Season two of Love in Context podcast welcomes you. Get ready for engaging unscripted conversations
with your hosts, Ben and Spencer. Our mission remains unchanged to explore the Bible through
the powerful lens of love. In this new season, we'll embark on a journey together, unearthing
fresh insights and gaining deeper understanding of how we can love God and live out our faith
in practical ways. So let's dive into this season of Love in Context, where love in the
context of the Bible intersect to transform our lives.
What's up? Is that how you want to start the episode? What's up?
That's how we're starting it, man. What's up?
Sounds good to me. Yeah.
We've definitely had some different, different starts. I think last time I was, I just came
out of the gate singing. Uh huh.
You did. You did.
So there's that. That's about right.
Yeah. I mean, that's about right.
If you are on this podcast and you don't know who we are, which would be strange because
we're like 60 episodes in at this point.
But I mean, let's be, let's be real when you pull a podcast up, it usually pulls like the
most recent episode.
The most recent episode.
So like.
So if you're new to this, the unscripted conversation with Ben and Spencer, I'm Ben.
I'm Spencer.
And we're joined again by our friend Brian from Salvation Army.
That's it. That's me.
And I heard you brought a sermon again.
I always do.
Yeah. He brought it on his phone though. So it looks like there's less because he had
it on his iPad last night.
I just have to scroll much farther.
Yeah, scroll much further. And we're also getting to that age where you got to look
a little closer.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, that's true.
Increase the font size.
Yeah.
Yeah. So good.
So we are in the, in the middle, or actually it is the middle because this is the third
episode.
Yep.
In the middle of our spiritual gifts.
And you were here for the first week when we talked about how the foundation of spiritual
gifts is love God and love other people.
Then last week we had a conversation with Les Kronk about how do we learn to hear the
voice of God because we're going to be in relationship with God.
We actually need to know what to.
Yeah.
Right.
Listen to.
Right.
And I think that's the word of God and understanding the word of God as it comes to you.
Being able to weigh everything against that, that ruler that is scripture.
Right.
It's the plumb line is what I like to call scripture.
You know, you have to know what the voice of God sounds like biblically and in its source.
Yeah.
Also, it's really strange to me when people want to like be like, well, God, God spoke
to me and it has nothing to do with us in the Bible.
They're like, well, you know, and I was like, no, that's weird.
That's weird.
Somebody spoke to you and I just don't think it was God.
You know, you're hearing voices.
I'm not doubting that.
Well, it's weird when you're like, you're like, I want to hear the voice of God, but
I don't want to read anything you wrote.
Yeah.
Like, that's weird to me.
It's weird to me.
So today we are jumping into a passage in Galatians for our last foundational episode
before we actually get into specific gifts.
This one we're going to be talking about the fruits of the spirit, which is in the book
of Galatians.
Really quick, I want to kind of give just an overview.
If you are not familiar with the book of Galatians, I am going to link an episode
of Baymah where they cover the book of Galatians and recommend a book by D Thomas Lancaster
called the Holy Epistle to the Galatians.
So Paul is not writing to a church in a place called Galatia.
Galatia is a region and there's a number of churches in that area that he's writing to.
And specifically he's writing because they came through and they preached the good news
that the kingdom of heaven is here and it's accessible through the death, burial, resurrection
of Jesus.
Right.
And that they are now empowered to live differently.
And they've actually in many of them, they've had the Holy Spirit come on them and now they
are actually walking in spiritual gifts.
And then as it happens, religious people from Jerusalem, and I'm going to say well-meaning
Jews come through and say, because they don't really understand what's happening with Gentiles
and being welcomed in because this is a very controversial position that's happening in
the church.
There's a whole council where they have a conversation about it, right?
They come through and they're like, well, yeah, it's great that you trust in Jesus,
but you actually have to undergo conversion into Judaism, circumcision, observation of
Torah, like a lot of the different things that are going on there in order to participate
in the kingdom to come.
Now the Gentiles in Galatia, the Theosabes, God-fearing Gentiles, they are struggling
with this because they're not really being welcomed into the assembly.
So they're kind of at odds with Rome because they're not under the Jewish exception.
And then also they're being told by these people who are also followers of Jesus that
if they don't go and do these things, they're not going to be able to participate in this
thing that they're already in.
And all throughout the book of Galatians, what Paul is saying is if you now trust in
Torah or circumcision or the observation of the rules of Torah, which we're going to call
mixate altura, the works of the law, it shows up frequently throughout Paul's writing.
If you now trust in this for your salvation, then Jesus is worthless.
If you actually trust in this for your salvation.
And so that's the argument he's making all the way through the book.
And so he's talking about there's neither Jew nor Greek, freed nor slave, male or female,
all are one in Jesus.
It's not being Jewish, it's not being Gentiles, it's not being a man, it's not being a woman,
it's not being a rich, it's not being poor.
That makes you a follower of Jesus is trusting in the faithfulness of Jesus Christ.
And that verse in particular is more so saying it doesn't matter where you come from.
Correct.
Right.
It's, it's, so that's what it's saying.
It doesn't matter where you come from.
When we say yes to Jesus, we are all the same.
Yeah.
Correct.
One identity in Christ, right?
Call back to the last series that we had with your wife where she was on.
And it doesn't matter where you come from, male or female, when you're called to Christ,
you're called to something.
Yeah.
And he's going to be the one that gives you your call and you obey him, not man.
Right.
So then this passage comes and he then he's saying, okay, but if you're going to follow
Jesus, there is a way that looks like the world.
And he goes through, he talks about anger, malice, orgies, and all sorts of different
things that you probably shouldn't do.
Right.
Yeah.
But he says, but if you walk by the spirit, you're going to, you're going, you're, if
you walk by the spirit, you're going to follow after God.
And these are going to be the fruits of that spirit.
And he says the fruit of the spirit, the fruit of living in the spirit following after God
is this love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self
control.
And depending on which words you use in that, in that verse tells me which translation you
probably learned it in forbearance is one that I hear a lot.
And I just, I can't in my head ever remember to say forbearance unless, unless on Sunday
morning the passage is literally on the screen in front of me, then I'll say forbearance.
Yeah.
But otherwise I'm like, ah, yeah.
So we're going to take a, say, take some time here because Paul is very adamant and this
is not the only book he talks about these characteristics.
He just lays it out very neatly here.
So this is why we're using this book.
Yeah.
First Corinthians, he also talks about this in the chapter of love, right?
Just in a different way.
Cause he says love is patient.
Love is kind, right?
So but we're going to talk about these fruits of the spirit.
So with that, uh, initial, initial conversation, like what does it mean to be a person that
exhibits these fruits?
Well, a couple of things.
One it means you're in tune with what the Lord has, right?
Like when you're following after him, the, the other one is all of these are discernible
actions.
Correct.
That's the other piece of it.
When we are not hidden, they're not hidden, right?
Nope.
They're not hidden.
And when we are following after the Lord, these are actions that we choose to take daily.
Right.
So being kind, being good, being faithful, right?
There are things that distract us from this.
Right.
And if you're like sitting there and you're like, well, I do most of these, I would love
to see how you do in rush hour driving with these particular gifts.
Not just in your actions, but your reactions.
Yeah.
Uh, and so, uh, these are all things that we exhibit and we get to choose to put on
display because when we put these on display, we are putting Christ on display for our community.
Yeah, for sure.
You know, I always go back to, uh, you know, I was, I loved science growing up, uh, loved
chemistry in school and stuff.
I just go back to the idea of the litmus test, right?
Right.
Litmus test doesn't make something acidic or basic, but it tells you if it's acidic
or basic, right?
Right.
And I think the same way when you have here in Galatians five, this competing juxtaposition
right between life of the flash and life of the spirit, you know, you, you, you see just
how well somebody who is living by the spirit, what it should look like.
Yeah.
You know, and the bonus of that is this is what Jesus looked like.
Correct.
Right.
And that's the beautiful part of it is you can see Jesus come alive, uh, in others because
they live like him and that's what it looks like.
Well, and you can see his patience when he's like, how long am I going to have to repeat
these things over and over to you?
Yeah.
Like, how do you not going to get it yet?
Have you literally been with me the entire time and you're still asking me to show you
the father, you've been with me for three and a half years.
What did you think I meant by I and the father are one?
Oh man.
Well, I bet to do even that point.
I mean, there was a lot of Christians today.
Like we've talked about, uh, you said in your last episode, you're here with brimstone theology
where we talk about the God of the old Testament, who's fire and anger.
And we forget, but Jesus is love and acceptance and I was like, well, Jesus represents the
father.
Right.
So if you think that Jesus is loving, acceptance and father is fire and brimstone, then you
don't understand one of them.
Yeah.
Right.
Yeah.
Chances are you don't understand the father.
Yeah, I agree.
I mean, if you, if you read the old Testament and your takeaway is fire and brimstone, you,
you've either putting yourself into it and putting your own, you know, maybe your upbringing
into it, what you've been taught, would you be pleased to believe.
And we went through, when we went through the Torah series, we tried to point out a
lot of occasions.
We didn't get all of them by any stretch of the imagination, but where we think that God
is angry and it never says that God's angry.
Yeah.
He's just dealing with a situation and specifically a lot of times he's bringing correction.
That's going to help them live differently in there.
Well, cause it's holiness demands holiness.
Right.
And so correction is for the purpose of holiness to be restored.
Yeah.
And one of the first times it actually mentions God's anger in the Bible is in Exodus when
Moses said the burning bush.
Yeah.
And I just love the story because it's like Moses is making up excuse after excuse, which
by the way, you go through those excuses.
They are all way too relatable.
Yeah.
Like I don't talk well, you know, I don't speak good.
Yeah.
You know, they're all too relatable.
Yeah.
And, and then at the end of it, he's like, I just don't want to do it.
And then at that point it says God was angry, God was angry, but what did God do in his
anger?
He sent someone to help.
Right.
Like, so like there's even, even in God's anger, he's finding ways to come alongside
us so that we can accomplish what he has for us.
So the, these fruit of the spirit are, they're the evidence that you walk with the spirit.
So it's very like, if you exhibit the spirit, you're going to walk similarly to Jesus.
Obviously we're not Middle Eastern rabbis, so it's not going to be exactly the same.
I like the way that Dallas Woolard says it.
He's like, you're not supposed to be just like Jesus.
You're supposed to be who you would be if Jesus was you.
Yeah.
Right.
And so in your case, working at the Salvation Army, what would it be like if, if Jesus was
a captain, a soon to be captain?
Sorry.
I, I got to be soon to be captain June 9th.
I know the date.
Yeah.
All right.
Soon to be captain at the Salvation Army.
Like as he interacts with the, with the thrift store and the food boxes and all the different
things that are going on, what does it look like when Jesus does that?
You know, and I mean to the, to the points where we're like, okay, if Jesus was in, in
obviously like somebody's going to hear this incorrectly.
So please hear this as a metaphor.
But if Jesus was in our marriages, how would Jesus be a husband to our wives?
Right.
How would Jesus be a father to our children?
Right.
Because these are the characteristics that we want to actually take on.
So this fruit of the spirit is like, what does it actually mean to embody the personhood
of Jesus and his spirit in us when we go places?
Yeah.
So we're having an end with joy.
Yeah.
Now scripture has got a number of things to say about joy.
One of the first things that comes to my mind though is James chapter one.
Yeah.
Where it says, Hey, consider it pure joy when you face trials and tribulations.
Pure joy.
Right.
That word for joy is actually really interesting because that word for joy that James uses
actually means to give your joy away.
Like, so it's really interesting because James is saying, Hey, when you are facing trials,
give the joy of Christ away to your community.
Like extend that out to them so that they can see who Jesus is.
Right.
Which is, which is a little different than how I've interpreted it in the past where
it's like, okay, just force yourself to be happy.
Right.
That's not actually what that's saying.
Right.
It's saying you have a joy in Christ when you're facing those trials, put that joy on
display for everyone to see.
Do you remember those essay questions on the SAT that were like all zips or zops went on,
all zops or whips?
You remember what I'm talking about?
Yeah.
I got that totally from my memory.
You're welcome.
He's having flashbacks.
Senior year in high school.
I'm texting my counselor right now.
It's one of those things where I talk to people, it's like, here's the thing.
You can be joyful and happy, but happiness is not joy.
I would say that in times where there aren't turmoil, that if you're joyful, you're probably
going to be happy too.
But I think about, we talked a few weeks back when we were talking about women throughout
church history, we talked about Corey Timbun hanging out in the Nazi concentrations camps,
right?
Covered with lice, filled with the joy of the Lord.
I guarantee you she's not happy, but she is joyful.
In other words, there's like a hopeful expectation inside of her knowing this reality.
And to your point, her joy in that moment is actually bringing joy to the people around
her.
Yeah.
Well, and the reality is like happiness.
Well, what's the source of those, right?
Happiness is the source of that is that moment, right?
Something that's really temporal, right?
I'm happy now and maybe in a little while I'm not going to be happy.
As we're joy, the source of joy is God, is something eternal, is something that doesn't
change.
So when we do have that joy, it's not from within ourselves other than the spirit that
dwells inside of us.
Yeah.
And so with joy, with coming back to like, these are all discernible actions.
We, it's really like, where are you putting your focus when you are in those times of
trouble, in the times of good, in the times of horrible, whatever, right?
Where are you putting your focus?
Are you putting it on the things of the world or are you putting it on God?
Right.
Yeah, a hundred percent.
Well, and I think joy is best visually seen in times of chaos.
Yeah.
Right.
It's visually seen in times of chaos, in times of turmoil.
Like what is somebody going to, what's they're going to fall back going to be?
Right?
Yeah.
That being said, being joyful in times of peace is also in and of itself a difficult
proposition.
I'm reminded of God talking to the Israelites or through Moses, when they go into the land,
he says, listen, you're not going to do this right.
That's like my favorite.
He's like, you're going to go in and you're going to sleep in houses you didn't build,
reap from fields you didn't plant, drink from vineyards you didn't grow.
And you're going to forget the Lord your God and be like, I did this.
I did this.
But you said something about joy and I was our happiness and happiness is really transactional.
I ate a cookie and it made me happy.
Oh yeah.
Every time.
But every time that is why Brian is happy all the time.
I don't know about you, but I'm good to the point where I eat a cookie.
I'm happy in the moment and then give it like an hour and then I'm like, I'm not as happy.
I feel less, I feel less happy, but it's transactional.
In other words, it's based on like an event.
It's not necessarily a way of living.
My happiness is going to ebb and flow.
My joy doesn't ebb and flow.
And that's the characteristic of somebody who's filled with the spirit is good things are
happening.
They're filled with the joy of the Lord.
Bad things are happening.
They're full of the joy of the Lord.
And in all situations, they're always to James's point, giving away this joy.
They're actually, they exude this joy into the world.
And then it's interesting because, and I think there's also a connection here too, because
James goes on to say, when you are joyful in those moments, what does it build?
And then the things that he lists are actually listed, are partially listed in the fruit
of the spirit.
Let's just read that James passage because some of the things that James says about joy
afterwards tie into the fruit of the spirit really well.
Or it says, dear brothers and sisters, when troubles come your way, consider an opportunity
for great joy for, you know, when your faith is tested, your endurance has a chance to
grow.
So let it grow.
And when your endurance is fully developed, you'll be perfect complete needing nothing.
Right.
Your endurance, some translations translate that patience.
So as you are leaning into the Lord with your joy, your patience is going to grow.
These fruit of the spirit are intertwined.
It's like there's a, to a degree you can kind of pluck one out and be like, all right, I'm
going to exercise this one today.
Right.
But they're intertwined as you exercise one is going to flow into another one.
Right.
As you exercise joy, it's going to flow into patients.
It's going to flow into being more peaceful.
Right.
So on and so forth.
So we are breaking these down, but we also just want to be mindful of that.
Yeah.
Well, speaking of peaceful, let's actually talk about peace for a second, because this
is one where I think we've struggled probably in recent Christianity.
I'm just going to call it the last 60 years, probably since the invention of social media.
We're, we're, we're last time we were talking about, like, we're arguing about a Super Bowl
commercial.
Sure.
Right.
We're arguing about different pieces that don't necessarily apply to the whole.
Right.
For example, like we go to an assembly church and you go to a salvation army.
Yeah.
Like I guarantee you somewhere in our doctrines, something's different.
Yeah.
Right.
But the reality is we serve the same God.
We walk by the same spirit and we figure out ways to work together, not uniformed, but
unified.
Right.
There's a lot more that unifies us than divides us.
Yeah.
Go ahead.
I was going to say, if you look at denominational doctrine across the board, we agree on 95%
of it.
Yeah.
Like that's a number I pulled out of my rear.
Okay.
But roughly, give or take, right?
We agree on a lot of it.
Right.
I was laughing because I said rear.
Yeah.
What did you have to say in other words?
You know, we were all part of the-
I'm an adult.
Yeah, sometimes.
We're all part of the ministerial association.
Yeah.
Right.
And the fact that everyone at that table, I'm sure every church has slightly different
doctrines in some capacity, but we agree on the things that matter most, right?
Keeping what's important, keeping the main thing, the main thing is what I like to say.
Right.
And don't letting those little differences divide us in Christ.
Yeah.
So I'm reminded of what Jesus talks about in the Sermon on the Mount, his preface of
the kind of people that this kingdom is meant for.
Blessed are the peacemakers.
Yeah.
Right?
Blessed are the peacemakers.
Now the interesting thing about that is we definitely know what war makers are.
Yeah.
Right?
And in a lot of circumstances, I would say that that is probably the characteristic we
tend to take on ourselves.
We tend to cause conflicts rather than peace.
And so when I think about a peacemaker, probably somebody who's exemplified that a lot for
me recently, somebody that I've watched the way that they interact with people that they
disagree with is Ed McDell.
So that's Spencer's dad.
This guy, I swear, will bring up a conversation piece and vehemently disagree with you.
But he listens and responds and he's like, he's like, yeah, I can completely see how
you'd see that.
And he's like, you know, as we pursue Jesus and he goes this and I'm like, I feel like
he's agreeing with that guy doesn't agree with me at all, at all.
But you know what?
He's finding he does it in such a way.
Like he is a peacemaker.
Like he steps into a tense situation where people just do not get along.
And he's like, but how can we work together?
How can we how can we find common ground and move forward together?
Your dad's like a sneaky Jedi.
A little bit.
Yeah.
These are not the scriptures you're looking for.
These are not.
The scriptures you're looking for, as far as he listens to this.
I know I'm like, that's going to be great.
Well, and I mean, it's a compliment.
It's meant to be a compliment is that he values the unity of people and the opinions of people
more than being right.
Well, he values being in community and being a loving community more than being right.
Correct.
And so and so he will have a conversation with you.
Like so growing up, it was a little bit opposite in our family.
Like when I was like, hey, you got to have a conversation with your dad.
You're like, OK, you're going to sit down for an hour and it's going to be great.
If it was like, hey, you're going to talk to your mom, you're like crap.
She also listens to that.
She listens to this as well.
It's fine.
Hi, mom.
I'll get phone calls.
It's fine.
Right.
But my dad's always been one of those people who's like who will sometimes he'll call you
out directly.
But for the most part, he's like, hey, let's talk about that.
And then you come to a point where like you just have a great conversation.
You might be on totally different ends of the topic.
One of the best ways that I've learned to kind of create peace, especially when you
want to correct somebody or there's conflict with somebody is instead of accusing somebody,
you did this, you did that.
It's help me understand.
Help me understand why you thought that was a good idea.
Help me understand how you came to that conclusion.
Somebody that I worked with that was very dear to me taught me that.
And I've tried to implement that, you know, instead of especially we have employees, right?
At Salvation Army, we have a lot of volunteers and people don't always make the right decisions.
I don't always make the right decisions.
Right.
And it creates that level of peace when, you know, still having to have those hard conversations.
So I wonder, though, I think often when we talk about peace, we think it's the absence
of conflict.
No, I think it's when there's absence of relationship through the conflict.
Well, you look at example in scripture, there's a number of examples over and over again.
But one of my favorite ones is, is Apollo's when he's preaching Priscilla and Aquila were
like love the zeal.
Yep.
We got some stuff we got to work on.
Yeah.
So like they could have done a number of things.
They could have stood up, called him out right then and there.
Right.
They could have said heretic, whatever.
Right.
But what they did is they said, hey, let's have a meal together and let's talk about
it.
Let's get to know each other.
Right.
And they built relationship.
A couple of weeks ago, we talked about the Good Samaritan story and Jesus says, you know,
this is the yoke, go do these things and you'll live.
And the teacher of the law seeking to justify himself, right, which is a chair I find myself
in all too often, right, asked a question.
So there is conflict even in these conversations that Jesus is having.
So peace isn't going to be the absence of conflict.
And to quote something that is very familiar to the three of us, given that we've all been
married a good amount of time, your marriage is not going to be good if you never have
conflict.
Right.
It won't be good because what it'll be is one person is bending to the other person's
will constantly.
Right.
Now it's good when there's mutual submission, like Paul talks about, but mutual submission
comes through conversation and understanding each other.
And I would also go as far with the marriage analogy to say if you are in agreement on
100% everything in your marriage, one person's probably overbearing.
Yeah, probably.
Right.
Because I mean, I've been married nine years now and my wife and I, we disagree on a number
of things, right.
But they're not big things.
Right.
There's core principles that we're like, this is how things are going to work in our household.
We're going to follow the Lord.
There's things we've established.
Right.
But then there's other things where we disagree on.
Yeah.
Right.
Yeah.
No, totally.
Right.
And the reason I mention it is because if you're saying, you're like, man, I got to
be a person of peace.
I can't ever like have a conversation, argue with somebody.
I was like, well, no, but the arguments can't be pointless.
There has to actually, the purpose of your conversation and your conflict should always
be to deepen your relationship with the other person.
Like when I'm having a conversation with you about a topic, I'm listening to understand,
not listening to respond.
Right.
Listening to respond is I'm waiting for you to say something so I can nail you for it.
Yeah.
Listening to understand is I want to know why Spencer thinks this way.
Yeah.
Active listening.
Yeah.
You know, like because I actually want you in my life.
And so I want to understand what this is that you think so that we can find a way moving
forward.
It's very sweet of you.
Thank you.
Thanks for having me.
I feel like there's a lot of love here.
I like it.
Well, you just wait till the camera turns off.
But you know, like, I mean, so the purpose of peace is not, and that's why I think Peacemaker
is a better is a better word than just saying living at peace.
Because I think the whole idea of living at peace, I mean, even with nations like you
talk about America versus Japan, we're very different countries.
Yeah, we live at peace.
We live at peace.
But we we have tons of conflicts on difference of opinion.
Sure.
Right.
And that's okay, because we're able to build like better relationships because of that.
Right.
Yeah.
And so I think part of that was living at peace is learning how to have healthy conversations
around conflict.
Yeah.
Right.
Being a person of peace.
Yeah.
Being a person of peace.
Like, how are you addressing conflict in a peaceful manner?
Yeah.
Right.
How are you trying to understand the other person?
Right.
And conflict and potentially I'm going to use a word called non escalation.
Mm hmm.
Yeah.
You will you will meet the conflict, but you're not escalating the conflict.
So Jewish, I don't know the exact terminology, but Jewish rabbis have this practice when
they're in a debate that they ask questions.
Right.
Yeah.
And one of the there's actually been some scientific studies have been done around the
idea of asking questions and they found that questions actually deescalate.
Mm hmm.
Isn't that what Jesus did?
Yeah.
Multiple times.
Right.
Jesus, Jesus did that too.
Right.
Questions actually deescalate the situation.
Yeah.
Jesus, what do you think about this?
How do you read it?
And so like even when even take the end of Job, when when God is rebuking Job, what is
God doing?
No.
Right.
He's asking question after question.
Were you there when I made everything?
And like we often read that where we're like, God was pissed off.
He's like, were you there?
Like, come on.
Like, and it's, I don't read that that way.
I read it more like, hey, were you there when this happened?
Were you there when this happened?
Right.
And then, and it's God saying, no, you, I was there when this happened.
Well, if you're, if you're taking away of the 70 questions is that God is upset with
Job as opposed to he's helping Job understand that he has a very limited perspective.
Right.
Yeah.
Because your life is this, you have a very limited perspective.
Yeah.
Right.
Yeah.
And one of the things, one of the things practicing peace does is it actually builds patience.
Hmm.
It's true.
So does parenthood.
One way or another, you're going to develop a.
So so growing up, I'm throwing my dad under the bus.
He's the mom and dad.
I'll text him and be like, I threw you under the bus a lot and a lot of them.
So in good ways.
But growing up, we used to do road trips.
Yep.
All right.
And this is one of the ways my dad helped instill patience in us is whenever we asked
the question, like, are we there yet?
My dad had his answer ready to go.
He always said nine more miles.
Nice.
We could be two miles away.
We could be 200 miles away.
We could be 2000 miles away.
It was still nine more miles.
So the two phrases we hated hearing on road trips were nine more miles, just nine more
miles because we're like, I mean, anything doesn't mean anything.
And then the other one was when my dad was like, oh, we're going to take a shortcut.
We'll get there faster because that means we're taking a big detour somewhere to go
see something that none of us really want to see at the time because we just want to
get to where we're going.
Yeah.
It either meant that or it meant that he took a detour and we're now lost and we're on a
shortcut quote unquote.
Before MapQuest, Google.
This was before all that.
Yeah.
But one of those things that did is it actually created a lot of memories, right?
Right.
Those, those times where we had to be patient in the car waiting for where we had to go
or taking a detour and ending up at some location that was like, ah, we don't want to see the
ironic part is most of the time when we got there, we're like, this is really cool.
This is a cool spot.
That actually created a lot of patience and taught us to enjoy the journey along the way.
Yeah.
Right.
It's, it's probably difficult in our world is becoming more and more instant gratification.
Right.
Um, you think about like when you used to send a letter to somebody, you had to write
the letter, stamp the letter, wait for the mailman to pick it up, deliver it.
They had to read it and then they had to decide whether or not they wanted to write a letter
back to you.
Right.
Yeah.
And since you're in Alaska, it's even longer.
Right.
Yep.
So then we, then we, uh, when then we shortened that and we started doing email, but not everybody
checks their email every day.
Uh, especially Spencer who has like 4,000 unread emails and his 16,332.
It's a lot.
You have to wait for AOL to do all of its clicks and you use AOL.
Oh yeah.
Back in the day.
Okay.
I was just, I was like waiting.
I was like, do you still use AOL?
That's still a thing.
I was like, Brian is independently keeping them in business.
I saved up all my DVDs and I've been catching them in.
But you know, then email wasn't fast enough.
So we started text messaging, you know, and then there was, there's like Snapchat and
then there, you know, you know what I mean?
Like it's, it's video calling and like, you know, like it's, we need an answer faster,
faster.
You know, I get frustrated when somebody texts me and I text them back and then I don't hear
back for five minutes.
Which happens a lot in Alaska, by the way, cause that's how everybody rolls.
It's true.
Um, and uh, especially just here's an instance with old people on the bus, pastor Nick, uh,
cause I know he listens has a tendency to ask a question and you answer and then nothing.
And uh, yeah, that's it.
That's it.
That had nothing to just, so well, he's a pastor, so he's just teaching me patience.
That's the, that's the thing.
But you know, we have this idea of instant gratification, but there's something about
learning how to wait in hopeful expectation.
Yeah.
Right.
Um, because patience and hope, I think go hand in hand, right?
Because hope, uh, it's really hard to live in the world when you see all the bad stuff
that happens.
If you don't trust in the hope of Jesus Christ reclaiming the entire world, if you don't
trust in the hope that heaven is coming to earth, it's going to be hard to live on earth.
Yeah.
Right.
A lot of times like people are living for heaven and I'm living for heaven on earth,
right?
This invitation that kingdom is invading earth on earth as it is in heaven to even quote
from the book of revelation, the new heaven and new earth actually come and they actually
come to earth.
Right.
Yep.
And, uh, you know, you have to hope for that.
In fact, even in the book of revelation, it's a message of hope to a church where Jesus
has come back and the kingdom is moving forward, but it has not yet been realized everywhere.
How do we live in this place where wickedness and injustice and all these different things
still happen, but we're living for a kingdom that is on its way.
It's here yet on its way.
Right.
And patience is really important.
I remember I was having a conversation with James the other day, my son James, not the
book of James.
Uh, I felt that people probably needed to know.
And he's like, I want to do such and such thing.
I was like, no, it's okay.
You can be a little bored.
Learning how to be bored is a good thing.
Yep.
Yeah.
Patience is such a huge thing because one of the things we can miss is if we just get
everything we want all the time really quick, we can actually miss the blessing that comes
from the journey.
Right.
Like we, uh, and just coming back to that idea, cause when we are journeying with Christ,
we don't get everything we want.
Right.
Like sometimes we don't get everything we want.
We just don't.
But there's things that like, it just, we have to patiently wait on the Lord for, right.
And I can recount a number of times in my life, we're looking back on my life.
I'm like, wow, the Lord answered these prayers and this way, this way, this way, this way.
And did I see any of those answers at that right there and there in that moment?
No.
Right.
I'm afraid of that.
And so, but the Lord answered those prayers along the way.
Yeah.
And I'll take that.
You know, like you're talking about, you've been married for nine years and I've been
married for six years.
Um, and you know, I got married at 30.
I wanted to get married at 20.
Right.
And there was this level of patience I had to learn of, okay, God, when, when is your
timing right?
My dad always said, you know, it'll happen when it happens.
Yeah.
I hated that phrase.
I want it to happen now.
And, you know, thank God it happened on God's timing rather than my timing.
Yeah.
You know, and that level of patience is really hard to believe in even sometimes because,
you know, we have these desires.
God, why aren't you fulfilling these desires?
And sometimes God's saying, well, just wait, I have something really incredible in store
for you.
And, and some of those things are on this side of heaven and some of those things on
the other side of heaven.
Right.
Yeah.
And that's hard.
And here's, here's the thing that is really difficult to, when developing as a person
takes time.
Yeah.
Right.
You need to have patience with people cause they're going to screw up.
So this comes back to our conversation about the church when properly done is messy.
Right.
You don't hand a kid two sticks and call them a drummer and say, like the next day, you're
a drummer.
It takes time.
And it takes patience, especially with the drums or the bagpipes or, you know, some other
instrument like that.
I was a concert.
Can you find someone to play bagpipes and worship?
I'm sure that I could.
Oh, let's do it.
Yeah.
But we, yeah.
Um, but I was, I was, I don't know if you know this, but I'm actually a concert tuba
player.
Nice.
Right.
So people have to develop patience and listening to me play, right.
Cause it did not sound good initially, no matter what my mother says.
Um, he's so good.
I just enjoy listening to him play.
I don't know why I made her Southern, but, but you know, the, uh, but, uh, I was thinking
about this analogy is, well, two different thoughts.
So I was not the man I needed to be at 18 for my wife when I was 23.
Yeah.
Does that make sense?
Like I was not who I needed to be for her yet at 18 until I was 23.
Yeah.
Right.
And, uh, I wasn't the man that I needed to be for my kids until I was 30.
Now all that being said, like, of course we could have had kids earlier and God would
have met me in my weakness and all those different things.
Yeah.
And he was preparing me to be the kind of person that I am to be who, where I am today.
Yeah.
I mean, even in service of the church today, like 10 years ago, I wasn't in the same place
to be able to serve in the same capacity with the same amount of maturity because I had
to grow.
Right.
Yeah.
And, uh, sometimes when you're, when you're in instant gratification, I'm going to use
a company here and if you love this company, great.
Um, I'm just picking on them anyways.
Sometimes when you go to McDonald's and you order food and before you're done ordering,
they hand you your fries.
It's a little troubling.
Right.
Yeah.
You're like, you're like, I would like to order.
Oh, there it is.
Right.
How long have those been sitting there?
Yeah.
As opposed to microchip.
Yeah.
As opposed to, uh, when you go to a restaurant that has a really good burger.
Right.
Sure.
And you're, you have to wait 15, 20, 30 minutes, you know, for your food to come.
There is a, it's a different experience.
Like you have to be patient in order to wait.
It's a different experience.
And uh, most of the time it's worth it.
Yeah.
Like obviously that analogy falls apart because I've been to places that I'd rather have just
gotten a fast food burger over what I got.
But there are some places that, I mean, it's so much better.
Yeah.
You know, wait.
Yeah.
And there's, there's context in life too for that too.
Right.
Yeah.
Cause there's, I mean, there's times in life where like, you know, something good's about
to happen.
Yeah.
Right.
So we, we have, we have McDonald's in town and we have another really good restaurant
in town.
Yeah.
Right.
Um, we have more than two restaurants.
Don't worry.
But it's only like six.
Yeah.
But, uh, like if I am like have my kid with me, we're in a hurry, you know, we know, we
know we have to be somewhere.
We know something's going to change real quick in our day.
We're going to McDonald's.
Right.
Okay.
If, if it's like, no, we want better food and we're willing to wait, we're not going
to McDonald's.
Right.
And there's, there's times in life where it's like, okay, we know change is happening
right now.
We have to move, move forward with it.
Right.
Yeah.
And we know something really good is going to happen.
We're going to sit here and wait.
Yeah.
And we're going to wait on the Lord.
That's good.
Yeah.
Cause being a person of the spirit, you're a person who wants to see the best come out.
Yeah.
Right.
Um, so coming back to this idea of spiritual gifts, one of the biggest spiritual gifts
we can have is bringing the gold out of people.
And that takes patience.
Yeah.
Like when you're taking somebody and taking them from the life that they had to being
apprentice of Jesus, you're going to need some patience.
Yeah.
Especially when you work with teenagers.
Yes.
Like, Oh yeah.
Or when you work, I'm reading a book right now.
Um, and I haven't gotten very far into it.
It's called tattoos of the heart where a guy is working in inner city, uh, Los Angeles with,
you know, a lot of, a lot of gangs and stuff like that.
And I was like, you have these small incremental moves forward and, uh, it's a lot of patience
in like working with these kids.
Yeah.
Right.
Yeah.
Well, and as you become more patient and you become more kind, as I said earlier, these
just roll right one into another.
Yeah.
And these are characteristics of love.
Yeah.
Love is these things.
Yeah.
And I think this is, this for me kind of captures Jesus in such a powerful way, right?
That he is not this, he's not just these words on a page, but he is kindness incarnate, right?
He is, you know, he treats us with kindness.
He expects us to treat others with kindness.
Um, and to be kind to ourselves too.
I think we forget that.
Yeah.
So kindness is one of those things that can be lost in our day and age a little bit.
Um, I can, I mean, I can think of lots of examples, but just one right off the top of
my head, like there's simple ways to be kind that we just kind of blow right past nowadays,
uh, holding a door for someone else.
Yeah.
Right.
Smiling at someone when you see them.
Somebody drops their books, you help them pick them up.
Yep.
Like, so the other day I was actually, this was a few weeks ago, but I was going to meet
you for lunch.
And the reason I was a few minutes late is cause, uh, the spot we were meeting that was
it was in a hotel.
They have a diner down there and we're like, we're going to meet the diner there.
A guy was walking in the hotel with a cart and just spilt everything.
Oh no.
Geez.
Yeah.
Right.
And like, so, so I immediately started helping pick, help him pick his stuff up.
Like it was a lot of stuff and, uh, but as I was doing that, I noticed four other people
just walk by.
Right.
And they like walked, like stepped over his stuff, walked around his stuff, walked through
his stuff, you know, all the above.
Cause they were like, Oh, well, we got to do some more important.
Right.
And it's like, well, or there's this guy who just spilled all his things and judging on
his things, I'm guessing homeless.
That was my guess, but, but he's just spilled all his things.
And it's like, what are you going to do?
Right.
Like, are you going to be kind, help him pick his stuff up or are you going to walk away?
And I will say, um, working as a salvation army officer, you know, the populations we
work with are, you know, most likely the populations that don't receive kindness as often as they,
they should, you know, everyone's deserving of kindness.
And for me, I think it's been one of the most powerful tools in seeing people's attitudes
change, right?
We have our soup kitchen.
We see people, 30 to 50 people every single day, you know, usually the same people.
Yeah.
And we've been here for two and a half years now and seeing the same people, you know,
every single day has been the most powerful tool, I think, to see change in their attitudes,
change in the behaviors while they're with us has just been treating them with kindness.
Right.
You know, getting to know their names, that's an act of kindness because some people won't
even go that far.
And, and, you know, people light up when you remember who they are.
Yeah.
And so, yeah, kindness, I think is a huge component of, of all of these parts that we've
been talking about kind of wraps up into that.
We have a tendency to not really see the least of these.
This comes back to our conversation about, like, are you making an intentional relationship
with the people that you would actually be able to watch their feet?
Yeah.
Right?
Yeah.
Like, are you being intentional about actually, you know, catching up with the least of these?
Well, caring for the least of these is, is a make it or break it issue.
Yeah.
In my mind.
Like you see that in Matthew 25.
Yeah.
And then where Jesus is separating the sheep from the goats and then the goats, the sheep,
he's like, hey, good job.
You saw me in prison.
You saw me when I was hungry.
You saw me when I was need.
List goes on.
And then the goats, they're like, well, when did we ever see you?
He's like, well, when you saw the least of these.
Right.
That's, it's a make it or break it issue.
Now, have I seen, I've definitely seen people abuse that too, where people are like, well,
I'm going to pretend like I'm in the least of these situation.
Sure.
Like I remember down in Seattle one time, like there was a guy sitting in a wheelchair
with a sign and then someone came and stood right next to him and he kind of does this
action like look side to side, see if anybody's looking and then he gets out of the wheelchair
hands a sign to the next person.
It was like, it was like shift change.
Right.
It happens on occasion.
But caring for the least of these, it is an issue that we can't neglect as believers,
as followers of Jesus.
It's not something we can say, okay, well, someone else will take care of that.
It's like we as a church, as individual churches need to.
Right.
Need to be part, take part in these.
I've heard, I've heard Marty Solomon from the Baymaw podcast make the statement before.
He says, where you put the people who are normally on the outside in your church, the
marginalized, where they are in your church tells me a lot about what your church believes.
Yeah.
Are they on the outskirts being like, like, are they fringe, you know, thoughts or are
they actually in the center, which actually is going to carry on to our conversation into
James.
I don't know if you guys know this, but the Bible tends to like talk about itself, like
about the same ideas in multiple books.
Yeah.
It's interconnected.
Yeah, it's interconnected.
First I've heard of this.
Whoa, mind blowing.
So kindness has to be like this attribute that if you're going to be walking in the
spirit, kindness should be a portion of it.
So it really is, it's difficult for me when somebody is a, they're talking about tongues
or the healing or prophecy and they're just not a very nice person.
Yeah.
Like in general.
You see that on TV.
Right?
They're just not a nice person.
You're like, listen, you're walking in the spirit of something.
I'm pretty sure it's not Jesus.
Yeah.
And so joy, peace, patience, kindness, this all builds into goodness.
Right.
Right?
Like you can't be a good, like you can't proclaim goodness without exercising these
things.
Right.
In fact, Jesus will even say, why do you call me good?
Nobody's good except God alone.
Right?
So like the very characteristic of walking in goodness is actually walking in the spirit
of God.
Yeah.
Because people in and of themselves aren't necessarily good.
We were created to be good.
Yeah.
We were created to be very good.
Yeah.
But now through the spirit of God, we come to our pre garden or not pre garden or into
our garden state.
Right.
And we walk in the goodness of God.
Yeah.
This idea of being good is fundamental though.
Yeah.
Right.
Because God is a good God.
Right.
Like you're just saying Ben.
We will claim God to the world, we then have to put these things on display for the world
to see.
Right.
And so this rolls right into being faithful.
Like I'm kind of tying goodness and faithfulness together.
Sure.
Because, because the reality is, is when we're patient, when we're kind, when we're enduring
with those around us, we are going to be faithful to them.
Yeah.
Right?
When we are enduring with Christ, we're going to be faithful to Him.
Yeah.
All these characteristics, we talk about goodness, you know, I, there's a phrase or the
phrase that I say, God is good all the time and all the time God is good.
Right.
And, and that's a really, it's a really good phrase for us to remember.
And then it's interesting.
I've had conversations with people, they're like, okay, but what do you mean by good?
I was like, okay, but good is defined by all the other things around it.
Like the characteristics of God is what is good.
Right.
Faithfulness.
I don't think we can undersell faithfulness.
So being a person of the Spirit means you show up to the things you're supposed to show
up for.
So the characteristic of faithfulness is a really big deal because when you're, when
you're a person of the Spirit, you're going to show up to the things that you're, you're,
you're responsible for.
Right.
You show up to your marriage, you show up to your job, you show up to your parenthood,
you show up to your, you show up to your friends, you show up for your, for your family, for
your church.
Right.
Like the things where like faithfulness and not when you always feel it.
Right.
Like once again, like joy is not happiness.
Yeah.
Faithfulness doesn't mean you're always going to be super excited.
Right.
So I was, I was talking, Brian, we were talking about worship one time and I remember we were
talking about like, I don't always feel super excited on Sunday morning when I get there.
I was like, so a lot of times I just throw my body into it and let God catch me in the
jump.
Yeah.
Right.
Well, I mean, a lot of times like all three of us were very active in our churches, right?
Like we're, we're usually the first ones there.
First ones to leave or last ones to leave.
First ones to leave, last ones to get there.
Yeah, exactly.
Exactly.
And then the other time I was like, we, we, we, we all know who those people are.
Yeah.
But we're usually the first ones there.
Last ones to leave.
So there's, there's mornings where Sundays feel more like a chore.
Yeah.
Right.
But you're still, we're still called to be faithful.
Yeah.
Right.
And not just in our churches.
There are times when your job's going to feel like a chore.
You still show faithfulness because that's what somebody who was walking with a spirit
does with the obligations that God's put in front of you, these calls into your life.
You're not always going to be like, woo hoo.
Like Moses had to climb a mountain like six times.
Yeah.
At 80 years old.
Uh huh.
Like he wasn't really like looking forward to it, I can guarantee you.
But he was being faithful.
Yeah.
Right.
And, and so that last little piece, like this whole thing about faithfulness and the last
characteristics that we're going to combine together of gentleness and self-control are
really two coins of the, or two sides of the same coin.
Right.
Because if you're a faithful person, you're going to show up, you're going to show up,
you're going to show up.
But the other characteristic, when you're looking at kindness and you're looking at
joy and you're looking at patience and you're looking at all these different things that
kind of go into these characteristics of this conversation, um, gentleness, uh, I actually
preached on this with Les a few, few months ago.
Uh, we actually talked about the gentleness is equivalent of like meekness when Jesus
says blessed are the meek for low and hair at the earth.
Right.
But it doesn't mean wimpy.
It doesn't mean backing down.
It doesn't mean doing nothing.
What it actually means is I am capable of doing something and I choose not to.
So meekness was often in Roman culture was associated with horses, right?
Uh, horses pulling chariots in particular, like they needed to be strong.
They needed to be fast.
They needed to be agile.
Right.
Um, but they also needed to be able to hold back.
Right.
That's why we can buy this with self-control.
In other words, you're under control.
Yeah.
So the thing is God has, uh, when he puts a spirit inside of his people, he creates
them into incredibly powerful people.
Yeah.
Right.
So I want to, I want to specify this because I think people, they carry this too far and,
and it's, it's a, it's one of those hyper static union things where people kind of get confused
on this.
You are not a powerful person.
The spirit of God is powerful, but when the spirit of God is inside of you, you're a powerful
person.
Yeah.
Right.
And you are called to walk in that power to bring joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness,
gentleness, and self-control.
And yes, the spiritual gifts we're going to talk about, but it's not your power, but when
it's inside of you, you need to walk with authority.
Yeah.
No.
Right.
And so when you walk around and you have the spirit of God, you are capable of a lot, but
you place self-control in your life and you place gentleness in your life so that you
can interact with the people around you, grow them and allow God's presence to flow from
you into them.
Just because you have power doesn't mean you should use it.
Coming back to parenthood, just because I can't punish my kids or discipline my children
doesn't mean that I always should.
Is that what's actually going to be helpful?
Yeah.
If a five-year-old is acting like a five-year-old, sometimes I got to let them just act like
a five-year-old.
If an 18-year-old is acting like a five-year-old, well, that's a different story.
That's another conversation.
I probably should have done something about 13 years ago.
You know, but it's not necessarily... I don't need to come in and use my power.
In fact, what I would rather do is build relationship so that we can actually have a real conversation.
Now, the piece that I talked about with gentleness, which I think is incredibly misunderstood,
is this piece where Jesus talks about turning the other cheek.
And I've talked briefly about this in the past, but when Jesus talks about turning the
other cheek and he talks about giving up the cloak and he talks about going the second
mile, none of those are passive or... They're not passive statements.
Yeah.
They're actually active statements against injustice.
And Jesus is saying that in a nonviolent confrontation, you need to stand up for justice, but without
violence.
Yeah.
That's the way of Rome.
Christ is gentleness and self-control in the midst of chaos.
And Jesus himself coordinates his entire kingdom by being crucified on a cross.
When there is no way that anybody could have gotten him there.
When people say that the Jews crucified Jesus, it's like Jesus said himself, nobody is going
to put me here.
Yeah.
Right.
I go here of my own volition.
Which is just... I mean, when you talk about self-control and the example of Jesus, literally
as he goes through the whips and the crucifixion and the crown of thorns, he's choosing to
take every step.
Every single step.
Well, just take the false accusations he went through.
Like the Jewish leaders were bringing people to bring false witness against Jesus.
He endured all that.
He endured the beatings.
He endured crown of thorns, being hung on the cross like that.
In today's day and age, we get one person who says something that's slightly off about
us a little bit and we're like, I'm pulling out the sword of the spirit and we are going
to war.
Right.
And it's... Which by the way, that sword's meant for defense.
Go do some research on that.
And self-reflection.
Yeah.
Self-reflection.
Go do some research on that.
But we often will do that when it's like, no, sometimes we just need to be gentle, have
self-control and go into these situations with the opposite attitude that the other person
has.
Yeah.
And one of the things is things change.
Yeah.
Right?
One of the things at my old work that we used to always say was stress breeds stress.
Right?
If you get someone in a work atmosphere who is just a stressful, stressed out individual,
that's going to breed over to... That's going to spread to the other people around them.
Right?
Oh, absolutely.
Versus if you bring someone into a work atmosphere who is a peacemaker, who's gentle, who exercises
self-control, that's going to infect the workplace.
Right?
Right.
And so one of the things we have to do with gentleness and self-control is we have to
say, hey, okay, we're going to put these things on and we're not actually going to be affected
by the other things that are going to tear us away from this.
And how much more powerful of a tool is it when somebody is attacking you, saying things
against you, maybe saying bad words to you, to your face?
How much more powerful is it to be able to withstand that with self-control than giving
vitriol back?
It's a much better witness for us than living in the flesh and being like, well, since you're
saying that, I'm going to say what I want to say.
It's way more powerful.
So the fruit of the spirit, love defined as joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness,
faith, self-control, right, I think I missed one.
That's okay.
Love defined as first Corinthians 13, patient, kind, doesn't have any, doesn't boast.
These are characteristics of what it means to love God.
Yeah.
Yes.
And the way that God loves us, but also in the way that we love our neighbor.
And I know I want to stress, you're not going to do this stuff right.
Part of working out our salvation and fear and trembling is knowing that we're supposed
to walk in the spirit and we're not going to do it right.
But we have a great mediator.
His name is Jesus Christ, right?
Holy spirit's going to be our advocate, our lawyer that we need.
Lawyers, we got the Holy Spirit.
But when you are a person who is pursuing the spiritual gifts, which is what comes up
in first Corinthians 14, earnestly seek the spiritual gifts.
Before you earnestly seek the spiritual gifts, make sure you're walking in the spirit.
Yeah.
Right?
Because this is this love God, love other people, hearing the voice of God, walking
in the fruit of the spirit is going to be foundational to whether or not you're bringing
kingdom or you're bringing a platform for yourself.
Yeah.
And at the end of the list of the fruit of the spirit, Paul says this in verse 23, he
says, there is no law against these things.
Yeah.
Right.
And that's kind of the, like that, that line right there I have found to be so, um, that's,
that's such a spirit inspired line in there because you look at our culture today, there
isn't a law against being loving, joyful, peaceful, patient, kind, good, faithful, gentle
exercising self control.
Right?
There's no law against those things.
Right.
And majority of cultures today being able to say, Hey, if I, I'm going to exercise
these things, we're going to do it in a way to where people can, where it put God on display.
Right?
Nobody's going to be able to say, well, that person is a horrible person because of that.
Yeah.
Right.
Yeah.
Ephesians five, one and two say, follow God's example.
Therefore as dearly loved children and walk in the way of love.
Right.
As Christ loved us and gave himself up for us as a fragrant offering and sacrifice to
God walk in the way of love.
That's life by the spirit.
Yep.
That's what we've been talking about that kind of the analogy that came to mind when
I was thinking about preparing for this was, you know, this life by the spirit is like
a plant rooted in the ground, right?
Love rooted in the ground and the roots that spread out of love helps support the fruit
that it's going to bear.
Right?
The patience, kindness, joy, patience, peace, kindness, goodness, right?
Faithfulness, self-control.
If we are deeply rooted in love of God and others, we're going to find these fruit come
alive in our lives.
And it flows out of walking in the way of love.
Well, and I think it's really difficult because when we have this conversation where we, because
I've been talking about this for the last probably 15 years is that learning how to
love God and love other people is fundamental.
Learning how to walk by the spirit is fundamental.
Is this idea of like, okay, well, it can't just be love.
And I was like, because you know, like love is love is love is love.
No, love isn't easy.
Love is very difficult.
Love is a battle for you.
Yeah.
Thank you.
It's difficult.
It's messy.
There's going to be conflict.
There's going to be misunderstanding.
There's going to be need to distribute joy.
There's going to be a need for you to be gentle, which means somebody's not going to be gentle.
There's going to be a need for you to have self-control, which means somebody else is
going to say something that you should self-control yourself.
Right.
Those warning labels, right?
Don't do this.
Don't put this in your mouth.
Well, it's because somebody put it in their mouths and choked on it.
Right.
That's why they have it.
Yeah.
You know, you have to be, you have to put on goodness because there's going to be non goodness
around you.
You have to put on kindness because there's going to be hate around you.
Like learning how to be a person of love is foundational to everything and it is everything.
Like it is, it's what it's above and through.
It's a reason why the, the writer's going to say that God is love.
Love is not God, but God is love.
Right?
All zips there's apps, but all zops there's ips.
Right?
God is love.
He is the characteristic, he is the defining characteristic of what love is.
And so if we want to follow the way of Jesus, then we follow to your point from Ephesians,
the walk of love.
Yes.
Yeah.
As Jesus loved us.
Amen.
Right?
Yeah.
All right.
So next week we're going to get into the fun stuff.
We're going to have Kyle Quinn on here and we're going to be talking about tongues.
So if you were like, I don't know if I'm going to stop listening to these guys or not, listen
to that one and that'll probably help you decide what you want to do.
So yeah.
We really appreciate you being here.
Yeah.
Good time.
I love being here.
Love to come back sometime.
Yeah.
We'll have you back.
I do have to, I have to note two quick things is one, your hat is a Raiders hat.
So yeah.
Yeah.
Let's do this.
And then also if you are watching the YouTube Spencer's pants are fantastic.
They are.
They are so great.
I like it.
I don't know what you're going to camo with that, but yeah, I approve.
I think they're best with the white croc and the blue socks.
Yeah.
Just rocking it.
White croc, blue socks, red pants, green jacket, yellow hat.
You're a character straight out of Dr. Seuss.
The joke in my family is even before we had had our daughter, my wife was like, yeah,
you got the dad vibe down just fine.
You're ready.
I was like, I actually, I tell people all the time that I was like, I'm glad that I
had kids because I've been practicing dad jokes for years and now I have a justification
for using them.
And an audience.
Yeah.
Who cares?
All right.
With all that being said, we will check in with you guys next week.
Yep.
Till next time.
And that's a wrap for today's episode of Love and Context.
We hope you enjoyed this engaging conversation and gained valuable insights into the powerful
message of love within the Bible.
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Until next time, keep seeking wisdom, embracing love, and living out your faith in the context
of today's world.
Running up on stage.
Yeah.
Last week while I was doing releasing the kids, Leland did that.
And I picked him up and who?
That boy smelled like poop.