Stop Lying to Yourself: Some Lessons from James 1

speaker-0: After a sermon is over, have you ever wanted to make a comment, ask a question, or listen to the preacher say more about a particular idea? If so, this podcast is for you. My name is Wes McAdams, and I'll be sitting down with one of my fellow McDermott Road ministers to discuss comments, questions, and thoughts that have come up after the sermon is over. Welcome to PS, the Post-Sermon Podcast.

speaker-1: Thank you so much for joining the PS Podcast. We're so glad that you're with us this week as we enter into a new series. Talk is Cheap and we're going to be looking at the book of James together. So Wes, you started off your sermon a little bit differently this week, a little bit different than you normally do. Tell us about how you opened and and what its significance was to the lesson.

speaker-0: Yeah, I I didn't say anything. I just tried to stand there and apparently I gave off very different vibes in first service and second service. First service I think they picked up on what I was trying to do. I was trying to get people's attention with silence rather than with speaking, because it fit with our theme of talk is cheap and this idea that we we do a lot of talking and we live in a world that does a lot of talking. It's a noisy world and so I thought maybe the best way to get everyone's attention this week is just to stand there awkwardly for a few seconds and just allow the tension to build. In first service they kind of chuckled. They they realized what I was doing. In second service, apparently I gave off the vibe that I was getting emotional or that I was about to cry or something like that. And people felt sorry for me and it was like that wasn't what I was going for at all. But anyway, it it all worked out.

speaker-1: So with the idea of talk is cheap and the book of James, how do you how do you connect those two things together?

speaker-0: Yeah, the the book of James, James spends a lot of time, and James is the little brother of Jesus, and he spends a lot of time talking about talking. In particular, in in this past week's sermon and yesterday's sermon, in particular, he talks a lot about self-deception, that we are deceiving ourselves. If we think this or we we say that, then we are deceiving ourselves. In in this case, about religion, like the the religion that we practice, or if we think that we are religious but we don't, he says, bridle our tongues, our religion is worthless. He encourages people to be quick to hear and slow to speak and slow to become angry, to receive with meekness the implanted word which is able to save your souls. And so he he really has a lot to say about the things that we say, the the talking that we do, in particular. The talking that we do to ourselves. And we we tell ourselves, this is what we spent a lot of time yesterday on was we tell ourselves stories, stories about all kinds of things, stories about God, stories about the world, stories about our own behavior, our own motivations. And what's ironic is that we can even convince ourselves that the lies we tell ourselves are true. We know maybe in the beginning that it's not true, but over time of telling ourselves the same story. We convince ourselves and we actually become self deceived. And he really calls that out, that that that idea of self deception.

speaker-1: I want to spend a lot of time on self deception, but before we dive into that, when you think about the idea of cheap and you've already hit on this sum, you know, valuation can refer to both quantity and quality. can you address maybe a little bit of what you were trying to get with with cheap? Was it just the mere substance of our words or was it what we're saying too?

speaker-0: Yeah, I th I the more I thought about it, the the more it really works on multiple levels. There there is the idea that that our words, especially if there's not truth behind them, they are cheap. Like they the quality of them is not there, the value of them is not there. In contrast with the word of God, God's word is what brings transformation, what brings change. God's word is what is true and and transforms us. Our words on the other hand and the words of the world around us tend to be very cheap. But also the idea, that idiom or that saying of talk is cheap, it's kind of put your money where your mouth is, sort of thing, that that we have this tendency, and we'll get into this next week when we talk about faith, but we have this tendency to say all kinds of things, to claim all kinds of things about ourselves, that we have faith, that we're religious, that we're loving. And it's easy to say those things, but James wants to know, show me, like, show me that you you are going to live this out. We can't just be hearers of the word. We can't just be talkers a good giving a good talk. We have to be doers of the word. And that really is what we're getting at is that talk is cheap in the sense that it it's one thing to say something. It's one thing to say you're religious or you're righteous or you're right or you're, you know, you're whatever. You're you've you have faith, you have wisdom, you have love, but That's proven by what you do or by what you don't do.

speaker-1: Yeah, so when you think about those two things as we read through James together, do you think this was a message to individuals and or to a church or or to both? How how how do you reconcile that as you're reading these words?

speaker-0: Yeah, I think I think that this church that James is writing to, it's really interesting to s try to reverse engineer what's going on because unlike something like First Corinthians, where Paul is writing to the Corinthian church, you know some of the questions that they're asking because Paul says that. But in this case, it's hard to know exactly what the situation is. And it seems like this is a church family that they're obviously dealing with some struggles, they're dealing with some trials. He tells them in the beginning to consider it all joy. When you face trials of various kinds, it seems that they're probably poor, although they tend to have they tend to look up to the rich and the wealthy. We may get into this in later chapters, but they it seems like they're really seeking the protection of the wealthy. They're seeking the favor of the wealthy. They want them to be, they want the wealthy to be their patrons, to to provide for them, to watch over them. To take care of them, and they're really putting their trust and their faith not in God, but they are spreading their trust and their faith out to other people. There's a lot of application there for us. So they they have this appearance of wisdom or this appearance of religion or this appearance of love, but really it's about appearance management, it's about managing their image, it's image management rather than truth and reality. And so James is really getting at the heart of this. And I think it is something that they are struggling with together as a church family, but obviously also as individuals. And there may be some diversity around, you know, there are some people that are doing this or some people that are doing that, or people that have this struggle or that struggle. But I really do see a common thread throughout James. I think sometimes people read James as if it's the New Testament version of Proverbs, and they just read them as these isolated statements. But I really do think that this is a an entire work, this is entire sermon or an entire letter that is really dealing with a particular set of issues that this church family is having.

speaker-1: I think that's really helpful and I think it helps ground us as we're looking at this message 'cause some of us, you know, and and even some of the feedback we got from this week could view this as a discouraging message or, you know, James as being something that's negative, but I don't think you would frame it that way. How would you frame what James is trying to accomplish?

speaker-0: Yeah, I I don't I don't see this in competition with or in contrast to. I don't see it it to the letters of Paul. I don't think James and Paul are debating faith and works, although sometimes we have this tendency to read it that way. and somebody like Martin Luther, I think he called this a an epistle of straw. Like he he hated the book of James. He didn't think that it belonged in the Bible because it talks so much about works and doing rather than faith. But I think James is in complete agreement with Paul. Like when Paul talks about faith, faith in Jesus, that we are saved by grace through faith, he's not talking about a workless faith. He's talking about an embodied loyalty. And that's what James is talking about. He's talking about an embodied loyalty. Like this is what it looks like to be a religious person. This is what it looks like to receive the implanted word, which is Bringing about transformation in our lives. I talked a little bit about that idea of seed and fruit, but that's sort of the metaphor we're dealing with here. We're we're receiving this implanted word. And when a seed takes root and it begins to to come to life, then fruit is eventually produced. And the the fruit is is the evidence, it's the proof that the seed took root and that life has resulted in. And that's the same with the fruit in our life. Like if we are producing love and joy and peace and patience and kindness and goodness, we're not trying to earn or merit our salvation by working hard enough and being good enough. But that fruit is evidence that that the spirit is alive and working in our life, that the gospel is bringing about transformation. And that's really what James is encouraging people to do. And it's so funny he uses the word receive. Which is a word we used last week. It wasn't my intention. Maybe it was the Spirit's intention. It wasn't my intention to to really double down on that idea. But last week we said that the good life that God wants to offer us is received. It's not achieved. Like you can't earn this. You can't merit it. You simply receive it by faith. And that's what James says. He says, receive with meekness the implanted word which is able to save your soul. So he's really not. telling people you've got to work hard enough and be good enough for God to accept you. You might have, you know, there might be a danger in reading James that way, but that's not what he's saying. He's saying the word is what brings this transformation. The gospel, the scriptures bring this transformation, but you have to be quick to hear and slow to speak and slow to become angry and not, as we said yesterday, not argue yourself out of obedience, justify yourself and make excuses and deceive yourself ultimately. James is saying if you want the good life that God has for you, the blessed life, then you have to receive this word and that's what brings about the transformation.

speaker-1: I love the you know, you talked about some of those things that we do as a part of self deception, that talking ourselves out of things. You know, I think that the idea of it being cheap, I think our talk being cheap also speaks to the fact that we can kind of bargain with ourselves, you know, in our own head. You know, we can kind of you know, use that rationalization. But when we're talking about this idea of narratives and this idea of, you know, what's inside of us ultimately bear fruit, a lot of that has to do with our story. and our, you know, conceptions of who God is and who the Spirit is. You gave an example from a neuroscientist who was talking some about the way our our brains work and the way the narratives affect our daily living. Can you speak a little bit to that and and how you wanted to connect that with the text?

speaker-0: Yeah, I thought this was really fascinating that that there's this new book. I haven't read the book, but I've heard a a couple of interviews with Dr. Lee Warren, and he talks about how most of the things that we say to ourselves, and this is especially the things that we repeat over and over and over again. There's just sort of the tracks that we keep running on that when something happens in our life or when we get reminded of something, we keep telling ourselves the same things over and over again. He said that. The majority of those things, the vast majority of those things, up to like 80% of the things that we tell ourselves on a daily basis are not even true. Like we are constantly and consistently lying to ourselves and deceiving ourselves. And he talks about that idea of neuroplasticity, that idea that our brain gets wired, that these grooves get made in our brain based on the things that we keep thinking about and talking about over and over and over again. And we keep running in that same way because we keep thinking the same thoughts. And if we want to change our brain, if we want to change the way that we think, then we have to change the things that we think about. And the more that we change the things that we think about, the more we can change the way that we think. We can change our our our mind. And and literally the the title of his book is, I think it's something like the art of of self brain surgery. Like we're changing our brain by thinking new thoughts, by thinking true thoughts, and stop Stop telling ourselves the same lies over and over again.

speaker-1: When I first saw that subtitle on or title on the screen, you had it on the screen referencing the book. Like on one level, when you first hear the idea of self brain surgery, like it sounds ridiculous, right? I mean, that you would even do that. But at the same time, the metaphor of brain surgery speaks to how important this actually should be for us. Like if we're putting changing our thoughts on the same level as an intervention, like a surgical intervention, you know That speaks to the importance of stopping to lie to ourselves. So from a practicality standpoint, where would you suggest we begin with maybe noticing our narratives and and beginning to receive or participate in that transformation?

speaker-0: Yeah, well I think the way that James says it, if we're gonna stick to the text here, I think there's all kinds of practical things that we could we could talk about. But the way James says it is be quick to hear and slow to speak and slow to become angry. Like those are the practical steps, and he is incredibly practical. Like, listen. And that's the thing is like we're constantly being confronted with truth. Like God is constantly confronting our lies. He's confronting our false narratives that we keep telling ourselves. And we have to listen and and allow that that word to do its work on us. And so we have to just kind of be aware of the fact that there's so much noise going on in our minds. And one of the things that I've been aware of over the last few years is that we constantly, and I say we, I constantly have a podcast going. Here we are recording a podcast, but constantly have some kind of noise going. Maybe one of the things that we can do. just on a practical level, is turn off the podcast, turn off the music, drive, take your commute with no noise. That doesn't mean it's always wrong. I mean, that's great. I mean, I hope that this podcast is encouraging to you. But if you don't have any time of silence during the day where you can meditate and think, in fact somebody came up to me after the sermon and said, This really reminds me of Psalm one. about meditating on on the word. And I said, yes, that's a great tie-in, that's a great connection because that's exactly what James is encouraging people to do. Meditate on the truth, meditate on the word and allow it to do its work in you. And and we have to recognize that that that hearing comes first and and then recognize that we are going to have the tendency to say, yes, but I I This is true, what God is telling me is true, and it's true that I need to change, and it's true this transformation needs to happen. But we have to stop ourselves. And there needs to be some sort of a red flag that goes off in our mind every time we start to argue with the truth, because we'll we'll again we'll argue ourselves right out of obedience. We will justify ourselves and we'll make excuses. And so listen, listen, listen, listen, and then when you're tempted. To say something to justify yourself and say, Yeah, but nobody does that, or God wouldn't expect me to do that, or that seems really hard. Stop yourself and say, Okay, well, stop. Why, why am I justifying myself? And maybe even ask questions about the this narrative that we keep falling into. And then also watch your anger, because he says the anger of man does not produce the righteousness of God. When when we start to get angry and we say, I can't believe the preacher said that. I can't believe this teacher said this. I can't believe people actually expect me to do that. I can't believe somebody would suggest that Christians are supposed to do this. Kind of stop and say, Whoa, why am I getting so angry about this? Why am I so defensive in this area? It doesn't necessarily mean that that preacher or that teacher or whomever is right. But why is this stepping on my toes that way? Why am I getting so angry? Why do I feel so defensive about this? And if we start to check those things, check our own voice, check our own stories, and really start to listen to what does the scripture say, and then surrender ourselves to that work. It's not so much a matter of what we're again, what we're doing, it is what we're receiving, and then the doing becomes the product. It becomes the consequence of listening to the word. And then when the word does its work in us, when God through the word does its work in us, when he does his work in us, then we become doers. We become people that look more and more like Jesus because of the work that the Spirit is doing in us, because of the work that Jesus is doing in us, because the work that the Word is doing in us. So it it's not sometimes it's like what what am I supposed to do? Sometimes it's a matter of what am I supposed to stop doing? And in this case, stop speaking, stop getting mad and just listen. And let the word do its work in us, and then the Spirit begins to work on us and and and prune us in some of the areas that need to be cut away and produce that good fruit in us.

speaker-1: So much there to to dive into. But when you're talking about anger this week, you know, I think sometimes when we think about anger we think of it as an outburst or like a a one time event. But I think a lot of what you're speaking to is anger as kind of a disposition or as kind of an outlook or even the overriding narrative, whether we're not careful we can just be angry people. Like how do you think that happens? Like, do you think it's environmental? Do you think it's You know, we have a predisposition psychologically towards that sometimes or or is it a little bit of both or or how do we stop being we're so angry, how do we stop being so angry?

speaker-0: That's a great point. I don't know where it all comes from, but I do know that we live in an outrage culture. We live in a culture that is constantly outraged and and we have all kinds of algorithms, we have all kinds of financial incentives that feed that outrage in all of us. In fact, we can get to the point where we think about ourselves and other people that if you're not mad, you're not paying attention. If you're not mad, you don't care. And we interpret a lack of anger as apathy. And that's a real problem. Like if we live our lives that way, we are constantly looking for things to be angry about. And so when a Bible class teacher or a preacher or a friend shares the gospel with us, shares good news with us, shares scripture with us, like we are looking for again, you use the word predisposed, predisposition to anger when we are constantly outraged and we think. Hey, if you are a good person, you're gonna be mad. You're gonna be mad about what's going on in the world, or you're gonna be mad about what's going on in the church. Then when we're sitting in a Bible class or we're sitting in a sermon and the word is presented to us, like we we're looking for something to be angry about. And either we're gonna be mad at the preacher, like, you're wrong, and let me prove to you that you're wrong, and let me show you all the ways that you're wrong, or we're hoping that the preacher feeds our anger and tells us. Yeah, those people out there, those people that do this and those people that do that, they're so bad. And aren't we mad at them? And you know, God is going to strike them down. Well, either way, whether we're mad at the preacher or we're mad at the people that the preacher is mad at, it's all feeding this anger. And James says the anger of man does not produce the righteousness of God. It it self justifies. When we are pointing our fingers at other people, we we can't see that. As Jesus says, there's a log sti and I love that image. Like we're constantly trying to get the speck out of other people's eyes, and we have this huge beam sticking out of our face. Jesus says, take the beam out of your own eye. And we we don't do that when we're angry. When we're angry, we're we're just accusing. We're accusing the preacher, we're accusing the Bible class teacher. You're you're wrong. I can't believe you said that. Or we're we're mad at the world and we're saying, You people are wrong, and why don't why don't you get your act together? We don't see what's going on in our own life. And so we have to approach the text. We have to approach life with this meekness that says, Show me, Lord, show me where I'm wrong. And show me, show me gently, because I'm fragile and I'm broken. And I but I need to see where my sin needs to be exposed. My as James says, the the wickedness and the filthiness that's in me, expose it so that we can deal with it together. So that it can be changed, so that it can be transformed, so that I can be forgiven, so that I can be rescued. But so many of us were we're protecting those areas that are are vulnerable. We're we're protecting our vulnerabilities, we're protecting our sin, we're protecting our brokenness because it hurts too bad to deal with it. And instead, this defense mechanism. turns on other people and said, Well, you let's deal with your sin, because that doesn't hurt as bad to deal with your sin. It doesn't hurt as bad to talk about all the reasons I'm angry at you. But when you start talking about me, that's when it starts to hurt. And so we develop anger, I think, as a defense mechanism to protect ourselves from dealing with our own our own mess.

speaker-1: Yeah, that idea of, you know, anger as yeah, protective tool and something that is connected to our own agency and protection against vulnerability. He uses one of the more vulnerable metaphors in so many ways in this passage with the idea of being bridled. Like I don't like that metaphor. It's you know, it's completely anti-independence in so many ways. When when you think about his choice of the usage of the word bridled, what what comes to mind for you?

speaker-0: that's a that's interesting thought. Yeah. Yeah. We we do have to bring our our mouth in this case, our mouth into subjection. And we can't just let it vent. Because again, our our mouth becomes like our our weapon. Our weapon that is both a weapon of offense and a weapon of defense. And so often we use this weapon against other people in order to protect ourselves because we're feeling vulnerable, we're feeling insecure, we're feeling fragile. And so we use this the the weapon of our tongue against other people. And he says the tongue has to be bridled. It has to be kept in subjection. You have to holster, holster this weapon because if you don't, you're going to lie to yourself, you're going to deceive yourself and keep the word from doing what it needs to to do. So yeah, that's a really interesting point. I hadn't thought about that about That I that metaphor of being bridled is a metaphor of vulnerability for sure.

speaker-1: And I you know, one of the things I you know, blessing of having young kids is, you know, trying to interpret the sermon, you know, through, you know, maybe words that they wouldn't get or understand or whatever and I try to think of some of those. And bridled was one of those and I was trying to think of like, okay, what is a modern day equivalent of bridled and I'm not sure I have one yet, but I'm still kind of chewing on that of what is our equivalent to giving up that amount of control over something we value so much which is our words but at the same time the way we use them, like you said, doesn't show that we put maybe as much value on our words in the first place as we should.

speaker-0: Well, no, to to that point, I mean, I think that there there's a whole area we could explore here, and I didn't really talk about it a lot in the sermon, that he he calls the the word the law of liberty. And and so that idea of freedom is interesting. Somebody said in Bible class yesterday, because we talked a little bit about freedom in our class, and he said freedom is choosing your restraints. Because we're going to be restrained, we're going to be constrained. There's there are going to be constraints on our life. It's it's a matter of choosing our constra constraints. Like the idea of doing whatever we feel like, that's not really freedom. Doing whatever we feel like. Real freedom is being the person that's the the right person, the person I want to be. You know, like there's a person I want to be, but I can't be that person in my weakness. Like my my own weakness gets in the way, as Paul would put it, my flesh. Gets in the way of me being the person that I want to be. I there's this good that I want to do. We talked about this a week ago. There's this good I want to do, and there's this evil I don't want to do, but I keep doing the evil I don't want to do, and I don't do the good things that I want to do. My own flesh and the sin that dwells within me gets in the way of me being the person that God wants me to be, and even the person that I want to be. Real freedom is. comes from looking into this law of liberty, this instruction, this training that that the scriptures give us, this implanted word, and changes us and transforms us. Yes, constrains us, but it constrains the sin. It constrains the flesh. It constrains the weakness so that I can be the person that I want to be. It's the same way with like training. Like when somebody is training to be a top athlete Yes, of course there has to be constraints, but they constrain the weak part of themselves so that their strengths that they're trying to hone can be the very best that they can be. We all have areas of our life like that where we know our own weaknesses are getting in the way and we want those things to be constrained. In this case, it's our mouth that gets in the way and we need to constrain our our language so that we don't lie to ourselves and get in the way of our own growth.

speaker-1: Use the word hone there. I really like that word. There's no honing that could possibly happen without intentionality and you know to be able to even recognize strength versus weakness. And you know, maybe that's a sign of spiritual maturity as well as how quick we're able to recognize, hey, this is a thing of the flesh or this is a thing of the spirit. And you know, we'll get into you know, you've already hinted at a little bit, the two different pictures of wisdom that James provides. And, you know, we We might initially think that, yeah, I can recognize the two, but it can be pretty easy to fall into the the type of strengths or the type of wisdom that the world places value on versus the counter narrative that that we're called to to live into. So if you had somebody who were to come up to you and and really say, hey, you know, put I'm really trying to to change my own narratives. I'm really trying to think differently about who God wants me to be besides being in the Word, which is unbelievably important. What are some other tips that you might give them for narrative formation?

speaker-0: Yeah. I think I think surrounding yourself with people that are living according to that story. Like b other people, other characters that are in the story. Like surrounding ourselves with people that we can look to and see that being lived out. Like we we have to have tangible Real world examples of what faith in action looks like, what love looks like, what wisdom looks like. It can't just be theoretical. It has to be tangible. It has to be lived out. And obviously, we have the person of Jesus. Like it's not just words on a page that we're following. We are following the word who became flesh. But also that that person of of Jesus the Messiah, he now lives in us through the spirit. And we have not only the words on the page to look at, but we have one another to look at. And so we can surround ourselves with wise people. We can surround ourselves with truly religious people. James says this is what religion looks like. This is what pure and undefiled religion looks like. It looks like to visit the widows and the orphans and their affliction and to keep oneself unstained from the world. Like I need to surround myself not with people of worthless religion who are just. all talk and no action, not doers of the word. I need to surround myself with doers. I need to surround myself with people who are actually living this out, who are visiting the widows and the orphans and their affliction and who are keeping themselves unstained from the world. Because when I surround myself with people that are living a different story, then it's really easy for me to justify my own bad behavior to say, well he does it and that's the way he lives. And he's a Christian. You know this person's a Christian This person goes to church, this person says their prayers, and they still do this, they still do that, they still look at porn, they still go to parties, they still, you know, do all of these things. They're not visiting widows, they're not taking care of orphans, nobody does this kind of stuff. But then when I surround myself with people that they're really living this way, they're really living the the radical counter cultural way of Jesus out in their life, then I can't tell myself nobody does this. I can't tell myself everybody's living this kind of life. I can't lie to myself like that because I've seen it in the flesh lived out in my friends. And so surround yourself with people that are truly religious, religious in the sense that that James uses that word, people that are living the way of Christ. And and then you can see what the story looks like when it's being lived out in your life, right around you, people that you can talk to and ask questions of. And so yes, of course Pray and read your Bible, but surround yourself with people that are living this story.

speaker-1: Yeah, so in our our hyper communicative world and, you know, all the noise and, you know, finding those people, I think one thing that you do a good job talking about is also not viewing everybody's feedback as being on the same plane or everybody's, you know, like choosing those people who are doing those things and elevating their words to a higher place, not 'cause they're, you know, perfect or anything like that, but just 'cause what you see on Instagram or you know, something else or you know, somebody who has actual relationship with God and with you has an ability to speak into your life in such a powerful way for sure. One last kind of thing before we look in into next week. you know, when we think about our own days, when we think about our own weeks, you know, one of the things that that you said was in your citing that study was like eighty percent of our thoughts maybe are fake or eighty percent are lies or whatever and immediately when you when you see the word eighty, at least if at least for me, you come back to the eighty twenty thing. Like that that tends to be always put together eighty percent of this with twenty percent of this. When we think about, you know, some ideas about flipping the percentage, when we think about some ideas about you know, reorganizing our lives. You've already mentioned silence, we've already mentioned being in the word, we've already mentioned being around people. But as a family, as we all live in our own communities and our communities have outside influence on us, what are some things as families you think we can do to hopefully reduce the noise and to create a more spiritual feedback loop, if you will?

speaker-0: Mm, that's really good. Yeah. I I think I think part of what we can do is we can analyze the the competing narratives and even even the complementary narratives. Everywhere we turn and entertainment is such a big part of our world and such a big part of our lives. You and I, we we talk about T V shows and movies all the time. And my family, we love movies. We love entertainment. And one of the things that we've always done since my boys were little is we'll talk about the story. Like what What sort of story are they telling? Like what was their point? Not just did I enjoy the spectacle of it, but what was the story? Like what were they what were they trying to move us to do? What were they trying to move us to feel? Wha how were they trying to shape us to think? And those are really good things to think about because again, we we have to analyze the stories that that they are telling us because the stories that Hollywood is telling us eventually become our stories. And I again I I hate to pick on Hollywood, but this idea of following our heart and doing you do you, I mean, these are the stories that Hollywood has been telling us for years. Like you be your own individual, unique self and whatever your happiness is, go live that out in spite of what your family says, in spite of what your parents say. There's so many Disney movies. That are all about breaking free of the constraints of your family and just go doing what you want to do and follow your own heart and eventually you'll live happily ever after. Well, I think even from a very young age, we can begin to challenge those narratives, to say, is that true? And why do you think they want us to to think that way? And and is that the way God wants us to think? And we can, as a family, think through and process those narratives. And we can say, Well, here's where it is true. And Are there families that try to keep their kids back and keep them from doing the right thing and the good thing? And you know, and and what should we do in situations like that? But you know, is it always right to go follow our own heart and do whatever it is that we feel like? Is that really gonna live lead to a life that lives happily ever after? And beginning to challenge those narratives, not just in movies, not just in shows, but even in music. Like sometimes we forget that it's not just about the rhythm, it's not just about the beat, it's not just about the music. Like there's a story being told. And sometimes they are subconsciously being adopted into our own heart and into our own life. And they become the narrative by which we're living rather than the gospel. And so we both individually, and again, I'm glad you brought this up as families. I think it's important for us to analyze those things. It doesn't mean that we isolate ourselves and we we don't watch any movies, we don't watch any television shows, we don't listen to any music, but it means we We contemplate, we ask questions, we analyze, we push back and challenge the stories that are being told to us and say, where is this true? Where is this right? And where is this false? And where could this lead to pain and suffering and hurt and you know, to be away from God if I really adopted this and and what should I do based on this truth that I'm realizing about this this story that the world is telling me or that again, I'm even telling myself?

speaker-1: And I think that's so important and something that I know I've taken as an assumption too many times with my own family. I remember one time I can't believe I'm gonna talk about this movie on a podcast that I hope has some depth, but my boys were watching Alvin and the Chipmunks, which I think is just a a lousy movie all the way around. But we had paused it a little bit earlier, we got in the car, and my oldest said, Man, wasn't it great that that rich guy adopted those chipmunks and they got to have everything they wanted? And it was like You know, we didn't finish the movie, but even then it's like I would have automatically assumed that that wasn't the part of the movie that they were keying in on, right? And it's just kinda like especially as our kids are growing up, we just make a lot of assumptions about maybe they're watching this the same way I am, maybe they're not, you know, maybe they're just taking in a stronger message than than maybe w they should be for sure. next week, you're you're diving in some more in into James. Tell us where you're going next week.

speaker-0: Yeah. So next week we'll be in James chapter two and we're we're really gonna talk about this idea of faith. And again, I don't think spoiler alert, I don't think that James is arguing with Paul or that Paul is arguing with James. I think they're on the same page. We are saved by grace through faith. And what does faith look like? Well, faith is obedient, like faith faith works. And and that's not to say that we're we're trying to save ourselves, we're trying to achieve or earn salvation. It just means that Real loyalty is embodied in real life. Like we are, we are doing what Jesus calls us to do. We're living the life that He calls us to live. And yes, of course, we all fall short of that. We all sin. We all have this tendency to be perfectionists. And that's not what James is talking about. He's not saying you have to be perfect in order to be saved. Those two things that doesn't even make sense because salvation implies you need saving, you need rescuing, you you need to be forgiven. We wouldn't need to be forgiven or saved or rescued if we were perfect. We we wouldn't even need it. We only need to be rescued because we're not. And we continue to be imperfect. But we do have to be faithful. We do have to live the life that we're being called to live. And stop, again, as we said this week, stop arguing ourselves out of obedience and just strive every day to do what we're being called to do and be who we're called to be because of what he's done. It's a response to his grace.

speaker-1: I think that's great and a response to his grace is is a good thing for us to be thinking about throughout this entire series. So thank you so much for that. If you're in the DFW area, we'd love for you to visit the Church of Christ on McDermott Road, but more importantly, we want you to find a church in in your community that you can be a part of. So thank you so much for listening to the PS podcast.

speaker-0: Thanks so much for listening to PS, the post sermon podcast. To find out more about this podcast or about the Church of Christ on McDermott Road, you can visit our website at ccmot.org slash PS. If this has been an encouragement to you, we also hope you will rate and review the show wherever you're listening, as well as share it with a friend, because we believe sermons are not just for Sunday, but for our whole week and our whole life.