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Practical conversations to help you grow in your relationship with Jesus Christ.
Hey, everyone, and welcome back. On today's show, we're diving into a pretty important topic. When should Christians mind their own business? Listen. We've all been there.
Ayren:Right? We see or hear something that makes us pause, and we wonder that should I step in, or should I stay silent? Listen. It's a tricky balance. But today, we're gonna discuss the different motivations behind speaking up or staying quiet, as well as how to discern the right approach based on our faith in relationships.
Ayren:We hope that in today's lesson that you will learn a little bit about what it looks like to approach these conversations with love and grace, but we also wanna be honest with you and share about a couple of times where we've blown it and dropped the ball. With all that being said, let's hop right in.
Intro:Welcome to the True Discipleship podcast, where we have practical conversations on what it means to be a passionate follower of Jesus. We are so thankful you chose to listen today and hope you gain a fresh perspective. With Jesus at the center, this is a community where everyone is given a seat at the table, a place to dive into scripture, talk, think, explore, and learn what following Christ is all about. Now onto our hosts, Erin and Morgan Nelson.
Ayren:Hello, everybody, and welcome back. My name is Aaron.
Morgan:And I'm Morgan.
Ayren:And we are here with another episode of the True Discipleship podcast. Does it feel like the weeks are longer? Like, it feels like it's been a while since we've recorded. I could be wrong. Maybe we've just had a lot going on lately.
Ayren:But
Morgan:We've had a lot going on in the past few days, but we also aren't recording consistently on the same day. We're trying to get to that point, But we've had some flexibility in our schedule to be able to record on different days. So it might have been since last Monday?
Ayren:Last Monday. Maybe it's been a full week. Yeah. Yeah. But yeah.
Ayren:Anyway, it just feels like it's been a long time since we've done this. I did a podcast with a friend of mine for a little while, and it felt like every 2 days. Like, we it was another weekly show, but it felt like every 2 days we're back recording stuff. But, yeah, here we are again. I just wanna give you a quick reminder.
Ayren:If at any point you feel like this conversation has been beneficial to you or been a blessing to you, I just wanna encourage you. We would love to hear that. We'd love to have some conversation with you. So find us on social media at true discipleship podcast on Instagram. You can also email us at true discipleship2021@gmail dotcom.
Ayren:Feel free to share this with your friends. Maybe it's maybe it there's not even answers in it, but maybe there's just something that you feel, could spark a conversation with you and someone else. We always like to say that this is a conversation that serves as a conversation starter. We go back and forth all the time when it's 45 minutes too long, not long enough. Should we go longer?
Ayren:Should we go shorter? But, man, even after 45 minutes, it feels like we're only starting a conversation, and we would love for you to continue that. So thank you so much to people who know us personally, who have our phone number and have texted us in response to some of these things and stuff like that. If you are enjoying the content, please leave an honest 5 star review. The honest part is in the comments, but the 5 star review, is there regardless.
Ayren:So tell us how you really feel in the comments. Always leave ways that we can get better and improve. But let's go ahead and hop into today's episode. And I'm gonna I'm gonna preface it with a little bit of background. I'm not gonna go super far into detail, because this is a topic that I think is close to both of us relatively, personally, but I don't wanna go into detail because I haven't confirmed with either of the people involved that they're okay with us sharing this sort of stuff.
Ayren:But over the past week or 2, Morgan, you and I have both had conversations individually that cause us to engage in spiritual conversation with people. And the reality is, and you can probably speak into this a little bit, but that can become burdensome, Not necessarily in a bad way, not entirely in a good way. I think there's a little bit of a mix in there of, you feel kind of this sense of responsibility. You feel like, okay. If there's a place for me to say something or should I say something, and I'll kind of clarify those ideas a little bit more in just a second.
Ayren:But you feel a sense of responsibility of I need to say something, But how much do I need to say for me? I was scrolling through Facebook and saw someone who I would consider a spiritual leader in their community, share something. And I saw it and it kind of rattled me a little bit. And I'm like, I don't know if I should say something about this or not. I know this person personally, but we haven't talked in years.
Ayren:It really became this conversation of men. How do I know when to engage in spiritual conversation and when shouldn't I? So I'm just going to throw this to you, Morgan. This is a 30,000 foot question. I don't know where this conversation is gonna go.
Ayren:Let me start there. I don't know if people know that or not, but we have kind of a general idea of where we wanna go with these things because we wanna make sure we land somewhere. But as far as the flow of the conversation, it's all pretty pretty organic. But I do wanna ask you this to start. As Christians, when it comes to issues of faith, topics of spirituality, I know people who are not believers who would say Christians just need to mind their business.
Ayren:They need to stay out of our lane. This kind of goes back to the conversation last week of, you know, Christians are too judgmental. They keep trying to push their beliefs on us, whatever. As Christians, should we mind our business? Yes or no?
Morgan:This is a question that's full of so many caveats in the answer. Yes and no. There there are times when it's appropriate to mind your own business, and there are times when it's not. I think in the context of the the situations that we've encountered recently, I find myself asking, is there salvation on the line? Like, is this a matter of life or death?
Ayren:Yeah.
Morgan:Even within the Christian community, we're going to disagree on things. There are gonna be certain aspects of our faith that we don't see eye to eye on. The one that comes to mind is, do we use instruments in worship or not? There are denominations of Christianity that interpret scripture to say we shouldn't use instruments, and we belong to a church that does use instruments. Do I think that's a matter of life or death?
Morgan:No. So I'm not gonna go on Facebook and be like, this denomination needs to be using instruments in church. Like that. That's not, instruments in church. Like, that that's not, I don't know if I'm giving away the title already, but that's not a hill I'm gonna die on.
Morgan:No. That's good. I I don't know what the
Ayren:title of this is gonna be yet. I'm just gonna wait title of this is gonna be yet. I'm just gonna wait to see how the yeah. The working title of this conversation was is what hills do we die on? And I really think that's what it is.
Ayren:Right? There's an old famous quote, 19th century actually, I think I'm getting that wrong. I forgot who it was that said it, but there's this old famous quote that says in essentials, talking about the church, in essentials, unity, in nonessentials, liberty, in all things, charity. And so that's kind of the breakdown. If it's something that's essential to the faith, which I think is what you're getting at, is is salvation.
Ayren:I don't even know if I like that language. This is just kinda me riffing now and thinking out loud. I don't know if I like that language of if salvation is on the line because that just opens up a hole of the can of worms and stuff like that, that which might be a conversation for another day.
Morgan:I would broaden my answer to is there separation from God? Is Oh. Is there sin? Is there separation from God? Are you missing the main point?
Ayren:That's a good question.
Morgan:Is it distracting you from the ultimate purpose of being in a relationship with Jesus?
Ayren:Is it blatantly is it blatantly disobedient? Is it blaze blatantly untrue, which I think that one gets a little bit gray. Right? So, for example, the in the instruments example that you used, that's gonna be based kind of on our interpretation of scripture. And, again, I don't like, to your point, I don't think it has anything to do with whether or not somebody's going to heaven or not.
Ayren:So that's something that I don't really
Morgan:And I also don't think that it impacts your relationship with Jesus.
Ayren:Yeah.
Morgan:Whether you're singing songs of worship with a piano behind it or not, your heart is still, I'm worshiping God.
Ayren:I think that's the contingent point on the truth piece. Does this belief cause you to fall in love with a false version of Jesus?
Morgan:I
Ayren:think those are the conversations that are potentially the ones worth having. I think in both of these situations that we had, there was an instance of someone believing something about Jesus that based on our interpretation of scripture isn't a proper representation of Jesus. And so because of that, yeah, I mean, there has to be some level of correction. I mean, the entire book of Galatians is about this. Paul writes to the Galatians because they've received another gospel, this other idea of what they had to do in order to earn their salvation.
Ayren:And Paul gets gangsta. Paul's like, whoever told you that they should castrate themselves? And he's like, yo. Paul, that doesn't sound like a very Christian thing to say, but that's how serious it was because Paul's issue with this was that, Galatians, you've heard the truth, and now you're allowing someone to lead you astray. So I do think I think the way you put that is really good.
Ayren:It doesn't create separation from Jesus or not. Yeah. Or a belief in a false version of Jesus. Is there a need for a course correction, something like that? Here's so
Morgan:Can I give the second part of my answer?
Ayren:Yes. Yes.
Morgan:When we should mind our business, you and I have had a lot of conversations about a lot of people. That makes it sound like gossips. But in my wanting to understand God more and living in a relationship with God following Jesus, I do ask you a lot of questions about, is this right? Is this wrong? And what do we do with that?
Morgan:What scripture like, what precedent in scripture do we see where, you know, is this person living in a committed relationship with with Jesus? And a lot of the times, you're like, that's not your business. It it doesn't Yeah. It doesn't matter. Like, you stay in your lane and let them stay in theirs.
Morgan:That's between them and God. And I think that is where my caveat answer comes from is we have this call to spread the gospel, speak truth, and there are situations where we definitely should be doing that. But then there are also times when I do think it's appropriate to mind our own business. And, ultimately, like, that is between that person and Jesus. Mhmm.
Morgan:But even that is, like, challenging. I think you need to be I have a lot to say today.
Ayren:Yeah. Go for it. We've got time.
Morgan:I think you need to be in an intimate relationship with that person to be able to speak into a situation. And a lot of the times when I'm asking you, like, is there a precedent for this? What is this person doing over there? It's because I saw it on social media. I don't live life with this person.
Morgan:And that's when you're kinda like, hey. It really doesn't matter. It's really not any of your business.
Ayren:Yeah. No. That's good. You know, it's funny. I I think about, King David.
Ayren:He has Bathsheba's husband killed. And I'm sure everyone in David's kingdom saw that and was like, yo. That's a low down dirty move. But Nathan was the only one that was willing to come to him and I think was trusted enough to come to him and say, yo, man. What you just did was wrong.
Ayren:There has to be an alignment of relationship, I think, in order for these sorts of conversations to happen. 1, I have to be aligned in my relationship with you. Scratch that. I said that one first because it's the one we've been talking about, and the other one I was gonna leave for kind of this grand reveal. But, really, the person speaking in has to be aligned with god first.
Ayren:That's the first thing. Nathan was a prophet, went to Daniel on behalf of God. So the first relationship that needs to be before you have the chance to speak in anybody's life, and this kinda goes to what we talked about yes or last week with the plank and log and that sort of thing. I first have to be aligned in my relationship with Jesus, And I think it's not just a do I feel like I should say something about this or not? So in the situation of what I saw on Facebook, I took time and prayed about it.
Ayren:I woke up. I opened my phone. It was a bad habit of mine. Woke up, grabbed my phone, opened Facebook. 1st person I saw and it just rattled me, man.
Ayren:Like, I'm in the shower, rattled, brushing my teeth, rattled, getting the car to go to work, rattled. And so I parked my car at work and sitting in the parking lot On the ride there, I prayed. I'm like, god, am I supposed to say something about this? And I I prayed, and there was just such a deep level of conviction that I felt like, yeah. I should.
Ayren:Not gonna I mean, there wasn't you know, the clouds didn't part, and I didn't feel like but it felt like an issue of, like, man, this there might be a room for conversation. I do wanna add to this. The goal is to have further conversation with this person offline. The goal is not let's have it out in the comment section, which they initiated. I'm super grateful for that, actually.
Ayren:They initiated, and we're gonna have a in person conversation about it. But, man, I I didn't wanna just go in guns blazing because I was angry saying, I gotta fix this. That wasn't the goal at all. Instead, I was like, well, let me just ask some questions and really see what's going on here, because maybe there's something I'm missing. And yeah.
Morgan:That was gonna be the next thing that I added to is, like, what is your goal in minding your business or not minding your business?
Ayren:Oh, now you're preaching.
Morgan:I I don't know.
Ayren:Oh, that's so good.
Morgan:I had an Americano, like, hours ago, but maybe it's just now kicking in. So I think there is good motivation and there's bad motivation behind both sides of minding your business and not minding your business.
Ayren:Now you're getting the heart issues. I don't like this.
Morgan:So is that not the point of this podcast?
Ayren:Yeah. That's so good. Get to
Morgan:the heart issue? Like, we're not here to tell you, like, if this, then this. Like, there's no flowchart. There will not be a flowchart that we publish that's like, if someone texts me this or if someone posted this, then answer yes or no. I think about, like, the 17 magazines I used to get.
Morgan:Oh, man. What summer outfit are you? And, like, yes and no.
Ayren:Every BuzzFeed quiz for people younger than us.
Morgan:We're not gonna like, there's not gonna be that. And we do have to get to the heart issue because that's, like, ultimately what you've gotta, like, listen to. Like, God's gotta work in your heart and then you realize, okay, how do I act out of that? So good motivation behind minding your business. It's from God.
Morgan:Like, you talk to God and you don't feel this holy burden or obligation. You're just like, I trust God. God, you've seen this. You know this. You know the situation.
Morgan:I don't feel like this holy burden to continue to have any part of this. If things change, maybe my answer changes. Not good reasons to mind your own business, which I am very, very guilty of. Conflict avoidance. Like, oh, that's not I tell myself, oh, well, that's just not really any of my business.
Morgan:You can post what you want. You can believe what you want. I'm not gonna impose my beliefs on you. You know what I believe because you know that I'm a Christian, but I'm not going to enter into this. I'm going to mind my own business, but it's it's a cheat code because I don't wanna deal with the conflict.
Ayren:Yeah. I see someone who believes or is doing something that's damaging to them in their relationship with Jesus, and I'm just not gonna get involved because that's messy. That's bad motivation.
Morgan:Bad motivation for minding your business.
Ayren:Self preservation, trying to protect yourself.
Morgan:Good motivation for not minding your own business. I want what's best for this person. I want this person to be in perfect communion with God.
Ayren:Love.
Morgan:Yeah. Yeah. So I'm gonna do whatever it takes. It's gonna be it's it's gonna get messy. I'm not gonna mind my own business.
Morgan:I'm gonna get all up in there and be like, hey. Like, I see some stuff, and I'm gonna call it out.
Ayren:Yeah.
Morgan:Not
Ayren:where Can we flip the script a little bit? I'm sorry.
Morgan:Finish this script. I've got my little my my little Yeah. 4 boxes. So which one am I at?
Ayren:You were at the, the negative side of getting involved.
Morgan:Not good
Ayren:motivation for Not good. Yes.
Morgan:Not minding your own business.
Ayren:We're not gonna the flowchart, but we will post this chart. This is really good.
Morgan:Yeah. The little, like, 4 boxes. So not good motivation for not minding your own business. I just wanna get into it. I wanna make myself feel better about myself.
Morgan:I see something that's like, oh, gosh, look how bad they're, like, wrecking their lives. And, like, obviously, I have it all figured out. This pride of I'm better than them, this justification of, well, at least I'm not doing what they're doing. And you gotta come in and be like, you're wrong and yeah. Like, there's no good goal behind that.
Morgan:You're not seeking what's best for this person. You're, in fact, like, going and probably telling them things they already know in this very messy situation and just trying to make yourself feel better.
Ayren:Self righteousness.
Morgan:Thank you.
Ayren:That's what yeah. That's really good. That's such a clear breakdown that, honestly, I don't know what else we need to talk about for the rest of our time. That's so good. I I really do like that.
Ayren:I had a a follow-up question.
Morgan:I think I answered the second question that you had. What situations do you engage in?
Ayren:Yeah. No. I had a follow-up question that just came into my mind, and I can't
Morgan:remember what it was now.
Ayren:That's a really good framework. I like that a lot. I think that that helps us to consider a lot of things, to process a lot of things in real time. And just to figure out, like, yeah, what is my goal in trying to speak into these issues? And so, maybe somebody's listening to this and you're thinking, well, of course, God would want me to get involved.
Ayren:Of course, I need to, you know, press the issue or whatever. We're gonna we've already, you know, kind of side referenced a couple of passages of scripture where we see this play out, but there actually is a biblical precedent for not getting involved or knowing when to leave a situation alone. And so we're gonna take a look at a couple of those here. You in your opening there when you were answering some of those beginning questions, you alluded to a concept that just reminded me of Ecclesiastes chapter 3. You know, the teacher, as he's called in Ecclesiastes, he's listing out all these things.
Ayren:There's a time for this, time for that, time for this, time for that. And in Ecclesiastes 37, he says, there's a time to be quiet and a time to speak. And I think that principle applied to our, evangelism. I think some yeah. You know, I I kinda dripped on this a minute ago, but the idea isn't that, we're never supposed to say anything.
Ayren:But there there does come a discernment and a wisdom of how do I know when I'm supposed to say something or not? Even Jesus, when he would heal people, he would say, hey. Listen. This is what I did for you. Don't tell anybody.
Ayren:And that almost never worked out that way, but there was a reason. There was a timing for it, which is really interesting to me. That's that's a concept that I don't know if this is the right platform to explore that concept. But it's clear that that God does things in his timing. And I think we've all seen this.
Ayren:You know, we've all had the people who maybe we've shared something with about Jesus and they didn't receive it, and then maybe later down the road, they did end up becoming Christian, or they still haven't become a Christian. And you just realize, yeah, now is not Your heart's not receptive to this thing right now, and it's not a judgmental thing. It's just kind of a it's it's a a reality and a principle that we kinda start to learn here. On the other end of the spectrum, I think we have a lot of people, myself included, who think, yeah, this isn't my business. I'm not gonna get involved.
Ayren:And, again, to your point, it was kind of the, the the emphasis around the idea of, I don't wanna get involved in conflict and stuff. I think one of the biggest hesitancies that a lot of people have is is I don't know what to say. If I get into a conversation about the the idea the thought is is that every conversation is gonna turn into a debate. That doesn't have to be true. Every conversation doesn't have to be a place where you think you're wrong, I'm right.
Ayren:Now I need to try to fix you or make you think right. The reality is is that there's a way to go into these conversations that truly is loving and doesn't come with a presupposition. Now this is really tough because the thing that probably set you off was the belief that the other person was wrong.
Morgan:Mhmm.
Ayren:But then there has to be this humility inside of us that says, yeah. But maybe I could be wrong too. And even if you don't believe that, even if you genuinely don't believe that, I think there's a posture in that that affects the way you communicate to another person. So that's that.
Morgan:I I also wanna add, that even if the other person, you know, you take out feelings and everything and you know that this person is wrong and you know that, like, your interpretation is right, I think we also need to remember that, like, in some context, like, this isn't just a debate to be won. This is somebody's life.
Ayren:Exactly.
Morgan:And it's their their feelings. And I know, like, we can't trust our feelings, but your feelings are still something to care about.
Ayren:Yeah.
Morgan:I mean, I don't wanna go in just to win an argument. I wanna go in again. What is my motivation behind minding my business or not minding my business? In this case, in not minding my business, I want what's best for you. So I can't come in and say, like, I need to be right and you need to be wrong.
Morgan:It's how do I gently guide you to the feet of Jesus, to truth?
Ayren:That's Galatians 61. We looked at it the past couple of weeks, but that's spot on. We went to go see,
Morgan:The queen herself.
Ayren:The the couple. There were 2 of them.
Morgan:There were?
Ayren:We went to go see, Jackie Hill and Preston Perry. They have a podcast called With the Perrys, which I realized is we're we ripped off without really knowing it. We didn't listen to their podcast before we started doing this one. But let's do it. That's kinda what we do.
Ayren:We just sit on the couch and have these conversations about Jesus. But we went to go see them. They're on a podcast tour right now at the time of recording, and Preston said something that's really stuck with me. He was like, if you present the gospel to someone in a, approach that is unappetizing, that part I'm kinda paraphrased. But, basically, what he was talking about was he's like, if I present the gospel on a golden platter versus if I present it in a garbage bag, he said people may reject the packaging, but even though they don't wanna reject the the package, like, the thing you're trying to give them is good.
Ayren:But if I came to you with, like, hey. Do you want this trash bag? You'd be like, no. I don't want that. What?
Ayren:Because it looks like garbage. Mhmm. And that's kind of the idea that he was getting at is that the way you approach it like, people can tell immediately. Are you just trying to, like, stroke your own ego? Are you just trying to make yourself right?
Ayren:Prove yourself right? You know, that's not what people want. But if you are hospitable, if you are welcoming, if you are humble in your approach, it's far more opening and welcoming to someone to have them hear what you wanna say. So to kind of get back to this idea, I was talking about those people who feel like, I don't know. It's not my plate.
Ayren:Like, I'm only supposed to love. I'm never supposed to get into conflict with people or talk to them about things. This is Jude chapter well, there's only one chapter in Jude. But starting in verse 3, it says difference. I had been eagerly planning to write to you about the salvation we all share.
Ayren:But now I find that I must write about something else, urging you to defend the faith that God has entrusted once for all time to his holy people. I say this because some ungodly people have wormed their way into your churches saying that God's marvelous grace allows us to live immoral lives. The condemnation of such people was recorded long ago, for they have denied our only master and lord Jesus Christ. So this kinda gives you that idea that I was talking about earlier, creating a false gospel, creating a false version of God, creating a false version of Jesus. Man, I I was driving earlier today, and I saw someone with a bumper they had 2 bumper stickers on the back of their car.
Ayren:I meant a tell you about this earlier, and I just thought about it. One side, they had that thank you, Jesus sign. You know, I'm talking about the yellow one with the sun and the cross and stuff like that on it. That was on the left. And on the right side, it said, live your truth.
Ayren:And I was like, what? Like, these conflicting messages. The idea that those two ideas could coexist with one another is really what Jude was writing about here. Listen. If you say you're gonna follow Jesus, there's one version of Jesus.
Ayren:There's one true gospel. And so we have to make sure that that's what we're following and not some version of this that makes us feel better about ourselves, makes admit it's for sin, is easier to share with other people. Like, it's not our role or our place to try to manipulate those things at all. And then the final example that I wanna look at here, the final, passage that I want us to to look at, and this is Luke chapter 9. Jesus is about to send out the 12 disciples.
Ayren:And I'll just go ahead and read it because it's the the story kind of tells the narrative. It says, one day, Jesus called together his 12 disciples and gave them power and authority to cast out all demons and to heal all diseases. Then he sent them out to tell everyone about the kingdom of God and to heal the sick. Take nothing for your journey, he instructed them. Don't take a walking stick, a traveler's bag, food, money, or even a change of clothes.
Ayren:Wherever you go, stay in the same house until you leave town. And if a town refuses to welcome you, shake its dust from your feet as you leave to show that you have abandoned those people to their fate. So they began their circuit of the villages, preaching the good news and healing the sick. And so you can kinda read a little bit about the account there. I think in the next chapter, it kinda picks up and tells about what happened when they came back.
Ayren:But this is really interesting to me. This is actually, this this story, it's mentioned in other accounts as well, is actually kind of like a founding passage for Jehovah's Witness. It's where they get the idea of go out 2 by 2, you know, share the gospel people. If not, it's not on you. If they don't accept it, it's not on you, whatever.
Ayren:So but this is, I mean, clearly true from a, you know, our belief set, of going out and do this. But Jesus uses a a phrase in there that's really interesting to me. This is verse 5. It says, if a town refuses to welcome you, so you go there to share the gospel and they they refuse you. Jesus says, shake its dust from your feet as you leave to show that you have abandoned those people to their fate.
Ayren:And really what he's this is a 1st century version of wash your hands of the situation. It's basically what he's saying. This is interesting to me because it is clear that Jesus is giving let's start this way. Jesus takes the weight off of us, which I think is extremely important to remember. I think a lot of times when we go into conversation with people and feel like it's gonna be argumentative or a debate, if you take that debate approach, that less humble approach, you feel this sense.
Ayren:And I say this from experience. I'm saying you because I'm trying to relate to other people, but let let me just speak for me personally here. I will often get the sense of this is a ride or die on me. I have to have all the answers. I gotta get things right.
Ayren:I have to be the one to fix and correct all this stuff when I never had anything to do with that person's salvation in the 1st place. God's the one that saves. And so here I am trying to take the authority of, now know, I gotta pick up my shield. I gotta go in strong, and I gotta fix this person when, really, that's not it. I mean, all of these truths are only illuminated to us by the power of the Holy Spirit.
Morgan:So think we have to can
Ayren:Yeah. Go go ahead.
Morgan:I think we have to be really careful with that, though, because that pendulum can swing to the whole other side. And I will use it as a self righteous way to defend never getting in an argument with anyone or never minding someone else's business for good, because I'm like, well, God's got them. God's got a way. Like, if it's not me, there's gonna be a way that this person is gonna encounter God's truth and work in their lives. So, yes, but also be very careful.
Morgan:We talk a lot about how, like, extreme ends of things are never really good.
Ayren:Yeah.
Morgan:So the extreme end of shaking your dust off of your shoes, I'm really good at not even getting dust in my shoes.
Ayren:Well, I honestly So that's what I was gonna say that having dust on your shoes is a there's a prerequisite to that that you actually went, that you went into the town and that you made an honest, humble, earnest attempt. But then for whatever reason, these people rejected I'm not even gonna say rejected you, rejected the gospel. Right? That's really what it is. People have rejected the gospel.
Ayren:And so Jesus Jesus himself was even saying, listen. There's gonna be some situations where you gotta let go of it, at least for now.
Morgan:Do you think that means that we ever stop praying for that situation?
Ayren:No. I I think this is exactly where that's so vital to remember. So vital to remember. Excuse me.
Morgan:Invital.
Ayren:Invital. It's so vital to remember. Just because Jesus is telling me to stop, I don't even like this language, but I I hope you hear my heart in this. Even though Jesus is telling me to stop working on a situation doesn't mean that he's stopping to work on it. Jesus telling me to shake the dust off of my feet.
Ayren:I'm leaving the town. The Holy Spirit isn't. Holy Spirit still there and working. And And who knows? Maybe one day Jesus will tell me to go back to that same town.
Ayren:Mhmm. But, no, it is. I think it's very important. I mean, there are plenty of people who I've learned, I, you know, I have conversations with about faith and stuff, and they're just not receptive to it. And there comes a point, man, where, like, even for me, I'm like, yo.
Ayren:This is it's burdensome, but I I'm I'm starting to recognize that that your heart isn't ready for this, that this isn't gonna take root right now. And so, yeah, I do. I'll I'll leave those conversations alone for a while. But here's to 2 things. The first is what you just alluded to.
Ayren:I'm always praying for them. I'm always praying that, listen, even if it's not me, maybe another messenger will go to town to just keep with the the, you know, situation that we've seen in the text. Another messenger would go to town, and they may be receptive to it later. That's always my prayer. The other thing too is is when I have a conversation with someone, I never wanna get so contentious or so angry that I cut off all means of communication.
Ayren:I can't tell you how many people I've talked to about faith before in the past, and they're like, no. I don't wanna have anything to do with that. And then years later, I get a Facebook message. I get a text message. I get a call.
Ayren:I get an email saying, hey. Listen. I remember back in the day you used to have these conversations about faith with me all the time and yada yada. Well, I I became a Christian. And, ma'am, I'm so sorry for those conversations we've had the way I've been in those.
Ayren:And usually they're pretty gracious as well. Like, they aren't, you know, they there's just, like, a level of ignorance. They're not saying that they are ignorant, but there's something that they just didn't know. You know, the Holy Spirit has now opened their eyes to something that they realized to be true. So, yeah, that's water under the bridge.
Ayren:Going back to what we talked about last week, I don't judge you for what you said before you met Jesus. That's, you know, there's a grace in that. But I do wanna make sure that I leave that door open for the opportunity for them to come back later on down the road. And if they ever wanna have that faith conversation, I want them to know they can turn and see me and be like, yeah. Aaron's a safe place where I can actually talk to about this and process through this with and not like, oh, no.
Ayren:Me every conversation Aaron and I have had about faith ended up in arms, so that's the last person I want to talk to.
Morgan:I didn't read any of this before we sat down.
Ayren:I'm just gonna go ahead and pick up the recording from right there from what you just said. So I mentioned earlier at the top of the show, we create show notes because we always wanna make sure that we give you, as the listener, something to walk away from even though the conversation is completely natural and organic. But normally, this is where we would drop all of our pep practical application points. But this whole episode, you may have noticed these things just kinda came out naturally, and none of them were from me. I don't think.
Ayren:I think most of them actually came from Morgan's, because yeah. I mean, that's just we've learned these lessons through walking through life. That's really what it is. And are
Morgan:you including that little piece that we just had that I thought was offline about me not reading the show notes before we sat down? I'm
Ayren:probably going to start from right there. Yeah.
Morgan:Okay. So they've heard that I didn't read the show
Ayren:notes. You've read the show notes.
Morgan:That is wild.
Ayren:Yeah. No, I mean, that's just but again, it's just it's the product of we've probably been on the wrong side of it. Oh my gosh. I just remembered the thing. We can talk about this.
Morgan:God is in this show. We can
Ayren:talk about this now. Okay. So I feel like for the majority of this conversation, we have been on the end of the person who has we've seen somebody say something, do something, post something that we disagree with, think is not truth, and then we address them on it. How do we respond on the other side of that? When someone comes to us and says, hey, I see something in your life that's not lined up right, or I see you know, you say you're a Christian, but I see you do x, y, and z.
Morgan:Get super defensive, use lots of exclamation points, and block them on social media.
Ayren:Thank you so much for listening to another episode of the True Discipleship podcast. My name is no.
Morgan:The opposite of all of those things. Okay. Yeah.
Ayren:You can elaborate just briefly.
Morgan:Less exclamation points, less anger. I mean, in the same grace that you would approach somebody and correcting them or wanting them to guide them to a better relationship with Jesus, Yeah. Like, no. You've got to remember, like, hey. I I I would have done this for someone else.
Morgan:This person is coming from a place of love. I think we have to see the perspective that they're coming from, and maybe they're not. Like Not
Ayren:coming from a place of love?
Morgan:Not coming from a place of love. Maybe they're in that box of I'm not minding my own business, and it's not for good. And they're trying to come from a place of making themselves feel better, have that self righteousness, wanna justify themselves. They're just trying to win an argument. And I think even in there on the receiving end of that, there's a place for us to be gracious.
Ayren:Yeah. I think that's good. I think even if, again so going back to kind of the the Preston Perry analogy, no one wants to receive a good package in an ugly rapper. I guess I'll just put it that way. We have to have the discernment to recognize that there's still a good package in there.
Morgan:Like a good a good gift.
Ayren:Yeah. So so even if I don't like the way that somebody comes to me and approaches to me, about a particular area, but they see something in me, like, my job is not to get defensive in that. You know, we're just human. Let's be real. There's probably a decent chance we're going to storm away from that conversation and be angry and all this stuff.
Ayren:But there has to be a moment where we at least come down and go, okay, what part of that was true? Yeah. Was any a part of that true?
Morgan:So we have to we have to untie that trash bag and go through it and and find the good.
Ayren:Yeah.
Morgan:And another horrible analogy that has nothing to do not a horrible analogy. It's a horrible segue to another analogy. We were just talking about trash, but now I'm gonna say something about, like, eat the meat and spit out the bones. Don't eat meat out of a trash bag, please.
Ayren:That's getting quoted in the socials this week. Forget the chart you had earlier. Don't eat meat out of trash bag.
Morgan:It was just such a horrible analogy to go from
Ayren:I understand.
Morgan:We've gotta open this trash bag, but eat the meat and spit out the bones. It's like, okay, well, maybe this person did do a horrible job of delivering the message that but it has a really good intention or it could have a really good effect on my life.
Ayren:You know, who doesn't get enough credit? The Ninevites Sour Jonah comes into town and is like, God's gonna destroy the town 7 days, 9 days, however long it was. And he dips. You know what the Ninevites didn't do? They didn't go, man, Jonah, get out of here.
Ayren:We can't can't stand when that guy comes to town. They repented. They had the most bitter profit of all time come into their town garbage bag. Garbage bag walked into well, spit up a garbage bag. He will go to Nineveh and the Ninevites, these creatures of depravity.
Ayren:I mean, their story doesn't end super great if you keep reading the Bible. But at least in that moment, they're like, yo, we need to repent. We gotta change some things. I do think there's a lesson to be learned there. Even when the messenger isn't great, we have to be willing to accept the truth of the message.
Ayren:We we should respond the way we hope other people respond when we don't get it right. Mhmm. When we like, man, there's so many conversations I've had with people in the past where I'm like, man, I wish I could go back and apologize to that person. And, honestly, I I probably can't. Probably not impossible to get in touch with them.
Ayren:But it's like, yeah. What I said was true, but the way I said it was garbage. And I just hope that God did something with that. But the same grace that I hope those those people I say that I'm gonna that person because I remember this conversation specifically, the one that came to mind. The same grace that I hope that person would extend to me some 15 years later.
Ayren:Man, I hope I hope that I would have the same grace to extend to someone else.
Morgan:Yeah. So
Ayren:on that note, we're gonna go ahead and wrap this up. I think we've covered a lot of things. I will go ahead and just kinda list this. This was just a couple of the key takeaways from the episode. So number 1, ask yourself, is this a gospel issue?
Ayren:I wanna use that quote one more time. In essentials, unity, in nonessentials, liberty, in all things, charity. So number 1, ask yourself, is this a gospel issue? Number 2, always come from a place of love and not self righteousness. And if it takes you a moment to catch a beat, pray about it, ask the Lord, seek his face, make sure it's coming from a place of love.
Ayren:Lord, get my heart right before I go and talk to this person. Number 3, continue to pray for them even if they reject you or the message. And number 4, remember, we aren't the ones who save people at the end of the day. It's God who does that. Now, I think that's solid.
Ayren:That was concise.
Morgan:In in so much humility.
Ayren:Yeah. No. I mean, I just think that's a good conversation to have. This is this is me preaching to myself. Like I said, I mentioned the situation earlier where I'm gonna be having a conversation with this person later, and I want to embody all of these things going into that conversation.
Ayren:So, hopefully, this was a blessing to you. If it was, again, please consider sharing it. We'd love to hear conversations from you, on these sorts of things. I apologize if you heard our dog barking at any point through the recording. She's outside chasing squirrels or something like that.
Morgan:Then it's past her dinner time.
Ayren:And it oh, that's what it is. Yep. Time for her to eat. So we've gotta feed her so we can go to small group and we can eat. But, let's have this conversation.
Ayren:Let's keep it going. If this was a blessing to you, please
Morgan:share it with other people. And, as always, we are we welcome those 5 star reviews. Once we start
Ayren:getting some of those rolling in, we'll have to start reading them on the show again. We haven't gotten any in a while, but, it really does go a long way in helping to get the word out. We haven't recorded in a while.
Morgan:It was
Ayren:we just got
Morgan:We haven't got any 5 star reviews in a while. Yeah. Step it up, guys.
Ayren:Yeah. Thank you. Yeah. 5 stars. Put out more episodes.
Ayren:But,
Morgan:yeah, on that note, we'll go
Ayren:ahead and wrap things up. My name is Aaron.
Morgan:And I'm Morgan.
Ayren:This has been the true discipleship podcast. We'll see you guys next week.