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Hey, I'm Matt Brownell.

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And I'm Van Owens.

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And I'm Tim Adams.

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Welcome to Climbing the Mountain, where we dive into the scriptures and discuss themes,

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connections, and real life application.

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We're kicking off a series here where we're going to examine the Sermon on the Mount and

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discuss implications for this teaching for Christians today.

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In Matthew 5:38-42, it says, you have heard that it was said, eye for an eye,

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and tooth for tooth.

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But I tell you, do not resist an evil person.

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If anyone slaps you on the right cheek, turn to them, the other cheek also.

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And if anyone wants to sue you and take your shirt, hand over your coat as well.

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If anyone forces you to go one mile, go with them two miles.

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Give to the one who asks you and do not turn away from the one who wants to borrow from

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you.

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Last time we started looking at the first couple of verses, and we saw how what was happening

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in that society was you had this saying, eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth, which was something

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that was supposed to be applied in a court of law, then being taken down to the average

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everyday life, interpersonal conflicts, which was wrong.

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And there was something I found in Leviticus that just totally puts this to rest.

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You'll find this very familiar because it's the second greatest commandment, Leviticus

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19:18.

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We've all heard the, you shall love your neighbor as yourself.

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But right before that, it says, you shall not take vengeance or bear a grudge against

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the sons of your own people, but you shall love your neighbor as yourself.

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And so Jesus is getting at the heart of something when he says, but I tell you, do not resist

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an evil person.

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Now let's spend some more time with that.

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He gives three more examples right after that that point to the kind of heart we are supposed

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to have.

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The first is someone suing you to take your tunic.

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The second being requisitioned.

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At that time, Romans could force someone to carry something for them up to a mile.

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Simon of Cyrene is an example of that.

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He's forced to carry Jesus' cross to Golgotha.

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The third example is of someone asking you for something.

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No one likes to be wronged, inconvenienced, or even begged.

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On the one hand, should we enable every evil behavior and give charlatans and con artists

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what they want?

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Or is Jesus advocating something else?

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What's he getting at here?

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What should our heart be?

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So I think one thing to bring up when we talk about these examples, I guess there's also

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the zero one of someone slaps you on the right cheek, turn to them the other also, is that

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Jesus is being very subversive here.

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And he is advocating for very subversive behavior.

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Now it's not the subversive that we typically think of, which is using force in a subtle

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or not subtle way to get what I want.

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But in each of these examples, there's someone that's being taken advantage of.

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And the power dynamic is such that there's someone above and someone below.

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And Jesus speaks to the person below and he tells them to not resist, but he does it in

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a way that challenges the existing power dynamic.

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So if someone slaps you on the right cheek, you talked about this, Matt, it's basically

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an insult because you have to do it with either the backhand, basically the backhand because

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you're right handed.

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Most people are right handed.

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And it's an assault to your identity, it's an assault to your pride, and you're standing

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there and you're looking at them and you turn the other one.

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You can say that, oh, that person's just being weak, but is that what a weak person does?

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No, a weak person would flinch and run away.

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And instead, this person says, I see what you did, I see what you think of me.

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Let's just sit in that.

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If you really think that way, go all out.

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Let's do that again.

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And it challenges the person who did this insult while still respecting them as a person

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and not retaliating.

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And I guess just the other one, if someone wants to sue you and take your shirt, hand

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over your coat as well.

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It's probably hard for us to think about people suing each other for clothing because clothing

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is so cheap these days, but go with it.

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So there's someone's trying to take, I think coat is also like tunic and other things.

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People didn't have much clothing back then.

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So your shirt is something you're wearing on top and your coat or your tunics, I think

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basically your undergarments.

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Point being, you don't have many clothes on your body.

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Clothes are really expensive.

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So someone's trying to take off that.

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And yeah, you're undressing, right?

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You're undressing in front of them to say, OK.

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Just the coat.

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Here you go.

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It's subversive.

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It's challenging.

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It challenges the status quo.

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It challenges like, yes, I'm lower than you, therefore, you can take something from me.

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So I think it's really important to bring that up because the claim, regardless of how

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we interpret this passage, the easy argument against it is you're just being a pushover,

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right?

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And Jesus is not saying we're being a pushover.

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He just has different ways of overthrowing the system.

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He's not weak at all.

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Yeah.

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So when you go to somebody who strikes you on one cheek and turn the other.

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So being weak in that situation could be cowering or falling on your knees.

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Please don't hit me again.

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It could be running away.

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It could be, I'm sorry, master, you're obviously I've offended you in some way, but it also

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could be striking back.

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And I think that's part of what Jesus is saying is that I love what you said about this being

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subversive because it really is.

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And it's almost like the phrase of heaping, you know, having somebody heap hot coals on

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their heads by the way that you behave.

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Right.

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That you, you remove, you remove their power or their perceived sense of power because

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by turning the other cheek, you essentially say that meant nothing to me.

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That did not mean to me what it meant to you.

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Yeah.

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Yeah.

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You think that you're offending me.

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You can't offend me.

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I'm a son of God.

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Right.

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It's impossible for you to offend me.

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That's where the blessed is the meek really, really comes into play that idea of absorbing

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stuff.

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I think this is hard.

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It's really hard.

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It's just super hard.

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You have sort of what you would want to do, what you think is right to do.

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But then when you imagine the actual situation, you're like, would I really do that though?

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And if it was in my power, sometimes I think I would do more than I, you know, like that,

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you were talking about that.

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Yeah.

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I mean, I remember when I was a, I was working a really, really crappy job one summer and

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I was doing road paving.

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There's nothing wrong with that, but I'll tell you why it was crappy.

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They found out that I was going to college the next year.

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My mom was bragging about me with one of the, she saw them at the supermarket and, oh, hey

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college boy.

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That's why I heard on Monday, hey, heard you go enough to college.

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And so then the rest of that summer was hell.

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Like they had a broken piece of machinery and they would take that one out.

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One of the, one of the sides where the asphalt would come out was broken and you had to shovel

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and they took that one out.

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Even though they had one that was fine and both wings worked fine.

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They took that one out so I could shovel nonstop.

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So I remember what it was like to work.

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And I had so many bad thoughts in my head that summer of wanting to get even fantasizing

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of retaliating and man, the, when I, but when I look at this stuff, I think the one that

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gets me the most right now is the, someone asking for something.

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You know, how many times do I see someone begging on the street and I just want to pretend

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like I don't see them.

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And I could just walk by and I walk faster or I pretend I don't see them at all.

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Ultimately, I mean, I don't think it's good to give a con artist what he's asking.

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I don't think that's actually good.

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I don't think it's helping his real needs.

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And I think it facilitates hurting others, including ourselves.

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But I think in each of these examples, we're inconvenienced in some way.

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It's out of our comfort zone by extreme or small measures.

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But it's, you know, someone trying to take something away from us, someone making us

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serve them, someone simply asking for help, whether someone trying, forcing or asking

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our heart should, should be open to others around us.

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And I think that's the thing that, that I'm wrestling with is having that quality of heart.

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Yeah.

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Yeah.

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And it does come to a head with money in like this very visceral way.

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And I find, I find the parallel passage in Luke very enlightening with this.

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Before that, I think there's a pithy statement I heard once, which I do think is actually

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useful to get what you're saying with the con artist.

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Jesus doesn't say, give to the one who asks you exactly what they asked.

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He just says, give to the one who asks you.

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So there's some room to, you know, sometimes, yeah, there's a lot of creativity that's there.

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But he's saying, don't turn away, right?

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Don't turn away from that person.

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And the...

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Oh, right.

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You know, I was just thinking Peter and John are walking around.

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Was it John?

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Yeah.

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And I was like, hey, we don't have any money, but here's what we do have.

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Yeah, exactly.

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And share my faith with you.

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That's like really cool.

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And but yeah, so in Luke 6, it kind of merges some of the do not resist in your person section

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and the love for enemies section.

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But it says, if you love those who love you, what credit is that to you?

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Even sinners love those who love them.

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If you do good to those who are good to you, what credit is that to you?

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Even sinners do that.

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And it says, if you lend to those from whom you expect repayment, what credit is that to

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you?

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Even sinners lend to sinners expecting to be repaid in full.

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And it says, but love your enemies, do good to them and lend to them without expecting

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to get anything back.

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And so I've always thought that that's really challenging because the love your enemies

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in Matthew five, which we'll talk about, doesn't have a ton of specifics.

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This one really gets to the heart of how I deal with my money and like, oh, I can do

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that.

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I can get taken advantage of with my money.

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And that's okay in Jesus' mind.

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That's a real good one because I've been in situations where I've lent to people and

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part of me is like, oh, I don't really have it.

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I really need them to pay it back.

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And it's always been better when I've been able to just say, okay, I may not get this

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back.

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Right.

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And okay, I'm all right with this.

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And I love the way it's phrased there in Luke do good to them that even if you don't

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have money to give them, is there some good you can do?

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Is there some good for you?

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That is really, really helpful.

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Still hard.

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Yeah.

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It clarifies it.

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And you, you know, when you read a passage that's really challenging and you hear something

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else that clarifies it, there's something in me that always hopes it makes it easier.

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Right.

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But it actually doesn't make it easier.

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It makes it a little bit.

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It makes it, it, it, it emphasizes what exactly the challenge is.

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Yeah.

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If I'm walking down the street and someone asked me for money and I don't have any to

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give them, I, I shouldn't ignore them.

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I shouldn't pretend they're not there.

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I should do some good and doing good.

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It's almost easier to just say, you know what?

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I'm just going to keep a couple of bucks in my pocket so that I can just give it to them

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because doing good is difficult.

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It's hard.

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Yeah.

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So let me ask another question.

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How, how do we apply Jesus's teaching here to our 21st century lives?

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Are there any examples that come to mind?

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Yeah, I think the, the obvious example to me for our day and age, especially because

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it's directly out of scripture is lawsuits.

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So first Corinthians 6:1-9, Paul's talking about lawsuits with between

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two believers and he basically is like, how, how, how can you possibly, you know, sue one

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another as brothers and then bring that before some court that's not, that's not in the church,

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right?

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Can't you judge cases for yourself?

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So, I mean, there's, there's going to be disputes between people, but then he kind

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of set, takes a step back in verse seven and he says, the very fact that you have lawsuits

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among you means you've been completely defeated already.

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Why not rather be wronged?

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Why not rather be cheated?

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Did you yourselves cheat and do wrong and you do this to your brothers and sisters?

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And this is the part that blew me away when I read this yesterday that that's right before

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that section that were, most people are more, more familiar with.

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He says, or do you not know that wrongdoers will not inherit the kingdom of God?

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And he lists all these really bad things, but it's like just, for him, it's the exact

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same thoughts, right?

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And so that, that to me, I mean, we have so many lawsuits in our, in our culture.

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Like it's just accepted.

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And I, I think, I don't know too many people myself who have been in a ton of lawsuits.

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I know some, that's probably just because I'm young though, and people don't really

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have any money when they're young.

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And so the older I get, you know, the more that's going to happen.

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But that mindset, why not rather be wrong?

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Why not rather be cheated?

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That is like, yeah, completely different.

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It's the mindset of non retaliation.

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Great.

253
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Yeah.

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I think for me, the way, the way that I've seen it is I see it a lot in, in work culture.

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There's the phrase throwing someone under the bus.

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Yes.

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And you always know when someone's throwing you under the bus.

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And for me, it's, it's very difficult when I know that someone did that to me, called

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me out in a meeting.

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For instance, this is a very real example.

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This happens to me, has happened to me before and it's happened several times, get called

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out in a meeting for something that I'm either, that I either actually did and should be maybe

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called out for, or more often than not, something that I didn't actually do, but being called

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out anyway.

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And how will I respond to that?

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And it's very easy for me to want to exact some kind of vengeance, but to do it properly.

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In other words, to find something that that person actually really did do, that they really

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need to be called out for and to call them out for it, which I think is a violation of

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the spirit of what Jesus is talking about here.

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And what I need to do and what, and when I'm in my right mind, when I'm, when I'm, when

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I'm doing right and thinking spiritually like I ought to be doing, I say, you know what,

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next time he's in the office, I'm going to go down to his office and I'm just going to

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do some good.

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I'm just going to say hi.

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I'm just going to visit with him.

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I'm going to not take what he threw out.

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I'm not going to acknowledge it.

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I'm going to attempt to do some good, which I'd like to say I do that every time, but

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honestly it's just really hard.

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It's hard not to retaliate and not only hard not to retaliate, but then to do the other

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thing, which is to do good.

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You know, Jesus didn't retaliate when he was going to the cross, but he also, you know,

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forgave the insurrectionists who were crucified beside him.

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He also, you know, healed the servant whose ear was chopped off.

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He was doing all this good while all this undeserved evil was being thrown at him.

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And that's the example that he sets.

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And, you know, again, it's just, it's really challenging.

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It is challenging.

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When I was thinking about this, I made it a little bit more personal with how I had an

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epiphany when my wife and I started having children.

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When my wife was pregnant with my first child, it suddenly dawned on me, there's a piece

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of me in her and she's going through all of this suffering so that our child can be born.

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And you want me to do that for you, honey?

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Sure.

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You want me to drive to this place in Timbuktu that has your favorite ice cream?

296
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Okay.

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And I honestly didn't feel bad or inconvenienced or put out or anything because I was like,

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I'm so grateful for her and wanted to just, oh, my goodness, I love you.

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How can I help you?

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You're so uncomfortable.

301
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What can I do to help?

302
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And it got me thinking about it's really that having that kind of a state of mind, I guess,

303
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with other people, I don't know how to do that.

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I'm not going to, that would be weird if I considered everyone like my wife.

305
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You know, like having a, maybe treating everyone that they've all been created in God's image,

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maybe some of them don't know that yet, that everyone has value and opening my hearts to

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them, my heart to them.

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The other thing I was thinking about was a small story, but after my second child was

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born, I don't think he was fully cooked before he got out of the oven.

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I think his intestines needed to stay in there a little bit longer and get some more cooking.

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Anyway, he would cry for like four hours straight every time he ate.

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And at the time, Netta was also going through severe postpartum.

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And so I, I just remember this situation where, you know, James is crying on my shoulder,

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inconsoluble, uh, really getting around and, and Netta's just told me something really

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heartbreaking that she was feeling.

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And then my, my son, my oldest son comes in, he looks pale and he's like, I don't feel

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good all over me.

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Now I lived in a fraternity house for a while.

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If someone was puking, that was a signal, not, no thanks, go away.

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I'm nothing to do with you.

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And let me get out of this situation.

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That was not my heart when that happened.

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It was, Oh, how can I take care of you?

324
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This is horrible.

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Let me, let me, you know, and it was one where I was completely inconvenienced.

326
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It was disgusting.

327
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And heartbreaking and emotional and just all kinds of things.

328
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But my heart was never, this is, I don't like you or, you know, it was more like, no,

329
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I, I do, I love you.

330
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So I don't know.

331
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I think there's something in that where we decide that we have decided, no, I really

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like this person.

333
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I really, I love this person.

334
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I've decided to love them.

335
00:22:09,760 --> 00:22:10,760
Yeah.

336
00:22:10,760 --> 00:22:17,680
And this is where we can't separate, you know, these concepts of not resisting with loving.

337
00:22:17,680 --> 00:22:28,360
But recognizing there's this, yeah, recognizing that we're all, in one sense, we are all brothers

338
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and sisters, right?

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And like there's not, not everyone is a follower of Christ, but we've all come from, we all

340
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come from God.

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And it is, especially when you live in the city and you see so many people on a day to

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day basis, and the internet makes that much easier where it was just like so much that

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comes at us like thousands and thousands and thousands of people or ideas in a day.

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It's so easy to just shut it off.

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Like I, I can't, I can't even imagine carrying, carrying, carrying for, you know, these people.

346
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But that does seem to be the call that Jesus is making.

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Well, what do you think is the ultimate solution then to all this suffering that Jesus describes?

348
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He's talked about the stinging insult, the, you know, someone trying to grab, sue you,

349
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the disrespectful compulsion, you know, forcing you to do something or just the uncomfortable

350
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asking for stuff.

351
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What do you, what do you think is, how do we, what's the solution to all of this?

352
00:23:43,000 --> 00:23:58,320
You know, again, this, this is an indication to me of how, how challenging it is to follow

353
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the example of Christ and how much I need God, how much I need his Holy Spirit in me,

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how much I need to do everything that I can to stay in tune with the spirit and mostly

355
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how much I need the community again, how much I need the church, meaning all of the people

356
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in it, that I know that who I am, I am not going to be able to live this out by myself.

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And so I need, I need my brothers and sisters to be able to point out to me when I'm falling

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short.

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00:24:44,240 --> 00:24:50,320
I need the examples of my brothers and sisters to be able to see ways that I can change or

360
00:24:50,320 --> 00:24:51,760
ways that I can implement.

361
00:24:51,760 --> 00:24:53,880
I need, I need all of that.

362
00:24:53,880 --> 00:25:06,160
I think the only way that we can get to a solution in, in this area is through God,

363
00:25:06,160 --> 00:25:08,440
His Holy Spirit in the church.

364
00:25:08,440 --> 00:25:12,240
I just don't think that there's another way to do it.

365
00:25:12,240 --> 00:25:21,480
You know, I suppose that maybe there's somebody out there who has moral strength enough to

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be able to do that on their own, but I only know for sure that there was one person who

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did that.

368
00:25:31,040 --> 00:25:38,160
And I've never seen, I've never seen anybody with my eyes living a perfect life.

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00:25:38,160 --> 00:25:44,760
And this is, this is a passage that calls us to a height that we can't possibly attain

370
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as individuals.

371
00:25:46,760 --> 00:25:47,760
Yeah.

372
00:25:47,760 --> 00:25:48,760
Yeah.

373
00:25:48,760 --> 00:25:56,440
There is something that it reminds us of how incomplete we are and how much we need Jesus.

374
00:25:56,440 --> 00:26:04,840
I think that's the thing I was thinking of too is that, and in Jesus we see that He's

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suffered for our sins and puts an end to all of our need for, or desire for revenge.

376
00:26:11,640 --> 00:26:14,760
It's really His example that we're looking to.

377
00:26:14,760 --> 00:26:22,240
And when we keep our eyes focused on Him, it helps, it helps put out that fire inside

378
00:26:22,240 --> 00:26:29,520
of us that says get even, get, you know, I need to get even and it helps put that out.

379
00:26:29,520 --> 00:26:30,920
Yeah.

380
00:26:30,920 --> 00:26:39,960
I mean, when we suffer because someone is genuinely, they're sinning against us, right?

381
00:26:39,960 --> 00:26:42,280
And that's where suffering comes from.

382
00:26:42,280 --> 00:26:55,200
And our desire to retaliate and get revenge is, it comes up so quick and it can feel like

383
00:26:55,200 --> 00:27:02,120
if I don't get revenge here, justice will not be served.

384
00:27:02,120 --> 00:27:09,920
But also if we continue to seek revenge, then we get into the eye for an eye makes the whole

385
00:27:09,920 --> 00:27:11,280
world go blind.

386
00:27:11,280 --> 00:27:17,240
Which I think Gandhi said that, but that might have just been a movie.

387
00:27:17,240 --> 00:27:20,360
But I think that's not just a bumper sticker.

388
00:27:20,360 --> 00:27:21,360
But I can't really remember.

389
00:27:21,360 --> 00:27:22,840
It's a pretty pithy bumper sticker.

390
00:27:22,840 --> 00:27:24,960
It's a pithy bumper sticker.

391
00:27:24,960 --> 00:27:30,200
But yeah, so I mean, there's this one line, it comes at the end of a passage in 1 Peter,

392
00:27:30,200 --> 00:27:35,040
but it's the end of 1 Peter 4 and it just says, those who suffer according to God's

393
00:27:35,040 --> 00:27:39,920
will, should commit themselves to a faithful creator and continue to do good.

394
00:27:39,920 --> 00:27:43,960
And it comes right after the section of that there is going to be a time where judgment

395
00:27:43,960 --> 00:27:45,680
is going to come.

396
00:27:45,680 --> 00:27:49,800
And God will make all things right.

397
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There will finally be justice.

398
00:27:52,560 --> 00:27:56,000
And I can trust God to bring justice.

399
00:27:56,000 --> 00:28:04,000
And my role in all of that is to not just to mete out vengeance in the short term, but

400
00:28:04,000 --> 00:28:09,280
to do good in the meantime.

401
00:28:09,280 --> 00:28:12,200
And I mean, yeah, that's really easy to say.

402
00:28:12,200 --> 00:28:16,520
But Van, when you guys are talking about, and you especially were just like, I need

403
00:28:16,520 --> 00:28:17,520
Jesus.

404
00:28:17,520 --> 00:28:23,160
I need the spirit for this.

405
00:28:23,160 --> 00:28:27,120
How easy it is to say these words and how hard it is to walk out of this room and put

406
00:28:27,120 --> 00:28:29,040
it into practice.

407
00:28:29,040 --> 00:28:36,760
But this is, I think the calling to, we entrust ourselves to God and we say, you know what's

408
00:28:36,760 --> 00:28:39,560
going to happen to us, you know how this is all going to work out.

409
00:28:39,560 --> 00:28:44,000
I trust that I am going to be okay with you, even if the short term doesn't feel okay.

410
00:28:44,000 --> 00:28:45,480
And I'm going to continue to do good.

411
00:28:45,480 --> 00:28:48,800
I like that you mentioned, 1 Peter, a lot of that has to do with suffering.

412
00:28:48,800 --> 00:28:53,080
And a lot of it talks about the passions that wage war against our soul.

413
00:28:53,080 --> 00:28:55,280
We've talked about that passage before.

414
00:28:55,280 --> 00:29:02,440
And it's got that great passage where we see Jesus's example of entrusting himself to

415
00:29:02,440 --> 00:29:05,080
him who judges justly.

416
00:29:05,080 --> 00:29:10,280
And part of this is just taking it out of our hands and putting it back on God and trusting

417
00:29:10,280 --> 00:29:11,280
him.

418
00:29:11,280 --> 00:29:20,480
And if we're being hurt or taken advantage of, we trust God and we know he sees it.

419
00:29:20,480 --> 00:29:24,080
And so he's allowed it to happen.

420
00:29:24,080 --> 00:29:31,200
And so we trust him and we keep moving forward and we have an open heart, even when things

421
00:29:31,200 --> 00:29:33,440
don't really work out the way we want.

422
00:29:33,440 --> 00:29:35,160
We don't want to be like Esau, right?

423
00:29:35,160 --> 00:29:36,720
He sold his birthright.

424
00:29:36,720 --> 00:29:39,640
You didn't have the long in mind.

425
00:29:39,640 --> 00:29:43,200
He just reacted to those passions that welled up inside of him.

426
00:29:43,200 --> 00:29:48,600
It reminds me too of, there's a passage in James that, you know, yes, what causes fights

427
00:29:48,600 --> 00:29:50,680
and quarrels among you, right?

428
00:29:50,680 --> 00:29:55,640
Isn't it, they come from your desires that they have within you.

429
00:29:55,640 --> 00:30:03,240
So this is doing battle with those desires that are within us and by trusting God.

430
00:30:03,240 --> 00:30:04,240
This has been a great discussion.

431
00:30:04,240 --> 00:30:05,240
Thanks guys.

432
00:30:05,240 --> 00:30:06,240
Thanks.

433
00:30:06,240 --> 00:30:33,240
Thank you.