WEBVTT 00:00:04.014 --> 00:00:08.984 Welcome to the Uncut Podcast. I'm Pastor Luke. 00:00:09.137 --> 00:00:19.017 And I'm Pastor Cameron. And this is the Uncut Podcast, where we have honest, uncut conversations about faith, life, and ministry. 00:00:19.300 --> 00:00:28.197 We're sitting down this afternoon to pick up the conversation that we were having last 00:00:28.197 --> 00:00:31.477 week in our last episode. 00:00:31.477 --> 00:00:41.117 We kind of were kicking around kind of this question of what's the important theological 00:00:41.117 --> 00:00:51.871 topics, ideas, beliefs that have kind of been lost or have kind of been maybe somehow have 00:00:52.123 --> 00:01:04.077 not been sitting as important or clearly understood and are impacting church life, Christian life, all of these things. 00:01:04.077 --> 00:01:08.462 And we talked about a lot. 00:01:08.637 --> 00:01:12.797 Talked about particularly forgiveness, significant part of the episode was talking about. 00:01:16.157 --> 00:01:22.957 This refusal to forgive, kind of a denying or an ignoring of some of Christ's teachings 00:01:22.957 --> 00:01:32.797 on the importance of it. And then we started to kind of get into teachings on divorce. 00:01:32.797 --> 00:01:41.293 Um, we were, we were kind of wading into some of those waters a little bit, um, kind of 00:01:41.637 --> 00:01:47.517 wrestling with that question of like, you know, when, when people ask just, you know, 00:01:47.517 --> 00:01:52.582 what, um, I think you asked the question, like if anyone's ever asked you if, you know, 00:01:52.877 --> 00:01:54.917 Dave, you know, should they get a divorce? 00:01:54.917 --> 00:01:59.037 Yeah, that's right. Um, we kind of talked through some of that. 00:01:59.037 --> 00:02:04.312 So, um, yeah, I feel like it would be fair to pick up. 00:02:05.779 --> 00:02:10.509 Just about anywhere with this kind of stream of thought that we were kind of on. 00:02:10.509 --> 00:02:16.029 Well, it came from, the whole thing, didn't it come from a question that you and one of 00:02:16.029 --> 00:02:17.302 your friends were talking about? 00:02:17.365 --> 00:02:23.789 Yeah, it was a conversation a friend of mine, we were having, and funnily enough, 00:02:24.509 --> 00:02:32.829 the topic of conversation that sparked the question was, I think, around the issue of 00:02:32.829 --> 00:02:44.509 divorce in the modern church and how it's kind of become this thing where we just don't talk about, 00:02:45.200 --> 00:02:55.069 it. Or his impression of it is that it's so ubiquitous that it's just kind of glossed over 00:02:55.069 --> 00:03:01.549 in Christian theology. And we were talking about some other things, but he was of, I don't want to 00:03:01.549 --> 00:03:08.509 overly speak for someone who's not here. But his particular thing was he thinks that some of these 00:03:08.509 --> 00:03:14.349 problems had a root issue in bad theology surrounding sin. 00:03:14.962 --> 00:03:19.549 Pete That's what it was, yeah. Paul That's what it was. He particularly felt. 00:03:21.434 --> 00:03:26.989 You know, he takes a problem with the, well, all sins are equal in God's eyes, 00:03:26.989 --> 00:03:34.429 And so, for some reason, that can and does end up kind of equating to, well, it just doesn't matter. 00:03:34.429 --> 00:03:46.469 We don't take so seriously that kind of–we maybe use that as a justification to make our sins less 00:03:46.469 --> 00:03:53.989 worse. Less worse. Not as pertinent or awful. 00:03:54.247 --> 00:04:02.229 Yeah, it sometimes I think probably feels weird for people to hear someone else say 00:04:02.229 --> 00:04:07.989 or talk about or to think that they should have a pretty robust theology of sin. 00:04:08.291 --> 00:04:08.804 Mm-hmm. 00:04:09.839 --> 00:04:14.809 Because we generally think of theology as the things that are descriptive about pastors. 00:04:15.313 --> 00:04:17.369 Pastors. God. Yeah. You know. 00:04:18.329 --> 00:04:23.568 Like theology proper? Yeah. Yeah. Or like the things of, the good things of God. 00:04:23.847 --> 00:04:31.129 Yeah. You know, like salvation and the church, but not about sin. 00:04:31.517 --> 00:04:47.838 Yeah. It actually reminds me that John Wesley thought that the doctrine of original sin was the 00:04:48.009 --> 00:04:52.294 most verifiable of all Christian doctrines. 00:04:52.929 --> 00:05:02.071 He was like, the most, should be the most undisputed, like just baseline, oh yeah, well, of course. 00:05:03.209 --> 00:05:12.889 Sin is so extraordinarily pervasive, so how demonstrable it is in human activity and human behavior. 00:05:14.169 --> 00:05:24.169 And so he felt like, he actually had a really, a really deep theology of sin that he wrote on. 00:05:28.029 --> 00:05:32.869 I would say, he probably wrote less on sin than he did on grace, 00:05:32.869 --> 00:05:37.467 because that's kind of what Wesley was mostly known for, is grace, but. 00:05:37.864 --> 00:05:41.109 It's probably what most pastors should be known for, but. Right. 00:05:42.709 --> 00:05:46.065 Well, it's what we know most for. It's not really what everyone, 00:05:46.164 --> 00:05:50.509 like his contemporaries knew him most for. He was kind of an interesting character, 00:05:51.469 --> 00:05:56.469 like denying communion to the fiance of his ex. 00:05:57.509 --> 00:05:59.189 Um. Oh boy. 00:06:02.349 --> 00:06:06.671 But anyway, you know, to certainly you begin to draw, 00:06:09.876 --> 00:06:11.901 it's difficult to draw. 00:06:14.260 --> 00:06:27.412 There is a sense in where Trinitarian theology begins to unravel if you don't have a good, theology of sin. 00:06:29.204 --> 00:06:36.733 Like if you're not rooted and grounded in a theology of sin in whatever ways you want to 00:06:36.733 --> 00:06:51.773 talk about it, you begin to run a ground of the necessity of salvation. And of course, 00:06:51.773 --> 00:06:58.093 the necessity of salvation runs into the second person of the Trinity being Jesus, and then- 00:06:58.093 --> 00:07:00.413 Jesus becomes an example. 00:07:00.540 --> 00:07:04.693 Right. Well, and then the sending of the Holy Spirit for the empowerment of the church to go 00:07:04.693 --> 00:07:11.413 on mission to proclaim a message of forgiveness of sins if there is no sin or sin is weak. So, 00:07:11.413 --> 00:07:19.813 it does create some, I think it's a pretty significant theological domino effect. 00:07:20.093 --> 00:07:29.893 Yeah. Well, it's you, you, I, you know, uh, probably I don't know enough to make the strong, 00:07:29.893 --> 00:07:40.573 an overly strong statement, but it's probably fair to say that, um, the main nine main, 00:07:40.573 --> 00:07:45.413 the, the difficult, the things that have been happening in mainline denominations that have 00:07:45.413 --> 00:07:52.913 gone significantly liberal in their direction, you could possibly even just pinpoint it just 00:07:52.913 --> 00:08:04.473 to what you just said, a lessening of sin, of original sin, of its pervasiveness, more 00:08:04.473 --> 00:08:13.353 permissiveness of God and his view on what is sin, is not sin. 00:08:13.353 --> 00:08:15.601 And then slowly that does unravel. 00:08:16.873 --> 00:08:23.273 Yeah, or at least the lessening of the pervasiveness of what had like conservatively and historically 00:08:23.273 --> 00:08:24.892 even was seen as sin. ride. 00:08:26.638 --> 00:08:33.048 And I'll talk to you, I'm sorry, I'm leaning back like this because the Lord is letting his glory shine 00:08:33.048 --> 00:08:36.408 in the room right now. And I'm gonna be a sweaty mess by the end 00:08:36.408 --> 00:08:38.208 if I don't lean back into the shade. 00:08:43.408 --> 00:09:04.728 Totally lost my train of thought there. You know, when you talk about like the modern denominations and their unraveling and how 00:09:04.728 --> 00:09:16.488 that might equate to their view of or not view of sin, what is sin, what isn't. It's interesting, 00:09:17.208 --> 00:09:25.693 where that perspective might come from because the denomination that I'm most familiar with 00:09:25.900 --> 00:09:30.888 obviously is United Methodism, it's what I came out of, which just had like a, 00:09:30.888 --> 00:09:35.888 Some would call it just a colossal unraveling, 00:09:36.368 --> 00:09:42.528 and collapse schism, so to speak, which seemed abrupt and sudden, 00:09:42.528 --> 00:09:49.333 but I have colleagues, older colleagues, in fact my mentor, who has been retired for 10 years now. 00:09:51.528 --> 00:09:59.728 Nine, 10 years, and did 40 years as an elder, said that, so essentially for the last 50 years, 00:09:59.728 --> 00:10:02.638 It was a big issue back when he started. 00:10:02.688 --> 00:10:09.088 Questions generally around human sexuality and homosexuality and all of that 00:10:09.088 --> 00:10:15.768 and whether homosexuality is permissible in Christian theology and Christian thought 00:10:16.034 --> 00:10:17.208 and Biblical theology, anyway. 00:10:17.208 --> 00:10:20.337 And so... 00:10:21.498 --> 00:10:26.323 While there are many, many issues that the church, the United Methodist Church split over, 00:10:27.728 --> 00:10:34.368 that seemed to be the litmus test for individual conferences and congregations 00:10:34.368 --> 00:10:37.612 and even individual United Methodists was where do you stand on that issue? 00:10:38.557 --> 00:10:44.688 Yep. Which was really not even so much an issue about human sexuality as much as it was, 00:10:44.688 --> 00:10:51.888 or at least from my vantage point, a issue or where do you stand on the role of scripture. 00:10:54.488 --> 00:11:03.528 In guiding the church? Like the role of biblical authority. Do we take, how do we read scripture? 00:11:04.088 --> 00:11:14.048 And then how do we take scripture in its application and apply it to a modern view or understanding of the church? 00:11:14.048 --> 00:11:20.697 Because, so let's say, you know, you will talk to progressive, 00:11:21.328 --> 00:11:25.909 now they're just United Methodists, you know, progressive United Methodists 00:11:25.968 --> 00:11:30.302 who will say, who will stand firm on, 00:11:31.028 --> 00:11:33.075 like, homosexuality is not a sin. 00:11:34.488 --> 00:11:39.665 And so, no, the church didn't unravel because of its allowance of sin. 00:11:41.411 --> 00:11:48.268 The church unraveled because it failed to love or it failed to offer an affirming voice 00:11:48.268 --> 00:11:54.548 or there were those who took the way of judgment rather than the way of love and grace. 00:11:54.548 --> 00:11:58.515 And so you have this sense then of even now. 00:12:02.068 --> 00:12:07.455 Like the church, it requires the church to define even what sin is. 00:12:07.708 --> 00:12:09.597 What is sin an offense to? 00:12:11.524 --> 00:12:14.828 Yeah, if a sin is an offense, right? What is it an offense to? 00:12:15.008 --> 00:12:21.831 So. Right, is it an offense? Is it just, I don't know, is it non-existent? 00:12:22.568 --> 00:12:23.408 Is it? 00:12:26.248 --> 00:12:34.479 Yeah. So, you know, I think it's an interesting question to talk about, you know, whether. 00:12:36.793 --> 00:12:43.428 Theology of sin as it exists in the church and what a right or a wrong theology of it requires 00:12:43.428 --> 00:12:57.708 for us to... RL – Yeah. I would probably say that the most popular – because we're even wading 00:12:57.708 --> 00:13:03.449 into morality a little bit, right? 00:13:04.108 --> 00:13:06.825 And probably the most... 00:13:08.013 --> 00:13:16.241 Common Definition of morality that I know of is in modern society is do no harm Mm-hmm, 00:13:17.132 --> 00:13:23.303 Right as long you do you as long as it doesn't interact with me. Yeah, doesn't harm me, right? 00:13:23.983 --> 00:13:31.343 Which sounds really great, you know, just like Let people be people let people do whatever they want ever they want 00:13:31.343 --> 00:13:34.343 Hippocrates loves it. 00:13:34.343 --> 00:13:38.343 Right. Hippocrates. Hippocratic Oath. Right. 00:13:38.343 --> 00:13:43.503 Just, you know, take, you know, let people kind of do what they want to do, and then 00:13:43.503 --> 00:13:47.047 they will, that'll be fine. 00:13:47.623 --> 00:13:52.781 That's the, that's the greatest good is just, maximize individual freedom. 00:13:52.983 --> 00:13:59.425 And the limit to individual freedom is when someone's individual freedom starts to harm another person. 00:13:59.743 --> 00:14:08.683 Which is great on the level, right? And if you think about this and then you start looking around, you'll see this in play in 00:14:08.683 --> 00:14:13.559 a lot of ways. People talk about what's right and wrong. 00:14:13.683 --> 00:14:23.533 The problem is, is defining that line is a lot harder than it actually sounds like it is. 00:14:23.683 --> 00:14:27.620 And also, it has to do with harm to who. 00:14:28.556 --> 00:14:34.883 Exactly. You have to be able to divide who's the other that I'm infringing or harming, right? 00:14:36.217 --> 00:14:44.003 Well, and it doesn't always necessarily take into account the corollary effects of sin. No, so you talk about like if you take a do-no-harm. 00:14:45.803 --> 00:14:49.847 Viewpoint to Personal drug use right? 00:14:51.143 --> 00:14:55.483 You know and you say okay, do you know, you know, what what does it matter if I? 00:14:55.483 --> 00:15:07.943 If I do heroin, if I choose to do that, and I'm not trafficking large amounts of heroin, 00:15:07.943 --> 00:15:11.463 why does it matter? 00:15:11.463 --> 00:15:15.463 Why should it matter to the cops, or why should it matter to you, a person who loves me, or 00:15:15.463 --> 00:15:18.223 why should it matter over here? 00:15:18.915 --> 00:15:24.623 Thinking, I think what it does—I'm kind of just shooting from the hip here a little 00:15:24.623 --> 00:15:37.703 but I think we both are, is that it views sin as purely individualistic and not a not 00:15:37.703 --> 00:15:41.772 a scourge of humanity, but just a scourge of me. 00:15:43.878 --> 00:15:52.568 Which I think may, if you follow a logical rabbit trail, may lead to being like, well, 00:15:52.568 --> 00:16:01.676 then there must be people who are less sinful than others, right, people who are just more morally or ethically good. 00:16:01.768 --> 00:16:09.274 Sin is individualistic. It can be escaped by an individual, but just being more good, less bad, 00:16:09.848 --> 00:16:12.064 than a person that I'm compared to. 00:16:12.248 --> 00:16:21.808 And so even that view begins to like disintegrate theologically when you trace it, you know, 00:16:21.808 --> 00:16:23.803 at least in the way that we understand the scripture, so. 00:16:24.785 --> 00:16:31.088 Yeah. Well, and then it, you know, the place where this really start, 00:16:31.088 --> 00:16:38.808 well, one place where this conversation, you can see this being played out in like real time 00:16:38.808 --> 00:16:41.529 is the debate over abortion, right? 00:16:41.848 --> 00:16:50.488 Well, my choice, my body, doing no harm unto, I'm not doing harm to another, because that's not 00:16:50.488 --> 00:16:59.488 another person. That's where this comes into play. And all of a sudden, you now have, we're in this 00:16:59.488 --> 00:17:09.328 giant society debate over trying to define, well, who's a person? Who's the other that my freedom 00:17:09.328 --> 00:17:12.228 gets to, or not to, impinge upon. 00:17:14.315 --> 00:17:19.230 And. Apparently the only thing you're not allowed to identify now these days is a fetus. Right. 00:17:21.904 --> 00:17:29.808 So. I get fired up. I get really fired up about that topic. I know it's been on our possible topics 00:17:29.808 --> 00:17:32.208 to talk about since the beginning of the podcast. 00:17:33.733 --> 00:17:41.128 But maybe today's probably not the day to. Maybe not. Not the day to get into that. 00:17:41.128 --> 00:17:52.888 But it is an excellent case example for where and why utilitarianism and this kind of moral 00:17:52.888 --> 00:17:59.608 philosophy of do no harm really struggles of who is the other. 00:17:59.608 --> 00:18:07.338 And if someone is, you know, less than, right, like, you can, like, um... 00:18:08.707 --> 00:18:15.765 There's, like side note, well, no, things that I think people, theology I think people 00:18:15.765 --> 00:18:20.401 really need a better understanding of is the image of God. 00:18:20.645 --> 00:18:25.405 And the reason I think so is because a lot of times, a lot of the material I've interacted 00:18:25.405 --> 00:18:32.725 with over my course of study and time in theology has been a descriptor of usually they say, 00:18:32.968 --> 00:18:37.925 well, the image of God, which is something that has been given in scripture at the beginning 00:18:37.925 --> 00:18:45.685 of the Bible in Genesis. God says, let us create mankind in our image. And then he makes us. And 00:18:45.685 --> 00:18:50.153 so the question's always been, well, what is the image that we bear? Is it that we look like him? 00:18:50.468 --> 00:18:56.325 Well, no, we're physical. He's spiritual, right? So, there must be something characteristic about 00:18:56.325 --> 00:19:03.845 us. And then what normally happens is people study the attributes of God, and then they divide those 00:19:03.845 --> 00:19:12.085 up into two, his communicable attributes and his incommunicable attributes. It's a fancy words way 00:19:12.085 --> 00:19:18.725 of saying the attributes that God shares, the attribute God, only God has, right? God shares 00:19:18.725 --> 00:19:24.645 some attributes with us and then they list a bunch of things. And my problem with that. 00:19:25.765 --> 00:19:31.445 One, other than like, it's fine, it's not a terrible thing, but I don't think it quite goes 00:19:31.445 --> 00:19:39.270 far enough in actually defining what is the image of God, because what it really ends up doing 00:19:39.396 --> 00:19:48.085 is it ends up leaving the image of God in a place of utility and function. 00:19:48.085 --> 00:19:55.125 RL – What he does, the economy of it. JF – Right, the economy of it. So like an example of this is God is creator. While God 00:19:55.125 --> 00:20:01.205 God has communicated that attribute to humanity, we too create, right, through procreation, 00:20:01.205 --> 00:20:05.805 creativeness, right, all of that, which at the end of the day are all things that we 00:20:06.141 --> 00:20:06.564 We do. 00:20:07.546 --> 00:20:12.996 And so, the question then is, well, what if somebody who is unable to be creative, 00:20:13.556 --> 00:20:20.116 are they less the image of God? What if those who are mentally handicapped or physically handicapped, 00:20:20.916 --> 00:20:27.956 to a place in which they are less able to express those things? Do they less bear the image of God? 00:20:27.956 --> 00:20:35.716 And if our theology of the image of God is only attributes, only things in which we do, 00:20:35.716 --> 00:20:44.276 then yes, that's where that kind of falls short. I very, very much am very passionate about 00:20:44.276 --> 00:20:51.596 abdicating the fact that we need a theology of the image of God that holds to the fact that 00:20:51.596 --> 00:21:01.076 being human in its very self carries value and carries dignity of being in the image of God. 00:21:01.076 --> 00:21:12.636 Mm-hmm that that there is some sort of spiritual moral essence in which we carry as being human. 00:21:12.866 --> 00:21:23.476 That sets us apart and it is this you know undefinable divine spark if you want to call 00:21:23.476 --> 00:21:36.716 at that. And I think that's a closer definition of what the image of God is than rather than these 00:21:36.716 --> 00:21:41.676 just kind of like communicable attributes. ACKERMAN Can you think off the top of your 00:21:41.676 --> 00:22:07.196 head where you would see the departure of that really affect our theology, our life, our world? 00:22:07.196 --> 00:22:14.956 Well, I think it comes in like one, when we're talking about abortion, it's a significant 00:22:14.956 --> 00:22:23.036 place of like, you know, well, because what defines a human? 00:22:23.036 --> 00:22:26.236 Another place where that comes into play would be... 00:22:28.674 --> 00:22:37.343 The forgiveness. We were just talking about forgiveness. But if someone is like, well, 00:22:37.659 --> 00:22:43.404 they're a monster, they're somehow beyond deserving of forgiveness. Well, no, right? 00:22:43.519 --> 00:22:52.124 Like when we come into a place of dignity of humankind of, well, they've, they've, have they, 00:22:52.124 --> 00:23:04.604 has anyone, can someone lose the image of God? And therefore, anything we do to them would be 00:23:04.604 --> 00:23:09.804 permissible. And that comes into questions of like, I'm not going to… 00:23:10.202 --> 00:23:10.844 CB – Capital punishment? 00:23:10.844 --> 00:23:15.724 AL – Capital punishment, which is not going to pretend to answer that question here. 00:23:15.724 --> 00:23:17.564 CB – I've got opinions on that too. 00:23:17.564 --> 00:23:27.484 I do too. But it's a, you know, do we, can we say that someone is no longer deserving of dignity? 00:23:28.206 --> 00:23:35.964 Right? You know, the fact that we have things like the Geneva Convention, which like dictates 00:23:35.964 --> 00:23:42.444 how humans need to be base level treated in some of the worst circumstances, like acts of war and 00:23:42.444 --> 00:23:50.604 things like that does kind of hint towards this intrinsic understanding that there is a way that 00:23:50.604 --> 00:23:58.284 we ought to treat one another, even when we are at the most opposed odds that we possibly could be. 00:24:00.812 --> 00:24:04.764 All of those things, I think, really start to play in how we treat people who are 00:24:04.764 --> 00:24:14.044 disabled, whether that's physically or mentally, that's a significant place of 00:24:14.044 --> 00:24:16.764 of where that kind of begins to come into place. 00:24:16.764 --> 00:24:19.285 So, yeah. 00:24:23.192 --> 00:24:28.242 Yeah, I do think that that's a good one. What else? Do you have any other examples of, 00:24:30.802 --> 00:24:35.442 theological things that you feel are… MR. Missed? CB. Yep. 00:24:35.633 --> 00:24:43.202 MR. Yeah. CB. Let's hear them. MR. So this is probably the big one that I've been thinking about the last, I mean, 00:24:43.202 --> 00:24:48.802 I think about it a lot, but I've been thinking about the last couple weeks fairly intensely, 00:24:49.037 --> 00:25:04.802 is, I kind of define it as a more robust theology of suffering. So when I talk about a theology of 00:25:04.802 --> 00:25:12.065 suffering, a lot of people will say, oh yeah, yeah, I know that when bad things happen, God is. 00:25:12.281 --> 00:25:18.082 There with me going through it, and that maybe God has something good that he might bring about it, 00:25:18.082 --> 00:25:22.802 Right? That's, if someone has a theology of suffering, that probably is a pretty good 00:25:22.802 --> 00:25:29.116 summary of what that theology ends up looking like. That's not bad, but I think it's short. 00:25:29.188 --> 00:25:43.602 I think it falls short of a theology of suffering. I think that not only is God there if suffering 00:25:43.602 --> 00:25:52.722 happens, but he will be there when it happens. I think our current context, we can kind of live 00:25:52.722 --> 00:25:59.714 in this kind of idea of like, I can avoid suffering. I can achieve happiness, and that's. 00:25:59.922 --> 00:26:07.602 Not true. Suffering is part of the human existence. You will experience pain, suffering, loss, 00:26:07.602 --> 00:26:14.202 hardship. It will look different for everybody, but you will experience it. It is one of the 00:26:14.202 --> 00:26:29.202 guarantees of existence. And God is doing something in that when that happens. And even to go beyond 00:26:29.202 --> 00:26:37.162 just like the experience of suffering, let's just kind of go to how we experience our personal life 00:26:37.162 --> 00:26:46.762 and growth in Christ. I think that a large number of people believe that if I follow Jesus right. 00:26:48.129 --> 00:26:56.202 I should mostly be going from mountaintop to mountaintop with Jesus. If I'm praying, having 00:26:56.202 --> 00:27:03.402 faith, if I'm reading my Bible, if I'm singing worship songs, going to church on a weekly basis, 00:27:03.685 --> 00:27:09.722 I should always feel close to God, or God should always feel close to me. 00:27:08.960 --> 00:27:15.610 Faith should always feel dynamic, and I should always be kind of growing in this linear forward 00:27:15.610 --> 00:27:23.050 progression, mountaintop to mountaintop. I genuinely believe that probably the majority 00:27:23.050 --> 00:27:29.250 of Christians in America have that mindset, whether they have acknowledged it explicitly 00:27:29.250 --> 00:27:41.570 or not. And that's just categorically wrong. You can be 100% faithful to God and still lose it all. 00:27:42.718 --> 00:27:52.930 And not experience God's presence. The Book of Job is Exhibit A, right? Jesus on the cross is 00:27:52.930 --> 00:27:56.210 Exhibit B, my God, my God, why have you forsaken me? 00:27:56.210 --> 00:28:04.050 In the midst of suffering and pain. In the midst of suffering and pain. I think that we need to have a bigger understanding that God, 00:28:04.770 --> 00:28:12.690 grows us, yes, through his graces, his goodness, his gift, but then also grows us in a different way, 00:28:13.416 --> 00:28:19.250 when we experience suffering or when we experience just his felt absence. 00:28:19.250 --> 00:28:28.290 This is such a big topic, but in the history of the church, people have looked at what does it 00:28:28.290 --> 00:28:33.194 look like to be a Christian over a course of someone's life? And usually when you––there's, 00:28:34.170 --> 00:28:41.610 like stages of growth. This is probably the best way to talk about it. I cannot remember the old 00:28:41.610 --> 00:28:48.210 dead guy that came up with this, but he has these four stages of love in the Christian life. He's 00:28:48.210 --> 00:28:53.431 He's like, everyone starts out at loving myself for myself sake. 00:28:54.187 --> 00:29:00.117 Right? That's hedonism. I do what makes me happy, right? Love myself for myself's sake. 00:29:00.917 --> 00:29:06.665 The second stage is when you kind of meet God for the first time and you learn to love God 00:29:06.917 --> 00:29:15.317 for your own sake. I love God because following God is producing good fruit in me. I love the 00:29:15.317 --> 00:29:22.197 way that it's changing my life. I'm experiencing forgiveness. Usually this is where the new 00:29:22.197 --> 00:29:27.237 believer is. If you've ever met that new believer or if you remember your own new faith experience 00:29:27.237 --> 00:29:33.317 and you're just like, oh, I love reading the Bible, I love worship. Why? Because it feels so good. It 00:29:33.317 --> 00:29:38.277 felt so dynamic, felt so alive. Everything was just about growing and growing and growing and, 00:29:38.917 --> 00:29:45.477 getting closer to Jesus. And then at some point, that kind of stops. And our assumption is that we 00:29:45.477 --> 00:29:52.037 should actually always be feeling that way. But the reality is, is no, because if you. 00:29:52.810 --> 00:29:58.917 Continue to feel that way, you'll never move on to the next stage, which is loving God for God's 00:29:58.917 --> 00:30:07.717 sake. Loving God because of who he is, not because of how he makes me feel. And the only way you go 00:30:07.717 --> 00:30:15.557 through that and move up to that next stage of Christian life, of development, is if God begins 00:30:15.557 --> 00:30:21.157 to withhold some of the pleasures that are motivating your faith in the first place. 00:30:21.869 --> 00:30:29.157 And then you come to a decision point where you have to say, am I gonna follow Jesus? Am I gonna 00:30:29.157 --> 00:30:36.117 follow God because He's God? Because it's the right thing to do? Because I know that He's there? 00:30:36.291 --> 00:30:42.277 Because I know that he's got a call on my life, or am I going to stop following God 00:30:42.277 --> 00:30:44.317 because it doesn't feel good anymore. 00:30:46.086 --> 00:30:55.136 And I think we have a crisis of people who hit that experience, which will happen in your faith 00:30:55.136 --> 00:31:02.256 life, and then they jump ship. They deconstruct, they jump ship, or they just kind of settle into 00:31:02.256 --> 00:31:11.136 this like kind of very quiet, settled faith. And so I think that's a, I don't know exactly 00:31:11.136 --> 00:31:17.216 what to call that. I don't know if that's a theology of suffering in some way, or a theology 00:31:17.216 --> 00:31:26.336 of spiritual growth. Maybe it's the two together, but it's this old church theologians would call 00:31:26.336 --> 00:31:33.936 consolation and desolation. And I think we know what consolation feels like, which is all the good 00:31:33.936 --> 00:31:41.936 stuff. And then when God brings desolation, where we feel the absence of things, I think we 00:31:41.936 --> 00:31:47.216 interpret that as like, we made a wrong step somewhere. We need to find a way to re-experience 00:31:47.216 --> 00:31:49.209 consolation, and we get stuck. 00:31:49.380 --> 00:31:52.976 Yeah. And then what's, well, I mean, just for the sake of the fourth step, what's the fourth step? 00:31:52.976 --> 00:32:01.376 Oh, the fourth step, the final place is, I believe… loving God for others' sake. 00:32:00.777 --> 00:32:04.227 Is it that? Or is it loving? I was just guessing, so I'm not sure. 00:32:04.227 --> 00:32:10.787 No, it's loving self for God's sake, I think. 00:32:11.130 --> 00:32:12.787 Ah, okay. Yeah, that makes sense. 00:32:13.308 --> 00:32:20.707 Yeah. It's this idea of being so united into the love of God and into God himself 00:32:20.707 --> 00:32:29.587 that you're able to see yourself rightly, not prideful or… You made that a part of the spiritual life class, right? 00:32:29.587 --> 00:32:34.547 Yeah, that was a pretty core, pretty, I mean, the idea that I just expressed is a significant 00:32:34.547 --> 00:32:39.027 core idea in that, and it was in teaching that spiritual life class that I was like, 00:32:39.027 --> 00:32:47.347 this is like the, it began to kind of formulate in that I think this is a consolidation of what 00:32:47.347 --> 00:32:53.907 I've been thinking for many years is a place where people get stuck. Because, I mean, I don't know, 00:32:53.907 --> 00:32:59.067 what's your own experience in that? Have you ever, have you had to kind of wrestle through that? 00:32:59.067 --> 00:33:10.827 Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, for sure. You know, there have been times where there's this sense of like. 00:33:11.778 --> 00:33:22.027 Passion for life, passion for calling, passion for, you know, you can call it passion for family, 00:33:22.027 --> 00:33:28.827 passion for ministry, passion for X, Y, or Z. And you feel like, wow, like this will never go away. 00:33:29.125 --> 00:33:41.067 This is who I am now, right? And then it does, and that you may, and sometimes it is true, 00:33:41.067 --> 00:33:47.427 sometimes there are circumstantial things that cause a shift in the perception of a season of 00:33:47.427 --> 00:33:58.987 life. Yes. And then sometimes it's just a removal of the thing 00:33:58.608 --> 00:34:08.058 that was keeping you in a comfortable position so that you may be forced essentially to find, 00:34:08.799 --> 00:34:15.978 comfort in the Lord himself rather than in the thing he's called you to or gifted you for, 00:34:16.778 --> 00:34:26.245 or brought you to. I think it's in the perseverance through the valley or the. 00:34:26.938 --> 00:34:33.186 The darkness of the soul or whatever analogy you want to use, it's walking. 00:34:33.858 --> 00:34:41.578 There's no getting around it. There's only one way through it, and it's through it. 00:34:41.578 --> 00:34:47.498 You've got to walk through it. You can't avoid it. 00:34:47.498 --> 00:34:54.575 If you're going to grow and if you're going to come into the next season or the next step. 00:34:54.858 --> 00:35:05.058 You absolutely must persevere through it and really cling tightly, really cling tightly 00:35:05.058 --> 00:35:13.338 to, I think it's good to cling tightly to the promise of God given to you in the original moment of passion. 00:35:13.338 --> 00:35:25.338 Sure. So to cling tightly both to the promise of God, but also primarily to the person, the person of God. 00:35:25.338 --> 00:35:36.538 The person of God. I think of the parable of the seeds or the soil, right? And you've got 00:35:36.538 --> 00:35:42.058 the different seed gets planted and you've got the gets plucked up right away, it grows up, 00:35:42.058 --> 00:35:47.618 but it gets kind of choked out by the thorns. I think that that's where in some ways the thorns 00:35:47.618 --> 00:35:56.138 come into play of like growth was really great until suffering, concerns of this life. Maybe 00:35:56.138 --> 00:36:06.218 it's now harder and it kind of gets choked out. So, yeah, I think that's a huge one because I 00:36:06.218 --> 00:36:13.471 think there's too many people. It can just manifest itself in so many ways of... 00:36:15.109 --> 00:36:23.544 Everything from people kind of attributing suffering to lack of faith, to, you know, 00:36:23.879 --> 00:36:28.119 just you've done something wrong, right? All the arguments that happened in Job, 00:36:28.119 --> 00:36:32.519 his friends come and accuse Job of like, well, you must have done something wrong or something 00:36:32.519 --> 00:36:38.719 like that. We still fight to get that theology out of the church today. 00:36:38.719 --> 00:36:43.079 Oh, yeah. Why is God mad at me? Why is God mad at me? Why is God punishing me? 00:36:43.422 --> 00:36:54.119 And that's what Job's friends said to him, and that wasn't the case. But then it also just, 00:36:54.119 --> 00:37:02.159 I think it runs into a very anemic spirituality of like, I need to find a way to keep myself 00:37:02.159 --> 00:37:11.079 motivated in my faith. Let me find another book, another podcast, another preacher. This is where 00:37:11.079 --> 00:37:18.519 I think people who chronically change churches every couple years, this is where I think they 00:37:18.519 --> 00:37:24.719 kind of might be stuck sometimes, is getting to a place of like, yeah, this church was really good 00:37:24.719 --> 00:37:31.039 when I first got here, but now I'm just kind of feeling fed. Now I know the people. Now I know 00:37:31.039 --> 00:37:38.919 the people and the shininess has kind of worn off and I'm starting to feel the same way I was 00:37:38.919 --> 00:37:43.639 feeling at my last church. And maybe I should go look somewhere else. 00:37:43.639 --> 00:37:50.839 Yeah. Let's do a podcast episode in the future on right reasons to leave a church and wrong 00:37:50.839 --> 00:37:54.839 reasons to leave a church. Yeah. Yeah. Definitely talk a lot about that. 00:37:54.839 --> 00:37:58.519 All right. Make a note. We'll make a note. Make a note. Remind us about that if we don't. 00:38:01.079 --> 00:38:08.119 So yeah, I think that's a, and that plays into the way that we do church. Like we've been talking 00:38:08.119 --> 00:38:12.661 in the last couple weeks, we've had some conversations about what's appropriate inside 00:38:12.919 --> 00:38:23.950 of church Christian worship and things like that. And I do think that not having this 00:38:23.995 --> 00:38:29.639 understanding of the Christian life leads us to a place where we're kind of like hyping, 00:38:30.342 --> 00:38:36.919 hype church. Like we are bringing you to a concert experience to give you a 00:38:36.919 --> 00:38:49.519 spiritual shot in the arm on Sunday morning where you hear this fantastic Ted Talk, amazing worship, a great experience, high-impact service. 00:38:48.868 --> 00:38:53.518 It gets you through the week, keeps you motivated and kind of feeling connected to Jesus because of 00:38:53.518 --> 00:39:02.318 an experience. But all it's doing is it's numbing over the deeper call through suffering, through. 00:39:03.358 --> 00:39:11.518 Pain into knowing Christ in the absence of feeling these good positive emotions. 00:39:11.518 --> 00:39:18.478 Yeah, or just, yeah. You know, it's funny. The primary, this is kind of a diversion, 00:39:18.478 --> 00:39:27.038 but kind of not, the primary reason that people give me for wanting conduit or their church to 00:39:27.038 --> 00:39:35.358 have a midweek service is that Sunday wears off too fast. You know, that there's like a, 00:39:35.358 --> 00:39:42.179 the spiritual inoculation that they got on Sunday, the hype, it's wearing off. 00:39:43.518 --> 00:39:49.558 I have no control over it. My personal discipleship to Jesus makes no difference. 00:39:50.898 --> 00:39:55.656 So can we have a Wednesday night service so that I can get fed up again? 00:39:56.158 --> 00:40:01.078 Not fed up again. That's maybe a Freudian slip there. 00:40:02.798 --> 00:40:05.958 So I can get filled up again. Can I get my spiritual tank taken care of? 00:40:05.958 --> 00:40:09.879 Yeah, so by the time I'm coming down off the mountain again, it's Sunday morning. Yep. 00:40:10.114 --> 00:40:14.958 And, yeah, it's a, you know, I don't, it's a very, it's a. 00:40:23.923 --> 00:40:32.108 I wanna say this gently but also firmly that it's a very immature conception of the spiritual life. 00:40:32.745 --> 00:40:36.607 Because it makes it all about me. How am I feeling? 00:40:37.188 --> 00:40:44.108 How am I feeling? So, feel better, yeah. And I don't think either of us say this condescendingly 00:40:44.108 --> 00:40:49.885 because we've had to walk through it in our own ways. Oh my gosh, I walk through it now. 00:40:50.588 --> 00:40:57.375 I don't ever want to feel the absence of the presence of the Lord. 00:41:00.268 --> 00:41:08.048 Emotionally, mentally, or intellectually, or just by experience now of walking with the Lord 00:41:08.048 --> 00:41:11.626 for a long time, I know he is there. 00:41:17.248 --> 00:41:24.208 So no, I don't like it. but it is what it is, and yes, I experience it too. 00:41:25.248 --> 00:41:29.370 Yeah, so, yeah, I think that's a big, 00:41:29.728 --> 00:41:33.768 I wanna keep, for my own self personally, I'm doing a lot of thinking around that, 00:41:33.768 --> 00:41:36.805 because I think it's a really important concept. 00:41:37.008 --> 00:41:37.850 Yeah, I agree. 00:41:39.209 --> 00:41:44.007 Good, well, I think that that's a good bit of information for the day. 00:41:44.128 --> 00:41:52.188 Yeah, probably. We traveled a distance there. 00:41:53.225 --> 00:42:05.622 Well, we appreciate you listening, as always. Encourage you to always ask questions, either on our text line or you can drop it in the 00:42:05.828 --> 00:42:06.558 comments. 00:42:07.080 --> 00:42:13.188 Please like, share, subscribe, and all the places that you listen to this, appreciate 00:42:13.580 --> 00:42:17.360 And thanks for listening to the Uncut Podcast. Yep, and we'll see y'all next time. 00:42:19.120 --> 00:42:25.108 Music.