Welcome to Season 3 of Love & Context. This season,
we're exploring the life of Jesus step -by -step
and uncovering what His story teaches us about
loving God and others. Here on Love & Context,
we're all about having real conversations about
how to live out that love in practical, everyday
ways, and understanding the Bible in its full
context. We're so glad you're here. Let's dive
into Season 3 of Love & Context. And we're back
with the Love in Context podcast with Benjamin
Edwards and Spencer McDowell. That's right. That's
right. Funny thing is this last Sunday at church
you were preaching, and Pastor Nick and I got
you a very large print Bible because you were
reading from your phone previously. And I think
it was like 30 times that you said something
wrong from the phone because you're like, what
is it? And I was like, well, Spencer's eyes are
getting older. Maybe we should order him a giant
print Bible. You know what the really funny thing
is? You love it? No. No. No, the Bible's great.
The really funny thing is I had my eyes checked
a year and a half ago and they were fine. So
it's just your brain. Your brain can't read.
My brain couldn't read, but I was like, I appreciate
the new Bible. I would like to pull out a thing
you just said and just make sure that everybody
on the podcast knows this. Spencer thinks the
Bible is a great book. Yeah, I do. That was it.
I do. I read it regularly, actually. Oh, man.
Life of Jesus. Did you know the Bible is actually
multiple books? It is. Now you guys are like,
quit mansplaining the Bible. Let's go back to
Life of Jesus. Beardsplain the Bible. That's
what I do. Life of Jesus, last week or a week
and a half ago, we were talking about Jesus at
the... Lord's Supper and this, this, you know,
formational thing of like, what does it actually
mean to lay yourself down to have authority and
to a servant leader? And then he's going to have
this discourse that's going to pick up. Uh, there's
a lot of different places they talk about it.
So we're going to kind of jump around the gospels,
but we're going to jump into John first because
John has quite a bit of stuff going on after
this. Yeah. Um, so Jesus is going to tell them,
uh, he has this conversation with him. He says,
Hey, by the way, I'm going to die, which they
don't quite get. And this is around John 13,
14. I'm going to die. You're not going to get
it. And Peter's like, he's like, well, we're
never going to leave you. And he's like, yeah,
you are. Yeah, you are. It's going to be, you're
going to actually deny me like three times. Yeah.
Y 'all are going to run away. John will sneak
his way back in to be there when I'm, when I'm
dying. But you know, and so he's having this
conversation because like, it's kind of depressing.
They're, they're not sure really how to deal
with that, but he lets them know. He's like,
Hey, if I don't go to the father, I can't send
you the spirit. Right. I have to go. I have to
go. And he says the Holy Spirit is going to come.
One of the things I think is really interesting
and something that we should always know is that
trouble doesn't leave them when the Holy Spirit
comes. He resides with them. Yeah. In trouble.
Right. But then as Jesus is working his way towards
the Garden of Gethsemane, where they're going
to go out and where we're going to probably conclude
this episode, depending on how long wind we are
today. I want to jump in chapter 15 because he
starts talking about unity. So right in the end
of chapter 14, it says, come now, let us leave.
So they leave, right? So presumably they're having
this conversation in the garden, which makes
sense given what it actually says. So starting
in verse 15, or sorry, chapter 15. I was like,
I'm on the wrong verse, man. Let me get there.
It says, I am the true vine and my father is
the gardener. He cuts off every branch in me
that bears no fruit. While every branch that
does not bear fruit or does bear fruit, he prunes
so that it will be even more fruitful. Fruitiful?
Fruitful. Fruitiful is not a word. This is the
Ben Edwards translation of the Bible here. Yeah,
right. So people who are listening have no idea,
but if you are watching on YouTube, I'm actually
trying to read this, and sometimes the mic gets
in the way as you're trying to read it. That's
okay. Let's see here. Remain in me. Let's go
back. While every branch that does bear fruit,
he prunes so that it will be even more fruitful.
You are already clean because of the word I have
spoken to you. By the way, that's something he's
told Peter earlier when he watched feet remain
in me. And as I also remain in you, no branch
can bear fruit by itself. It must remain in the
vine. Neither can you bear fruit unless you remain
in me. I am the vine, you are the branches. Now,
I want to pause here really quick because there
is a really important thing in verse 2. It says,
he cuts off every branch, talking about the father.
If you actually go into the Greek, the cuts off
verb is actually to be lifted up. I think that
Brad Gray has a really good description of what's
going on in his flora and foliage, I think is
the series they do. But it actually is he lifts
up. So if there is one that is not producing
fruit but is connected to the vine, what the
father does is he actually lifts it up and supports
it so that it can bear fruit. Um, so cut off,
not necessarily related to what happens to the
branches that are not connected later. All right.
Uh, jumping into verse five, I am the vine. You
are the branches. If you remain in me and I in
you, you will bear much fruit apart from me.
You can do nothing if you do not remain in me.
So this is the people who are not connected.
You are like a branch that is thrown away and
withers. Such branches are picked up, thrown
into a fire, and burned. If you remain in me
and my words remain in you, ask whatever you
wish, and it will be done for you. This is to
my Father's glory that you bear much fruit, showing
yourselves to be my disciples. Okay, so I really
want to focus in on this because this is something
we talk about in our podcast constantly, and
this is a really important verse. Jesus is divine.
We are the branches. He is the life. And because
we're connected to the life, we have life. Yeah.
If you are connected to the life, you will have
life. So do you create righteousness? No. You're
connected to Jesus who creates righteousness
in you. Yeah. Right? So you have a responsibility
to be connected. to abide, to connect with Jesus,
and to allow his life to flow through you. That's
how fruit is produced. And you can't accurately
show who Jesus is unless you are connected with
him. Correct. If you're a branch who gets cut
off in this situation, you are no longer connected.
Yeah. Even if you think you know who Jesus is
or you're living with him, you cannot show him.
Right. Yeah. One of the things, this is not a
foreign concept because the two greatest commands
Jesus has already said is to love the Lord your
God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength.
What does that mean? Abide. You are connected.
And when you do that, you will love your neighbor
as yourself. Right? So loving your neighbor as
yourself is a direct outcry of abiding. It's
producing fruit. It's connecting. It's bringing
life. All right. Why is that important? Well,
because verse 9 is there. As the Father has loved
me, so I have loved you. Now remain in my love.
If you keep my commands, you will remain in my
love, just as I have kept my Father's commands
and remain in his love. I have told you this
so that my joy may be in you and that you may
be complete. My command is this. Love each other
as I have loved you. Greater love has no one
than this, to lay down one's life for his friends.
You are my friends if you do what I command.
Mm -hmm. Love each other, right? Mm -hmm. this
is the command. If you're going to bear fruit,
if you're going to be impactful in the world,
if you're going to carry the Father's command,
if you want people to know who you belong to,
you will obey my command. Now, does that apply
to all of his commands? Sure. But this sentence,
this conversation he's talking about, is that
you love each other as he has loved you. Right?
And so sometimes I've seen this apply where people
say, well, so if you love Jesus, you're going
to obey his commands, plural. I said, yes, correct.
but also he's talking specifically about this.
The evidence, the fruit, the things that show
up in your life that demonstrate you belong to
Jesus, that you're a follower of Jesus, is if
you love people, that's it, right? And I do think
it's worth having that conversation. Love does
not mean you let people do whatever they want.
We love our kids. We don't let them eat donuts
for breakfast. Wow. All the time. Yeah, right.
And oftentimes we put caveats on that. Like,
we show that we love the Lord by loving people,
and it's like, no, you show you love the Lord
by loving everyone around you. Yeah. And there
are different ways that it looks, don't get me
wrong, but I've heard all too many preachers
and teachers say, well, loving people, and this
is what it looks like, and they list there are
three things that are big and important to them.
And it's like, actually, when you enter into
somebody's life and you are to love them with
the love of Christ, you are meeting them where
they're at. Which, you know, it might mean that
it looks different from one person to another,
right? Well, and redirecting on that loving as
Christ. So he says, you love each other as I
have loved you. Which begs the question, how
had Jesus loved his disciples up to this point?
Now, he's about to go die on a cross for him,
so that's significant. But up to this point,
how has he loved them? Yeah. So, like, let's
just go through a couple of stories about just
weird things that have happened so far in the
story. Yeah. Right? James and John are near Samaria,
and they encounter some people who don't treat
Jesus particularly well. Right? they say, can
we call down fire to burn them off the face of
the earth? Hey, Jesus, we know who you are. They
were mean to you. Can we Sodom and Gomorrah them?
Yeah. They did not appreciate what we had to
say. Now, obviously, please go read the story
because I am abridging it 100%. Them asking for
fire and brimstone, absolutely what they're asking
for. And Jesus says, no. We're not going to do
that. We're not going to do that. You know what's
interesting is he says, no, we're not going to
do that, but he never brings it up to them again.
In fact, in the next couple of verses, he is
then going to send them out to do ministry, to
preach the good news, to drive out demons, heal
the sick, raise the dead, preach the good news
of the kingdom. It's amazing the number of times
his disciples do something that we're like, if
that happened in our church today, we would pull
them aside and be like, okay. this is like you
are going to lose your job type dad. And Jesus
is like, hey, don't do that again. All right,
now go share my love with those people. Yeah.
And to be fair, there is an expectation with
Jesus, hey, I'm correcting this, but don't do
this anymore. Yeah. Right? And I think maybe
that's perhaps lost in a world where our word
is not quite our bond, like when we're given
correction. Like the relationship between rabbi
and Talmudid is significant. So when your rabbi
is like, don't do that, you don't do that. Right?
You know, other stories like... Peter walks in
the water. Jesus is walking by. They're just
in the boat, stormy. Jesus walks by. He's like,
hey, what you doing? And God calls Peter out
onto the water. Peter walks out of the water,
and he gets scared because of the waves, and
he starts to sink. Jesus catches him, pulls him
up, and he says, why did you doubt? Not, you
idiot. Right? Hey, why did you doubt? I'm right
here. Look at me. I'm standing on the water.
That's me. editorializing that a little bit.
But I'm standing on the water. Why did you doubt?
You were looking at the wind and the waves. Don't
look at those. Look at me. So when we start saying,
hey, we need to love people and that this way
is how people are going to know we're our disciples,
you should actually know how Jesus treated his
disciples. Even the Pharisees and Sadducees,
when he has conversations with them, he engages
them in normal dialogue. It's very rare that
he, I mean, because we covered it. with the scribes
and Pharisees, you hypocrites. He does do that,
but it's rare. Most of the time he engages them
in conversations, corrects their understanding.
He's like, I hear what you're saying. That's
not what we're talking about, right? How many
times have you had that conversation with your
kid? I have that conversation. I don't know how
many times in the working in the schools every
day. Yeah. Or I'm like, hey, we're not going
to do that. And then like, oh, well, I was like,
no, we're not talking about that. I'm talking
about this. Yeah. This one thing. Yeah. So like,
but Jesus, Jesus is here. He says, he's like,
hey, I'm going to die. And it's good that I die
because if I don't leave and I don't go back
to the Father, I can't send you the Spirit. But
here's what I need you to really understand.
Being connected to me is everything. Yeah. You're
not going to do it on your own. Yeah. It's going
to be the Spirit of God working through me into
you that brings life into the world. And the
tangible fruit that this is actually happening
is going to be the fact that you love each other
the way I loved you. Yes, tax collectors. Yes,
women. Yes, Pharisees. Yes, zealots. Yes, Herodians.
Right? Yes, Gentiles. It's going to be evidence.
that you follow me when you love people into
the kingdom of God. Yeah. And I think this gets
really squishy because people are like, well,
you have to stand on truth. And I was like, yeah.
But some of the ways we treat people, we would
never talk to people we love like that. Yeah.
At least I hope not. I mean, good golly, some
of the things that I've seen Christians do in
the name of Jesus and loving people and making
sure that they're convicted of their sin, I was
like, I hope you don't talk to people you love
that way. Because if that's the case, we might
want to call CPS. Because that's emotional abuse.
Yeah. Like you don't care about their well -being.
You want to be right. And how many times have
believers said, okay, I want to correct this
because I want their life to look like my life.
Which may be the life that you're leading isn't
the best for that person. Yeah. Right? I mean,
you and I are very different people, right? Okay.
There's things we do in our household that you
guys would probably be like, no, no, no, no,
no. At the very least, we don't have dogs. Right?
So our households are going to be very different.
Right, right. And I know you would love to have
a rooster. Yeah, you know it. It is at least
six times a year that you threaten to give me
chickens. Uh -huh. Yeah. Uh -huh. Yep. Yep. And
I said, yeah, I mean, I guess I could butcher
them for food. Because I'm not keeping them in
my house. Yep. And so, like, you and I, we live
life a little bit differently, right? And that's
okay, right? The goal of being a believer and
living life in community is not to make your
friends look exactly like you. It's to support
your friends and be there for them and build
them up and help them walk with Jesus, right?
It doesn't matter. It really doesn't matter the
car you drive, right? It really doesn't matter
what your house looks like, right? What matters
is that you're building each other up. and that
you're helping each other draw closer to Jesus.
Yeah, and please don't overhear this and say
that you're never supposed to confront people
on the garbage of life. I think if you look at
the life of Jesus and his disciples and the people
he interacted with, he does have these conversations.
They're just different. And that is, by the way,
why we encourage people to be in the Gospels
on a regular basis, hearing the words of Jesus.
Like, I think Paul is great, but Paul is quoting
Jesus to a Gentile audience. And he's helping
the Gentiles and the different nations understand
what Jesus was talking about. And so you actually
need to go back and be like, okay, what did Jesus
actually do? It's why this season is really important.
What do you actually do? What's going on here?
He doesn't even really get... He literally has
a discourse with Satan. Satan, right? Pitchfork,
red tights, that guy. right yeah he has well
maybe not in this context you know but you know
you're gonna get an email now that's like there's
actually biblical accounts that say that's not
what he looks like yeah yeah and if they if they
do that i'll be like you clearly this is the
first episode you listen to um but he like early
on in the ministry he goes out and he has a conversation
because a discourse and and a testing with with
satan and the only time he raises his voice is
when he's when satan insinuates that he should
worship him instead of god and he's like nope
get out of here We're not going to do that. And
the interesting thing about that whole time,
Satan's like, hey, you should do this because
Scripture says this. Yeah. And Jesus is like,
and it says this too. Yeah. And I think it was
Les and I having that conversation because it
was early on in the season. When we had this
conversation about how you can sometimes use
Scripture to bring your own agenda and not Jesus's.
Yeah. And it's problematic. So coming back to
this text, like Jesus says, okay, so the fruit,
the way that you're going to evidence that you
actually do these things is you're going to follow
my commands. And so you need to know his life.
You need to know how he treats people. You need
to know how he interacts with his disciples.
You need to know how he interacts with community.
Because the way that he loved them, the way that
he interacted with them, the way that he demonstrated
the kingdom of God among them is going to be
how we do that for each other. are brothers and
sisters. And I would argue that the way that
Jesus interacts with the people outside of Judaism
is how we interact with people who are not part
of the faith. Yep. The Roman officials, the centurions,
the woman who comes and says that she needs her
daughter healed and they have this conversation
about table scraps. Yeah. Like he loves all of
them and he still meets them where they're at.
So then with that conversation, it's going to
be really important that you do this because
verse 18 is coming. You want to read that through
20, 25? Yeah. If the world hates you, remember
it hated me first. All right. Just stop right
there. Right. Okay. Just pause. Let that sink
in. The hates you hated Jesus first. Yeah. If
the world hates you, remember, it hated me first.
The world would love you as one of its own if
you belong to it, but you are no longer part
of the world, and I choose to come out of the
world so it hates you. Do you remember what I
told you? A slave is not greater than its master.
Since they persecuted me, naturally they will
persecute you. And if they had listened to me,
they would listen to you. They will do this all
because of me. Do this all to you because of
me. For they have rejected the one who sent me.
They would not be guilty if they had not come
and spoken to them. But now they have no excuses
for their sin. But I will send you an advocate,
the spirit of truth. He will come. All right.
You are going to be defined by love. How you
love each other. And that's important because
the world's going to hate you. They're going
to hate you because they hated me. They hated
me because I came in. I demonstrated the kingdom
of God among them. I invited them to a different
kind of life. They recognize the power. They
recognize the authority. And they're like, yeah,
I don't want that. Yeah. Jesus is like, I showed
them everything. Yeah. I said who I am. I performed
signs. I told them about the kingdom of God.
I showed them what it's really like to live life.
Torah fulfilled. Literally in the earlier part
of this book, in the Gospel of John, he raises
Lazarus from the dead. From the dead. Four days
dead. He feeds 5 ,000 men and women and children
with... some fish and some bread, right? He calms
the seas. He performs all these miracles, casts
out demons. He preaches the good news, right?
The kingdom of heaven is near. Repent. And I
think it's probably important to point out here,
when he says the world, he's not saying every
single person in the world, because there are
a lot of people who followed after Jesus, a lot
of people who trusted Jesus. But the, I'm going
to call it the authorities of the world, we're
not a fan. Yeah. Yeah. I would think in this
case we're really looking at the powers of the
world. Paul's going to call it the powers of
the air, you know, like those principalities
and authorities, right? So the world, those guys,
they didn't like you. They didn't like me. They're
definitely not going to like you. You're not
going to be bigger than me. Like no servant's
bigger than their master. And so if they didn't
like me, they're definitely not going to like
you, right? And I think a lot of church history
shows that that's actually the case, especially
in the first few hundred years, right? He then
says, I'm going to send the Spirit. It's going
to testify for you. It's going to reside in you.
It's going to be with you as you do these things.
Reminder, he's still coming, but you're still
going to be in the middle of it because 16 picks
up and says, all this I have told you so that
you will not fall away. Love each other. Bear
with each other. They're going to hate you. The
Spirit's going to be with you. Don't fall away.
They will put you out of the synagogue. Big deal.
Really big deal. Yeah. This is your entire identity,
synagogue, right? In fact, the time is coming
when anyone who kills you thinks that they are
offering a service to God. They will do such
things because they have not known the Father
or me. I have told you this so that when the
time comes, you will remember that I warned you
about them. I did not tell you this from the
beginning because I was with you. Sorry. Yeah.
He will prove the world to be in the wrong about
sin and righteousness and judgment about sin
because people do not believe in me, about righteousness
because I am going to the Father where you can
no longer see me and about judgment because the
prince of this world now stands condemned. I
have much more to say, more than you can now
bear. But when he, the Spirit of truth, comes,
he will guide you into all truth. He will not
speak on his own. He will only speak what he
hears, and he will tell you what is yet to come.
He will glorify me because it is from me that
he will receive what he will make known to you.
All that belongs to the Father is mine. That
is why I said the Spirit will receive from me
what he will make known to you. Okay. Put yourself,
when you're reading this, put yourself in the
disciple's shoes. Yeah. Okay? You essentially
have Jesus saying, I got to go away. But the
Spirit's coming, and it's going to be better.
Yeah. Right? Okay, they know who Jesus is, and
they have been walking with Jesus. So they're
saying, okay, the Son of God, our Messiah, is
leaving us? Yeah. Right? And what is their understanding
of the Spirit at this point? Like, they know
the Spirit that rested on Samson, that rested
on David, that came on people and caused them
to prophesy. Yeah. You know, like, they know
these stories, but like... What does that mean?
The Spirit's coming to you and He's going to
reveal all truth. Mm -hmm. He's going to be a
prophet? Yeah. Like, what are you saying? Mm
-hmm. It's really easy with hindsight for us
to be like, oh, well, it's going to... But they're
in the moment. Mm -hmm. And Jesus, he actually
tells him, he's like, I actually have more I
need to tell you, but I don't think that you
would get it. Which I imagine probably happens
in that 40 days between the time he resurrects
and he leaves. This is what goes on in my brain
when I read passages like this. And I want to
preface this with, this is not a theological
desertion right here. This is just Spencer's
brain spouting something out. But I can imagine
Jesus saying these things, and he's seeing the
look on his disciples' face, and he's like, And
I have more I need to tell you, but that's going
to wait. Yeah. Because you can't handle it because
you're already having a tough enough time with
what I am saying right now. Yeah. That's just
how my brain works. But put yourself in the disciple's
shoes. Be like, dude, like our Lord and Savior.
Yeah. Because that's what we know him as is going
away. Yeah. The one who's supposed to free us
from this captivity, who's supposed to bring
us out from oppression. This is the guy that
I have seen on stop years. make icy, the lame
are walking, the dead are raised, demons are
departing, food is multiplied. So hunger, death,
sickness, infirmity, these aren't a thing around
him. And he's telling us that he has to go because
something better is coming. What? Oh by the way,
everybody's going to hate you because they don't
like me. And I'm not going to be here. So you're
telling me that you're going to go away and we
are going to have to face the brunt of this without
you. Yeah. Right? And right on the heels of this,
he's then going to come to this place. It's a
very large portion in John. I'm not going to
read through it. We're going to just kind of
talk through it. Yeah. But he's going to have
this massive high priestly prayer in John 17
where first he's going to pray for himself and
he's asked God to glorify him. Okay? the first
thing is that the sun needs to be glorified so
that everything that's about to happen is going
to happen. Now, connect this back to the teaching.
I am the vine. You are the branches. What's going
to happen to me, glorification, is actually going
to have a direct impact on what happens to you.
Your job is to remain and to love people as I've
loved you. To continue to bring this command,
or to continue to bring this... understanding,
walking it out in life, right? So he prays for
himself, and he prays for the things that are
coming up, and we get this really intimate look
at the prayer life of Jesus and the Father, and
I don't know how many times they hear Jesus pray,
but they're definitely hearing it now, right?
And then he goes and he prays for them, and basically
the prayer is, they're going to fail, but you
need to strengthen them and continue to work
through them. And then he prays for another group
of people, and he says, but the people who aren't
here yet, and I'm going to pray for them that
what happens here with me is going to spread
to these guys, and it's going to go all the way
out to them. And here and here and here, they're
going to be filled with the Spirit of God, and
they're going to live according to this command
that I've given to love one another as I have
loved you. And as they do that, the fruit of
the kingdom of God is going to go forth. and
people are going to be invited back into this
kingdom because the way is now accessible through
the death, burial, resurrection of Jesus Christ
because that is coming up. Yeah. Right? Yeah.
It is now accessible, and now you can live in
it because of the Spirit of God. Yeah. And in
his prayer, things he talks about frequently,
unity, protection, truth, sanctification. These
are the things that define... maybe demonstrate
that you're actually a group of people following
after Jesus. And these things are rooted in community,
right? They're not rooted in do it by yourself.
They're rooted in you doing life together with
Jesus. And I think maybe one of the most encouraging
things is that Jesus prays for unity in a church
that does not yet exist, which means... He knows
we are not going to be unified, right? But if
there is power in prayer and there's power in
prayer in the voice of Jesus Christ speaking
prayer, we're going to be brought together in
unity as we submit and as we abide, right? I
think the fact that we know Jesus already prayed
for our unity should give us hope for victory.
Yeah, absolutely. That is a very important piece,
I think, for people who are in churches that
are struggling right now, where you think there
is an insurmountable difference between you and
name the person. Yeah. Jesus has already prayed
that you would be unified. Your job is to abide
and bear fruit that looks like love. And to be
unified doesn't mean that you all think the exact
same thing on everything. Correct. We can get
that misperception, but it really means that
you're coming together and you're saying, no
matter what, we are going to glorify Jesus and
bring him to our community. Well, and it's encouraging
because Jesus said this to a group of people
that couldn't be more different in their theological
beliefs, including tax collectors who people
didn't even think were part of the faith anymore.
Oh, and by the way, there were zealots in that
group, too, who were known for trying to kill
tax collectors. Yeah. Yeah. It's a big deal.
In this episode, we didn't cover a lot. We covered
kind of Jesus' post -mill dissertation. Yeah.
Post -mill dissertation in prayer. But I don't
think you can go past this spot. without stopping
and pausing and recognizing what Jesus is doing
here. Like, he's just done washing the feet.
They've just had the Seder meal. They're going
out to the garden. They're heading there. And
he's like, all right, I need to make sure that
you guys get this. Like, this is like the last
thing, like when you're about to take a test
and you need to cram. He's like, because I guarantee
you, this is all littered all over his teaching.
And that they've heard this type of thing before
in some sort of format, but now it's game time.
They're getting ready to take the field. Eye
in the vine, you are the branches. You have to
abide. If you don't abide, you're going to be
worthless. It's like sticks collected up and
tossed into fire. Which, by the way, don't just
jump to hell. Just recognize that they're not
useful. Right? Let's use this analogy. The Super
Bowl is coming up, right? Super Bowl is coming
up, right? Now imagine if somehow the team got
there and then they said, hey, we got this two
-week window from when we won the championship
to the Super Bowl. We're not going to do anything.
Right. Right. What team do you think would be
more likely to win? The team that spent those
two weeks preparing or the team that was like,
eh, we're good? Yeah. Yeah. The point being is
that there comes a point where it's like the
coach is there those two weeks being like, all
right, we're doing this, we're doing this. Okay,
that looks great. Don't ever do that again. You
know, coaching his team. But when it comes game
time, they're the ones on the field. Yeah. Right?
The coach is there. still being like, hey, let's
do this, let's make this happen. But the coach
isn't running out on the field being like, this
is how you throw the ball. At least he's not
supposed to. Right, he's not supposed to be.
He might throw the red flag and chew the ref
out because it's the Super Bowl and you're going
to do whatever you can to win. But the coach
is supposed to be on the sidelines and the players
are supposed to be on the field making it happen.
We're the players. And Jesus is there saying,
hey, we need to run this play. We need to do
this. You need to do this. hey, let's work on
this together, right? Somebody's going to be
like, that doesn't quite work. Well, it's an
analogy. All analogies fall apart. Yeah, I could
rip this analogy apart if you want me to. The
point being is that Jesus is, this is their last
huddle before they hit into the game. Yeah. Right?
Right. And he's like, listen, you've got to be
a part of what we're doing. You remember what
I've taught you. Mm -hmm. I'm going to say a
new command. Yeah. It shouldn't be surprising
to you. Yeah. You should love each other the
same way I love you. Yeah. It's the, when we
leave this locker room, you're on the field,
I'm not. Yeah. Right. And so when you're on that
field, just keeping with the football analogy,
those people sitting next to you on your line,
those are your brothers. Yeah. I don't care what
kind of beef you have off the field. When you
are on that field, you are one team for one purpose
and you will figure it out. Right. Imagine if
one of the O -line men was like, I don't like
your political beliefs and did not block for
the quarterback and he just got sacked. Yeah.
Just was like, nope, I'm just going to... What
would happen to that alignment? Oh, probably
something similar to what we see happening in
the church today. Right? Right? Like, yeah. So
like when we are talking about unity, like we're
talking about like, okay, you might not fully
agree with the person who's sitting next to you,
right? But when you say, hey, I love Jesus, you
love Jesus, we're both called to bring Jesus
to our community, right? And Jesus has gifted
us the Holy Spirit. to empower us, to guide us,
to lead us, right? Okay, we need to set aside
some of these petty differences that we have
and say, hey, we can have those conversations,
but we need to set those aside and say, we're
going to focus here. Focus on Jesus being brought
to the community. Focus on us being unified in
the gospel, on us as believers living in community
together, right? And then I hear it. Well, what
about the big issues? Yeah, Jesus addressed people
like that in his books too. And I know immediately
you're going to go to a quarter whips, but there's
conversations, there was discussions. There was
a lot of things before the tables got flipped.
And there's a long portion of discussion happening
before he starts declaring the woes to the Pharisees
and hypocrites. And even those are direct critiques
of specific things. And he weeps when he's done.
When you have to bring severe correction into
somebody's life, it is never an easy thing. And
if it is, it's a problem. If it is, you should
examine yourself. Yeah. Because the book of James
talks about it, restoring people gently, right?
When you have to bring correction into people's
lives, at least for me, it's a hard... uh aching
moment because it's like man i it's really sad
we got to this point yeah where we have to have
this conversation yeah right um and and usually
and just to be clear we've talked about this
too i'm not bringing correction into people's
lives that i don't have a relationship with yeah
right that i'm not in community with correct
um but when i'm bringing that correction man
it is it is a heartbreaking moment and usually
it starts off with a gentle conversation yeah
right Right? Jesus, taking the story of the whips,
that is a moment where he walks in and he's like,
the people who set this up know better. They're
the people literally in charge of the temple.
Right? So, nutshell of everything we're talking
about here is when Jesus says love each other
as I have loved you, the first question you should
always ask is how did Jesus actually love people?
Yeah. Right? what do I think he meant by love?
What did he actually do? Like, look in the Gospels.
How did Jesus love people? And then also see
how he was messed up emotionally when he had
to do some severe correction. Like, when he gave
the woes and the woes to the leadership, he's
not happy when he's done. I mean, in a lot of
ways, he's gutted. Like, he's like, I see everything
that you could be. I have longed to gather you
up. You just don't want to. And I feel like there's
even something inherent in that, that if you
ever do, I'm here. Yeah. Yeah. Abide. Live into,
allow the Spirit of God to flow through you.
Model your life after what Jesus actually did,
not what you think about what Jesus actually
did. And I think if we start there, we have way
better conversations about the nuance. Yeah.
Right? If we start there where we're like, we're
all trying really hard to figure out what did
Jesus do and to live out that way, I think that
we get a lot closer to a place where we can agree
and find at least unity. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Next
time we'll be in the Garden of Gethsemane and
talking about Jesus being so overcome he drops
like blood. Yep. And about the fact that just
like the disciples, we all want to take a nap.
Yep. Right? Yep. Yep. Until next time. And that's
a wrap for today's episode of Love and Context.
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