as you were talking the first part of. For through the law, I died to the law so that I might live to God. You know, one of the, one of the questions that someone might ask all the time, okay, so. So I belong to Jesus now. What. How do I keep living this life out? How do I keep walking this? And so we'll, we'll give you a lot of rules, you know, to, to live it out. And so we stop at Galatians. Like, we, we didn't get to chapter five. We never made it to five. You know, so, so. Well, here's the Ten Commandments. Well, that makes sense. You know, that's in the Bible. And you know, we'll go to the, we'll go to, you know, some stuff in, in Matthew 5 and. Okay, well that makes sense because that's Jesus talking. And so it's like you had mentioned, I think it lasts. Our last podcast just. That's Old Covenant. That's Old Covenant teaching of how to live for God today. Or if that's the right phrase. I don't think that's the right phrase, but that's the phrase that we use. Right. How to live for God. And. Yeah, it's actually for sure. Galatians 2, 20.
[00:11:05] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. So.
[00:11:06] Speaker B: Yeah, so. So this is. He's saying I died to the law so that I might live to God. So if I, if I. But if I hadn't died to God, if. I mean, I'm sorry, if I hadn't died to the law, then I can't live.
[00:11:20] Speaker A: Right.
[00:11:20] Speaker B: I'm still dead. I'm still, I'm still dead. I'm pro. I'm powerless.
[00:11:25] Speaker A: Right? Yeah. It's like you're, you're forgiven, but you're still dead.
[00:11:30] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:11:32] Speaker A: So. And what Christ did, and that's what we just even celebrated with Easter, is this resurrection. That's what's so powerful about this life message, is what I call it. The life message.
[00:11:42] Speaker B: Yes.
[00:11:43] Speaker A: It's the message of God's love and God's grace and it's all Jesus. And it's that resurrection power every single day. It's not just a one time service every year to celebrate and to go back and to remember. It's actually waking up every morning saying, God, you're my sufficiency. You're everything that I need. I'm trusting in you, Jesus, today. And that's, that's what brings me. I just love Wayne Jacobson's writing.
[00:12:10] Speaker B: Yes.
[00:12:10] Speaker A: And his thoughts.
And so I'm back into that book. He loves me. And I covered chapter 17 with a group of guys yesterday and it just kind of fit with all the thoughts that I was already going for the title alone, that I just love trying to earn points with someone who is no longer keeping scored.
And I thought this was so incredible because it's.
Wayne definitely has written some things that just have resonated as, first of all, so incredibly true.
And, and as I study the scripture that he's pulling them from and I look at that and I'm asking God, I'm like, this is so grippingly true.
[00:12:51] Speaker B: Right.
[00:12:51] Speaker A: At the same Time. Some of the things he's saying I've never ever heard in my life before.
And it's like, how have I missed these incredibly important understandings? And, and I think he was. He was a Pastor, right. For 20 years.
[00:13:07] Speaker B: Yes.
[00:13:07] Speaker A: And. And I don't think he understood it during those 20 years as a pastor.
[00:13:12] Speaker B: No.
[00:13:12] Speaker A: So he was on the same journey.
[00:13:15] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:13:15] Speaker A: As exactly. Kind of where we're at.
[00:13:17] Speaker B: Right.
[00:13:18] Speaker A: So it's just really neat to journey with others through this and to learn and go through this stuff and, and just learn as we go.
[00:13:27] Speaker B: I keep coming back to your journey and of just saying everyone's on their own journey and not everyone's gonna get it. And it's okay because it is the Holy Spirit who reveals it. It's the Holy Spirit who illumines us. It's the Holy Spirit who shows us these things. So I just wanted to share that even before you get into this chapter that, like, it's okay.
[00:13:56] Speaker A: Yeah, right. It's okay.
It is amazing to think about and just even the premise of his book or the title of his book, He Loves Me.
I think there's a lot of people within the Christian community that are genuinely born again, but they really just can't accept that reality. They can't say that about themselves.
They want to say, yes, God is a loving God, and of course he loved me enough to send Jesus.
[00:14:22] Speaker B: Right, Right.
[00:14:23] Speaker A: But like in my day to day, I don't know that I can accept that. I don't know if I can believe that because I'm. I'm too wicked or I have to, you know.
[00:14:31] Speaker B: Right.
[00:14:32] Speaker A: Too much sin in my life.
That's what's so amazing about going to that point of receiving and understand that God is not keeping tally of all my sins. And that was. That was John Lynch's words in the other two authors of the cure saying that Jesus is not standing on the other side of the room disappointed in your sin.
He loves you and he's with you and he can be in the presence even of your sin because he's God. We've shortchanged him. We've put him in a box to say that, oh, he can't be in the presence of sin. That's just been the way of us trying to make people shape up and do right.
[00:15:15] Speaker B: They should be doing and going back to. Going back to our grandfather's words, the word. The work had already been done. The work. The work has already been done. And. And so I want to hear, you know, your thoughts on this chapter But. But one of the things that I loved about this chapter, you know, that. That trying to earn points with someone who's no longer keeping score. I mean, both of us, you know, we're athletes. I don't know if we're still are, but we played sports, different sports. But there was a scoreboard, Right. And the scoreboard kept the score, told us who's winning, who's losing. And I love the phrase. Our Father in heaven had never kept score because he wanted nothing more than to cultivate a relationship with us. He did that not by throwing my scorecard away, but by completely filling it out himself.
[00:16:13] Speaker A: Right.
Yeah. It's so beautiful.
[00:16:15] Speaker B: Thank you, Jesus.
[00:16:17] Speaker A: Yeah. We died.
That old man no longer lives. And I think that's the battles. We're always trying to resurrect that old man.
[00:16:28] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:16:28] Speaker A: We're trying to make new and do better with the old man when the reality is that old man is dead. And I'm a recreation. I have a new spirit and a new heart that has been placed within me. And so the question always is, and this is something that I'm bringing to a conference here.
[00:16:48] Speaker B: Yes.
[00:16:49] Speaker A: This coming weekend.
How do we live this out? Is kind of the question.
[00:16:54] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:16:55] Speaker A: That I'm going to lay out for people to have kind of a dialogue of what this looks like. And that's where this really brings us to is. Because that's what people are always really asking. That's where he gets to in this book that he says our only choice is whether or not to live loved.
Like the reality of God loving us is always there.
But are we really going to receive what he's given to us? And it's not just like, oh, I received this in salvation. It's. It's every day waking up. Yeah, okay, God, I'm choosing today to live.
I'm trusting in who you are in me.
And this is truly the challenge, I think, of life in God's kingdom.
How do I, day in and day out? Because there are still frustrations, there are still bad drivers, there are still kids that act up. There are still disappointments.
[00:17:53] Speaker B: Sure. There's still disappointments, failed expectations. There's still moments where we can lose it. I mean, all those capabilities.
[00:18:01] Speaker A: Right. So, yeah, I mean, the choice is made every day. He says in every circumstance that you find yourself in, do you trust that he loves you even in this, even in the midst of what you're going through, or will you fall back on your own wisdom and your own desires? And that's really the battle that's happening. That's really what we're facing on a day to day basis. And I love this. This is something that he says about not religion, but a relationship.
[00:18:28] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:18:28] Speaker A: He says there are two ways to hide from God. You hide from God in rebellion and in religion.
[00:18:36] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:18:38] Speaker A: And so going back to even that Galatians 2 passage and recognizing that, yes, we are dead to that religious law and we're also dead to the law that we create for ourselves.
[00:18:52] Speaker B: Right.
[00:18:52] Speaker A: And it's amazing how much, even though even in like the ministry that we've had through the years, we wouldn't have called it religion, that was a curse word to us still during the midst of that. Right. We wouldn't have called it. That's what you've already been saying is we don't, we didn't even see it, we didn't even recognize it. But the reality is anything that we're doing to create any sort of a system to add to what Jesus has done for us, to help us to live this Christian life is really just religion.
And it's no different than rebellion. They really fall into the same category. It's us hiding from God.
[00:19:28] Speaker B: Yes.
It's a cheap substitute for the reality of life that's in him.
Cheap.
[00:19:36] Speaker A: Right.
[00:19:37] Speaker B: And that's why it always left us empty, you know, Say isn't there more like, like that, that nagging thought of after a Sunday morning and, and it's like, wait a minute. Really, like there's something more in this. You know, those fleeting thought, wasn't all the time, it wasn't every day. But, but there are moments where, like isn't there more than this?
[00:19:58] Speaker A: Right, right. That's, that's the reality. Yeah. If we're not living out of Christ life, then we're always going to have those moments of asking, where is this? Where, you know, where's this abundant life that you.
[00:20:10] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:20:11] Speaker A: That you say you, you came to bring.
So even this, the whole premise of rebellion or religion.
[00:20:17] Speaker B: Yes.
[00:20:18] Speaker A: It's all really summed up in that incredible story. The prodigal son is called, as we've titled it, man has titled it that. But there's really like three prodigals going on. This prodigal, from what I understand is just kind of being extravagant.
But you have this, this wild child who takes the money and runs and goes and lives like hell. And then you have this other son who's at home doing the religious duties. So one of them is in a rebellion, the other one is following the religious rules and doing everything. Right. But Both of them are missing.
[00:20:50] Speaker B: Right.
[00:20:51] Speaker A: The father's love.
[00:20:52] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:20:53] Speaker A: They're not recognizing that they have a father who genuinely just cares about them and they're not living in that love. And it's just kind of such a beautiful picture of that.
[00:21:03] Speaker B: Great picture.
[00:21:05] Speaker A: Yeah.
I was just gonna say, is this so tragic that we can go through life for so long? Some people, their whole lives knowing Christ as savior but not understanding him as life. Not. Not really receiving this incredible gift of his. Of his love. It's not that. It's not there.
[00:21:23] Speaker B: No, no, that's. That's so true. And it's like that, you know, you asked that question, how does this life lived? What? You know, and I love that. That quote at the bottom of page 138 where Wayne says, the key to living a productive Christian life is not waking up. I mean, you've already said it once. It's not waking up every day trying to be loved by God. So. So, God, I'm gonna really try harder and I'm going to stay away from this. I'm not going to do this today. And we have this checklist of things. Right. So. So the key to productive Christian life is not doing that, but it's waking up in the awareness. See, you were already his beloved.
[00:22:02] Speaker A: Yes.
[00:22:03] Speaker B: You're already beloved because you received the greatest gift. Because you received Jesus. You're already. Already.
[00:22:14] Speaker A: Yeah. Yeah, we're already there. It's. It's an amazing thing to comprehend. So it's, it's. It's. It is one thing, like I talk about the Word no. And knowing and having an intimate understanding. I think there's, there's still even, like, you can step into truly knowing relationally who you are in Christ, but there's still like a struggle to live in that presence and in that reality because life just is life.
[00:22:44] Speaker B: Right.
[00:22:46] Speaker A: And so that's the journey. That's. That's the fellowship with one another. That's the encouragement to one another. And so, I mean, I had opportunity. Like on Sunday, I didn't go to church. I skipped church. And why? Because in the morning a guy texted me and said, I'm struggling and I'm just not interested in anything spiritually. I'm not going to church and not read my Bible to see. I'm just done.
And so I just showed up at his house.
And that. That's far more important, I think, even than, let's go get you to church. You need to go to church.
It's far more valuable just doing life together.
[00:23:25] Speaker B: Right.
[00:23:25] Speaker A: And journeying with, you know, one with the other, because we're all in reality in that state at times of just, ah, this is frustrating or I'm hurt or I'm disappointed.
So thank you, Jesus. It's already a done work.
We can run this incredible race from the podium, from the top spot on the podium.
What a joy.
So I think that shuts us down for this week. What a blessing to talk life.
