1 00:00:00,000 --> 00:00:08,840 Hey, I'm Matt Brownell. 2 00:00:08,840 --> 00:00:10,480 And I'm Van Owens. 3 00:00:10,480 --> 00:00:12,160 And I'm Tim Adams. 4 00:00:12,160 --> 00:00:18,120 Welcome to Climbing the Mountain, where we dive into the scriptures and discuss themes, 5 00:00:18,120 --> 00:00:21,280 connections, and real life application. 6 00:00:21,280 --> 00:00:24,960 We're kicking off a series here where we're going to examine the Sermon on the Mount and 7 00:00:24,960 --> 00:00:34,680 discuss implications for this teaching for Christians today. 8 00:00:34,680 --> 00:00:39,800 So last time on the pod, we talked about not storing up treasures in heaven and how the 9 00:00:39,800 --> 00:00:45,120 different Jewish worldviews would have heard that and some of the challenges within those 10 00:00:45,120 --> 00:00:54,280 different worldviews and how difficult it is to change our hearts to not store up treasures 11 00:00:54,280 --> 00:01:01,240 on earth but to store up treasures in heaven and how we work for what we value and how 12 00:01:01,240 --> 00:01:05,040 God is calling us to change what we value. 13 00:01:05,040 --> 00:01:08,780 And so we're going to keep talking a little bit about that in this episode. 14 00:01:08,780 --> 00:01:12,080 If we get to the next section in this episode, fantastic. 15 00:01:12,080 --> 00:01:13,660 If we don't, that's all good. 16 00:01:13,660 --> 00:01:14,920 We got time. 17 00:01:14,920 --> 00:01:19,480 But my good friend Van Owens is going to read the passage we're talking about again and 18 00:01:19,480 --> 00:01:21,960 then we'll get into some of the other questions we have. 19 00:01:21,960 --> 00:01:29,200 All right, Matthew chapter six, starting in verse 19, it says, do not store up for yourselves 20 00:01:29,200 --> 00:01:36,400 treasures on earth where moths and vermin destroy and where thieves break in and steal. 21 00:01:36,400 --> 00:01:42,680 But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven where moths and vermin do not destroy and 22 00:01:42,680 --> 00:01:47,240 where thieves do not break in and steal for where your treasure is. 23 00:01:47,240 --> 00:01:51,280 There your heart will be also the eye is the lamp of the body. 24 00:01:51,280 --> 00:01:55,520 If the eyes are healthy, your whole body will be full of light. 25 00:01:55,520 --> 00:02:00,400 But if your eyes are unhealthy, your whole body will be full of darkness. 26 00:02:00,400 --> 00:02:05,240 If then the light within you is darkness, how great is that darkness? 27 00:02:05,240 --> 00:02:08,080 No one can serve two masters. 28 00:02:08,080 --> 00:02:12,120 Either you will hate the one and love the other or you will be devoted to the one and 29 00:02:12,120 --> 00:02:13,280 despise the other. 30 00:02:13,280 --> 00:02:17,840 You cannot serve both God and money. 31 00:02:17,840 --> 00:02:18,840 Good stuff. 32 00:02:18,840 --> 00:02:19,840 Thank you, Van. 33 00:02:19,840 --> 00:02:24,720 I think I said we talked about how the different Jewish worldviews would have heard that. 34 00:02:24,720 --> 00:02:28,160 Now we're going to talk about some ways what we do with that. 35 00:02:28,160 --> 00:02:32,800 And I just want to open with the question, how do we store up treasures on earth? 36 00:02:32,800 --> 00:02:38,720 Not how do we as a society, but how do we as individuals store up treasures on earth? 37 00:02:38,720 --> 00:02:44,160 Yeah, a lot of ways actually. 38 00:02:44,160 --> 00:02:50,160 I mean, again, I'm going to take this as treasuring earthly treasures. 39 00:02:50,160 --> 00:02:55,760 And I think rephrasing it that way for me unlocks a whole host of treasures that I 40 00:02:55,760 --> 00:02:57,040 store up. 41 00:02:57,040 --> 00:03:00,560 And basically anything I put before God. 42 00:03:00,560 --> 00:03:05,640 It reminds me of the people in Romans 1, and I want to read scripture from there, Romans 43 00:03:05,640 --> 00:03:06,640 125. 44 00:03:06,640 --> 00:03:12,480 They exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served created things rather 45 00:03:12,480 --> 00:03:14,680 than the Creator. 46 00:03:14,680 --> 00:03:22,360 And there are so many created things that fight for my attention over God, the Creator, television, 47 00:03:22,360 --> 00:03:29,320 entertainment, news, social media, what I read, getting security from my work, my home, 48 00:03:29,320 --> 00:03:35,440 my clothing, my possessions, my, my, my, my, my, my bank account, certain relationships. 49 00:03:35,440 --> 00:03:39,120 None of these things are bad in and of themselves. 50 00:03:39,120 --> 00:03:46,560 But when I turn my focus to them instead of or over God, when I try to get my main pleasure 51 00:03:46,560 --> 00:03:52,440 or security from created things or myself, that's when things go south pretty quick. 52 00:03:52,440 --> 00:03:53,440 Yeah. 53 00:03:53,440 --> 00:03:54,440 Yeah. 54 00:03:54,440 --> 00:04:03,240 I think it is the, the, when I thought of this, I thought of what I invest the best parts 55 00:04:03,240 --> 00:04:06,200 of myself in. 56 00:04:06,200 --> 00:04:10,440 And that can be, that can be my job. 57 00:04:10,440 --> 00:04:12,760 That can be my family. 58 00:04:12,760 --> 00:04:17,240 That can be any of my, any of the things that I've possessed. 59 00:04:17,240 --> 00:04:22,640 You know, I started to think of when I was a young man, when I became a Christian, when 60 00:04:22,640 --> 00:04:29,760 I was 19 years old, and this passage was a breeze to me because I had nothing. 61 00:04:29,760 --> 00:04:32,960 And I come from pretty humble background. 62 00:04:32,960 --> 00:04:38,040 So I've always up to that point, I've always had, I'd always had nothing. 63 00:04:38,040 --> 00:04:41,960 And so saying, don't treasure earthly treasure. 64 00:04:41,960 --> 00:04:44,200 I didn't, I didn't know what that was. 65 00:04:44,200 --> 00:04:46,160 I didn't have any of that. 66 00:04:46,160 --> 00:04:48,960 And so it was very easy for me to embrace that. 67 00:04:48,960 --> 00:04:56,200 But as I got older and I started to acquire things, when I found a girlfriend who eventually 68 00:04:56,200 --> 00:05:03,160 became my wife, then it was easy for me to treasure her in a way that wasn't right. 69 00:05:03,160 --> 00:05:07,720 Of course, and we've talked about even in the Sermon of the Mount, how you should, how 70 00:05:07,720 --> 00:05:11,960 your relationship with your wife and how much you should love your wife. 71 00:05:11,960 --> 00:05:17,400 But you cannot treasure her above God. 72 00:05:17,400 --> 00:05:20,400 Or it, it infiltrates that relationship. 73 00:05:20,400 --> 00:05:27,840 And I think that there is something addictive in my character to having anything. 74 00:05:27,840 --> 00:05:31,920 As soon as I have something, I want more of it. 75 00:05:31,920 --> 00:05:37,680 I would say it'd be good if I had a better car, but as soon as I have a better car, there's 76 00:05:37,680 --> 00:05:40,680 a better car than that. 77 00:05:40,680 --> 00:05:42,640 There's a better version of that same car. 78 00:05:42,640 --> 00:05:44,120 As soon as you drive it off the lot. 79 00:05:44,120 --> 00:05:45,120 Right. 80 00:05:45,120 --> 00:05:47,400 As soon as you drive it off, you're like, oh, look at that one. 81 00:05:47,400 --> 00:05:48,880 That one's nice. 82 00:05:48,880 --> 00:05:54,640 And so I think that there is a very subtle way that, that it happens to me. 83 00:05:54,640 --> 00:06:00,280 And it, like you were saying, Matt, a lot of times it's, it's things that intrinsically 84 00:06:00,280 --> 00:06:01,720 are not bad. 85 00:06:01,720 --> 00:06:04,640 And in some cases are very good. 86 00:06:04,640 --> 00:06:08,580 It's good to do well in your career. 87 00:06:08,580 --> 00:06:14,360 It's good to do well in your job, but there's a thin line between doing well and then treasure 88 00:06:14,360 --> 00:06:23,720 it and then basing and then pouring the best of myself into it so that I look better or 89 00:06:23,720 --> 00:06:28,480 feel better or am more comfortable in some way. 90 00:06:28,480 --> 00:06:30,480 And it never satisfies you either, right? 91 00:06:30,480 --> 00:06:31,480 You never get there. 92 00:06:31,480 --> 00:06:33,040 You get insecure. 93 00:06:33,040 --> 00:06:34,560 You're always chasing. 94 00:06:34,560 --> 00:06:36,800 You're always wanting to build a bigger barn. 95 00:06:36,800 --> 00:06:37,800 Yeah. 96 00:06:37,800 --> 00:06:42,080 No matter what realm your barn is coming in. 97 00:06:42,080 --> 00:06:47,280 I think this is so challenging because there's no, there's no set answer. 98 00:06:47,280 --> 00:06:49,880 Like there's not a, when do you know? 99 00:06:49,880 --> 00:06:53,520 Well, you kind of know when you know. 100 00:06:53,520 --> 00:06:57,440 Like when are you putting too much of yourself into your work? 101 00:06:57,440 --> 00:06:58,440 It's hard. 102 00:06:58,440 --> 00:07:05,160 I mean, just to be very upfront, my wife and I made a decision when we got married that 103 00:07:05,160 --> 00:07:08,360 she said, I don't really want you to work overtime even if it's extra money. 104 00:07:08,360 --> 00:07:11,360 We can manage that. 105 00:07:11,360 --> 00:07:17,000 But now I'm going to grad school because the equation has changed of what's going to 106 00:07:17,000 --> 00:07:21,120 work for our family longterm. 107 00:07:21,120 --> 00:07:22,800 And I don't think grad school's wrong. 108 00:07:22,800 --> 00:07:24,120 My company will pay for it. 109 00:07:24,120 --> 00:07:26,960 So it's no financial commitment. 110 00:07:26,960 --> 00:07:33,480 But I have to be very careful that I'm not giving the best of myself to this career development 111 00:07:33,480 --> 00:07:40,000 in pursuit of a little bit more financial cushion. 112 00:07:40,000 --> 00:07:42,880 And which financial cushion is good? 113 00:07:42,880 --> 00:07:49,040 If anybody lives paycheck to paycheck or is in horrendous debt, it's incredibly stressful 114 00:07:49,040 --> 00:07:51,560 and that's not, that's a hard thing. 115 00:07:51,560 --> 00:07:59,600 So it's, I find it very difficult to balance all of those things out and to sort of get 116 00:07:59,600 --> 00:08:07,680 where I should be while also understanding that I need to engage some of this, that I 117 00:08:07,680 --> 00:08:13,800 can't just like that the position I'm in right now at my job is not financially viable long 118 00:08:13,800 --> 00:08:14,960 term. 119 00:08:14,960 --> 00:08:18,560 It's not where I want to be longterm. 120 00:08:18,560 --> 00:08:22,640 So how do I manage all of that? 121 00:08:22,640 --> 00:08:24,240 Yeah. 122 00:08:24,240 --> 00:08:34,600 So I'm the youngest in this group and there's, I'm kind of coming on the cusp a lot of these, 123 00:08:34,600 --> 00:08:36,280 the tension that you guys were talking about. 124 00:08:36,280 --> 00:08:40,760 I mean, it's been in the past few years that I went from making negative money to making 125 00:08:40,760 --> 00:08:45,960 money, which is a pretty big jump. 126 00:08:45,960 --> 00:08:47,560 And we just got a house. 127 00:08:47,560 --> 00:08:52,480 My wife and I, so that's another significant thing. 128 00:08:52,480 --> 00:09:01,600 And I will say, I think that treasuring treasurer's way of translating this like gets at a lot 129 00:09:01,600 --> 00:09:05,400 of the heart of, you know, Jesus is where your treasure is, there your heart will be 130 00:09:05,400 --> 00:09:10,720 at, but the store up, I think there's a lot of, it's important to keep that in mind. 131 00:09:10,720 --> 00:09:18,080 And I'm not a Greek scholar, so I won't comment on that, but I will say that Jesus has a 132 00:09:18,080 --> 00:09:21,680 whole parable about a man who's storing up treasure. 133 00:09:21,680 --> 00:09:28,520 So there's a lot of support for that, that being part of what's in this. 134 00:09:28,520 --> 00:09:32,440 And so, you know, when I'm thinking about this question myself, I'm really thinking 135 00:09:32,440 --> 00:09:36,080 about material possessions. 136 00:09:36,080 --> 00:09:46,880 And I am in this stage right now where I feel like there's two sides of me. 137 00:09:46,880 --> 00:09:51,160 There's one side of me that really just wants to chase like the American dream, right? 138 00:09:51,160 --> 00:09:57,440 And just get all of the status symbols of what it means to be successful. 139 00:09:57,440 --> 00:10:04,160 For me, you know, the house was a big thing there where it's like very tempting to wed, 140 00:10:04,160 --> 00:10:07,280 you know, that with, I've made it. 141 00:10:07,280 --> 00:10:12,560 And then I just moved to a place where it's really easy to have two cars, really trying 142 00:10:12,560 --> 00:10:18,560 to fight hard against that one and learn how to be a one car family, at least for now and 143 00:10:18,560 --> 00:10:20,040 just see. 144 00:10:20,040 --> 00:10:26,360 But yeah, but getting the extra car, getting, you know, all of the, there are some things 145 00:10:26,360 --> 00:10:28,840 we are improvements we make to the house because it makes sense. 146 00:10:28,840 --> 00:10:32,400 There's other ones that feel like they're just cosmetic. 147 00:10:32,400 --> 00:10:37,800 So it's like, there's all these things and everything I can justify on some level. 148 00:10:37,800 --> 00:10:45,720 But when I think about the equation for my family, the, the way principle way that I 149 00:10:45,720 --> 00:10:53,960 can store up treasures on earth is like, when I look at what is my standard of living, 150 00:10:53,960 --> 00:10:58,440 right, because I can make however much money. 151 00:10:58,440 --> 00:11:06,120 If I'm giving away X number of dollars or X percent of that money, I could say, okay, 152 00:11:06,120 --> 00:11:12,440 I'm not storing up treasures, but if my standard of living is really significant, and that's 153 00:11:12,440 --> 00:11:19,880 where we have interpretation, that would be like one of the ways I'd be storing up treasures. 154 00:11:19,880 --> 00:11:22,880 And so that's what I'm wrestling with right actively right now, right? 155 00:11:22,880 --> 00:11:25,000 Because I'm making decisions. 156 00:11:25,000 --> 00:11:29,040 I have made decisions and I am making decisions at the moment to decide what will my standard 157 00:11:29,040 --> 00:11:37,160 of living be, how much flex will there be in my schedule, in my budget to allow for generosity. 158 00:11:37,160 --> 00:11:42,800 And I think that's, that's a, that's a key thing that I'm wrestling with on this particular 159 00:11:42,800 --> 00:11:43,800 issue. 160 00:11:43,800 --> 00:11:45,440 That's really good to bring up. 161 00:11:45,440 --> 00:11:46,440 A lot. 162 00:11:46,440 --> 00:11:48,480 We will talk about generosity a little bit. 163 00:11:48,480 --> 00:11:49,480 We are getting there. 164 00:11:49,480 --> 00:11:50,480 Yeah. 165 00:11:50,480 --> 00:11:51,720 Can I bring something else up though? 166 00:11:51,720 --> 00:11:56,880 I know I'm going on a tangent again, but that's just what I do. 167 00:11:56,880 --> 00:12:01,480 Jim's nodding his head. 168 00:12:01,480 --> 00:12:07,040 The scripture I referenced a little ago in Romans one, it says they exchanged the truth 169 00:12:07,040 --> 00:12:09,280 about God for a lie. 170 00:12:09,280 --> 00:12:17,960 There's a writer, Richard C.H. Lenski, who, 90 years ago, Lutheran, translated, had his 171 00:12:17,960 --> 00:12:24,840 own translation and commentary on the Gospels, and in this section, he talks about that aspect 172 00:12:24,840 --> 00:12:27,200 that there's a lie happening here. 173 00:12:27,200 --> 00:12:32,860 And in chapter six, the beginning part of it is how we would deceive others about how 174 00:12:32,860 --> 00:12:33,860 righteous we are. 175 00:12:33,860 --> 00:12:35,920 Look at all the good stuff that I do. 176 00:12:35,920 --> 00:12:44,160 And then, but here it starts to shift to self deception, the stuff that we would do to deceive 177 00:12:44,160 --> 00:12:45,640 ourselves. 178 00:12:45,640 --> 00:12:52,600 And I think that is something that is happening in here, our propensity for self deception. 179 00:12:52,600 --> 00:12:59,760 And Jesus is warning us not to treasure earthly treasures, which are a lie. 180 00:12:59,760 --> 00:13:02,440 They're not real treasure. 181 00:13:02,440 --> 00:13:06,000 And I think it gets a little bit at the classic short term versus long term. 182 00:13:06,000 --> 00:13:07,720 There's so much in here. 183 00:13:07,720 --> 00:13:11,000 It reminds me of that experiment where you give kids the marshmallow, what is it, the 184 00:13:11,000 --> 00:13:12,000 marshmallow one? 185 00:13:12,000 --> 00:13:14,520 Where you give them, here's a marshmallow. 186 00:13:14,520 --> 00:13:20,480 You eat it and I'll be back in X number of minutes and I'll give you 10 marshmallows. 187 00:13:20,480 --> 00:13:25,120 And you, you know, the kid, a lot of them just eat the marshmallow right in front of 188 00:13:25,120 --> 00:13:26,120 them. 189 00:13:26,120 --> 00:13:27,120 They can't wait. 190 00:13:27,120 --> 00:13:28,120 I don't know when they're coming back. 191 00:13:28,120 --> 00:13:29,120 Who knows? 192 00:13:29,120 --> 00:13:33,320 Which is really the best case scenario for the parents to not have their kids eat 10 marshmallows. 193 00:13:33,320 --> 00:13:35,920 They don't mention that in the experiment. 194 00:13:35,920 --> 00:13:36,920 No, they don't. 195 00:13:36,920 --> 00:13:43,180 But it begs the question, I think for us, how do we visualize what is essentially unseen 196 00:13:43,180 --> 00:13:44,920 but better by far? 197 00:13:44,920 --> 00:13:45,920 Yeah. 198 00:13:45,920 --> 00:13:47,080 Yeah, it's, it's hard. 199 00:13:47,080 --> 00:13:53,040 And I hope you weren't listening to the pod to have all the tension resolved because we 200 00:13:53,040 --> 00:13:54,960 can't resolve all the tension. 201 00:13:54,960 --> 00:13:57,120 We are all living in the tension. 202 00:13:57,120 --> 00:13:58,120 Right. 203 00:13:58,120 --> 00:13:59,120 Exactly. 204 00:13:59,120 --> 00:14:01,240 And I'm sure at some level you are. 205 00:14:01,240 --> 00:14:05,040 And I think one of the things I want to just bring up before we move on to the next question 206 00:14:05,040 --> 00:14:08,520 is it's okay to live in tension on this. 207 00:14:08,520 --> 00:14:12,760 We don't have to have all the answers right now. 208 00:14:12,760 --> 00:14:19,240 Because there's an idea in Christianity specifically in the United States that we have to have 209 00:14:19,240 --> 00:14:22,560 a concrete answer to everything. 210 00:14:22,560 --> 00:14:25,440 And our faith tradition really doesn't come from concrete answers. 211 00:14:25,440 --> 00:14:28,560 It comes from wrestling with questions. 212 00:14:28,560 --> 00:14:33,120 And so I want, if you're listening to this and going, gee, I really look like I'm storing 213 00:14:33,120 --> 00:14:35,000 up a lot of treasure on earth. 214 00:14:35,000 --> 00:14:41,640 Well, that's a thing to wrestle with and getting community in to think about. 215 00:14:41,640 --> 00:14:47,960 The next thing I want to ask on this topic, and we might finish this question, we'll see, 216 00:14:47,960 --> 00:14:55,120 is just to reiterate, how much time do we spend maintaining our stuff, the things we 217 00:14:55,120 --> 00:14:56,120 own? 218 00:14:56,120 --> 00:14:58,560 We all have insurance. 219 00:14:58,560 --> 00:15:02,240 We all have, we all spend, we're all homeowners here. 220 00:15:02,240 --> 00:15:07,200 So we all spend some degree of time maintaining our property. 221 00:15:07,200 --> 00:15:13,040 I own a rental property, so I have to spend some amount of time and effort maintaining 222 00:15:13,040 --> 00:15:14,640 that. 223 00:15:14,640 --> 00:15:16,240 It's a thing we all have to do. 224 00:15:16,240 --> 00:15:21,760 And how much of our time do we spend in maintaining that? 225 00:15:21,760 --> 00:15:26,280 And how is Jesus inviting us to look differently at that here? 226 00:15:26,280 --> 00:15:35,480 Well, I think what you shared, Tim, is really helpful for me on this because you started 227 00:15:35,480 --> 00:15:43,200 by saying, hey, I'm young, I'm just on the cusp of starting to wrestle with these things. 228 00:15:43,200 --> 00:15:50,800 And I think the key is that you have to continue to wrestle with these things. 229 00:15:50,800 --> 00:15:57,760 And what you were saying as well, Jim, is that this is a wrestling match that is continuing 230 00:15:57,760 --> 00:16:03,000 and that it's not going to stop. 231 00:16:03,000 --> 00:16:06,760 And when it stops, that's when you start to get in trouble. 232 00:16:06,760 --> 00:16:12,400 When you start, when someone says, Van, are you greedy? 233 00:16:12,400 --> 00:16:19,840 And I instantly say, no, that's a little problematic because that means I've stopped 234 00:16:19,840 --> 00:16:25,080 wrestling somehow or I'm just plain flat out lying, but usually it just means I've stopped 235 00:16:25,080 --> 00:16:27,200 wrestling somehow. 236 00:16:27,200 --> 00:16:32,000 The proper answer for that to me is to take a step back and say, well, let me think about 237 00:16:32,000 --> 00:16:33,560 it for a second. 238 00:16:33,560 --> 00:16:36,440 How am I doing in that wrestling match? 239 00:16:36,440 --> 00:16:38,520 How much time am I spending? 240 00:16:38,520 --> 00:16:46,840 How much money am I spending on things that I can't quote unquote take with me? 241 00:16:46,840 --> 00:16:51,640 And how much am I giving to others? 242 00:16:51,640 --> 00:17:02,600 How much am I using my money to prolong my soul or to prolong somebody else's soul? 243 00:17:02,600 --> 00:17:07,040 And because you can get caught, you can get trapped. 244 00:17:07,040 --> 00:17:13,440 As soon as you stop thinking about it, you can start investing too much time, too much 245 00:17:13,440 --> 00:17:20,360 money, too much of yourself into things that ultimately won't matter. 246 00:17:20,360 --> 00:17:25,080 That's true. 247 00:17:25,080 --> 00:17:29,280 The thing I was thinking about, yeah, I was just cleaning my house actually not too long 248 00:17:29,280 --> 00:17:33,320 ago, the power washer and how did Moss grow on this? 249 00:17:33,320 --> 00:17:34,320 This is ridiculous. 250 00:17:34,320 --> 00:17:38,480 Why am I spraying this off and a bunch of other gross stuff and then spraying off some 251 00:17:38,480 --> 00:17:39,480 of the paint? 252 00:17:39,480 --> 00:17:42,280 Ah, Cred, now I'm going to have to go back and get that. 253 00:17:42,280 --> 00:17:50,000 Anyway, the first thing I thought of though with these examples that Jesus gives is just 254 00:17:50,000 --> 00:17:55,200 how much he paints a picture of how temporary all the treasures that we could want here 255 00:17:55,200 --> 00:17:56,440 are. 256 00:17:56,440 --> 00:18:02,480 I think we all live in New England here, so I think all of us can relate to our cars 257 00:18:02,480 --> 00:18:06,920 rusting because of all the salt that's on the road and how annoying that is. 258 00:18:06,920 --> 00:18:11,080 And then I came from the West Coast where they didn't salt where I was living and I 259 00:18:11,080 --> 00:18:16,000 came out here and I own a car and I'm like, why did that fall off the bottom? 260 00:18:16,000 --> 00:18:17,720 That's not supposed to happen. 261 00:18:17,720 --> 00:18:21,000 And I look under there, I'm like, oh my gosh, this is disgusting. 262 00:18:21,000 --> 00:18:26,320 And then I'm like wanting to go to the car wash every time there's a storm now, but it 263 00:18:26,320 --> 00:18:27,320 doesn't matter. 264 00:18:27,320 --> 00:18:29,040 It's going to rust still. 265 00:18:29,040 --> 00:18:39,880 And the other thing I thought, so my mom retired and she downsized, she bought a condo in Portland, 266 00:18:39,880 --> 00:18:40,880 Oregon. 267 00:18:40,880 --> 00:18:46,680 And she, so like about a year after she moved in there, this is the one that I didn't relate 268 00:18:46,680 --> 00:18:49,120 to until she told me this story. 269 00:18:49,120 --> 00:18:51,040 She found moths. 270 00:18:51,040 --> 00:18:54,960 And by the time she found it, it was like too late, they had already destroyed a ton 271 00:18:54,960 --> 00:18:55,960 of stuff. 272 00:18:55,960 --> 00:18:57,200 It was really, really discouraging. 273 00:18:57,200 --> 00:19:01,360 And then after that, she went crazy trying to get rid of the moths, which was hard because 274 00:19:01,360 --> 00:19:03,720 she's in this, who knows where they came in. 275 00:19:03,720 --> 00:19:07,440 Like they could have come from outside or another tenant below her and then they went 276 00:19:07,440 --> 00:19:09,280 up a ventilation shaft. 277 00:19:09,280 --> 00:19:10,280 Who knows? 278 00:19:10,280 --> 00:19:11,280 She was like trying to find them. 279 00:19:11,280 --> 00:19:18,760 She paid to like bomb everything in the building and not bomb, I shouldn't say that, fumigate, 280 00:19:18,760 --> 00:19:21,840 whatever the right term is there. 281 00:19:21,840 --> 00:19:26,960 And even after doing all of that, I think they came back one more time and it was like, 282 00:19:26,960 --> 00:19:29,160 how the heck did they get in there? 283 00:19:29,160 --> 00:19:31,440 And then I think they're gone now, finally. 284 00:19:31,440 --> 00:19:35,080 But she lives with the constant like, are they going to come back? 285 00:19:35,080 --> 00:19:39,880 I had to replace all this stuff that I didn't want to have to replace. 286 00:19:39,880 --> 00:19:50,480 And I think that's just the contrast though between that kind of earthly treasure and 287 00:19:50,480 --> 00:19:51,920 what we have. 288 00:19:51,920 --> 00:19:57,840 Peter describes this heavenly treasure as an inheritance that can never perish, spoil 289 00:19:57,840 --> 00:20:00,400 or fade. 290 00:20:00,400 --> 00:20:04,400 This inheritance is kept for us in heaven. 291 00:20:04,400 --> 00:20:09,680 That's the most secure treasure we could ever have. 292 00:20:09,680 --> 00:20:15,440 And yeah, so the question that you asked, Jim, I think was how much time and effort 293 00:20:15,440 --> 00:20:16,960 do we spend maintaining our stuff? 294 00:20:16,960 --> 00:20:19,960 That's what we're all about. 295 00:20:19,960 --> 00:20:25,360 I'm just going back to that on my brain and I guess keeping my part short. 296 00:20:25,360 --> 00:20:28,160 I've been thinking a lot about simplicity. 297 00:20:28,160 --> 00:20:31,400 That's not a dig at you, Matt. 298 00:20:31,400 --> 00:20:32,400 It's okay if it was. 299 00:20:32,400 --> 00:20:33,400 We're going to say it was. 300 00:20:33,400 --> 00:20:34,400 I was turning to Jim because we were both laughing. 301 00:20:34,400 --> 00:20:35,400 It feels right. 302 00:20:35,400 --> 00:20:36,400 Dig away. 303 00:20:36,400 --> 00:20:37,400 Dig away. 304 00:20:37,400 --> 00:20:42,400 That was a good one. 305 00:20:42,400 --> 00:20:46,400 But the more you get four of us, that's a real doozy. 306 00:20:46,400 --> 00:20:51,560 Yeah, but I've been thinking about simplicity for this reason, like the idea that everything 307 00:20:51,560 --> 00:20:56,320 I own has some cost of my energy. 308 00:20:56,320 --> 00:21:04,040 And so when I downsize my material possessions, I free myself up. 309 00:21:04,040 --> 00:21:14,720 And there is this, you know, there's a scripture in Timothy six that says, those who want to 310 00:21:14,720 --> 00:21:19,800 get rich fall into temptation and a trap and many foolish and harmful desires that plunge 311 00:21:19,800 --> 00:21:21,680 people into ruin destruction. 312 00:21:21,680 --> 00:21:23,640 For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil. 313 00:21:23,640 --> 00:21:26,960 Some people eager for money have wandered from the faith and pierced themselves with 314 00:21:26,960 --> 00:21:27,960 many griefs. 315 00:21:27,960 --> 00:21:38,000 And I just, I see the like the weight of the love of money with that and that it's dragging 316 00:21:38,000 --> 00:21:40,040 it's dragging us down. 317 00:21:40,040 --> 00:21:45,680 And a lot of that is just like these, the more we have, the more we're desiring, the 318 00:21:45,680 --> 00:21:52,160 more it's, it's exerting, you know, this pull on our mind and our hearts. 319 00:21:52,160 --> 00:22:01,840 But it doesn't align with like reality because, and this is like, we're going to die and it's 320 00:22:01,840 --> 00:22:03,320 all going to go away. 321 00:22:03,320 --> 00:22:09,680 Like we can't, we, right before that, it says, we've in first Timothy six, we brought nothing 322 00:22:09,680 --> 00:22:11,880 into the world and we can take nothing out of it. 323 00:22:11,880 --> 00:22:12,880 Right. 324 00:22:12,880 --> 00:22:18,480 And so that's where Matt, you were talking about the fact that we're self-deceived when 325 00:22:18,480 --> 00:22:23,360 we fall into this because we think we can hold on to these things. 326 00:22:23,360 --> 00:22:25,160 We convince ourselves we can hold on to these things. 327 00:22:25,160 --> 00:22:26,720 We spend a lot of energy doing that. 328 00:22:26,720 --> 00:22:33,040 But the only thing we can hold on to is like our godliness, like our walk with God. 329 00:22:33,040 --> 00:22:35,560 So that's what came to mind for me on that. 330 00:22:35,560 --> 00:22:40,520 Tim, I really appreciate what you said there and that the idea that we can't hold on to 331 00:22:40,520 --> 00:22:44,320 it and everything has a cost to it. 332 00:22:44,320 --> 00:22:46,880 Like everything we own, everything we buy. 333 00:22:46,880 --> 00:22:50,840 And I think that's one of the things I want to just mention in passing as we close this 334 00:22:50,840 --> 00:22:53,480 part of the pod. 335 00:22:53,480 --> 00:22:59,800 Everything we own, all our modern conveniences that we like, it all comes at a cost and it 336 00:22:59,800 --> 00:23:03,080 all comes at a cost that we don't necessarily see. 337 00:23:03,080 --> 00:23:09,560 And our abundance and we all own homes and live in New England and even the simple, those 338 00:23:09,560 --> 00:23:15,480 of us that live the simplest still have abundance and we're lying to ourselves if we don't think 339 00:23:15,480 --> 00:23:17,760 that's the case. 340 00:23:17,760 --> 00:23:20,400 And our abundance does come at a cost. 341 00:23:20,400 --> 00:23:27,200 It comes at a cost to our sanity, but it also sometimes comes at a real cost to people. 342 00:23:27,200 --> 00:23:33,240 And as we're wrestling with how we view this, I don't want us to lose sight of the cost 343 00:23:33,240 --> 00:23:36,120 of our abundance. 344 00:23:36,120 --> 00:23:41,440 If we're, whether it's the materials that in our cell phone that somebody has to go 345 00:23:41,440 --> 00:23:47,960 into a mind that's not even remotely safe in a country that has no regulations to just 346 00:23:47,960 --> 00:23:51,600 get the stuff to get this thing we throw away every two years. 347 00:23:51,600 --> 00:23:56,400 I mean, we don't think about that because it's, we're so far a weight removed from it, 348 00:23:56,400 --> 00:24:03,600 but somebody's legitimately risking their lives for our cell phone that we are almost 349 00:24:03,600 --> 00:24:06,080 forced into having. 350 00:24:06,080 --> 00:24:09,080 And so I want us to, and I want you to wrestle with that. 351 00:24:09,080 --> 00:24:11,480 But again, I don't have an answer for that. 352 00:24:11,480 --> 00:24:13,360 Do you not have a cell phone? 353 00:24:13,360 --> 00:24:15,200 I'm not saying that. 354 00:24:15,200 --> 00:24:18,400 I'm just saying we should wrestle with the question. 355 00:24:18,400 --> 00:24:23,200 And so I really appreciate what you said about that and about how our cost is. 356 00:24:23,200 --> 00:24:28,240 And I will throw one counterpoint to that is I grew up as a grandchild of somebody who 357 00:24:28,240 --> 00:24:30,800 was a farmer in the depression. 358 00:24:30,800 --> 00:24:38,600 The idea of throwing something away to them was unconscionable because my grandpa might 359 00:24:38,600 --> 00:24:41,680 have needed it at some point. 360 00:24:41,680 --> 00:24:48,000 And it wasn't a guarantee that I could just buy it. 361 00:24:48,000 --> 00:24:53,280 Now we can deceive ourselves into thinking today that, oh, well, I might need this someday. 362 00:24:53,280 --> 00:24:58,600 And for most of us, it would be, no, you don't actually have the skills to make that into 363 00:24:58,600 --> 00:25:00,240 something useful. 364 00:25:00,240 --> 00:25:03,120 So it's better to give it away. 365 00:25:03,120 --> 00:25:10,200 But I think there is a good idea in that that even though I might be done with it, it still 366 00:25:10,200 --> 00:25:16,240 has value in somewhere and it's still useful and it's not just disposable. 367 00:25:16,240 --> 00:25:20,360 So that's all things that I'm going to let you guys wrestle with. 368 00:25:20,360 --> 00:25:25,840 We tackled some really good stuff in how we store up treasures on earth, the amount of 369 00:25:25,840 --> 00:25:32,440 time that we spend, the amount of mental energy we spend. 370 00:25:32,440 --> 00:25:36,440 And we didn't come up with a great answer and I think that's good because now you get 371 00:25:36,440 --> 00:25:39,080 to go and wrestle with how do you do this? 372 00:25:39,080 --> 00:25:46,880 How do you engage with the things on earth that you have and how you view them and how 373 00:25:46,880 --> 00:25:50,680 you spend, how much time you spend maintaining them? 374 00:25:50,680 --> 00:25:53,240 I think you have a lot of great things to wrestle with. 375 00:25:53,240 --> 00:25:56,920 And then next pod, we're actually going to start talking about the eye being the lamp 376 00:25:56,920 --> 00:26:03,000 of the body, which is a passage that took me a long time to ever really understand. 377 00:26:03,000 --> 00:26:08,000 And I still don't think I really understand it, but it took me a long time to start understanding 378 00:26:08,000 --> 00:26:09,000 it. 379 00:26:09,000 --> 00:26:10,000 Thank you guys for listening. 380 00:26:10,000 --> 00:26:28,280 See you all soon.