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Church is messy podcast recorded at Autumn Ridge Church in Rochester, MN
Church Is Messy, 05-27-2026 Ep145
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Svea: Good morning, Rick. We're back with Church Is Messy and another installment in the 1 Corinthians series. How are you doing this morning?
Rick: I'm doing pretty great. Uh, we're recording this on the backside of Memorial Day weekend. I enjoyed how I spent my day yesterday. Yeah. It ended with a good time with friends and enjoying good food, uh, and great weather.
And it, it- It
Svea: was gorgeous, wasn't it?
Rick: Yeah.
Svea: Yeah, we earn good weather like that.
Rick: We
Svea: do. All of the 20-below zero weather. I know. I- No one appreciates Memorial Day more than Minnesotans.
Rick: After moving to Minnesota, I now savor good weather like I never have before.
Svea: Yeah. Yeah. We, we had some, , lovely, , gals visiting us from Kentucky who are friends of our daughter- Mm-hmm
and they were up for the weekend, and they were also enjoying the weather, but for the opposite reason. They're like, "It's so nice and cool here." Oh, yeah.
Rick: I imagine they're roasting. Yeah. I imagine it's pretty steamy where they live.
Svea: All people were content, though. Yeah. It was a lovely weekend.
Well, glad you had some extra time off, and hope that everyone else listening had a lovely Memorial Day yesterday too as well.
Rick: Yeah.
Svea: But good to be back into the swing of things here this week, and we've only got one week left of 1
Rick: Corinthians. This is the second to the last podcast in First, the 1 Corinthians, uh, series.
That's right. One more s- one more sermon to go. It's not this weekend. We're taking a little bit of, little bit of a detour, and then we'll wrap up the first week in June. And like I said, I've never even heard a sermon like this. It is a bit of a risk. I don't know. It could blow up in my face.
We'll see what happens.
Svea: I have no idea what you're gonna do. I'm so intrigued.
Rick: Okay.
Svea: But this last weekend, I really enjoyed this message. Okay. Thought it was, um, a really helpful sermon in how it not only was a great exegesis of the chapter- Right ... but it had some really helpful contemporary applications as well and, uh, and answered some questions. So I'm excited to dive into that and- Well, let's
Rick: talk about it.
Yeah.
Svea: Yeah. It, because it kind of felt like there were two parts to the sermon. I
Rick: think so. I think that's fair.
Svea: The first part kind of focusing on modern-day applications of idolatry-
Rick: Mm-hmm ...
Svea: and how we walk through that, and then the second part in this idea of what it looks like to be with someone who might be ascribing allegiance to something other than Jesus and navigating that-
Rick: Yeah
Svea: in a healthy way.
Rick: Yeah.
Svea: Uh, but both were really helpful. Did you have a first or a second part that you preferred or that you were more excited to preach through?
Rick: You know, I, I don't think so. I, I think I probably, I really enjoyed this passage more than I thought that I would. Like, it's not one of the...
It- it's not a passage that I have a, a grumpy attitude about. Uh, I just, uh, when I first read through it, and I was thinking about how I'm, how I might approach it, I didn't have, like, that sense of excitement that you sometimes do when you really start to dig in, when you really start to read and, and, and really start to marinate in it, and then my, just kind of my eagerness for it Kept ratcheting up.
It took me a while to figure out how do I wanna, how do I wanna talk through this? I mean, there are times that I think Paul is super clear and helpful and easy to track with, and then there are other times, probably because of some cultural differences I feel like it's a little bit harder to track with him.
So I felt like this one took some work, but by the time I got to the end of it, I'm like, "Oh, man, Paul, this is so helpful."
"
Rick: Thank you."
I was kinda just a fan of everything in the chapter. There's probably a section that could've gotten more attention. So we talked about Paul leaning into a deeper reality of there's a real evil spiritual world animating this kind of surface level stuff that's fake, but there's a real spiritual origin to it. We could've spent more time connecting the dots-
...
Rick: To, to that, but.
Svea: Was there more that you were hoping to be able to say?
Rick: No, not really. Okay. I'm just saying, that's just an area where I would imagine some people would say, " tell me more about that."
Svea: Yeah.
Rick: Yeah.
Svea: In this first section, in looking at this idea of the stories that we tell ourselves- Mm-hmm. Sure ... the people that we're watching- Yeah ... you know, Paul pointed back to the s- the stories of the Israelites wandering in the wilderness- Mm-hmm ... and kind of what they went through and just-
Rick: And he, he doesn't even go in chronological order, by the way.
He's just highlighting.
Svea: Just kind of bringing back to mind- That's right. Mm-hmm ... you know, as you're thinking about the mistakes that these other people made- Yes ... how does this inform how you choose to live? Um, and you had a couple examples of that of what are the stories, who are we looking to- Mm-hmm
what are we observing in other people. That's right. We can learn from experience, but the experience doesn't have to be our own. We can learn from other people's experience here. Is that a practice that you've used in your own life
Rick: Well, I try.
Svea: Yeah.
Rick: I mean, I try. Like, there are some things your perspective is gonna be pretty limited until you experience yourself. I think there's a lot of things about leadership, that I can learn from others and I can learn from their experiences, but I've discovered that I, I don't really get it until I'm in it. Mm. Um, and I, again, I gotta have to walk through it and understand it's just, it's deeper, it's richer, it's, there, it's just more nuanced than you thought it was before you were in it.
But then there are other things, absolutely., You see someone who they never say no to themselves, they're, they always have a reason to say yes to whatever deal that they find, and they're racking up debt on their credit cards, and they're not being, uh, responsible and disciplined and saving money and living in a budget.
Like, you don't have to live that out to understand that leads to devastation. Mm. That leads to some real problems. You can just look at someone else and go, " I don't want that story to be my story, so I'm gonna choose right now. I'm gonna save. Uh, if I can, I'm gonna invest. I'm gonna have a, at the very least, I'm gonna have a budget, and I'm gonna live , within my means."
Svea: You know, and the flip side I think is also powerfully true- Mm-hmm ... for looking at people for the positive results. When you see something in someone's life- Mm ... um, that's a great opportunity to invite them to have a cup of coffee and just glean from them a little bit. Oh, my goodness. And say, "Hey, I wanna learn from you."
Oh, my
Rick: goodness. Yeah. And I'm sure you've done that. I've done that. Some of the wisest people I know, that they've just made that a practice in their life. You're the kind of person, you have the kind of life that I want. You are f- further down the road, and so can we chat?
Svea: Yeah.
It's-
Rick: Teach me ...
Svea: it's not uncommon for me to have women in particular ask if I can help pair them up with a mentor.
Rick: Sure.
Svea: And sometimes it is really helpful to have kind of a designated person who is- Mm-hmm ... doing some formal mentoring or coaching with you. But oftentimes what I've, recommended first is that kind of thing, if you wanna grow in your marriage, or if you wanna grow as a mother, or if you wanna grow in your spiritual health, just look to the life of another woman who's doing something that you think, "That's what I'm aiming for."
And just spend some time talking with her, learning from her. Yeah. You know, we don't necessarily have to choose one person to model our entire life after.
Rick: No.
Svea: But, uh- There's, the Proverbs says- ... that can provide some areas to learn in ...
Rick: there's safety in a multitude of wise counsel. Mm-hmm. So we want, we wanna bring in, uh, the perspective of lots of different people.
I have people who I just call my wisdom team, that when I'm thinking about something, I'm going to them and I want their perspective. And by the way, this isn't just something for young people. There wa- there's a guy in, in my life, and he is, he's shared some things with me from, that he's learned.
He's further down the road. And he shared some things that I just, I did not have enough life experience, even in my 40s, to see the value and the richness of what he was saying. I had to go through The process of receiving some bumps and bruises, and we go, "Ah, man, now I get what he's saying."
Svea: Mm.
Rick: And I, yeah, I'm all about that.
Yeah. Yeah. So this is at probably every stage of life we need something like that. Probably at every stage in life, we are lacking some perspective that helps us to really experience it, but yet we need to keep, drinking from that source of wisdom, other people who've gone before us, who are living the kind of life that we now wanna have, whatever arena it is.
But ho- hopefully, it's people who love Jesus and who are trying to live a life that's more like Him. Just keep sitting at their feet and learning from them, and let their experiences inform you so that you can avoid some of the stuff that they weren't able to avoid.
Svea: Yeah. In that, we see a great application of- Mm-hmm
a couple times Paul uses the phrase, "Imitate me as I imitate Christ." That's right. Mm-hmm. And so many of us feel intimidated from that idea of implying that we want other people to imitate us. Mm-hmm. 'Cause that feels beyond intimidating. It almost feels arrogant or- Mm-hmm ... or something, uh, that, uh, we wouldn't wanna have to live up to.
But there is beauty in this idea that as each of us, as followers of Christ, as we're trying to imitate- That's right ... the example of Christ, we wanna set an example for others to be able to see as well in a positive way.
Rick: So let me see if I can zoom out in a way that's helpful. So when you were a rabbi, and you had disciples, and the goal was those disciples, they would eventually become rabbis of their own. They go out and they teach and, and they collect their own disciples, and they're probably moving forward in the school of thought that you brought to them.
It's interesting that Jesus said, "Don't call anyone a rabbi. Don't call yourself a, a rabbi." And yet the expectation is, is that we are teaching and that we are making disciples, but they're not our disciples. In everything that we do, we are pointing people to Jesus. I'm trying to follow Jesus.
I, I wanna be with Him. I wanna become more like Him. I'm trying to do as He did. And as you watch me do that, we're trusting the role of the Holy Spirit, who is helping you see more of Jesus. Does that make sense? Mm-hmm. And so all of us are supposed to be doing that. And it is appropriate, I think, to feel humbled by that but not scared off from that.
Mm-hmm.
Svea: And
Rick: so that's a, that's a, that's probably attention point.
And we're not trying to get people to follow us. We wanna get people to follow Jesus. And if we're walking in a path that is trailing Jesus, and as people kind of learn from our example and are walking behind us, walking with us, hopefully they'll see and follow Jesus too.
Yeah. So I don't know if I did a good job of talking about that, but this is the Christian life. Hey, I'm following that guy. Follow along with me. But ultimately, it's about following Him. It's not about being like me. It's about being like Him.
Svea: Yeah. So let's talk about following Jesus in a way where we're giving our total allegiance to Him-
Rick: Yeah
Svea: And not treating Him like an accessory. Sure. I liked how you kind of held those two things- Mm-hmm ... out there as, different paths we can take. Mm-hmm. And the importance of, I've given my entire life to Jesus. Mm-hmm. Like, He is the authority. He is Lord, and so I wanna honor Him in every aspect of my life.
But it is easy sometimes to lose sight of that and treat Him as the accessory the-
Rick: Oh, sure ...
Svea: the easy one to pray to when we're in a tight
Rick: spot. I'm gonna pull out my Jesus card now. Uh-huh. You know, I'm going to my toolbox of life resources. Oh, I got the, got my Jesus wrench now, and, you know, I'm just...
Yeah, it's incredibly easy to do. And there are things in all of our lives that sometimes, that would push Jesus off the throne, and then there are things that would nudge Jesus off the throne, uh, of our lives, and those are things that are probably more dangerous. And I like the language of all-in, but I also hate the language of all-in.
Yeah. Like, I wanna be all in of following Jesus, but I know that I'm not. And I know that, six weeks from now, six years from now, I'm gonna look back and I'm gonna see ways that I wasn't trusting Jesus, and hopefully it's more clear to me then. Does that make sense? You've been married a long time.
I've been married a long time. When I first married my wife, we're 10 years in, you know, I thought I was all in. But now I understand devotion to her in a way that I didn't understand back then. Mm-hmm. I'm fine with the language of all in, but sometimes it's not helpful. It's it's really I want, I wanna give you my allegiance.
I'm following along, but I understand that my understanding of that is going to grow.
And my allegiance to Jesus is actually going to deepen and expand and grow.
Svea: This idea of even identifying- Mm-hmm ... maybe where we have some vulnerabilities to not giving total allegiance to Jesus or not being- Mm-hmm
all in- Mm-hmm ... um, I think is, is seen in that verse when Paul's telling us to flee from idolatry. Yeah. And, uh, and you know, while we may not worship golden statues in a temple somewhere in a foreign distant language in- Mm-hmm ... in the ancient Near East, um, we still do practice idolatry in our own form these days, and I, I like the framework of recognizing modern idolatry- Mm-hmm
and the things that we're looking to for our security, our significance, and our satisfaction.
Rick: Yeah.
Svea: I think that's very helpful to help us see where we may be giving allegiance to something other than Jesus.
Rick: I don't think we're all that different from the way things were in the Roman world.
So if you went to Aphrodite or Zeus or whatever, went out to any of these pagan temples, you were using that idol, you were using that supposed deity to get what you actually wanted, which might have been a successful crop. It might have been to gain social standing or favor. It might have been to get some sort of political advantage.
Uh, b- just health, I mean, whatever. So ultimately, the idols are the same things that we wrestle with, all of those things. They, the idols are the, they're the same, and I, I don't wanna say that the temples and the statues and all of that were a facade. It, they were a construct ultimately used to get what people wanted.
People do the same thing to Jesus all the time.
Use Jesus to get what I want, and this is where I'm a huge fan o- of Tim Keller, and he's like, "You know, we don't wanna obey God and love Him to, to get things from Him. It's just to get more of Him." That's why. Yeah. It's like He's the treasure. He's what we want, and then we trust Him to, to meet our needs and give us the things that we need, but ultimately, we live in a fallen world, and things are never gonna be right until Jesus returns, and we are with Him in, in the life to come.
And so, ah, I think, I, I think church people are just as prone to idolatry as anybody else in using God to get stuff from God instead of He is an end unto Himself.
Svea: So this idea of our, giving our full allegiance to Jesus- Mm-hmm ... applied in the first half of the message- Yeah ... when you kind of looked at the, what are we looking to- Mm-hmm
In these different aspects of our life, and even as we're watching the examples of others- Mm-hmm ... are we learning from that? But it also applied in the second half of the message, where we may be with someone else- Mm-hmm ... that isn't following Jesus in a way that's showing that they're giving their allegiance to him, and how do we play that out?
Yeah. Um, talk a little bit about even just your own study from a passage that at first glance is a little hard to understand, with just kind of this different- Yeah ... uh, flowchart of, well, if you buy meat here- Yeah ... and it's been sacrificed to an idol here, and if your host offers you this, eat here, but in this case, don't eat.
Rick: Yeah.
Svea: Just walk us through that, uh, that process a bit. It
Rick: probably feels complicated to us because that's not our culture, and so we have to come up with some modern examples to, to help us understand and have handholds. But yeah, the first is if you're going to buy meat from a butcher shop, and like I said in the sermon, they were often connected to pagan temples.
It was incredibly convenient because the temples, needed animals to sacrifice in their rituals, and then that meat that's left over is now to be sold, and people are going... It's like a, it's like a grocery store. Imagine if, if our grocery stores were connected to something that we found deplorable.
Or just, you were just like, "Oh, man, I can't be a follower of Jesus and connected to that." I'm struggling to come up with a good example. I'm not gonna name anything. But just imagine. And you're like, "I know that when I'm engaging a business here, it's somehow connected to that, so does that mean that I should boycott that?
But if I make that decision, where am I gonna get food now?" And Paul's just saying, "Listen, just buy food and eat it."
Svea: Mm-hmm. "And
Rick: don't, don't worry about the backstory," right? Just buy food and eat it. All right. But if you are with somebody and they make a big deal out of it, and they make this meal about allegiance to that idol, that's a pivot point.
And it's not about abandoning that person, and it's not about kinda getting up and kinda, like, making a show some sort of moral performance or virtue signaling, that you're gonna pass. Because I-- if this is about that, whatever that is if it is ultimately gonna compromise my allegiance to Jesus, I'm just not going to engage in that thing.
Right? So if you make a steak about idolatry, then I'm not gonna eat that steak. I'm just gonna eat the sides.
Svea: What's great about the stories that you told- Mm-hmm ... in helping us understand this- Mm-hmm ... in a, maybe a potentially more modern application- ... is that it helped us to see that in each of these cases, the priority is actually on the spiritual health of the host.
Rick: Yeah.
Svea: It's not to imply that this is something that we're needing to accommodate in our own health. It's more that we have a heart of- Mm-hmm ... , caring about how our host is understanding.
Rick: So yeah, this was one I had to sit with for a while. When Paul said, "Listen, it's for the sake of the conscience of your host, not you."
If you're sitting there and your host makes a big deal about, hey, this, this ham was sacrificed to Aphrodite for this particular thing, and then you got... then you can't eat the ham. But you can't do it, not for your own conscience, but for the conscience of someone else. And it's so easy to think, "Well, I would feel guilty, so I can't do it."
You're focused on yourself. That's not what Paul is making it about. And so your friend, your host, who had you over for dinner, like, you owe it to, to them to know, even though this is awkward, even though you might feel offended by this- I need you to know, where I'm coming from and why I can't participate in that.
And ultimately, I want you to know because I love you, and I don't want you to give your life to this lie. I want you to ultimately come to know Jesus like I know Jesus. Mm-hmm. But I'm not going to necessarily turn that moment into a sermon, but there is a boundary, and I cannot participate- ... in that thing.
Svea: I think you brought that out well- Mm-hmm ... in, in the analogy of, like, a, a friend of yours that's blowing up his life- Yeah, yeah ... and left his wife and- Yeah ... and left his kids and now is having you over for dinner and saying- Yeah ... "Let's raise a glass to freedom" and-
Rick: And following your heart. Yeah. And you're like, "Well, no.
Okay, I, I love you. I'm here, but I can- now I can't enjoy any of this with you because you've made it about that."
Svea: Yeah. "
Rick: And you know I can't get with that."
Svea: I'm not gonna celebrate that with you- Yeah,
Rick: that's right ...
Svea: or let you think that- Mm-hmm ... this is good for you.
Rick: That's right. And by the way, I've been in those situations.
Now, not like at someone raising a glass and saying, "Here's to..." But I've had coffee, I've had lunch with people just in the aftermath-
Svea: Mm-hmm ...
Rick: of that. And and if you're like, "Oh, that would be too uncomfortable," yeah, it's really, really uncomfortable, but if you love that person you wanna be with them and, and you wanna share with them what they need because you care about their wellbeing.
Well,
Svea: I think this is an important point to make- Mm-hmm ... because more often, I think I have maybe misunderstood this passage to be talking about how we wanna be careful not to soil ourselves with-
Rick: Yeah, that's
Svea: not what
Rick: it's about. Yeah.
Svea: Or to, uh, to somehow be in the presence of something that's, that's not quite right- That's right
how that's gonna impact us.
Rick: Yeah.
Svea: And that's really not where Paul's focus is.
Rick: You're either compromising your integrity, or it's guilt by association, and yeah, that's just not what this passage is about.
Svea: So there were two questions that came up in some of the conversations I was having in the lobby after the, the couple of the services.
Mm-hmm. And one of them was a sincere question about how do you reconcile this kind of idea of there's no guilt by association. It's okay to be- ... uh, fellowshipping with other people who maybe are still working through their allegiance to Jesus, and the idea of not engaging in something that maybe has the appearance of evil, and used that phrase in particular, the appearance of evil.
Rick: So that's a great question, and I understand where that comes from, but it's possible that motto that we all live by or we've heard, especially if you've grown up in church, avoid the appearance of evil, it's possible that we misunderstand what that original verse is about. The verse, "Avoid the appearance of evil," comes from 1 Thessalonians 5:22 In the King James Version, it says avoid the appearance of evil.
We teach out of the, the NIV. You can trust both. King James is written in a way that doesn't really match the way that people use language today. And so I think it's helpful to use a translation that scholars have wrestled through to communicate the original text in the way that we use language today.
And this is in the context of evaluating prophecies that are shared in the church. In verse 19, "Don't quench the Spirit. Do not treat prophecies with contempt, but test them all. Hold on to what is good. Reject every kind of evil." And in that context, Paul is talking to Christians who are gathering in churches in Thessalonica, and he's saying this, "Uh, listen, when pe- people stand up and say, 'Hey, I've got a word from the Lord,' listen to it, evaluate it.
Don't just automatically shut that down. But there are some people who are gonna say that they have a word from the Lord, and they don't, and you have to evaluate that. And when, uh, it's obvious that someone has claimed that God has spoken to them, and they haven't, they're bringing to you a word that's not from the Lord, you need to reject that."
That is not at all anywhere close to what we're talking about here.
Svea: Hmm. Mm-hmm.
Rick: What we're talking about is being with people even though, uh, they have a lifestyle that's different from ours. Paul is talking about reject messages from people that claim to be from God, but it's actually not. Don't toy with that.
Svea: Yeah, those are totally different worlds.
Rick: Totally different. So if you've been living by this biblical idea, don't do anything that people would confuse as evil, you have an idea that's ultimately rooted in the Bible, but that idea isn't biblical.
So Jesus did stuff all the time that people confused as evil.
Svea: Yeah.
Rick: That he was accused of being a glutton and a drunk and engaging in, uh, Satanism, basically. So if we adopt a standard that we impose on ourselves that Jesus couldn't even live up to, maybe we ought to slow down and go, "Is this standard actually right?" Hmm. "What is it rooted in? Where does it come from?
Uh, maybe I, maybe I kind of got off the path a little bit." And so what I just wanna say is if you're trying to make decisions 'cause you don't want people to think that maybe you're in the wrong, that's not a biblical idea. Now, there probably is some wisdom if you're doing something that is gonna easily be understood.
Don't ignore that. No, you gotta lean into it. If the right thing is gonna be easily misunderstood, you probably need to slow down and help other people understand. But it doesn't matter what decision you make in life, I promise you, there are gonna be people who assume the worst about you. That's just we live in a broken world.
That's gonna happen.
Svea: Yeah. Well, I appreciated when you brought out this idea of guilt by association and the concern that many Christians have, I think well-intended. Oh, sure. Yeah. Um, of, you know, I don't wanna be seen in that crowd, or be seen talking or partnering with these people, because that could look like I am condoning everything that they're about.
But as you pointed out in the message and just now again- Mm-hmm ... uh, Jesus was not afraid of guilt by association. Mm-hmm. He didn't let that inhibition- No ... of what other people thought inhibit him- Mm-hmm ... from loving them- Yeah ... and from wanting what was best for them.
Rick: Mm-hmm.
And by the way, this isn't just, a religious person's conundrum, there's a guy his name is James Lindsay, and when I met him, he was still in relative obscurity. Uh, but he rose to some political prominence as a commentator. I think his light has kind of burned out, as happens to everyone eventually.
I don't see him out there like, like I used to. Our relationship was primarily online. He's a, he's an atheist, a mathematician, a brilliant writer. And, uh, I just liked him a lot. A lot of our engagement was very public.
And I remember some of his fellow atheists were upset. They couldn't figure out why I liked him- Hmm ... if I was a pastor. And I'm like Because I like him. I think he's a fun guy. I think he's, I think he's incredibly smart. We disagree on some profound things, but no, I like him as a, I like him as a person. So it's just, it doesn't matter whether you're religious or irreligious, everybody is vulnerable to an ideology that wants to sift people out as to who's okay to associate with and who's not okay to associate with.
But the message of the incarnation is Jesus says, "I'm here to be with you all and to rescue you all from this. And I want to show you by me being here, I'm going to live the life that you should have lived, and I'm going to pay for all of your moral mess-ups, and I'm inviting all to come to me." Listen, I just want to live in a way that's oriented towards that.
There's an artwork from a very old Bible that a friend of mine who's an artist cut out of the Bible and framed and, and gave to me as a gift. It's hanging on my wall. I thought about using it this week, but it just didn't, it just didn't fit. But it's when the woman comes to anoint Jesus' feet, and he's sitting there, and she's, wiping , his feet with her hair, and other people are looking around aghast, and it's just a beautiful picture of Jesus being here-
With people. And he's simultaneously with people at the top and with people at the bottom.
Fully present. And man- what if we live that way just a little bit?
Svea: Yeah, that's-
Rick: Just a little bit. You know what I'm saying? Uh-huh.
Svea: Yeah. The second question maybe would be helpful in that context.
It was from someone who was saying, "In applying this passage- Mm-hmm ... when I go and share a meal with someone who is practicing a different faith," uh, and they said specifically they've got a, a colleague that, uh, is Muslim, and they'll regularly go out for a meal together.
Rick: Great.
Svea: If that Muslim friend is praying before the meal- or dedicating the meal to Allah, does that have any bearing from this passage on what happens next?
Rick: I think it could. Um, but I've been in that situation plenty of times, and one of the things that I appreciate about people especially from different parts of the world that, that come from a culture that puts a high premium on hospitality their faith and their culture certainly frames how they engage in hospitality.
But I've never been in that situation where I felt like the meal was being dedicated to that, and me participating meant that I am sharing, in that dedication. Like I'll sit with someone, and if someone said that they wanted to pray and thank Allah for that, I'm like, "Go ahead.
Would you extend to me the same courtesy and allow me to pray and thank Jesus?" And so now we can be together. Friends who can't talk about disagreements or differences probably aren't truly friends. But if you can acknowledge it and say, "Hey, we see some things differently, but I care about you, and I feel like you care about me, and we're gonna sit in this together 'cause we value each other."
Yeah, you can do that. You can totally do that. We've got this principle that I think is clear, but it doesn't come... You, you don't double-click on it and there's all of these rules that follow, and you know exactly how to be in the right place all the time.
You might sit in a situation and you feel like you're doing the right thing, and maybe you look back on it later and go, "Oh, I wish I would've done differently."
That's okay. Learn from that, right? But if your intent is to, is to love God and to love people, and to make your allegiance to Jesus known, and to still be with people even in messy situations, I would just say don't flinch. Just keep going.
Svea: Yeah. Sounds like a call to continue to pursue wisdom.
Rick: Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah. That's right. It's a lifelong pursuit.
Svea: Thank you again for walking us through this passage and helping us think how this, continues to inform our daily life and how we live, and how we try to become more like Jesus and do the things that He did. And, uh, we'll look forward to next time when we complete this 1 Corinthians series.
Rick: Which might end on a bombshell. Hopefully not.
Svea: I'm so intrigued. Can't wait to find out what's coming.