How to Grow Spiritually Part 2

Music.

I'm Pastor Luke. I am Pastor Cameron. And this is the Uncut Podcast where we have uncut and honest conversations about faith,

life and ministry.

So Cameron, how, I don't know, how are you doing? How's your week?

It's been a very hectic week. It's been one of those weeks where you feel like you run super fast, but then you look

behind you and you're not really sure what you got accomplished.

Although I know that I did. We're having a family meeting here at Conduit this week.

I prepared... Like an all hands on deck kind of meeting. All, yep, mm-hmm, just like, you know, good old-fashioned

dad yells down, or yells from the living room, all right everyone, family meeting.

And so did a lot of preparing for that, preparing like actual content,

but then like also preparing my heart for it.

And of course preparing to preach, starting a new series this week in Romans.

Yep, Romans. And kind of prepared two sermons.

One for this week and like feeling like I didn't want to prepare the first one without

preparing the second one too to make sure they're connect, you know, they kind of connect in some way.

So did that and got lots of people stuff going on all the time too, trying to shepherd people

and love people and yeah, you get to a day like Thursday at almost 3 o'clock and, well,

Thursday's our Friday because we take Fridays off.

So.

It's like, I don't, I, we'll see how much Friday is an off day, right?

It won't be for me this week. Friday is a, will be a full work day this week. So,

what about you? How are you?

Uh, I think I've had a little bit of an easier week, but just generally resonate with you. Cause

it's been like that month. I think this month has just been like, uh, you know, I don't know

if it's just like everything kind of coming due at the same time, or just like a lot of like.

You know, I was, you know, we both released, I listened to the Craig Grishall leadership podcast,

I know you do too. So like his, his talking about last couple of episodes on that podcast

been about like momentum. And he talks about like, it's going to take way more work than you

think it's going to, to start and maintain momentum.

And I'm just like, yeah, I feel that. Just like, you just like, you're like,

all right, I want this thing to happen.

I want like small groups to do well. I wanna like, you know, finish this big project.

Like, it's gonna take like sticking at it, like being really, really doggedly determined and just...

Going yeah, you know and that takes a lot of energy, and it just feels like there's just a lot of that right now

Yeah, I I do oftentimes wonder about the balance in ministry leadership. I guess specifically pastoral leadership is,

where We've been obviously, but yes is the difference between.

Like two types of energies mm-hmm the we'll just call them like the sprinting energy and,

marathon energy mm-hmm,

So, the energy where you sprint super fast for a short period of time and kind of run

at a chaotic, frenetic pace.

And what types of situations is that necessary?

And what type of effectiveness or efficiency do you get out of that?

And then the marathon pace, which I would describe.

By the way that Eugene Peterson describes, which is more of like just a long obedience,

in the same direction.

So like looking behind you and seeing years of consistency years of consistency that has produced,

or that has produced fruit, or how has that been effective?

It's not efficient.

One of my seminary professors once said that ministry, do not try to make ministry efficient.

It will never be efficient.

Ministry will never be efficient. It's never gonna be an assembly line.

Yeah. It can be effective, but it will almost never be efficient.

And so, yeah, I don't like the chaotic paces.

I really don't. I feel like in weeks where my pace is really fast and chaotic,

I feel emotionally vulnerable and spiritually vulnerable. I feel a little bit more,

Or maybe a little bit more on edge, I'm a little bit shorter with people.

I tend to react more than I tend to respond. But there also is, going back to your point about Craig Grishel and his Getmo, Getmo Momentum

podcast, I do seem to cover a lot of ground in those chaotic weeks and the momentum of

of going kind of keeps me going.

Else.

So it's hard. No, it is like I had a this makes me think of a college professor. I had dr. Kessler

He was an old kind of I think he liked to pretend he was more curmudgeon II than he actually was

But he definitely, you know an older pastor who retired to become a professor and teach pastors.

Like one time he kind of paused in the middle of his lecture and he just felt like he kind of had to like say

something to the younger generation. And he was just like, you guys are so concerned with finding

the right balance in life. He's like, I'm going to give you a secret. There isn't any. He was just

like, stop trying to fight for like some sort of perfect balance where things aren't going to feel

ever crazy, where everything's going to feel perfectly balanced. He's like, it can't happen.

It won't happen. You're going to have weeks where some things are going to take more of

your energy than the others. Just on the weeks it doesn't have to, give it back attention to

the other things that you can give attention to. And when he said that, I really disliked it.

I was like, I don't like that. Cause like we're, I think our generation, I think the culture is

very much like, if you can find the right technique, the right time hack, time management has

become such a big, massive thing, then you can find a way to make all of your

tasks and get all these things done seemingly effortlessly, right?

That's the belief. Yeah. And I think he's right in that that doesn't exactly exist.

So I don't know.

I've been of the persuasion that there will be times where things feel a little

bit off kilter, where you're going to have to sprint a little bit in the middle

of the race, you're going uphill. Maybe if we want to keep the marathon language. You shouldn't do

that all the time. That would be bad. But you might need to work a little bit harder to get up

a certain hill. Sure. Sure.

So I don't know. Yeah. It's definitely, but it's not a place I don't think either of us want to

live, because I find that if I stay there too long, I eventually start, like, I start coming apart.

I just, you know. Yeah. I just, I particularly don't like it because I just don't like what it does to me emotionally.

Yeah. I just don't feel...

Like I think if I really feel like it jeopardizes my ability to love particularly in my family. Well, hmm. Yeah,

because I come home and I'm like just Vanquished I'm done. Yeah, cuz you're expending your prime energy,

Yeah here right in the ministry. So it takes extra work to cut then come home. Mm-hmm and be.

Like have the right Be able to serve my family, love my wife well, be patient with my kids, not just fall on

the couch and mindlessly scroll on my phone for the rest of the night.

But play chess with Noah, who checkmated me for the first time the other night.

Shout out to Noah. Yeah. It's getting really good.

I don't like it. I do like it, but... Right. I do like it, but I hate losing.

And so, yeah, those are maybe long answers to how we're doing questions.

Yeah, but I think that's pertinent to kind of what we've been talking about.

We're talking about how to grow as a Christian, right?

I think some of the conversation we were having last week lends to point out that if you're

not considering things like that, if you're just saying, well, I need to grow as a Christian

by reading more books, having more theological understanding. But if you're not considering,

okay, what is your schedule and what is your ability to show up and love your family,

show up and love those at your church, is that true Christian discipleship? We're not considering

Yeah, yeah, no, I I agree we.

I think we talked in part one, it was technically part two of the podcast, we did on how to

grow spiritually, but in part one, we talked about what we would talk about in part two.

We did. What are some of those unconsidered or things that we don't often consider as key parts of,

the, if you want to call it recipe, to grow spiritually.

And I had mentioned that I thought community. Yep.

You know, that community was a really key and important part. And you had talked about,

spiritual disciplines, right? Yeah, formation over information is how I kind of put it.

Right. So I don't know which one of those you want to take first,

which one you want to take second, but...

Well, maybe let's take the like formation idea, like spiritual disciplines and stuff,

because I think that'll lead us into a bit of a conversation around community and set the.

The ground for it, because we talked about...

What did you say were the essentials that everybody always thinks of?

Reading the Bible and praying. Reading the Bible, praying. Maybe go to church. Show up to church.

Yeah. Right. And those are certainly... Those are kind of, in their own way, spiritual disciplines or things like that.

They're things that we can do to grow spiritually, but there is...

Because you are reading your Bible does not mean you're growing spiritually.

Correct. Right? There's like... there are people who make a living writing academic papers about the Bible

who do not know Jesus. You know? Like, they're... not every person who writes academic study on

on biblical texts and contributes to papers and studies is a Christian.

Very true. That's, you know, and so simply reading the text does not make you a Christian.

What are you thinking about?

Who are you thinking about? I was gonna name names. Who are you gonna name?

I thought that that was probably inappropriate. Oh. I was gonna name people, like, from, like, Jesus Seminar.

Oh yeah, the Jesus Seminar. Mm-hmm.

It's a great example. Yeah. Some some of you might remember when when was that was that the 90s?

Well, I think from the 70s to the 90s. Yeah, really? I mean the Jesus seminar was.

Is a essentially a group of.

I mean, they're scholars, they're… Yeah, academics. Yeah, academics, historians.

Some of them would call themselves theologians, I suppose. But they took basically a… they used what you would call, or what we would call a hermeneutic

of suspicion.

Yes. So coming out of post-enlightenment time period that we're in now, we're in post-enlightenment

now, where the Enlightenment era, the 1700s up into the 1900s, the 21st century or so,

was all about scientific method and formulaic understanding of pretty much the entire world.

And what you couldn't explain with the scientific method was automatically treated with a suspicion

of its validity or its truthfulness. Paul Right. Can it be tested?

Like in a science lab.

John Right. You know, and so the Jesus Seminar was a bunch of, was a seminar, actually, it was a conference

or a series of conferences where historians, theologians, academics essentially said, we,

the lens through which we will view scripture is a lens of suspicion.

It is guilty of being untrue.

It must prove itself.

To be innocent or to be found true, right? And so they essentially jettisoned every aspect of,

both Jewish and Christian theology that could not stand up underneath the rigor of literary,

criticism, historical criticism, academic criticism, scientific criticism, and said,

that, you know, it's, you know, a lot of them, for instance, you know, one of the, you know,

the primary things that they really just kind of rejected outright is the notion that Jesus is God.

Well, a lot of them rejected the notion that Jesus claimed to be God.

Correct. Right? Their assumption was, they're like, well, like, you know, almost no one, in case you're

listening and you're wondering, almost no one.

Ever find someone who's just like Jesus didn't exist, they are in such a small minority.

Right. Like... Even people who are atheists. Yes, atheists shouldn't be denying the fact that Jesus Christ existed.

As a historical person. As a historical person, right. Who he think he is is where debate comes in.

Right.

But like, they were under the assumption that Jesus must have been a really good

teacher, a really good rabbi, who did die on a cross, but he didn't rise and he never proclaimed

himself to be Christ or to be God. That's their assertion.

That's their assertion. And so when they read the Bible, they say, well,

since the Bible seems to say these things, our assumption or presupposition is that that couldn't

have been... That's a myth that came up later as time went on and was added to the Scripture.

Yeah.

So, it's that kind of thing. But there's no peace or historical evidence to say that Christ didn't,

claim to be God. They're assuming...

But he couldn't be. He couldn't be. Yeah.

And so he never did. You're right. They're making those assumptions and things like that.

So anyway... So anyways... You don't have to be a Christian to write theology books.

Right. And there's plenty... Yeah. And people who read the Bible are not transformed by it. And so

that brings in a really cool way of talking about this is saying it's not just.

Just orthodoxy, it's orthopraxy, which is like orthodoxy, I'm talking about right belief.

Orthopraxy is talking about right practice.

And so, which is a really... I think is something that our, particularly evangelical, non-denominational churches don't

consider very much. Because we've so much been like... Because a lot of the stuff, at least when

I was growing up in the church, it was a lot of like, we don't wanna be a dead religion. We don't

wanna just do things because they've always been done that way. So there's a whole lot of freedom

and expression of how we do worship and the expression of it, the inclusion of guitars and

drums and lights and all of that stuff is kind of just like a freedom for how we practice worship,

which I think is good. But at the same time, that mass amount of freedom sometimes has led us.

Led the sector of the church to do things without perhaps the consideration that there are

wrong things, or perhaps less good things. Right.

Right. Did we talk about Mario Kart or the Mario Church? Yes, we did.

Church doing the Mario game and stuff. Is that right practice? You could argue over,

like, is it a big... But I do think that there is something to consider in not just.

Not just approaching the word, but in how we approach the word.

And that's where I think a lot of times our knowledge and our skill in spiritual growth

kind of wears down, where we kind of lack a little bit. Do you agree, or do you think...

No, I definitely agree.

I definitely agree. I mean, I think it is a little bit one in the same of the conversation that we had last

week about, um, you know, the, Hey,

the prevalence of, well, I mean, going back to just the definition of formation,

the prevalence of the desire to gain theological information

rather than letting the theological information

that you have form you and change you.

The purpose of the information is the formation. So not just the information in and of itself.

Yeah, right.

What's that? boy, am I gonna be able to quote it well? The passage that talks about pride that puffs up...

Knowledge puffs up. Knowledge puffs up. But love builds up. Love builds up.

Yeah. Right? So I don't know, I'm a big proponent when I'm talking with people, particularly people who've

been following Jesus for a while, and if they're feeling kind of stuck in their like, where do I go

next in my spiritual growth. I'm really a fan of advocating for people to lean into more...

Oh, what's the word? Kind of less structured contemplative, that's what I'm just looking for,

more contemplative ways of engaging with spiritual disciplines.

Talk about what that... what you mean by that, because contemplative ways and meditation... Right. Like... Yeah.

...seems a little new agey. Right. A little like... Seems a little Eastern, doesn't it?

Yes. Oh, oh no. Seems like, why would we want to do... like, we're Western, Luke.

We have the scientific method.

We can just study the book. You want me to throw this mic at you, don't you?

Study the book and get the... We're just eggheads, egghead spirituality. Why would we wanna feel

anything? I have a... Maybe a... Cuz I grew up hearing a lot of that.

Everyone in the Western world did. Right. It's particularly in Christian... Beware of the New Age, beware of Eastern

spirituality sneaking its way into the Western Church. I have really hard news for some of us.

Christianity is an Eastern religion. Eastern religion.

Jesus was tanner than us, spoke Arabic, and his culture was an Eastern religion.

Yeah, it wasn't a year. It wasn't European. It wasn't primarily white,

You know, it was African before it was white. It was definitely African first.

Was it Athanasius that said that the seed of the church was in the bosom of Africa or

something like that? Yeah, something like that. It was not originally the white man's religion.

And it's still not. And it's still not. And it's still not. That's a misconception. It's a misrepresentation.

And that's not to say that Western civilization hasn't contributed massively to Christianity,

I'm not disregarding any of that, but it's to say that when Psalm 1 talks about,

blessed is the one who meditates on the word of the Lord's commands and how he's rooted down

Like a tree by streams of water and bears fruit and good season.

That's Eastern right meditative reflective Contemplative it's it's not a did I understand the concept that the sentence said?

It's and can I apply it and can I apply it to my life? It's is it?

Going to stay with me. Is it going to like?

Like, circle around with it, sink back down into the way that I think, so that I begin

to think, act, behave, and see the world automatically through those lenses without even thinking about it.

That's a more contemplative sense. I think about conferences.

We go to conferences and we listen to talks and we're like, did you get the idea?

Great.

And all right, next talk. More contemplative way would say, what if we sat with one idea,

for a couple of days and we really let that one idea sink down in deep?

Sink in, yeah, just sink down into all the cracks and crevices of who we are.

Yeah. A great way of reading scripture that benefited me when I was making a shift was.

One psalm a week. A week.

A week. I was gonna say... For a second, I thought you... I was thinking day.

No, a week. Like I would read that Psalm, reflect on it, pray through it, next day do the same

thing. And what I found is, is that the more that I did that, I'd get to day four and I would still

notice something. I was like, oh, I didn't hear that the first time. I didn't see that. I didn't

see how that was supposed to apply to me the first day I read it. If I had just read it once

and prayed through it and moved on.

Would I have ever gotten to the fruit that I did when I was four days in, and I was beginning to,

see it differently. My mood, my circumstances were different from the first day I read the

psalm to the second, to the third, to the fourth day. And that began to allow the spirit to move

in a different way, because I was willing to sit and wait on the Lord in a way that's different.

I think like things like that can be a, I think a significant shift in the way that we began to kind of grow.

Yeah.

I really do wonder what it is about us as a Western Christian culture.

Like where, where essentially was the, I know where the historical breaking point between Western, between the Western and Eastern churches.

Eastern churches, but like, where would be like the,

formative breaking point or splitting off point where the Eastern church retained much of the contemplative and the

Western church did not. And vice versa to where the Eastern Yeah, vice versa to where the Eastern church retained the contemplative to the,

detriment maybe of the.

I don't know. I don't know enough about the Eastern Church to be that, like...

But let's just say, let's let's maybe make a vast generalization and say that the Eastern Church,

chose the contemplative over like a more academically rigorous approach to theology.

Right. Yeah.

Okay. Yeah. Which is a really vast generalization because there are still Eastern. Academics.

Yeah. There are Orthodox scholars. Yep, they exist.

And I'm just wondering, like, how are even people who are listening right now are processing

this conversation because… Because not everybody knows about Ethernal Orthodox or like the Coptic Church.

Well, yeah, because like there's Orthodox churches around here.

There's not many in Chalk County, but there are Orthodox churches.

And so when you would look at them and be like, wow, they need Jesus.

They got incense. Yeah, those, those Orthodox people, they need Jesus. Like, well, they had

Jesus before we did. They had Jesus before we did. And so it's just a really interesting,

it's just a really interesting dynamic. They're not Protestants.

No, they're not even Catholic. They're not Catholics. They're Orthodox. We talk, we talk in terms of just Protestantism

and Catholicism. We forget, or we just choose not to talk about the fact that there's Orthodox,

there's Protestants, and there's Catholics. Yeah. And that they're different. And that

they're different. Yeah, because the Catholics and the Orthodox do not get along. Right. And

and that their differences span.

Their differences spanned far before the Protestant versus Catholic. Yes Differences all the way back into the third and fourth century iconoclasm, right?

So destroying of the icons and imagery and churches or the you know, the the the questions about the nature of,

The Holy Spirit in relationship to the Trinity in the creeds. Yep, you know and.

So like we're talking about like like, brick and mortar type of stuff to church history that doesn't... that really is completely

foreign to, I would say, 95% of... probably 98, 99% of Protestant Christians who attend churches today.

Yeah. Like... No idea what the Orthodox Church is. No idea.

And also, we deal with a significant population of people who are ex-Catholic in one way,

and that experience can even color a way of seeing Catholicism and seeing Orthodoxy, and

like, well, I left that.

Why would I ever go to see what's valuable there, you know what I mean?

So I don't know, back to the original question, I guess, was like you said, when did that split happen?

Like I don't think either of us are historical scholars enough to have a good answer to that

question other than I would say that like there's definitely something in the shift

from the shift in scholasticism from classical to, like,

scientifical or to like enlightenment.

Like that shift is pretty big. When we think about how... If you've ever learned about how

the Greeks taught, right? They taught what's called the Socratic method, right? Student comes

to the teacher with a question, the teacher is not supposed to give the answer, the teacher is

supposed to give another question. And you're supposed to like, you know, like, teacher,

what's the meaning of life? And they're like, what do you think? I'm not very good at the What is life?

What is life? You know, what is meaning, you know?

And so teaching through this kind of contemplative thinking where it's more about learning to

ask good questions, sitting with questions and trying to wrestle them through, dealing

with virtues and values and applying them, like that's all very classical Greek.

And then at some point there is this massive shift to like, all right, here's the study

Guide for the test be here in time like it'll be multiple choice with short answer, you know, like that's so different than.

Like Give me like your reflections the discovery process a discovery process. All right, right,

Like here's the textbook. The test will be to the textbook like,

That's so how like we're educated in our like even in liberal arts colleges. That's the way for some reason liberal arts classes are taught. Like,

oh give me a like, you know, here's the textbook, you know, multiple choice

answers out of the textbook. Like that's not, that's a totally different way of

thinking. That's very much like there is a right answer versus like let's reflect

upon it and make an argumentation and maybe, you know, and bounce things off. I

I think that like plays a significant role in how we see the world,

and even how we approach the Bible.

Cause we talked about in our like very first episodes, people treating the Bible like a textbook.

Right. This has got the answers.

Yeah. Yeah. Which it does. Which it does. But not in the same way that your, you know,

earth science and ninth grade book has the answers. Right. You know? Right. Yeah.

Okay, I don't have any idea what we just talked about but it felt good.

Well, I mean There there is like a Things form us. Maybe that's like a underlying principle that we can talk about. I think leads to your place of like things,

Have an impact on us Right what I spend my what I spend my time doing and how I spend my time doing it,

Like has an impact on it,

you you've done a lot with like physical training and stuff like this and so like I would wager to say like,

Like what would you say about practice like how you practice? Oh, yeah, how you like how you practice is how you perform?

How you do it in?

What we say is there's the phrase, practice makes perfect. And I will say that I don't believe that.

I think practice makes permanent.

So if you practice something wrong, it's not perfect. You're gonna do it wrong every time

because practice makes permanent.

Perfect practice makes perfect.

So the things that we do on a regular basis are the things that are permanent within us.

You know, so on both a negative and a positive scale, right?

So if we're continually soaking our mind with the word of God, you know,

it is that continual, that continual meditative,

over and over and over again, not letting go of it, feasting on it, letting it, you know,

drinking of the river of life that will form within us, you know?

Um, so yeah, I think that, uh, and I think too, like there are also very.

Active forms of formation. Mm-hmm.

Like it's not It's not just completely like It's not just a mind exercise. No. Yeah, so I'm like thinking of fasting even

I would I would classify fasting as a formative or a formation a point of formation where,

you know, we're we're Involving our whole cells our whole bodies our minds our emotions, you know our spirits,

Definitely our emotions right fasting is not,

Like if you're gonna fast for a day like There again is a perfect example your body,

has practiced Eating eating every four to six hours. Yep And so when it doesn't eat every four to six hours, it gets angry with you

But in reality, what does fasting tell us?

Fasting teaches us that you do not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God.

We submit our physical bodies to surrender of the Lord in the act of fasting, that our flesh would not,

would not, our flesh would not demand things over our spirit.

And demand things over our spirit, and that we can begin to master.

We can begin to master the desire of the flesh so that we can awaken the perception of the spirit

to the spirit of God.

So that we can begin to hear God more clearly.

And so fasting is an aspect of formation. It's not information.

It's formation. It's an active thing that we do that forms us into the person that, you know,

the Lord desires us to be.

So. So, like, it's, when you start thinking through a formation lens, you start seeing,

like, you can start to apply it to all of life in some degree.

Like, thinking through, like, what's, what's, what am I doing that's forming me

in an opposite direction.

Of the way I want to become. 100%, yep. And then a significant,

like I think a significant portion of what forms us is the people who are around us.

Yes. You know, like what was that quote that you, I don't know where you got it from.

Were there like some, or the average of like some of those? You were the average of your five closest acquaintances.

Yeah. So statistically speaking, you are right, you're the average of them.

Which means you might be the strongest, or like, there's gonna be,

if you talk about like physical strength, there's gonna be people that are stronger than you,

there are gonna be two people in a group of five that are stronger than you,

two people in a group of five that are weaker than you.

You're the average, right?

Same goes for your character. Same goes for if you wanna make your,

the closeness of your walk with Jesus on a scale.

Right? Or your whole, the whole, put your holiness on a scale, or you're going to be

the average of the five closest people that you spend your time with. Right. So, um.

So yeah, I think that that phrase, you're the average of the five closest people.

Like, okay, well then I want to be around the most significantly holy people that I could possibly

find. I want to be around people who are gonna shift me up the bell curve. Well, that's exactly

it, right? If I pursue proximity to four other people whose lives are producing fruit and keeping

with repentance and holiness, and I say, okay, I'm here now. Like, teach me, disciple me,

me, pray for me, encourage me, exhort me, admonish me, all those things, then just by

virtue of my proximity with them, they will, like I will be pulled up to that level eventually, right?

There's like the recovery saying of like, if you want what we have, do what we did.

Not what we're doing. Not what we're doing. Is that the other? No, it's not.

I just added it to it. I don't know. Is it the end of it? Is it the other end of it?

I don't know what that is, but do what we did.

Yeah. Right, because we see people and we want like, okay, I want that.

I want the product of all that they did. Yes, right.

It's like trying to show up and like, be like win a martial arts tournament

without having shown up to practice.

100%, well, and if you keep it in the language of the attic, right?

I want the new found freedom of a person's life at the one year sober mark.

Well, then you have to do what they did. Yeah, you have to go a year.

If you're one day sober and you want the fruit of what their life is now producing

because of the 365 days sober, then you gotta do 364.

You gotta do the days. Right. And there's no other way around it, right?

I guess all of that is to say that my belief, my contention is that one of the most overlooked

aspects of spiritual growth is community, is the people that we are around. And I think the refusal

to recognize that we need other people is the height of pride.

Yes. Yeah.

It's the absolute height, well, it's not the height of pride.

Well, I mean, the height of pride. To say that we don't need God.

Yeah, that's... Right.

But... There's no such thing as the lone ranger Christian.

No. Anytime, people have heard this all the time, but anytime the Christians are mentioned in

Scripture in the New Testament, it's a plural word, both in the English and in the Greek, right?

We're talking about saints, not a single saint. We're talking about the church as a body, which

Paul says has many parts, and they all come together to form and function one body whose

head is Christ. One part cannot say to the other, I don't need you, right? There are no ignoble

parts, you know, all parts function in the same, with the

same level of importance as they relate to the body. And, and in particular, I mentioned this last week, in particular, not

just not just, I don't think that it's just being around

people that helps you to grow spiritually. Right. But being around people who share the same value for community as you do, you know, and we call

that community gospel community.

Yep. Right. Um, and so, so there are like, I think some, I think that there are some, um, that.

There are some presuppositions or there are some,

let's just say givens that should exist within community that is gospel-centric.

The first is that, and most significant, is that the most central component to gospel community

is the component of love.

So if we look at that from a practical standpoint, would be like where I tell you that, Luke,

that Luke, you don't ever have to wonder

if I love you or not.

You can not just assume, but you can know that my permanent posture towards you is one of love.

It's love.

And so you never have to wonder like, oh, does he like me or not?

Or am I accepted here, right?

What we're doing here is we're saying, okay, let's strip away the natural insecurities

that filter their way into relationships between people.

And let's say, no, the basis of our relationship is not one of you being the type of person

I like to be around, the basis of our relationship

is the love of God in me and the love of God in you

and our mutual love for one another.

Therefore, right, you are safe, you are secure, right?

You are secure. And so because love is the foundation, love opens the door for all of

the other beautiful things that the gospel allows us to practice in relationships. Things like

like, um, forgiveness, like forgiveness is given and forgiveness is received.

And there's the, you know, you never, you never, you always hope that you never hurt

someone or that you sin against them. We don't want to do that, but, but we do.

And in the world, if you hurt someone, if you sin against them, and you say, I'm sorry,

will you forgive me, right?

You don't always know the response you're going to get back.

Like no, screw you, right? Or yeah, I forgive you, but then like, I'm bringing up in two weeks, I'm going to bring

it up in three weeks, and I'm going to remind you of it, I'm going to hold it over your

head and you're gonna owe me and all that, right? Not forgiveness.

No. That's not forgiveness.

But in gospel community, forgiveness is extended, received, done and over with.

Right? Because if the model of our forgiveness of one another is the model of God's forgiveness

of us in Jesus Christ, we know that He has taken our sins and placed them as far as the

The East is from the West, which is to say, they're gone.

Keep no record. Keep no record of wrongs, right? So we have love as the foundation and then it

opens it up to all kinds of beautiful things that the gospel allows us to do, which is forgive,

right? Which is another beautiful thing is it gives us the permission, gospel community

gives us the permission to speak the truth of God's word,

into someone's life when we see a discontinuity between the life that they're living

and the truth of God's word,

without it being from the place of judgment, but it being from the place of I love you,

and I want the truth of God to reign in your life and produce fruit that's keeping with repentance.

It's not a, I got you, it's a, hey, I love you.

Exactly.

Right. And I know that you want this for yourself. Exactly, right.

You're not gonna look at me and be like, how dare you?

How dare you do that? You're like, you have no right because gospel community assumes the right

of others to speak into you.

Because, and the reason it assumes that is because of the foundation of love,

which assumes their best interest for us.

So, there's forgiveness, there's whatever you want to call that, accountability or exhortation or admonition or whatever.

Then, I think that like...

I think that there's like a, maybe it's not talked about so much so in like community,

but like there's this other like beautiful thing about gospel community where it's like,

rejoicing with those who rejoice, mourning with those who mourn, right? Bearing one another's

burdens, where you share, you now share in a real way, the real experiences of life.

So when someone is rejoicing, they've had a baby, they're getting married, they got

in your job, something great is happening in their life.

You are legitimately able to rejoice with them. And when they mourn, when there's a significant loss,

when they've got a diagnosis,

you're there to mourn with them. When they have a burden, you are there to shoulder the burden

alongside of them, you know, they don't carry the thing alone, you are yoked together by,

faith in Christ.

And so what was maybe a single yoke that they were carrying now becomes a double yoke and

you carry it together.

And so you no longer have to go through the experiences of life alone.

And then,

If you step back from all of that and you take like the 20,000-foot view on it, you'll look at,

that gospel community and you'll say, wow, all of those people look so different.

They're white, they're black, they're Asian, they're Indian, they're European, they're

Brazilian, they're Democrat, Democrat, Republican, they're, you know, they're male,

they're female, they're, you know, they're a thousand different categories that the world.

They root for the Steelers, not the Bill. Oh, Mike. Well, let's not go too far here. A thousand different categories that the world

breaks us up into. And you'll say, okay, well, what is the thing? And what is then the common

thing. Right. Well, the common thing is our faith in Jesus Christ. It's Christ. It's Christ. It's

Jesus, right? It's the fact that we're now a new family in Christ. Yes, we are a community that is

linked together, that is bonded, welded together by the gospel. Yep. The good news of Jesus Christ.

Right. And so, um, you know, I think that if you go through life.

Really hoping to grow spiritually, but never, I think it's a submission to gospel community, submitting yourself to gospel community.

Yeah.

Because you can show up the gospel community, but you can not be there, not submit yourself

to gospel, not be there.

Yeah. Yeah. Gospel community, I think, you know, not always, you know, it's, there are reasons that people

good reasons to leave churches.

We talked about that a few weeks ago, but like, if you find yourself like jumping around,

church to church to church to church to church, you know, five churches in 10 years.

The problem ain't the church. It's not, you know.

And so when you refuse to submit yourself to gospel community.

I don't think you should be super shocked or surprised when you feel a little stuck in spiritual mud.

Yeah. Because you're missing one of the key components ingredients to growing.

Growing in your faith, growing in spirituality.

So it's always like a little cheeky to hear people like, well, I need my Bible, a journal,

I'll just go into the woods and it'll just be me and Jesus and we'll just live our lives out like that.

I mean, like, I understand the sentiment and I get it. Sometimes I feel that way.

I feel that way too, but like. Yeah, but the heart is deceitfully wicked.

You're gonna... You're missing it, man. You're gonna miss gospel community, you're gonna miss

being on a mission. Who are you gonna be on a mission to? The trees? You know what I'm saying?

Like, you gotta be... As important, trees are. Right.

Yeah. You know, yeah. But I think that thing that you talked about, like, not going through life alone,

the gift of presence is so huge.

Yeah, yeah,

Don't don't deprive yourself of of that. Yep. Yep Yeah, you can't do it or you should can but you shouldn't,

It's horror. It's horribly painful. Yeah,

and I would also say,

Don't allow the world to deceive you into thinking that you can find the same thing outside of

of the community of those who are following Jesus.

You might find bits and pieces of it. Yeah, but it will not last. Yeah, it will not,

I think I did but maybe I did talk about this last week about how there's just like this prevalence of,

People calling every every place that they spend their time. Well, this is my work family

my work family my football family my soccer family my online family, like my gaming family, my this family, my my neighborhood family, like,

Those are affinity groups, not families, right?

Like they're there. It's amazing how Quickly, like I don't want to like I don't want to say that like, you know,

Friends that you make at work are like that. You can't make good friends at work,

But I would say that it is so easy, and I would say the majority of friends, you probably make it work if you were to stop working there. How would that relationship change? Right? Would you maintain friendship with that person the way that you are now? Or is it a like, hey, we're both people that seem to be at least be able to tolerate being in the same room while we're doing this job.

This job, let's at least give ourselves some company while we're doing this job, but outside of that,

Is it actually family? Mm-hmm?

That's rare. Yes. Yep.

It's not like those things are inherently bad. No, it's not football family soccer family work family gaming family

Whatever you should have friends at work. You should make nice with your co-workers

Yeah, if you're not doing that create community in other places just understand that like it it is limited by,

the pervasiveness of sin,

Not that gospel community is not limited by the pervasiveness of sin But what I'm saying is that when you find it and when you can build it, this is another thing

You don't just find gospel community,

It can't just be assumed It must be built. Yeah,

You must be an active participate, participate in building the dynamics of gospel community.

So you can jump right in a group of people and have and call it gospel community.

But if you're not willing to forgive the person across the table, which is hard, spiritually

mature work to do, then then you're not exhibiting gospel community.

So you're not a part of it. And then you're going to say, well, gospel community is B.S.

It doesn't exist. Of course it doesn't exist, because you're not pursuing it and building it.

It exists within you. Right.

It takes Christ in you. The hope of glory, the righteousness of God, you know?

So, community people, that's where it's at. Where's that, man?

Alright, well, hopefully that gave answers more than it gave questions. Yes, maybe we'll get a slew of questions people asking us

We're gonna become Orthodox or something. You know, I think we should do I think we should go to an Orthodox Church.

Service, you know, let's do it. We can have an Orthodox on the podcast. Do we know an Orthodox?

Well, I mean, yeah Right, yes,

Um, and not to say that, like, is the expert in the field or anything like that, but like,

that's what I'm saying is like, you know, he's not, he's not a priest. He just decided

to leave Moody and start going to work in an Orthodox church, right? It's not like he's

really deep into it. Um, but I think it would be a really interesting experience. I would,

I would, I would really love that. That would be a fantastic conversation. So there are

Are there other people that I really want to be able to interview on the podcast?

Maybe we should like, maybe we should aim for that, think about how we can like work

in episodes where we're kind of inviting people onto the podcast and stuff.

Yeah, I'm going to shoot my shot and invite John Tyson. All right.

I want to interview John Tyson so bad.

Let's do it. If you're in New York City, you know John Tyson, pastor of Church of the City in New

York, or if John Tyson, you listen, if you're a subscriber and a fan of the Uncut podcast,

We will drive to New York, I'll drive to New York City.

We'll set up our podcast studio there.

I know you have your own podcast, I get it, it's fantastic, I love it, but there are so many things,

so many questions I wanna ask you.

So, yeah, if you know John Tyson, tell him. Pastor Cameron wants to interview him for his podcast.

So it would be a lot of fun.

Okay, thank you, as always, for listening to the Uncut Podcast.

Send your text or questions, 716-201-0507.

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