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Pastor Matt Brown, Justin Pardee and Stephanie Keen cover everything from “is my divorce a sin?”, “how do I forgive the person who abused me as a child?” to “what is the rapture?” As they talk through Luke 17 they explore what forgiveness looks like, the power of faith, self-service vs serving God and signs of the end of the world.
Real faith. Real life. Hosted by Pastor Matthew Stephen Brown of Sandals Church, The Debrief Podcast goes beyond Sunday conversations—diving into the questions, stories, and struggles that shape who we are. Thoughtful. Honest. Unfiltered.
So seriously, also hamsters. When I was a kid, I had hamsters, I didn't know this that kids Yeah. They did.
Justin Pardee:Wait. Wait. Wait. Wait. Wait.
Justin Pardee:Hold on.
Stephanie Schaefer:Hamsters have babies. Moms are quite often likely to eat them, the babies.
Matt Brown:Yeah. They're confused.
Justin Pardee:Why do we give these to small children? Well, hey, everybody and welcome to The Debrief, a weekly q and a podcast from your friends here at Sandals Church. I am your tour guide for the end of the world today, Justin Pardee. If you look out your window to the left, you'll see the lightning flashes and lights up the end of the sky from one end to another.
Stephanie Schaefer:This is, your friendly co tour guide, Stephanie Keene, who's sitting here terrified.
Matt Brown:Yeah. So if that happens, stop listening to the debrief and go be with Jesus. Yeah. Oh, yeah. See you
Justin Pardee:in a little bit, guys. Yeah. Dude, just
Stephanie Schaefer:Or now, maybe just immediately.
Justin Pardee:Tune yourself to the Let's
Matt Brown:all hope Justin makes it.
Justin Pardee:Yeah. Rooting for you.
Matt Brown:Oh, thanks guys. Burning on the back there.
Justin Pardee:You know what? Speaking of rooting for people, I am rooting for all these incredible people that are rooting for here on The Debrief. We have made our way to a 126 reviews in the iTunes stores and we are still continuing our streak of five beautiful stars.
Matt Brown:We haven't had a one star.
Justin Pardee:We haven't had anything other than five star reviews I so
Stephanie Schaefer:have heard rumblings that people are tempted to give us like a three or four star review just to be the one who stands out. Stay strong people. Fight the good fight. Tell us that you love us. Yeah.
Matt Brown:Yeah. Don't because we love you.
Justin Pardee:Don't We
Stephanie Schaefer:think you're all five stars.
Justin Pardee:Dude, check this out. We got one review this week from Captain Awesome says, undoubtedly the best part
Stephanie Schaefer:of Captain Awesome 1718 is what
Justin Pardee:I was Oh, excuse me. Just clarify.
Stephanie Schaefer:Yeah. There are a lot of Captain Awesome's out there. I wanna make sure that this one gets credit.
Justin Pardee:Yes. Well, to you it is mister seventeen eighteen. Captain seventeen eighteen. Undoubtedly the best part of my week, Captain says. Don't I know.
Justin Pardee:I'm assuming it's a man. I apologize for being sexist. The insight is amazing and I love the depth given to each chapter. Party and Stephanie are great as well. Yes.
Justin Pardee:Thank you. And then here we go. From Sammy Slim, being an attender of the church in the late nineties and a frequent podcast listener over the past few years, it's so awesome that Matt has taken this extra step to talk more in-depth on a weekly basis. Thank you. So that was a thank you to you.
Matt Brown:So he doesn't go to our church anymore?
Justin Pardee:Sammy may or may not. Who knows? Maybe when?
Stephanie Schaefer:And now he listens to our podcast.
Justin Pardee:Maybe he's the Japanese Eskimo. Maybe he's in Japan. Outing himself. Exactly. Well, hey, to all of you incredible people who are leaving us reviews and supporting us, we have awesome news.
Justin Pardee:You guys have been asking and asking about some Debrief t shirts, and guess what? They are coming your way likely, I think, as soon as this weekend, we'll have them
Matt Brown:Oh, yes.
Justin Pardee:At each of our campuses. If not, definitely by next weekend. Debrief t shirts and sweet stickers for your laptop, for your
Stephanie Schaefer:Lunchbox? Trapper keeper.
Matt Brown:Yeah. Trapper keeper?
Stephanie Schaefer:You sent us a brochure Put stickers With your debrief sticker on a trapper keeper, and we will give you a free shirt.
Matt Brown:Oh, yeah. Put a a sticker Trapper. On your safe
Justin Pardee:Trapper keeper. Yeah.
Stephanie Schaefer:Like the While you were leading a church in the late nineties, we were in school using trapper keepers.
Justin Pardee:Trapper keeper. That's like a it's your three ring binder.
Stephanie Schaefer:Yeah. But it's like so much more than a three ring binder.
Justin Pardee:Exactly. It like has
Stephanie Schaefer:a little like flap. Usually, Lisa Frank would like design her own.
Justin Pardee:Yeah. Like some puffy tigers on the front. Yes. Totally.
Matt Brown:I was thinking like hunting material.
Justin Pardee:Oh, Trapper Keeper. Trapper Keeper.
Stephanie Schaefer:Oh, no. Oh,
Justin Pardee:we got sweet debrief debrief t shirts and stickers and here's what's cool. This debrief is not free and there's some little things that we're trying to do to improve the quality of the audio and all that kind of stuff. So all the proceeds from these debrief t shirts are gonna go right back right back into the debrief to help make things better around here. So we're really excited to have those out for you guys. We'll appreciate you picking one of those up to help support the show and continue to make it awesome.
Justin Pardee:What's so great is that when you buy the shirt, it's basically like a two for one deal. You get the sweet body covering plus you get to be a part of making the debrief better Mhmm. For your ears in the future.
Stephanie Schaefer:And for those of you who are listening far away, we cannot sell them online right now, but find your way to a person who attends Sandals Church.
Matt Brown:Oh, yeah.
Stephanie Schaefer:And I bet they can totally pick one up for you. Use a little bit of the cash app. We'll we'll make it happen.
Matt Brown:I can't believe you haven't invented an underwear line yet. The debriefs. Know Those are next. Yeah.
Justin Pardee:Those would be pretty awesome.
Stephanie Schaefer:Yeah. Like need some new microphones or something. Exactly.
Justin Pardee:They come with this yeah. They come with a sweet sticker for free.
Matt Brown:Day will be cool when you wear your debriefs.
Justin Pardee:Exactly. And, as we jump in, quick shout out to Brian who brought those chips and guacamole. We love you, my man.
Matt Brown:Alright. You are delicious.
Justin Pardee:We have so many questions this week from follow-up, all kinds of stuff. So should we jump right into it?
Stephanie Schaefer:We should jump right in. So here on the debrief, we are taking your questions on the chapter every week as we walk through the books of Luke and Acts this year. So let's dive on in. Anytime you guys have questions, feel free to send those in at sandals church dot com slash the debrief. I
Justin Pardee:tried to do that.
Stephanie Schaefer:I saw you. I saw you going in, so I tried to slow down.
Justin Pardee:Good job. Teamwork.
Stephanie Schaefer:Dreamwork.
Justin Pardee:Incredible. Okay. So a lot of people wrote in pastor Matt and asked some specific questions about divorce coming in from the last week when we started to talk about it on the show.
Stephanie Schaefer:Yeah. So a lot of those questions came in. Some of those are from people who have been divorced and are now single parents. Some of those are from people who have been remarried. So what are like, what's the best way for people who've been divorced to kind of heal and move forward with God?
Matt Brown:Yeah. Absolutely. So I know that, you know, last week in the debrief, we we you know, Jesus comes across the harshest on divorce in Luke. It's a little softer in Matthew, but in Luke, the passage is harsh. And I believe that, like I said last week, that Jesus is trying to do that because He's really trying to challenge the Pharisees, His audience, the self righteous people who think that they're holier than thou.
Matt Brown:And the reality is, they're exchanging wives and doing whatever they want, which has been a problem throughout the hierarchy of the religious elite in Jerusalem for a long time. That's why Malachi says, God hates divorce. You know, when Ezra and Nehemiah come back, there's problems with all sinner marriage issues. And so this is just an area of hypocrisy that the religious elite in Israel had just allowed. And it's one of the problems that we've really allowed in the contemporary churches, we're really, really harsh on homosexuality, but we've kind of swallowed the whistle, so to speak, on the issue of divorce.
Matt Brown:And so, just just just know this, that the divorce is is always, you know, it's always a sin. It just is. God hates divorce, it's it's an ugly thing. And and again, we have to go back to the definition of sin. Sin is falling short of the glory of God.
Matt Brown:And so when we have to go through a divorce, even if it's necessary, there there's a failure there. And we all need to grieve that more than that and experience that. Even if it's something that you feel like you have to do, right? You have to do it, it's the right thing to do, or not the right thing, but it's the best decision in light of the circumstances that you're in.
Justin Pardee:Okay.
Matt Brown:It's still, You know, oftentimes in life, find ourselves in situations where there is not a good decision. Like for example, Lot in the story of Genesis with the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, he finds himself in the situation where people are gonna come in and they're going to rape the angels that are in his household. And so in that situation, he says, no, take my daughter. Right? That's he he thought for whatever reason that was a better decision than what was going to happen to the Lord's angels.
Matt Brown:And the reality is no decisions were good because he shouldn't have been there. He never should have been there. And so sometimes we find ourselves in situations where maybe we married somebody that we shouldn't have. We didn't take counsel. We got married too young.
Matt Brown:We didn't think it through. But we made this covenant. We made this agreement with this person, and now we have to break this covenant. And so even if you have to, it's it's still right. It's a sin.
Matt Brown:It just is. And so we have to process through that. We have to deal with that, and we just have to accept that. And if you can't accept you're a sinner, you're not a Christian. And so we all we all commit different kinds of sins, and and divorce is one of those things that we go through.
Matt Brown:And so we just have to just say, thank God for Jesus Christ dying on the cross for me. So, you know, what I would just say is, you know, confess that sin to God, and, know, whatever your part was in the process, confess it to God, ask him for forgiveness, and move forward and move on. And don't let it, you know, ruin your life. But again, you know, we are way too casual about the covenant of marriage in our day and age. You know, people, you know, exchange, you know, move in and out of marriages like they move in and out of churches way too often.
Matt Brown:And so we're too quick to break relationship, we're too quick to break marriage covenants. We need to be, you know, focused on that. And so, you know, you can't go back and change the past, you know. So whatever marriage you're in, do the very best you can to work it out. And like I said before, you know, don't get divorced until you consult, you know, your religious leadership, so they can speak into your life and make sure that you've exercised every possible opportunity to save the marriage.
Matt Brown:Sometimes there's no way to save a marriage. Sometimes marriages are beyond repair, and that's a reality of our fallen world. So what I would just say is is, you know, God still loves you. You're still forgiven. You're no no more of a sinner than I am.
Matt Brown:Jesus says, whoever looks at a woman, you know, with lust in his heart has committed adultery. And so, right, we're all Mhmm. You know, maybe Stephanie hasn't done that, but Justin and I are guilty of that specific sin. I'm sure. Yes.
Matt Brown:Yeah. So, you know, we're we're all in this boat together. We are all irreparably lost in sin. We we can't be saved by ourselves. We need Jesus Christ to save us.
Matt Brown:And so we just have to trust the grace and forgiveness that comes through faith in Christ and Christ alone. And again, that's why we talked about, you know, the leper who is healed. That's why we need to sing, we need to worship, and we need to praise God on the weekends because of what Christ has done for us. And so the object is not to make you feel terrible about your sin, but to make you feel absolutely amazed at God's love.
Justin Pardee:Mhmm.
Matt Brown:So I don't know if that's an answer for you on that or not.
Justin Pardee:Okay. So I feel very well versed in unique phrases and sayings, but I had never heard swallow our own whistle. Swallow swallow the whistle?
Matt Brown:Yeah. So at the end of at the end of a basketball game or a football game, oftentimes what officials will do is they swallow the whistle. So what that means is they'll they'll let certain things go at the end of a game that they would call a foul earlier in the game. And so the idea is to not let the refs determine the outcome of the game, but to allow the players determine the outcome of the game.
Justin Pardee:Got it. It's a sports thing.
Matt Brown:It's a sports analogy.
Justin Pardee:That is exactly where I missed it.
Stephanie Schaefer:Yep. Same.
Justin Pardee:Boom.
Stephanie Schaefer:Learn about sports and the bible here on the debrief.
Justin Pardee:Indeed. Okay. So, Mark writes in and he's got a really interesting question from Luke 16 and his is based on he was reading in the New International Version translation of the bible and verses 16 through 17 say, the law and the prophets were proclaimed until John. Since that time, the good news of the kingdom of God is being preached and everyone is forcing his way into it. And Mark asked, what does it mean when Jesus says that everyone is forcing his way into the kingdom?
Matt Brown:Right. And so, well, it's a very very difficult sentence to understand in the Greek language. So the question is, you know, you could be translated the way that it is translated, they are forcing their way in, or they are being forced into. And so either way, what I think Jesus Christ is saying here is Gentiles, that's you and us, we're coming. Whether they like it or not, we're coming, and we're gonna be a part of this kingdom of God.
Matt Brown:The kingdom of God was never meant to be exclusively Jewish. You know, Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, all three of them receive a blessing from God where they will their their their children and their offspring will be, like the sand on the seashore, like the stars in the sky. All of these thousands and thousands of people. And the Bible says, and the nations will be blessed. And so from the very very beginning, the purpose of the Jewish people of God was to reach the nations.
Matt Brown:And so that never ultimately happened the way God wanted, and so Jesus is ultimately saying, look, this is happening whether you like it or not. Got it. And if you think about, you know, the parables from that story, the parable of the rich man and Lazarus, you know, people are gonna come in that you think aren't coming in. They're coming in, and there's nothing you can do to stop this, because the age of grace is upon us, and the age of the church is coming. And literally, you know, believers everywhere are gonna come from every tribe, every tongue, every nation.
Matt Brown:We see this in Isaiah. It's predicted in Isaiah chapter 60. So when, you know, a lot of people don't realize this, but Isaiah 60 is really a picture of of the end. Mhmm. You know, before revelation was ever even thought of, Isaiah had this vision of the end, the ultimate end of time, and what it is.
Matt Brown:It's it's tribes and tongues and people from every nation from as far as they know north, as far as they know east, west, and south, and that's what Isaiah is talking about is these nations. It's just the world as big as he understands it at that point. All of those people are coming to present their offerings to God, And it's it's just gonna be this beautiful thing, and God's going to be with us all. And it's a beautiful thing. And so that that's what he means by forced is, you know, this is happening.
Matt Brown:This is taking place. What what Got it. Whether you like it or not, the hand of God is upon these people, and they are coming in. Mhmm. And so that's and I think that's the teaching of Luke.
Matt Brown:And so remember, Luke is writing to a Gentile audience, and those of us who were far away from God, we we didn't have the revelation that the Jews had. We didn't have the teaching that the Jewish people had. We don't we didn't have any of that understanding, and yet now we're a part of this family. And it's and it's not because we forced our way in, but because the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ has allowed us to come in. And I think the force here is God's making this happen whether you like it or not.
Matt Brown:This cannot be stopped. And so, and so the preceding verse, right, the, you know, the law has been taught all the way up until the time of John.
Justin Pardee:And he's kind like a turning
Matt Brown:point? Yeah. So you had your season, you had your time. Now John is the bridge between the old and the new, and now the new has come, The new covenant, where anyone who places their faith and trust in Jesus Christ can come in.
Justin Pardee:Well, Mark, hopefully, that was helpful. Let's jump into Luke 17.
Matt Brown:Great question, Mark. That was awesome.
Justin Pardee:There's all kinds of good stuff in, in this chapter.
Stephanie Schaefer:Yeah. So Luke 17 starts off with a warning from Jesus, especially verse two. He says, it would be better to be thrown into the sea with a millstone hung around your neck than to cause one of these little ones to fall into sin. When you got to your verse, this verse in your message this weekend, you took a moment to speak directly to people who'd been abused as children. How would you maybe speak to those folks who've been abused about how as Christians they're supposed to treat the people who had hurt them in ways like this?
Matt Brown:Yeah. Absolutely. So there's there's some complexities to this verse that we didn't get, we, I didn't get to in my sermons on the weekend, and so I wanna come back to that. So let me answer this question is, you know, should we treat those people or what did you say?
Stephanie Schaefer:Yeah. Like those who have been abused by someone, how would you if they're a if this person is Christian, how should they treat the people who've abused them?
Matt Brown:Yeah. Yeah. So, well, at the end, right, Jesus says, you know, in this teaching that we are to forgive those who repent. And so, you know, there's a lot of lot of teaching on forgiveness in the Christian world today that's not always biblical. So, the clear teaching of Jesus on the issue of forgiveness is this, is that we are mandated to forgive those who repent in the same way that God forgives us.
Matt Brown:How does God forgive us? He forgives us when we repent. So here's the Luke and gospel, the Luke gospel. Repent, believe, be baptized. And so that's the formula by which one is right with God.
Matt Brown:So if a person is genuinely sorry for what they did, and they confess it as sin, and they say, I'm not going to do this anymore, you are mandated to forgive that person. However, if they don't do that, I think what this passage says is you just need to hand that over for God. I wouldn't hold on to bitterness. I wouldn't hold on to anger. I wouldn't hold on to resentment because then you make yourself a slave, for the rest of your life to the emotions from that psychological event.
Justin Pardee:Mhmm.
Matt Brown:And so it was horrendous, it was awful, and it was ugly. And, you know, God's prayer for you is that you would find emotional and psychological freedom from that event, that it wouldn't enslave you for the rest of your life. And so the way you do that, I think in this passage, is you hand it over to Jesus, and you understand the that that God will deal with the one who wronged you. And it's going to be it's going to be brutal for that person. And ultimately, you know, that's why we wanna pray for those who've wounded us, and pray for those who persecuted us, because what they did to us will be nothing in comparison to what ultimately happens to them forever.
Matt Brown:So that the wrath that they're awaiting is far beyond anything that could ever happen to us. And it doesn't mean that what God is gonna do to them is wrong. It means it's going to be forever. Judgment is going to be forever. And so the heart for us is to pray for that person to get right with God, because that's the heart for all of us.
Matt Brown:Now let me say this, you know, in in cases of abuse, and the person wants to get things right with you. I think it's completely up to you whether or not you engage with that person. Let's say, you were molested or something like that, and that person in prison became a Christian. They get out and they wanna they wanna make things right with their victims and they're very very sorry. I don't think that you need to be in a relationship with that person or contact that person unless you feel like you want to do that.
Matt Brown:I would just, from afar say, thank you very much, keep your distance. We don't need to be in relationship and that's fine because oftentimes reengaging with the person who's abused you brings up all kinds of other things that makes you feel very unsafe. And so so so that's what I would say to that. Are you gonna ask me another question about this?
Stephanie Schaefer:Yeah. I was gonna ask even on the inverse side of like people who have those in their family who've been abused. Like, you know, we talked you talked about like praying for those who've hurt you, loving your enemies. How do you love and pray for those who've maybe hurt you or hurt your family in a way like that?
Matt Brown:Yeah. So when Jesus says love, you know, I think a lot of times as Christians, we make ourselves ridiculous trying to figure this out. He doesn't mean like, you know he doesn't when he means love, he he means to wish well. You don't so how do you love your enemies? You wish them well.
Matt Brown:You may have to kill them. You may have to, like in conflict, you know, but I don't want them dead. I want to be at peace. And so whatever needs to happen for peace to occur, that's what I'm praying for, and that's what I'm longing for. You know, you hear these incredible stories in World War two where you have German soldiers on one side of of the of the fight, and, British and French on the other side, and it's Christmas.
Matt Brown:They all stop, and they sing, you know, Christmas songs together, literally in the trenches. They're wishing each other well. They still have a disagreement that they have to fight through because of the nations in which they exist, and so there's a battle that has to be fought. But in the end, what they care for is ultimately about the very best for the people that they're fighting. And so as Christians, we need to remember ultimately that what we're fighting against, Paul says, is not flesh and blood.
Matt Brown:It's not people. People are not our enemy, the devil is. And so the devil infiltrates, uses, and manipulates people to do all kinds of evil. And so we need to remember that that's the enemy. And we need to pray and wish well.
Matt Brown:Like for ISIS, you know, what these people are doing are horrible atrocities in The Middle East. You know, I don't wish evil upon them. Like, hear this sometimes. Like, we need what the response is we need to commit all the atrocities that they're committing against us against them. And then it's like, well, then we're just like them.
Matt Brown:Mhmm. Now we may have to kill them, but let's do so, you know, as as humanely as possible. Mhmm. We don't need to torture, maim, and do all these horrible things. But what ultimately I wish for the people that are involved in that is that they would get their lives right with God, that they would quit worshiping this false idea of God, this this this really perversion of who God is, and that they would worship Jesus Christ and repent of their sins and come to Christ and be at peace with the people around them.
Matt Brown:And that's my prayer for them. I wish that for them. But it doesn't mean I need to be in a relationship with them. So I don't I don't need to be in connection with them. And so every single person needs to have safe distance.
Matt Brown:So we talked about the victim. Let's talk quickly about the friends and family of the victim. Here's where Christians need to be very, very careful. Yes. We need to offer forgiveness.
Matt Brown:Yes. We need to allow people to repent of their sins. But when you are in relationship with someone who's been the victim, you must always side with the victim. So what you can't do is you can't wound the person again, because we said, well this person says they're sorry, now we need to bring them relationship. If the victim is not at a place in their life where they want this person around, at family events, at family gatherings, even in the church.
Matt Brown:You know, we had a situation in our church where a a a, you know, a person in our church had been molested as a child by somebody else who who came to our church. And they they couldn't worship. They couldn't go to church here. So what did I do? I told the person who was the perpetrator of the event, you must go to church somewhere else.
Matt Brown:They they were sorry, they'd repent. Fine. All that's fine. Mhmm. But you don't get to worship here because it's negatively affecting the victim.
Matt Brown:So And that's one of the things that we need to do as Christians is we need to side with the victims in the process, and make sure that we don't wound them again. Because oftentimes, the greatest pain that victims feel is that they've not been stood up for. Their families have not protected them, Their families have not rallied behind them, which is why this passage is so important. Jesus says to the victim, I will rally to you. I will save you.
Matt Brown:I I will I will deal with this person who has sinned against you. So so I I spoke specifically to to to victims of abuse, especially to children. But really what Jesus is saying here, and this is, man, this is just really really heavy. Think about all the victims of sexual abuse from priests and from pastors. Jesus is specifically speaking to people in positions of leadership in the church.
Matt Brown:That's who he's speaking to here. And so for those of us who are called into leadership, we're going to be held to a greater account, we're gonna be held to greater responsibility and accountability on the day of judgment. And he is telling me, specifically, right, I'm the shepherd of this church, Matt, you had better not mistreat my little ones. The people who trust you, the people who listen to you, the people who follow you as you follow me, you need to be very, very careful in your leadership. And so really, it's an admonition to a word of warning to those of us who are in leadership.
Matt Brown:We've gotta treat little ones, children specifically, but, you know, new people in the faith, new believers in the faith, don't manipulate them, don't abuse them, don't mislead them, because God is going to hold us accountable. And you think about all the leaders who lead for themselves, who manipulate, who who twist the truth, who, you know, turn churches into their own kingdoms, you know, for their own needs. All of those people will be dealt with. Go back to Luke 12 when he returns, and remember what he says, he tears the one servant who abused the sheep Yeah. He tears them to pieces.
Matt Brown:And so it's the same teaching over and over again.
Justin Pardee:Okay. So as we're talking about forgiveness, Jesus goes on in verse four. He says, even if a person wrongs you seven times a day and each time turns again and asks forgiveness, you must forgive. So is Jesus really saying there's no limit to how much we should forgive?
Matt Brown:Yeah. Absolutely. Because there's no limit to how many times God will forgive us. So first John one nine, God is faithful and just to forgive us of our sins and cleanse us from all our wickedness when we confess our sins to him. You know, first Timothy five sixteen, confess your sins one to another so that you may whole be whole and healed.
Matt Brown:You know, we need to exercise discernment. We need to not be manipulated by people. Because people right? Manipulative people can find this verse and say, well, you have to forgive me, and and you you have to allow me back in that relationship. So we need to not be manipulated by this, but discern by the spirit of God whether the person is genuinely repentant.
Matt Brown:And and, you know, don't just do that by yourself, but involve people in that process. And if we believe they're genuinely repentant, then yes, we need to forgive them. That doesn't mean, however, you know, let's say it's your spouse, and they're repeatedly, you know, committing adultery on you and cheating on you. Yeah, you need to forgive them as a brother or sister in Christ, but it doesn't mean you need to stay married. You don't need to stay in the relationship with a person.
Matt Brown:Same with a drug addict, a person who's, you know and I think this really speaks to people with struggles with addiction. We need to continually forgive them as they genuinely repent, and genuinely want to change. But with addiction, oftentimes, there are multiple offenses, you know, if the person does indeed get clean and sober. It's it's oftentimes a process. Every now and then there's a miracle where boom, one time, you know, they're never done again.
Matt Brown:But but with addictive issues, oftentimes, the person will offend you and hurt you. And notice what he says, when they sin against you Mhmm. So the offense is against us. And so, you know, let's say you have a loved one, a family member that's a drug addict, and and they're just continually falling to this. You can forgive them as a brother and sister in Christ.
Matt Brown:It doesn't mean they need to live in your home. It doesn't mean they need to borrow your car. It doesn't mean that, right, you need to loan them money. So you need to have healthy boundaries, but give forgiveness and and and, you know, maintain some health in this. So forgive, but don't get stupid.
Stephanie Schaefer:What then do you do with people who have hurt you, have wronged you, and have not repented, or not asking for forgiveness? How do you navigate that?
Matt Brown:Yeah. So again, we are only mandated. This is my understanding of scripture, and you will hear pastors completely disagree with me on this is that we need to constantly forgive. You know, I've even heard pastors leave people in forgiving, you know, people that are dead. Like, need to forgive this person.
Matt Brown:And if that's healthy, great. I don't think that we're biblically mandated to to do that. Biblical forgiveness is is the response to repentance. So let me say that again. Biblical forgiveness is the response to repentance.
Matt Brown:And so let's look at Jesus teaching. Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you. So what does that mean? I I want to wish the unrepentant people in my life well. Like, right?
Matt Brown:I don't I don't want you remember the disciples? Should we ask God to bring, you know, fire down on these people? And Jesus is like, no. So so I I need to wish them well, and pray that one day that they repent. And I need to lift them up in prayer.
Matt Brown:So here's what I do, because I've had a great deal of relational conflict in my life and people that have hurt me deeply. Here's my prayer for them. When I find myself getting angry or upset, I say, father, help me to forgive them in the way that you've forgiven me. So move my heart to a place where I'm I'm ready for forgiveness. Ultimately, think forgiveness is something that can only occur when the person asks for it.
Matt Brown:So what I think the position of health is as the believer is what I need to do is I need to not withhold my right to judge, and I need to give that to God. God, I'm gonna allow you to judge them. And so I think the biblical commandment and and Christian health is saying, God, I'm gonna let you judge. You decide. I'm gonna turn this over to you.
Matt Brown:I'm gonna entrust you with this wound. I'm gonna entrust you with this hurt. Now, obviously, Jesus lays down extraordinary levels of forgiveness. For example, at the crucifixion, father forgive them for they know not what they do. They did not They were not repenting.
Matt Brown:They did not repent. But Jesus seems to be understanding that And Paul says this in Corinthians, and Peter preaches it in Acts, if they would have known they were killing God's son, they wouldn't have done it. So there's a level of ignorance there that Jesus understands. But he does ask God to forgive them for their act and they are unrepentant. So there is there's a case there for that.
Matt Brown:But again, the biblical teaching, the consistent biblical teaching is that forgiveness is a response to repentance. In this point, we're talking about it on on the weekend message, it's taking sin seriously. So we need to be serious enough that we rebuke people. So that means we need to speak to people's life when they hurt us, when they wound us, when they sin against us, we need to have the courage to confront. Mhmm.
Matt Brown:And not in anger. And that's one of the things that I've learned in my life is that oftentimes when I've confronted, I wait until I'm angry. Because that gives me not Christ like courage to confront. And so, in my marriage, with my children, I want love to be the motivation for confrontation. I love you so I'm I'm going to.
Matt Brown:And that's that's what a biblical rebuke is. What motivates a biblical rebuke is love, not anger, not frustration. It's I love you and what you're doing is wrong and unhealthy, and I'm going to challenge you on that. And so there are two sides of the coin. We have to be courageous enough to rebuke sin, to confront those who sin against us and those who sin around us.
Matt Brown:We have to speak truth in their lives. And we also have to make sure that we are wanting them to get right. Like if you just wanna yell at somebody and you feel like you have some biblical ammunition ammunition here to scream at somebody, you know, people are gonna love this this rebuke verse.
Justin Pardee:Yeah.
Matt Brown:But notice what he says, if they repent, then you need to be ready to tone down the rhetoric rhetoric and forgive them.
Justin Pardee:Okay. So in response to all that, verses five and six is where the apostles respond to Jesus and they're like, show us how to increase our faith. And Jesus says, if you had faith as small as a mustard seed, you could say this to the mulberry tree. May you be uprooted and thrown into the sea and it would obey you. Is Jesus really saying that like, oh, just a tiny little bit of faith is that powerful?
Justin Pardee:Because, I mean, I grew up in the church. I consider myself a man of faith and I have looked at some bushes really hard.
Matt Brown:Right. Have you really I
Justin Pardee:mean, I've tried come on now. Yeah. Yeah. I've even looked at mountains. Jesus says that too.
Matt Brown:Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. No. He says a lot of things.
Justin Pardee:None of them have moved.
Matt Brown:Well, it's called a hyperbole. So the point is he's he's stating a fictitious statement to present a very very real truth. And so we're not supposed to, you almost think of like a like a Harry Potter movie where they're practicing, you know, and they're and so so I think as Christians, that's what we think is, well, I gotta go out and I gotta practice my faith by yelling at a tree. And so when it when it uproots itself and throws itself into the to the layer Lake of the sea. Yeah.
Matt Brown:Then I have accomplished great faith. And that's not what he's saying. What he's saying is real faith can can can do radically real things in people's lives. It saves our souls, it can heal people, you know. We we can see amazing things happen.
Matt Brown:And so faith changes things. I mean, faith affects things. And so it's not about the quantity of your faith, the quality of your faith. If you just have enough to believe and trust, you're going to see God do amazing things. Next week, we're gonna talk about the persistent widow.
Matt Brown:Right? Keep asking, keep coming, and you're gonna you're going to get the answer ultimately because, know, that well, I don't wanna go into that, but we need to trust and believe that that faith can change things, and faith makes a difference. And so that's what he means. He's not being literal, say to this mountain, jump into the ocean, or say to this tree. What he's saying is is faith, real faith, is powerful.
Matt Brown:Very, very powerful. And so he's praying for this. You know, he's praying this for us. The Greek language, the word faith is pistis, which right? I love the way it sounds like piston.
Matt Brown:You know, something that drives. Right? It drives, and pistons make the engine go. And for Christians, you know, pistis is what makes us go. And so it's what drives our life and and continues us.
Matt Brown:And so no matter where we are in life, we all have to be growing in faith. Because we're like I said on the weekend, we're either growing out of faith, or we're growing in our faith. We don't idle well. Repeatedly, in the scriptures, we're warned against idling. Mhmm.
Matt Brown:We don't sit well. We move forward or we're going backward. And so as Christians, we gotta continually grow in our faith. And I was amazed at at the feedback from people. You know, a lot of times we think of people who go to church as people of great faith, and oftentimes people are in church because they're lacking faith or they don't have faith.
Matt Brown:And so I need to remember that in my communication is that I need to be encouraging people in their faith, and not just assuming that they are people of faith. And so, you know, Justin and Stephanie, you need to grow in your faith. I need to grow in my faith. We all need to do this because the disciples, right, these are the 12 guys that basically left everything to follow Jesus, and they say, increase our faith. And Jesus makes a statement, if you had faith.
Matt Brown:And so the reality there, I think what he's saying is, they may have followed him, but they have not yet come to faith. They don't have they don't have that real faith yet, that that mustard seed of faith that's going to ultimately change the world. And that's what these, you know, one guy kills himself, Judas. The the 11 guys do is they change the world with the faith of a mustard seed, this small amount of belief that ultimately changes the history of humanity forever. So, it's pretty cool.
Justin Pardee:Is there a way to identify, like you even talked about quality of faith versus quantity, like what is real faith? Is it basically when the rubber meets the road, like I'm choosing to make decisions that go counter to what I would maybe naturally want or think.
Matt Brown:Yeah. So I think the practical way that faith has lived out is is learning to say yes to Jesus is saying no to yourself. Mhmm. And so that is right. We we covered Luke nine twenty three a couple weeks ago.
Matt Brown:Yeah. Whoever would come after me, let him deny himself, pick up his cross, and follow me. So that's that's where faith begins. Faith begins by saying yes to this Jesus that I can't see and I can't touch. And so that's I'm believing in him.
Matt Brown:And so the way I say yes to him is I say no to myself, I can see myself, and I can touch myself. And it's it's operating in this life where I'm beginning to trust something that's beyond me, a deep abiding faith. And so by faith, I believe that, you know, the scriptures that we are reading are accurate and true and real. I trust in them. I believe in them.
Matt Brown:I believe that they accurately represent the story and teaching of Jesus Christ and and how one can be saved. And so I trust these words as true, as right, as good, over and above my own desires, wants, and needs. And when I choose to say yes to God's word and yes to Jesus' teaching, and I say no to myself, I am exercising faith. And here's the amazing thing about faith, is when you exercise it, it grows. It grows.
Matt Brown:And we want to continue to grow in this faith our entire life. So Hebrews says without faith, it is impossible to please God. So God could convince all of us of who He is. He could crack the heavens open today, and say it's me, and we would all believe, not in in a in a faith way, but in a knowledge way. That's not what He wants us to do.
Matt Brown:And and here's why I think faith is so important to God, is because the Bible says, and this is all boy, this is a little rabbit trail here, but I'm gonna chase it.
Justin Pardee:Let's do it.
Matt Brown:I think that, you know, people always wonder why isn't why isn't God make himself more real? And because I believe by God revealing his whole self to us, he he invalidates choice. So the Bible says God is love. He loves us, and he wants us to love him. And so his mere presence will override choice.
Matt Brown:So for example, the Bible says in Philippians chapter two, one day every knee will bow, and every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord. They're gonna confess he's Lord, but they don't love him. The immensity of who he is is going to override, you know, their own selfishness in that moment, and they're gonna drop to their knees. They're gonna drop to their knees, and gonna say, oh my god, that's you. But God doesn't want us to choose him because of his power.
Matt Brown:He wants to compel us with his love. And so because of that, he's elusive, he makes himself, you know, the Bible talks about his invisible qualities. He's here, but he's not here, so that he can, you know, rightly pursue our heart and not overwhelm us with our beauty. You know, that's one of the things that, you know, like, think about attractiveness. You know, when you see a truly beautiful person, I always wonder how hard it must be for a truly beautiful person to truly find love.
Matt Brown:Because their appearance so overrides people's emotions that oftentimes people are loving them simply for what they see and not for who the person is. And so what I think is God is so beautiful that if he showed himself to us, we would we would be forced to fall in love. We would be captivated by him. So he has to hide, so to speak, in the bushes, and and call to us, and woo us. You know, Isaiah says that Jesus is ugly.
Matt Brown:That's what it says. He was not much to look at. And I think that that that's important, because people had to be drawn who he was, not what he looked like. Mhmm. So little rabbit trail there.
Stephanie Schaefer:No. That was great. I'm gonna move on to verses seven through 10 now from chapter 17. Jesus says, when a servant comes in from plowing or taking care of sheep, does his master say, come in and eat with me? No.
Stephanie Schaefer:He says, prepare my meal, put on your apron, and serve me while I eat, then you can eat later. And does the master thank the servant for doing what he was told to do? Of course not. In the same way, when you obey me, you should say, we are unworthy servants who have simply done our duty.
Justin Pardee:This, does not sound like the hippie lovey Jesus that we're used to hearing about.
Matt Brown:Right. And so, here's here's the unfortunate thing about modern Christianity is we've made Jesus our eternal servant, and we have made ourselves the eternal master. So all of Christianity is about my wants, my needs, my happiness, and what's so sad about that is when you pursue your wants, your needs, your happiness, you find yourself miserable. And so we're seeing that in American culture today. So I shared this statistic, 90% of Americans believe that by pursuing their own desires is the best way to find happiness.
Matt Brown:Those same people, that that's their vision of life, that's their philosophy of life, are then asked how happy are you? And what's terrifying is Americans are unhappier than we've ever been at any in any statistical evaluation in the history of our country. So we're saying, if I pursue my own desires, I will be happy, and the results are overwhelmingly that we're more miserable than we've ever been. Because the pursuit of self is, by definition, the spirit of unhappiness. I mean, it just is.
Matt Brown:You cannot be happy by pursuing self. You can only be happy by pursuing God. And so God has made us to serve Him, and to bring glory to Him. So if you go all the way back to Genesis, Adam and Eve, who are they? They're servants in the garden.
Matt Brown:You know, a lot of people don't realize this, but there's gonna be work in heaven. People think of heaven as this, you know, eternal vacation where we just sit on the beach and we're served. But the reality is when you look at Isaiah 60, what are the nations doing? They're bringing their gold, they're bringing their wheat, they're bringing their flocks and their herds. How did they do that?
Matt Brown:They worked for it. Right? Gold you know, some gold you find on the on the ground, but most gold is found through the process of mining, which is a dirty, ugly, nasty job. And so people don't realize this, but work is not cursed until after the fall. Mhmm.
Matt Brown:Work work is Adam and Eve work before the fall. It becomes cursed after the fall. And so, you know, people always say, well, what am I gonna do in heaven, you know, forever? Well, first of all, you're not gonna be in heaven forever. You're gonna be on new earth.
Matt Brown:That's another podcast. And we're going to work. We're going to utilize our skills. We are servants, and God has made us this. And there's going to be happiness that is found in serving God and utilizing your gifts and your talents to glorify him, which by the way, what is Isaiah 60?
Matt Brown:So here here's the madness. We all work in slave on earth, you know, for ourselves. So, you know, for your kids, you know, for my wife, my kids, Stephanie, you know, when she gets married, her and her kids, we all work for ourselves, and ultimately, we are deeply unhappy. Here's the call of Christ. We no longer work for ourselves, but we work for Jesus, and everything we do is his.
Matt Brown:And that, biblically, is heaven. So what do people do with the gold? What do they do with the wheat? What do they do with their animals that they've raised? What what do they do with all of that in Isaiah 60?
Matt Brown:They bring it to the Lord in Jerusalem, and they're grateful. They've done it for him. And and somehow, you know, that's something that we're missing. We're missing the joy of work because we don't do it to glorify him. And so, we will be servants forever.
Matt Brown:Forever. And everybody will serve one of two things. You will serve yourself in hell forever. Good luck with that. Or you will serve Jesus on the new earth with him forever.
Matt Brown:Those are the choices. You're going to be a slave of something, yourself or him. Jesus calls himself the good shepherd. He loves us. And not only does does he love us, but he loves serving.
Matt Brown:Think of John 13. He he washes their feet. You know, think of, you know, Luke 12. When when the master returns, he wants to serve us first. Mhmm.
Matt Brown:And so we have to understand that that, you know, service is godliness. And and that's what's so sad is we judge people by the content of their work. You know, there used to be blue collar, white collar. It's all it's all awesome. Mhmm.
Matt Brown:Whatever you do, whether you're serving my food or you're helping, you know, my wife and I are very, very busy, we have people that that help us clean our house. What they're doing is noble work, and I appreciate them, and I love on them, and treat them with dignity, because every type of work is beautiful. Service is a beautiful thing, and, as Christians, we need to remember that. Mhmm. You know, when someone's waiting on our table, the person who's cleaning our hotel room, you know, the person that washes our car, you know, those are beautiful things.
Matt Brown:And so look at the misery of America as we've moved away from the service industry. Right? Now we have to have immigrants that come in and do that because it's it's beneath us. Look at how miserable we are. Because we've forgotten the beauty of work, the joy of just getting your getting your hands dirty and working in the mud and producing something, and there's something beautiful and godlike about that.
Matt Brown:And so Christ has called us to do our duty and to serve him, and he's not impressed with what he's called us to do. And that's what he's saying here. You know, why should I give you a standing ovation for simply doing your duty?
Stephanie Schaefer:Mhmm.
Justin Pardee:So Man, if anybody, wants to drop any more five star reviews into iTunes to help me get a job as podcast host in the new heavens and the new earth, I would, really appreciate it.
Stephanie Schaefer:I'm pretty sure that's exactly how it works. So good job. Way
Justin Pardee:to I'm call that just gonna work on my spirit heavenly resume.
Matt Brown:Yeah. You're from future resume.
Justin Pardee:Okay. So continuing on here, Jesus tells his whole story. He well, he doesn't tell a story. Excuse me. He heals 10 dudes and he responds to this guy, only one of them comes back.
Justin Pardee:Verses seventeen and nineteen, Jesus asked, didn't I heal 10 men when only one guy returns? Where are the other nine? Has no one returned to give God a glory except this foreigner? Stand up and go. Your faith has healed you.
Justin Pardee:So why is Jesus calling this guy a foreigner?
Matt Brown:Well, because he is a foreigner. So the story begins with Jesus is going to Jerusalem, and he's somewhere between Galilee and Samaria. And so, you know, there's we could talk forever about the hostilities between Jews and Samaritans, but Samaritans were considered half breeds, traitors. They were not liked, they had their own temple, they worshipped in their own ways. And and really, you know, Jews consider them just the absolute lowest worst of anything.
Matt Brown:They actually despise them more than the Romans. Because the Romans acted out of ignorance, they would have seen the Samaritans acting out of rebellion. And so they chose to real really kind of gentlize, I guess that's the word, or Okay. Secularize their faith, and so they're hated. But what's interesting here is you have so Jews and Samaritans would have nothing to do with each other.
Matt Brown:But then you have this issue where nine Jews are now social outcasts because they have leprosy, and a Samaritan is now a social outcast because he has leprosy. And is it interesting how they can join together? And I think this is actually a great picture of the church. We're all these social outcasts, we're all these people who've been who realize that we we we are sinners, and we are we're we've fallen short of the glory of God. And so we come together, but what's so sad is it's only the person who truly realizes how far away it was from God.
Matt Brown:So a Samaritan would have understood that they're rejected by Jews. And so what the Samaritan can't believe is that this Jewish rabbi would take time to heal him. And so he comes running back, and and so he's considered a foreigner. He's considered not Jewish. It's just so important for those of us who've been raised in church.
Matt Brown:Mhmm. I think we have these unhealthy expectations of what God needs to do for us, and so because of that, we are not grateful for what he has done for us. And I think that's this picture is people who are far from God. Jesus says in another passage, you know, to those who've been forgiven much, they love much. And and this is just a reflection, you know, of why so many of us struggle in worship on Sundays.
Matt Brown:Well, don't like this song, and I don't like these lights, and I don't like this, you know, the way that the song was orchestrated. And it's because we're motivated by really ourself rather than what Jesus has done for us, that worship is our problem. And so, you know, it's just it's just a beautiful picture of how all of us should act. All of us have been saved by Jesus, and we need to behave and act like the Samaritan who came running back and really worshiped him and thanked him for what he had done. Mhmm.
Stephanie Schaefer:Next question is from verse 21 where Jesus says, for the kingdom of God is already among you. Mike asks, I've heard people use this example to say that God is within us, and that we do not need to accept him. Can you clarify?
Matt Brown:Yeah. Well, I I have not said that. I don't know who said that. That is horrible, horrible advice. In some ways, it's true.
Matt Brown:Once you become born again, the spirit of God is inside you, the holy spirit is inside you. But what Jesus is saying here is, he's talking about himself. The spirit of God. When he says the spirit of God is among us, or the, excuse me, the kingdom of God is among us, he's referring to himself. I'm standing right here.
Matt Brown:So what you're looking for, what you're waiting for, ultimately, is standing right in front of you. The kingdom of God has begun. It's already happened because I am here. So the thing that's confusing about the kingdom of God in the New Testament is it's both here and yet to come.
Justin Pardee:K.
Matt Brown:And so that that's what makes it confusing is it's both and. And this is just the way the Easterners think. As Westerners, we would just never think this way. We would never say this. We would never speak this way.
Matt Brown:It people in the East, they're just comfortable saying things like this that, you know, you know, sometimes Jesus will say whoever's not for us is against us, and then he'll say whoever's not against us is for us. He he says both, and he has no problem communicating that because he's gonna use language to prove whatever point he means at the time. And for us as westerners, we're like, oh my gosh. Which is it? And the answer is it's both.
Matt Brown:And we don't know what to do with that. And so the kingdom of God is both here and is yet to come. But to phrase his question, the the he said
Stephanie Schaefer:The question really is like, we don't need to accept him if he's already here.
Matt Brown:Yeah. No. That's that's completely absolutely, you must repent of your sin and place your faith and trust in Jesus Christ. You you have to do that. So you are not you are not going to get into heaven apart in any other way than repenting of your sin and placing your faith in trust in Jesus Christ.
Matt Brown:So I don't know who said that. I don't know if we're understanding his question completely. Maybe send a follow-up. But
Justin Pardee:Let me Can I ask you, like, a real nerdy side question on this kingdom of God thing? When you're saying that it's both here and not yet. Okay. So like, I'm a computer nerd, computer geek and I would like right I would say we live in the information age.
Matt Brown:Right.
Justin Pardee:But I don't even think we fully have realized how dramatically our lives are gonna continue to change over the next ten, fifteen years. It's like technology continues to like improve. And it already feels like so different than it did ten, fifteen years ago, but it's totally totally totally gonna change, like in the long term history. Does that make sense at all? Is that a way of understanding like something that's both here, but then not yet?
Justin Pardee:Like it's totally gonna
Matt Brown:Well, but but yeah. I mean, kind of. But the problem with that example is is Christ ultimately will return, and then the kingdom of God will be complete.
Justin Pardee:Okay.
Matt Brown:So when he returns and he reigns as the King of Kings and of Lords, you know, from Jerusalem, right, so all of human history is moving to this place where heaven and earth are no longer separated, but the two literally are getting married, so to speak. They're coming together as one. We're no longer gonna be separated from God. We're going to live with him and be led by him. We will be able to see him, touch him, hear him speak.
Matt Brown:Right? I mean, that's a very very real thing. So to say that I'm experiencing that now, that that is not
Justin Pardee:true. Okay. So the not yet of the kingdom of God is not just like living and growing in the church and, right, we're still in the it's we're still not to the not yet part.
Matt Brown:Yeah. And there are some Christians falsely who have believed what you're saying is that this is what it is. This is what he was talking about. That he rules and reigns in us, and that is the kingdom of God. That is not what the Bible says.
Matt Brown:Ultimately, he will physically return, he will physically reign, and he will physically judge all human beings, both past, present, and future. You know, not not just Christians will rise, all the dead will rise, and everyone will be judged. So it's a physical kingdom that's coming. And so what I think he's saying here is he has planted his spiritual kingdom, and so his kingdom is reigning and ruling in our hearts, and that's what it means to to live under the rule, reign, and authority of God. That's the kingdom of God.
Matt Brown:So to live so the apostle Paul says we are not citizens of here, we are citizens of heaven. So we live here, but our citizenship is in heaven. So that's the both and. I'm here, but my heart's there. You know, where your treasure is there, your heart will be also.
Matt Brown:So I live on Earth, but my heart's in heaven because it's with Jesus, and that's where he is. And so that's how I live both here and there. And And that's why we're called as Christians to live radically different, because we're not citizens of Earth. Somebody was describing this last weekend. Was at a conference, and he said when he was baptized, the pastor pulled him up out of the water and said these words, you're not from here anymore.
Matt Brown:And he's talked about how deeply that impacted him as a kid, because our citizenship is now in heaven. I am not an American citizen only. I'm a citizen of heaven because of the blood of Jesus Christ.
Stephanie Schaefer:Alright. This next question is from Jenny's group. And all throughout what we're gonna walk through next, Jesus keeps referring to himself as a son of man. Could you explain what he means by that?
Matt Brown:Yeah. So son of man is a kind of an apocalyptic title towards the end times. And so Ezekiel, really is the one that calls himself this the most. Daniel was called at one time. But really what it means, the designation is it's a safe way for Jesus to declare himself as God's spokesman.
Matt Brown:And so, you know, by using this term son of man versus son of God, so if he if he runs around saying he's the son of God, he's gonna be crucified before he ever gets to the cross. And so he has a he has a preplanned moment with which he's going to die on the cross on the Passover weekend, right? Christ is crucified before the foundations of the earth. And so he's using this language to to assert himself as a spiritual authority in such a way that his critical audience can't kill him. And so that's why he's doing it.
Matt Brown:And so it's it's his favorite term throughout the gospels, but it's it's his term that he uses to describe himself as a prophetic voice, as the voice of God. And so basically what he's saying is he's not just a teacher, he's not just a rabbi, you know, this is being downloaded to you from God. So Ezekiel I don't know how many times Ezekiel is called that in his book, but it's over and over and over and over and over again. It's just it's just his favorite designation for himself, and it's intentionally confusing. So what he's telling his audience is, I am speaking for God, but he's not saying everything, you know, about who he is in relationship to God.
Matt Brown:But Luke clarifies it for us over and over again because he refers to him as the son of God. You'll see that over and over again. So
Justin Pardee:Okay. So speaking of the end times, let's get into it. We got some intense stuff coming up here. Verses 26 through 30 goes like this. When the son of man returns, it will be like it was in Noah's day.
Justin Pardee:It will be like it was in the days of Lot until the morning Lot left Sodom. Yes, it will be business as usual right up to the day when the son of man is revealed. So is Jesus talking about the end of the world here?
Matt Brown:Yes. Absolutely. So he's talking about, you know, the end time. So all of human history is moving to this point where where God will return. Jesus Christ will return, the Bible says, where the shout from heaven trumpets will be blown all over the earth.
Justin Pardee:In 2012.
Matt Brown:Yeah. No. Not in 2012. You missed it. Yeah.
Matt Brown:You are apostate, so everyone forgive Justin because we need to pray for soul. Yeah. People come up with dates all the time, you know, Mayans and this and that, and it's it's been it's literally been I think all of all of human history, there's something deeply embedded in each and every one of us that knows this thing's all gonna end. The problem is Jesus is very very clear, you don't know when. So the days of Noah, they didn't know when the flood would came, but it came.
Matt Brown:Sodom and Gomorrah didn't know exactly when, you know, hellfire and brimstone would come down from heaven, but it came. And when it comes so Jesus is not saying it will be like a flood or it will be like, you know, literally meteorites coming from heaven, but it's going to be immediate in that way. And when it happens, there's nothing you can do about it. It's too late. The age of grace is over.
Matt Brown:So you can't you can't repent in that moment. The second Christ announces his return, it's too late.
Justin Pardee:Okay. So he goes on and he and he says, that night two people will be asleep in one bed, one will be taken the other left. Two women will be grinding flour together at the mill, one will be taken the other left. First question, why are these ladies grinding flour in the middle of the night while other people are sleeping? Second question, a lot of Christians talk about this thing called the rapture where Christians go up to heaven, non Christians are left behind here on earth.
Justin Pardee:Is that what Jesus is describing here?
Matt Brown:Yeah. So this seems to be the first example of this idea rapture. And so the rapture is a Latin word that comes from the Greek word harpazo harpazo. Excuse me. Harpazo.
Matt Brown:Yeah. So it's Greek word for it to be caught up. And so it's used three times in the New Testament. So it's used specifically when Philip is caught up in the book of Acts by the Holy Spirit, the apostle Paul is caught up into the third heaven. And then in Thessalonians, Paul says, we will be caught up in the air to meet Christ as he returns.
Stephanie Schaefer:Okay.
Matt Brown:And so it's this idea of being caught up with God. So as far as I know, all Christians everywhere believe in this idea of we will be caught up with Him. Where Christians don't agree almost anywhere is on exactly how that's gonna happen, when it will happen, you know, in what order it will happen. And And so as a church, we don't take a stance on pre, mid, or post, we just believe it will. And so here's my philosophy on it.
Matt Brown:It doesn't matter when we're gonna be rescued from the boat. Let's say we're on Titanic. It doesn't matter, are we rescued before it sinks, in the middle of it sinking, or are we rescued in the water after it sinks. Whatever. We're going to be rescued.
Matt Brown:And that's what the Bible teaches and says. And so, you know, a lot of Christians have their own opinions, you know, they have their own ideas, and they have these little charts and graphs that specifically, you know, articulate, you know, why their point is right and so obvious. And this is just what I would say. If it was that obvious, we wouldn't disagree. So peep people just disagree.
Matt Brown:And so for me, what's important to know is that Jesus Christ will physically return. And when he physically returns, he will gather his elect from the four corners of the earth. So all those who are saved, all of those who who who make it to the end, who who believe to the very end, they're gonna be gathered. And they're gonna be caught up with him, and he's going to withhold us. And and here's the thing is, and so this is what a lot of people, you know, don't realize about this word, you know you know, harpazo, is is we're caught up with him not to go to heaven.
Matt Brown:So in the ancient world, when a dignitary came to a town, when they would march into a town, what you would do is you would go out to meet the dignitary.
Justin Pardee:Right.
Matt Brown:Not so that you would go with him to where they are, but to bring them and usher them in. And so the idea is that his church will be caught up in the air with him, so we'll be sucked up into the sky with him, not to go to heaven, but to return with him in His gloriousness. We're gonna share in His rule, reign, and authority. You know, just think about like a Super Bowl championship win, or you know, game seven NBA, right? Yeah.
Matt Brown:You know, the fans don't celebrate. In the Christian story, the fans we don't celebrate from the stands, we celebrate on the court. We're with Christ. So he brings us with him, and we celebrate with him on Christ. And so, not only us, but every Christian who's ever been.
Matt Brown:So Paul says, the dead in Christ shall rise first. And I don't think that so much as, you know, order one two three. What he means is they're not gonna be left behind. Mhmm. So they're they're not gonna miss out is what I think Paul is saying in Thessalonians is they're gonna be they're gonna be in this great celebration with us.
Matt Brown:And so the faithful saints that have gone before us, who served God faithfully to the end and died, they're not gonna miss out on this event. Mhmm. This is one event that all Christianity from all of human history will experience together. We're all gonna be right there, whether we're alive when it happens, or whether we died when it happens. We're all going to be there with Christ as he ushers in, you know, the coming of his kingdom, the rule, reign, and authority of God.
Matt Brown:And so it's gonna be something that is absolutely awesome. So Jesus is talking about, right, this idea of the end, but there's also this alliteration to this huge conflict in war. And so you can also read about this in Matthew 24 and Mark 13. And so kind of the same ideas, far more complex. It's far easier to understand in Luke because he's writing to a Gentile audience.
Matt Brown:Matthew and Mark are gonna give a whole lot more detail as to exactly what's gonna happen in all these things, you know, these wars, rumors of wars, you know, famines, and all of this stuff. But he's trying to prepare us for this to happen. And so this is what I would say. So regardless of your theological position on the end times, here's what I believe is abundantly clear, is that the world has been ripe and ready for the return of Christ since, really, the death of the first generation of Christians. Everything that needed to take place happened already.
Matt Brown:So that's why, you know, a lot of people think, well, all this needs to happen, there needs to be a literal Israel, and they they they they talk about all these new things that need to happen. The book of Acts ends with Paul's understanding of the gospel going to the nations of the earth. Mhmm. That's where it ends. So they believe they've accomplished the mission of Christ.
Matt Brown:Now ultimately, we know there's more people who hadn't heard. But as far as the early church understood, everything that needed to happen had took place. All the things that, you know, the precursors for the return of Christ were ready. And so basically, for nineteen hundred years, the church has been living under this idea of the imminent return of Christ. He could come back at any moment.
Matt Brown:And so that's what we need to understand is we need to be so Jesus talks about the parable of the virgins. We talked about them a couple weeks ago. Make sure he says you have extra oil. So what does he mean? He's going to be gone longer than we think.
Matt Brown:And so the virgins who don't have extra oil, what happens? Their lamps burn out. Mhmm. And then they ask those with extra oil for it, and they say, no no no no. You should have done that for yourself.
Matt Brown:And so as Christians, we need to endure, we need to wait, we need to be ready. We need to we need we need to not be asleep, the bible says. We need to not be caught off guard. And so, because when it happens, when Christ returns, you could be in your wedding ceremony. You could be given birth to a kid.
Matt Brown:Mhmm. You know, Jesus actually says, pray that you're not in labor when it happens. He says, pray that you don't have young children when it happens. Right? You you that's not what that's not what you wanna be doing at that moment, because there's not gonna be time to gather your things.
Matt Brown:You If you're out in the field, you can't run home. You can't. If you're on the roof, you can't even go downstairs in your one story house to gather a few things. You don't even have time to do that. It's going to be so instantaneous.
Matt Brown:It's going to be so so so quick. And we're all going to know when it happens. So, know, he talks about don't be misled. And so that's the key here is don't be misled. Don't think that you know, the early church, there were rumors that the Messiah came and they missed it.
Matt Brown:And so you gotta think they didn't have media. There wasn't social media. There wasn't Facebook. There wasn't Twitter. You know?
Matt Brown:He's saying, no. No. No. Literally, the angels from all over the the earth are going to shout for the glory of God. The trumpet's gonna be heard from all over.
Matt Brown:No one's gonna miss it, whether you're in Rome, or Jerusalem, or in Spain at that time, right, the ends of the earth.
Stephanie Schaefer:Mhmm.
Matt Brown:You're going to know that Christ has come, and and you're going to be aware. You know, my personal opinion is that Jesus Christ will not return until every tribe, every tongue, every nation has believers. Specifically, I think the number's 10. There's a passage in Zechariah says at the end of time, every nation will gather 10 people together to worship. And the reason for that is that's the number for a synagogue.
Matt Brown:Every every nation group will be represented by at least 10 people. And they will gather together, and they will be able to worship the Lord with the number required to worship him. At least ten, ten males. And so we know that. Every tribe, every tongue, every nation, all over the world, at least somebody's gonna be there.
Matt Brown:I think it's 10. At least at least somebody from that tribe's gonna get saved. That's why we're going to India, that's why we go to Vietnam, that's why we're Mhmm. We're in Turkey, we're we're in all these places where overwhelmingly, most people reject Christ. We know we know that God is going to save some, because he's not going to leave himself without testimony from every tribe, every tongue, every nation.
Matt Brown:And so Matthew says, when everyone is heard, he says, then the end will come. Mhmm. Then the end will come. And I think that we're very, very close. You know, now Christians are identifying groups that we know have not heard of Jesus.
Matt Brown:We know. No Christian group has has spoken the gospel to these people, and we're now going to those people.
Justin Pardee:Right.
Matt Brown:All over the world. I mean, and I believe that we are imminently close to the return of Christ. But, you know, I I may be wrong. I could be wrong, and he could return tomorrow. And, you know, nations could be a looser term.
Justin Pardee:Mhmm.
Matt Brown:You know? The word is ethne, where we get ethnic, and so it's not geographical boundaries, but cultural boundaries. So specific people groups, specific cultures, I believe every single one of them must be reached with the gospel. And and there there will be someone from every group in heaven because of the gospel. And so I would just say that, you know, all of us need to be attentive, we need to not fall asleep, we need to not, you know, become idle, we need to stay awake, we need to make sure our lamps have extra oil, so that when the son of man returns, notice what he says time and time again.
Matt Brown:When the master returns, the servant wants to be found what? Ready. Ready. And so all of us need to be ready. And, you know, ultimately, if you're not a Christian, you gotta repent of your sins, place your faith and trust in Jesus Christ, because you're not ready for this day.
Matt Brown:And on that day, you will not be able to repent. You will not be able to confess. It is over. The age of grace has come to an end. Mhmm.
Matt Brown:And now, it's it's judgment, and then the the age of those who who live with Christ on earth, and those who live apart from Christ in a thing called hell, and wherever that is, you don't wanna go there.
Justin Pardee:So at the end of the chapter in verse 37, the disciples basically just say, when will all this happen? And Jesus replies, just as the gathering of vultures shows there's a carcass nearby, so these signs indicate that the end is near. So kind of closing this out, are there specific signs and things we could be or should be paying attention to for
Matt Brown:the of the world? There's things that there's things that should always catch, you know, Christian's attention. And and and I don't think it's, like I said, I don't think it's this specific programmed, graph like signs where we got a checklist. Okay. This happened, this happened, this happened.
Matt Brown:That's what a lot of end times people do. But there are things in life that we need to pay attention to. One of the things that we're seeing is this this complete universal rejection of Christ. More Christians have been killed in the last century than the previous nineteen hundred years. So Christians are being killed for their faith.
Matt Brown:I mean, you're watching Christians escorted out onto a beach and they're being beheaded by ISIS simply because of their faith and trust in Jesus Christ. That's a sign. Yeah. You need to pay attention, you need to be aware. You know, these things are happening.
Matt Brown:Like I said in church, you know, people will tolerate you as long as you don't deeply believe anything. And so of the things that you look at, and so the Apostle Paul talks about in second Thessalonians, the abomination of desolation. He says, none of the end will happen until you see the abomination of desolation. And what's interesting is, you know, we've always assumed that this guy is going to be a religious leader. And I actually think when you look at it, he's a secular leader.
Matt Brown:He puts himself over and above every God. And he does so he does so with skills. It could be science. It could it could be all kinds of things that he does. But we've always assumed it's a religious leader.
Matt Brown:And he very very well may be a secularist. Somebody who says, it's time that we put away, right? This mysticism, this age old belief, this ridiculousness of myth. And that's what secularists believe, you know, the Christian story. It's just a myth.
Matt Brown:It's just a there there's no difference between the epic of Gilgamesh
Justin Pardee:Yeah.
Matt Brown:And and the story of Christ. Right? They're made up stories. And for us as Christians, to those who believe, the Bible says that the crucifixion is foolishness to them, but to those of us who are being saved by it, it's the very power of God. And so Christians are gonna be more and more persecuted.
Matt Brown:Christians are gonna be more and more isolated, and we're gonna be ridiculed for our faith. And Jesus says this globally. Globally, we will be ridiculed for our And what's gonna happen is Christians are gonna fall away, because it's not gonna be convenient to be a Christian. It will be more and more difficult to love and serve Jesus. And I think we're moving radically in that direction very, very quickly.
Matt Brown:Even in our own country, Christians used to be considered moral. Now because of our stance on homosexuality, we're actually considered e moral. We're the ones with the moral problem. Ain't that interesting? And so it's flipped on us.
Matt Brown:Now we're the evil ones. So it's I mean, life is changing, and so we need to be ready. And so, I believe that there's anything else that needs to happen for Christ to return other than my understanding of the gospel being preached to every ethnic group on earth. Other than that, I think, and by the way, we don't need to fear this. Bible ends with these words, let the church say, come Lord Jesus.
Matt Brown:So this is what we pray for, this is what we long for, because life will no longer suck, it will no longer be tragic. Everything that makes life so awful will be done away with, and everything that we love will stay. Everything that's good, right and true will stay. We will have work that we enjoy, that's meaningful. We're gonna feel a part of the kingdom.
Matt Brown:We're gonna be secure in who we are. We're gonna serve Christ. We're not gonna get sick anymore. You know, it's going to be fantastic. And we're going to live with Jesus forever on an earth that isn't horrible.
Matt Brown:Mhmm. It's it's it's going to be it's going to be awesome, you know. Isaiah says that, you know, under the reign of the Messiah, a child will put his hand in the viper's den and it won't strike. You know, the lamb will lie down with the lion, there's not gonna be bloodshed anymore. It's going to be truly I I use this word magical, but that's what
Stephanie Schaefer:I mean.
Matt Brown:It's it's nothing like what we see now, and the earth will be purified and beautiful, and not just as it always was meant to be, but even better. I think God's going to outdo himself. It's going to be better than the Garden of Eden. It's going to be better. It's going to be beautiful and spectacular and amazing.
Matt Brown:And the Bible says that the pleasures, pleasures are forevermore at the right hand of God. It is going to be off the hook incredible. And he says, you don't wanna miss. Jesus describes the kingdom of God as this massive party. He says banquet, we think banquets are lame, but two thousand years ago, banquets were awesome.
Matt Brown:And most human beings think about this, most human beings who heard that sermon never got to go to a banquet in their entire life. Banquets were for the rich and the wealthy and the powerful. And Jesus is saying, I'm inviting you to a banquet. And He's telling us to poor people, diseased people, He's telling us to people that the social outcasts of the age, people who never got invited to anything in their life. They would live and die and never be invited to one party.
Matt Brown:He says, I'm inviting you to a party that I'm gonna throw forever. Don't miss it.
Stephanie Schaefer:That's like the greatest possible way to like note to end this on. That's Yeah.
Matt Brown:Yeah. So exciting. Don't miss the party that Jesus is gonna throw.
Stephanie Schaefer:Yeah. So thank you everyone so much for sending in questions this week and every single week. If you've got questions from any of the chapters of Luke we've gone through so far or as you're listening to church this weekend or reading through Luke 18, send in those questions at sandals church dot com slash the debrief. We would love to answer them.
Justin Pardee:Absolutely. And before we get out of here, of course, pastor Matt, we need to get your thoughts on an inspirational quote. It's chosen by our friend Stephanie here.
Stephanie Schaefer:It sure was. So I saw this painted on the wall in a bathroom while I was out of town. Don't worry. It was a girl's heart should be so hidden in God that a man would have to seek him to find her.
Matt Brown:That's actually the first quote that you've given that I actually like. You like it? Yeah. You don't like it? Not really.
Justin Pardee:Well, hold on. Why is it in a bathroom? Who wrote What kind of person is going around writing
Matt Brown:Because bathrooms are the one of the few places still in the world today where people have to stop.
Justin Pardee:Okay. I never been into the bathroom with a
Matt Brown:sharpie I just dropped wisdom on you.
Justin Pardee:That's not what I'm dropping.
Stephanie Schaefer:Oh, my gosh.
Matt Brown:That's why I tell people there's my truth and there's God's truth. We'll find out, you know, how closely mine aligns with his truths on the day of judgment. So
Stephanie Schaefer:Don't worry, guys.
Justin Pardee:Yes.
Stephanie Schaefer:Yeah. And we're pretty sure he's
Matt Brown:not letting us Soak yourself in that grace. Yeah.