Leftovers - Ask Me Anything (Part 2)

Hey everybody, we're excited to share another Ask Me Anything

episode with you all this week. Thank you so much for everyone

who submitted questions and those of you who are listening

to the show week to week. We so appreciate you listening

to the Leftovers podcast. Wanted to let you know this

week, especially for those of you with little listeners, kids

that listen to the show, we get into some topics that I think

are, are really important are things we should talk about with

our kids and, and teach them as Christian parents in Christian

in households. But for those of you with

listeners, especially under like the age of 10, you may not be

ready to jump into some of these things with them just yet.

So I'd encourage you to listen to the show first before you

share it with your kids and, and then go from there.

And hopefully we inform and teach and help you with some

conversations and some topics related to this.

So why don't we give you a heads up.

Love y'all enjoy the show. Happy Monday.

This is the ERC Leftovers podcast.

We got a lot, a lot leftover. We got a lot of questions

leftover. So many Pastor Chris.

Is here. Kristen's here.

I'm Pastor Matt. Thanks for tuning in.

Listening with us. We're here, but we're not here.

We're on. We're in sunny Jacksonville, FL.

I hope it's sunny. I hope so, it'd be nice.

Not that we're going to have a whole lot of beach time, but

we're going to the Church Leaders Summit in Jacksonville,

FL Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday this week.

So prerecorded Ask Me Anything episode today for your listening

pleasure. You know what?

Anytime somebody says that word, I can't help but think of

Chick-fil-A. My pleasure.

My pleasure. Honestly, like, and I wonder how

many, how much effort it takes for the managers of that place

to be like, Oh no, you don't say you're welcome.

You, you don't bust that out. You save my pleasure.

I mean, I think that's like a fireable offense pretty pretty

instantly, right it? Would seem to be.

Oh yeah. That sounds like free.

Food. Now there is there is a song

somewhere on YouTube that's based on that phrase and it's

epic. You came back to this.

Yeah, I'm sorry, I can't help it.

No, my pleasure. I'm sorry you before we started

recording you could not get what can I say except you're welcome.

Oh yeah, but. You've moved on to.

I've now moved on to YEAH and it's different.

There's a my pleasure. There is, you can find it on

YouTube and I highly recommend it because the Chick-fil-A My

Pleasure song is hilarious and there's a great video that goes

with it and it's fun for the whole family.

As far as I as far as I remember, it's fun for the whole

family. All right, we might want to vet

that before we just. Yeah.

OK. Link in the show notes.

I wouldn't link it in the show notes, but if you've got the

Matt, if you, if you, if you've got the time to give to go look

this thing up, I think you'll be happily, happily surprised at

the comedic effect it has. OK, And this is this is like a

spoof parody song that someone made, OK, promoting Chick-fil-A.

Well, now I have to find it. Real quick and I'm not going.

To play it, you can keep talking, but I just need to make

sure that it is in fact actually there and I didn't make that up

in my brain. And this is the moment of the

podcast that Kristen knew she just had made a huge mistake.

Glad I brought a Mountain Dew. Oh, my goodness.

Well, all right, there it is. OK.

It's real. There.

It is. It is real.

It's called in parentheses Chick-fil-A rap, but you just

type in on YouTube, my pleasure, Chick-fil-A, and it is like the

first video that shows up. It's awesome.

It is this guy going through the restaurant and he's like

rapping. And I just, you know what?

Chick-fil-A, it's got to be clean family.

Fun it is. It is because that's actually

filmed inside of a Chick-fil-A with a real Chick-fil-A

employee. So therefore it is good, clean

family hilarity and fun. And I promise you, it'll be like

maybe the best 2 minutes of your day all.

Right. So we're going to have to fully

vet that like later after this. But for now, Pastor Chris.

I'm definitely watching it now it's happening.

Putting it all out there. Anyway, sorry.

I'm like, all right, Yep, random, random start.

We're in fine form. We're in we're in regular

standard form for the Leftovers podcast.

So far, great, great. We have we have some funny ask

me anything questions. We have some deeper theological

ask me anything questions today. And we're going to keep it to a

tight hour, I think. So let's just let's dive right

into it. Kristen, are we starting with

fun? Yeah, fun.

So, Speaking of food, if you were a food, which one would you

be and why? Oh.

My goodness A. Food.

So figured out which Princess I am.

Now I need to figure out which food I am.

OK, before we answer the food question, it's funny that we get

to record this. Having released the first one, I

was pretty impressed with some of the rationale and reasoning

that some people had in guessing which Princess it like.

It made me feel bad about how I answered.

I should have more accurately answered either like Tiana or

Ariel apparently. Jokes on you, all my knowledge

of Disney princesses and their deep seated characteristics

isn't that great. So somebody said something about

Cinderella for me, which I was like, oh, the shoe, because it's

the shoe. The whole the whole thing is

about the, the, the shoe. And I was like, yeah, actually

that you make a fantastic point, but I'm not friends with any

like rodents and nor. Would I want to be, which is

probably a good thing. Another redeeming quality that

you have and not not close friends with rodents.

Not the dancing and singing, it would be the.

Rodents. I mean, if there was a mouse

that was dancing and singing, I would probably want to be

friends. With it like Stuart Little.

I mean, yeah, sure, why not? Glasses.

Yeah. And glasses.

Yeah. Absolutely.

Why not? All right.

So the question is, if we were to be a food, what food would we

be? But you got to have a.

Why? Oh.

Man, OK, so this this question is really weird.

I feel like because we enjoy food for eating it, Yeah, I

don't think it's a good thing to be a food, right?

I think you're thinking too hard.

There's no desirable quality in being a food.

No, I can't I. Yeah, I'm thinking too hard.

I always think too hard, but I don't have an immediate answer.

Do you have? I don't have an immediate.

Answer All right, Kristen, do you have an?

Immediate. Absolutely.

Wow. OK, so I'm thinking more like

the princesses, OK. What food are you?

Yeah, yeah. So like why?

Like the why part? So I would be the hot brownie

with the like sundae on top. Because it's sweet and salty and

it has all the things. And a little melty.

And it's a little and kind of obnoxious, but like you don't

mind. And then halfway through you're

like, I think this was a mistake.

And then you're like, no, maybe not.

And it's. So specific halfway through

you're like, this is a. Yeah, I'm thinking about.

That's you. Yep.

But but then the next time you order it again, you're like,

Yep. All right, your answer gave me

no clarity. What all right on how to answer

this question? I don't.

Feel any better about that? I'm.

I'm good with that. I'm glad that on some, like,

personal philosophical level, you connect with the hot, gooey

brownie sundae. Yeah.

All right. OK.

OK. I feel like you'd be savory.

How about that? I would be savory, yeah.

So. Yeah.

OK. I, I, I think I agree.

I think I would be some sort of salty sweet thing.

I really like, especially at Christmas time, the little

Eileen's white chocolate Christmas pretzels that have

like the red and green sprinkles on them.

Oh yeah, those are red. They're covered in white

chocolate and have it's like those are one of my favorite

things. But I think it also makes sense

for me because I'm not I'm not an openly emotional person

really. Like I kind of just stoicism is

just kind of my thing. But I can be sweet.

Most of the time though, like the thoughts are salty, like

even they don't always come out. But like most of the time the

internal monologue, like there's a salty, salty thought that I

then need to like filter and say in a way that allows me to

interact with people normally. So does that make sense?

Yeah, OK. So I don't know if that's the

best salty sweet answer. That's one of my favorite salty

sweet things, I guess. Yeah.

Like chocolate covered, chocolate covered caramel, the

little sea salt on it, something like that.

I think that's where I'm at. Like a salty sweet thing.

OK. Yeah, I, I think, OK, so as I've

thought about this, I need to think, and maybe you can help me

out. I need to think of a food that

is like super easily accessible. Like I, I do feel that way.

I feel like people can call me, ring me up any moment of any day

and like, I'm, I'm going to be there, right?

Like so very accessible, maybe a little, maybe a little too

sugary sometimes. Sugary.

Yeah, like I'm going to get you a little bit.

Like I'm too hyped up. Like too much, too much of the

sugar. You are nerds.

Clusters. Yeah, actually, you know, you

know what? Let's roll with that, because

that feels good, right? Now, because I feel like they're

just poppable, like you don't. They're that instant sugar like

that. That's a sugar explosion.

Yeah, in in your mouth. Yeah, it's going to be quick.

Like I'm, I'm just going to be right there with the, you know,

typically energy like too much sometimes.

They don't have the messiness of just like regular nerds, they're

actually like a accessible little.

Yeah, yeah. Thing I like that.

That's good. Thanks for helping me.

We're all we're all some form of sweets though.

Like it's true. None of us are hearty,

sustenative. Chili.

Chili. Everybody's chili.

Yeah. Oh, I thought that's alright.

I thought you were jumping. I thought you were changing to

chili. No, no, like, no, I'm chili

like. I don't get to be like chicken

noodle soup, like, oh, look, I'm going to comfort you, man, man.

Like I'm not not not necessarily that like.

So I like this that we landed on the foods that describe you now,

if you had to be a food, like for the purpose of food, because

I think we talked about, we saw, we saw this question last week

and we just, we hadn't gotten to it.

And I think part of your answer was, I want to be, I want to be

something that's not going to get eaten because I want to be a

food. I want to be a food that no

one's going to want to eat. So from from that perspective of

like, do you want to be a food that other people want to eat or

do you want to be a food that people avoid?

Is there is there something that comes to mind?

I mean, if, if you were a food for food's sake, would you want

to be something that's a favorite of people and you would

get eaten or something that people just actively scorned?

I think I'd like to be a food that sits in a can on yourself

for like 6 years and then you finally look at it and you're

like, you know what the expiration date was like 3 years

ago. But it's fine.

There's enough preservatives. So like pumpkin pie filling?

Yeah, absolutely. Let me, let me be, pumpkin.

Pie or or black beans. Yeah.

Oh, black. There you go.

A little little protein, you know, little, little fiber help

you keep. One of those salty thoughts

inside just now. We really need to get video for

this. No, no.

I need to hide. You know what, we can get video

because today I'm showing off my super cool new embroidered ERC

sweater. You did.

You did get some of your. I just love.

Quarter zips Custom embroidered I.

Love like selling out for ERC like I wear this stuff

everywhere. I love it you.

Got to get some custom shoes. Oh.

My gosh is you think that's a thing?

Absolutely. It's a thing.

I'm definitely getting shoes. ERC Shoes.

ERC stuff on it that's happening.

Oh yeah. Oh my.

Matt, you just pointed me my next maybe financially

irresponsible decision. Agree.

You just pointed me towards it. So thank you.

You're welcome for that. Yep.

Anytime. Can't wait.

Very good. All right, something a little

more serious now, I guess. Where, where are we going on the

theological side of things here, Kristen?

Yeah, we're going to get. Real.

Oh man, We're going right forward, yeah.

All right, it's not. Yeah.

From food to yeah. OK, Is sex before marriage a

salvation issue? Whoa.

You don't say. Yeah.

Whoa. All right, let that one breathe

for a second. Initial reaction, Well, OK, I

think we need to define salvation issue as as an

integral part of this question because I would say yes, in the

sense that sin is a salvation issue, right?

I don't think that probably doesn't sound crazy.

I don't think it's a radical stance, probably.

But I think to to lay that out as a fact, like every sin put

Jesus on the cross, right? So therefore.

There is a salvation issue and then to follow that up, yes, sex

before marriage is a sin also. That is correct.

All right, thank you for that affirmation.

So by that just even two line logic there, if sin is a

salvation issue and sex before marriage is a sin, then

therefore sex before marriage is a salvation issue.

Now is it more of a salvation issue than someone married

wrapped up in a porn addiction? Someone just in a habitual sin

habit, married or not? I mean any sin habit is a

salvation issue. How about we talk, you know, you

can spur that on towards like, I think the sin that most

Americans are probably a part of and never recognize, which is

greed. That's a big one that we don't

even notice because, well, I'm just keeping up with the Joneses

or whatever. No, that's.

Greed, I think, I think sloth we we often just kind of shrug off.

In a slothful way, we shrug it off.

Like see, you're right, we we need video.

You're right, for your terrible sloth impression, we need.

Video Kristen no doubt has a better one.

I'm sure she does. Oh my goodness.

So if yeah, if I'm understanding the heart of this question, it's

this scene in particular is interesting because you can keep

doing that same action, obviously having sex, having

intercourse. Sorry parents, we didn't give

you like a heads up on this. We we should maybe throw that in

there. That's what that's what post

edits are for. Anyway, this thing is

interesting because sex before marriage, you know what the fix

for that is? Getting married, right?

Like, OK, instantly you can take part in part in the same exact

action, but be married and biblically it's fine, right?

You can't like be greedy or or be wrapped up serve 2 masters

thing. You can't be so wholly focused

on money that it's so much more than God.

You can't like come into a billion dollars and then I'll

Oh, OK, I don't love money anymore.

Like my, my money problem is gone, right?

There's there's I can't really think of another sin that is

that readily just. OK, you can keep doing the same

action, but now it's allowable under in God's perspective.

Wow, interesting, right. Yeah, There's not like you can't

you can't be a pathological liar.

And then all of a sudden there's a context in which under God,

that's fine, right? Yeah.

No, you're spot on. So in but that also is to say

it's not I don't think any more significant of a sin than these

other things that we've listed lion greed, sloth, pornography,

adultery. It's it's there should it be

addressed? Yes, and you know what, it's

pretty easy to do. Like even you don't need to have

a big ceremony or like we don't have formal biblical constructs

of what makes up marriage, which I think is interesting.

The Bible just kind of defaults to it's one of those things that

whatever the civic laws, the government, the earthly

governmental rulers set out to define marriage, there is this

interaction that yes, we do it. We do it under God and we do it

in the in the way acknowledging that it's a gift that God set up

for man and woman to come together and and cleave leave

their family and cleave to each other and and be a new family

and be 1 flesh. But there's also like the civic

aspect of it too. You you formally acknowledge

that you are legally now that entity together, right?

So you can just literally, you can go down to the courthouse

and just legally get married and this isn't any longer a

salvation issue, right as a sin. Yeah, I, you know, one of the,

one of the things that I think needs to be brought out on this

topic is, yeah, the why of it. OK, So if you think about

intimate relationship in the context of physical intimacy,

OK, so I want to share physical intimacy with this other person.

Yeah, I'm unwilling to share financial intimacy with them.

I'm unwilling to unwilling to share total social intimacy with

them. I'm unwilling to share name your

intimacy that comes with like a really good relationship.

And so God would look at that and say, so wait, you're you,

you want this one part, but not the whole thing?

Do we not do that with God too? Like, oh, I want God's

blessings. I want him to listen to me when

I'm in trouble, but I don't really want his law more.

On my terms. Yeah, I want it on my terms.

And so like physical intimacy alone is that it is not God

honoring because it's I want something on my terms and that

is 100% completely selfish. That is, that is me looking at

somebody else and saying, hey, I want this one aspect of your

existence. But you can leave the rest out.

I don't, I don't really want to love you.

I just want to use you. And so I think in a lot of ways

when we when we kind of parse out like, OK, I want to be your

friend because you can introduce me to the right people or I want

to be with you in a relationship because you will have sex with

me. But I don't really want the

rest. I don't want your family.

I don't want your finance, you know, And so I mean it.

It definitely becomes an issue of selfishness, of pride, of

ego, of all these kinds of things.

And none of those are honoring to God.

Yeah, yeah, I think that's. I think it's tough and it's an

awkward, sticky thing on the surface.

Even just if you if you just stop the question at is sex

before marriage a sin? Yeah, it is.

And even if even if that action between those two people becomes

a, even if they get married and and that's and it's still just

those two, like no, that time before they were married, that

was still sinful habit, right? That was still sinful practice

in in God's eyes. Is there repentance and grace

for that just like any of these other addictions or any of these

other sin habits? Yeah, I don't.

And I don't say that to minimize.

It's still I wouldn't say you should do it like yes, if you're

if you're engaging in sex before marriage, don't even if you

intend to marry this person, either get married or abstain

till you get married would would be the biblical worldview on

that so. The other thing I think about

this that's kind of interesting is that like if you go down the

path of, well, I plan to get married and I know God Forgives

sins as I, you know, confess them and repent.

So therefore, when I am married, I will look backwards and then

go, all right, Lord, you know, I know I was wrong, you know, I

was wrong, but here I am now making this right.

The the problem with that point of view, there's a couple of

them, but I'll just name one. The problem with that is it's,

it's cheap grace. It's it's looking at God and

saying, yeah, I know eventually you'll, you'll forgive.

Me, I know this is bad but it's covered so I'm I'm good.

Right, That's that's what we call cheap grace.

And that's just not helpful because here's the thing, like

if I'm looking at God in that through that lens, what I'm

doing essentially is saying that you're going to work with me on

my timeline with what I want to do, when I want to do it, how I

want to do it. And so is that really loving and

honoring God? If I did that to my spouse, for

example, like think of anything I, I, I could potentially do to

them. I could say, well, I'm not going

to help with the dishes or cleaning the house ever because

she'll just do it. And she'll forgive my sloth and

my laziness because she loves me.

So it's fine. No, I should, even if I don't

want to do those things, I should be actively pursuing

doing those things because I love her, because I want to

honor her. And I don't have to like it, but

I, but if I love her, I'm, I'm going to be willing to do those

things. So therefore, if I truly am

seeking God for who he is, not just to check a box and say,

well, I followed your rules for this amount of time.

No, like nobody is righteous through the law.

Nobody is. No, my, my call as a Christian

is to love God for who he is and honor him to the very, very best

of my abilities. And so if I, if I look at him

and I say, well, he'll, he'll forgive me for that later.

It's fine, I don't love him, I'm just trying to check a box.

And that should make you question what your relationship

with God even is. Yeah, so, and I don't want to, I

don't want this at all. We've maybe spent enough time on

this. But I think it's an interesting

thing because it's something that permeates many

relationships. I I societally, I think the kind

of wanted to like test drive the car before you buy it sort of

thing like that that prevail even even in the sense of like

living together can how can you even think about marrying this

person? You've never you've never even

lived with them. Like you don't know the things

that's still very new in the arc of society, like past 200,

probably even probably like 100 and 4000 and 50 years.

Are we in this even dating society that things were pre

arranged and or, or even requiring the blessing of of

both parents where you didn't you didn't have this just kind

of social free for all of of dating and living together.

So like even those ideas are relatively new on the course of

history. There were I mean arranged

marriages and things. That's that's not something that

happens. It's one day, one day you're

strangers, the next day your parents are like, Hey, you 2 are

getting married and then the next day you're married and

you're living together. And that's just how it goes.

So I think there's this prevailing sentiment in society

that no, you should know that you should know these things.

You should, you should know this person physically, You should

know this how you're going to be able to live with this person.

And that takes a little bit of the the faith God element out of

marriage to I think to you should enter in to marriage with

some things unknown only in the regard that you're learning to

love that person each and every day in this relationship that

Emily and I are married for 13 years.

She is not the same person that I married.

And some of that is frustrating. Some of that is good.

So and, and, and I've had to learn how to love her in those

changes that the changes that I like and the changes that I am

less fond of. Like I've I've had to do that.

And I think that kind of, I don't know, having to answer and

check all those boxes before you're married, I think kind of

saps some of the reliance on God.

Well, and think about it this way.

So you you use that phrase test drive.

OK, so let's say somebody looks at me.

Let's say I'm single and somebody looks at me and says,

OK, well, we'll talk about getting married, but first we

need to live together. So even take sex out of the

equation first I want to like live with you because I need to

kind of test you out. So in other words, what's

happening here is you are saying that I will not love you

unconditionally. You are on a performance review.

Now here's The funny thing about that kind of thought process is

as soon as I know I'm no longer on the performance review, now

you're going to get the real me. But prior to that moment,

there's a good chance you're not getting the real me.

And the same, the same thing can be said for intimacy as well.

So if you know the thought process is well, we need to make

sure that we are physically compatible in that way.

So wait a minute, you're saying that if this person does not

perform the way you want, how you want, when you want the, you

know, whatever, all of a sudden they failed that performance

review and so they're no longer worthy of your love.

That's not love. That is lust.

That is, that is something other than love.

But it's certainly not that because love is sacrificial by

nature. You know, you love somebody or

something or when you are willing to give up your rights

in some ways, when you are willing to let go of your the

options that maybe you had right?

Because how does how would Jesus define love through his actions?

His actions define love as such of I'm willing to give up myself

for you. So therefore, if we are testing

things out, you know, whether it's living together, whether

it's sex, whether it's whatever, that person, I'm sorry.

And I'm just going to say they don't love you, they're testing

you. That's not love.

Yeah, and I don't I got off in a societal sidetrack there of of

where I was saying I don't want this to come out holier than

thou or even compared to no braggadocious at all.

But I mean, that's that's one of my favorite things about Emily

and my's relationship. We only ever dated each other.

I've never even kissed another girl.

We did not have sex before we got married and I I love that.

I'm not saying that you have failed relationally if like

there's many of you that are way past that point.

And also like those of you that are younger than me that that

aren't married yet, you may have already crossed some of those

lines. And like, there's no, there's no

going back to that. I'm not saying you've, you've

failed or that we're better at relationships with you.

But for those of you that are still young, maybe aren't even

considering dating yet or or just are old enough to get

married, but just haven't hold on to that.

Like you don't need to rush into all of this.

There's there's time to cherish and plan and be intentional,

intentional. Well, that was a hard word about

this person that God has in mind for you in union, in marriage in

the perfect way that he orchestrated this relationship.

So. And I would say that, of course,

you know, the Bible would promote the fact that, like,

physical intimacy is an incredibly important part of

that committed relationship. You cannot downplay that.

It's so important, however, you know, to put that up front and

say, well, we have to try this out first is to put it at a

level of importance that it does not belong.

Because quite frankly, Lord willing, we will.

You know, a couple will be together so long that physical

intimacy, even if it started out as like a core part of like us

meeting together, like emotionally and physically, at

some point, if you stayed together long enough, that's not

going to be the case anymore. Like, you know, and I, and I can

say this without saying too much, like my wife and I are

different in our mid 40s than we were in our 20s.

And we're that like the main or key component that either of us

were looking for, you know, and that's why we decided like

that's not something that can be sustained over that period of

time. And God says that marriage is

for this lifetime. And so therefore, like we cannot

base the whole thing on like, hey, are we compatible this way?

And we certainly shouldn't be quote UN quote testing each

other out, because that's not love.

Yeah, so a lot more scriptural backing for that too.

First Corinthians 6 and 7 is where much of this is rooted sex

being intended for the covenant of marriage and and even that

it's better to marry than burn with passion kind of that.

Well, if you're, if this is a struggle for just get married,

just get married and you're fine.

And that's no longer the same issue.

So Yep. All right, that was a big one.

That was a long discussion, but I think relevant.

So, all right, how can one discern your own thoughts and

ideas from those placed in you by the Holy Spirit?

Let's kick it off with a Bible verse to warm us up to this

question. Isaiah 5589 says, For my

thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are my ways, nor are my ways

one more try, nor are your ways my ways, says the Lord.

For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways

higher than yours, and my thoughts than your thoughts.

OK, so we actually kind of touched on this, but I'll, I'll

rehash a little bit like, so if I'm not sure, like is this the

Lord speaking to me? Is that like the prompting of

the Holy Spirit to make this decision or say this or don't

say that again? Like what's a good filter for

that? Like fruits of the Spirit from

Galatians 6. Awesome filter.

If if it is not promoting peace and joy and love and kindness

and patience and you know, so on and so forth, if it's not going

to do any of those things, then that's probably not God

prompting you. Like I could be angry.

And if I'm like, huh, I should punch that guy in the face.

Is that a God honoring answer to to what?

Whatever The thing is happening? Kristen is shaking her head.

No, that is correct. I should not do that.

That is not God honoring. That's not the spirit telling me

to do that. Now that's a kind of a

ridiculous example. There are certainly more subtle

ones that we could probably touch on.

So, and to get into the subtlety of it, I think again, part of

the intention of this question, what about what about a

decision, say should I take this job or not?

Because that question, you're not going to find the answer to

that question in the Bible, right?

And there's, there's plenty of specific scenarios to our lives

that the Bible even you're not going to get a direct answer

from God, even sometimes as much as you pray about it sometimes,

sometimes as much as you study scripture or listen for it.

There are seemingly some things that we just don't get a clear

response from God on right now. I'm not talking crazy, right?

In those instances, if it's not blatantly violating his word,

his will, I think we land on freedom in that now it might

wind up being a bad thing. It might, it might wind up being

a sort of like trial by fire sort of scenario where, yeah,

God gave us the free will, gave you the free will to make this

decision. And oh, it was a mistake.

And you'll learn some lessons from it.

And but, but again, in in that what you intended for evil was

working for good or God works all things together for the good

of those who love him. That doesn't mean you're not

going to experience mistakes and hardship and hurt in that.

But it doesn't, I don't think, also always mean that those

mistakes and hardship are punishment for disobeying God,

for not following his will. I think there's freedom in all

of that as we experience it. And he does use trials and

tribulations for, I mean for the, the testing and

perseverance of your faith, right?

Like for the refiners, fire sort of thing.

So as it relates to your own thoughts and ideas as those

placed in you by the Holy Spirit, is it in alignment with

God's Word? If it is, good.

If it's not, probably don't do that.

If it's not covered in God's Word, I think there's freedom

for that to, to, to make the decision one way or the other,

and you're just going to kind of have to wait to see how it plays

out. You know what God is not?

He is not a micromanager. No, you know, so ask another

question. Should I marry this person?

You know what is I I might, I might hurt some of you romantic

people out there, but I am not the kind of person who's like,

Oh well, man, I found my one soul mate.

Yes, out of the 7 billion people, I found the one.

You know what? Related to that last, I agree

with you. Related to that, to that last

question, there's not one person for you.

There's. Right.

There's a lot of people that like, I think you know, you, you

could be in a very loving, God honoring relationship with Now,

ultimately God tells you you need to choose one and.

You love them for the rest. Of your life and you and you

love them. But the the point is, yeah,

God's not a micromanager. And so like, take even another

lens that you could view this question through.

Is it is it me or is it the Holy Spirit?

Which one is it? OK, well, more simple lens than

even the fruits of the Spirit, which is a longer list.

Jesus's two laws that are most important.

Does what I am thinking about doing, does that honor God and

or does it love my neighbor? Well, so if, if, if even I can

use that very simple kind of lens to look at any thought or

decision through, I'm going to make better, more godly

decisions. Love God, love people.

If it violates, one of those things might be, yeah, something

to pause about. And I mean, like, you know,

James reminds us that, you know, those who ask God for wisdom,

he's going to give it to them. And it's not a maybe it's no

you, you pray about that thing. There are very few decisions

that we have to make this second.

There aren't that many, to be honest.

And so like, if you can just take 1015 minutes or a day, you

know that a lot of financial experts will tell you sleep on

it before any purchase of this amount of money.

Yeah, like, stop and pray like the God who is the God of

wisdom, who created the entire universe.

Like he is going to give you what you need as you earnestly

seek his will. Now if I go to God in my heart,

I'm I've already made my decision.

I don't think that's terribly God honoring and the Bible would

speak directly against that. You're double minded.

Why would you expect to get anything from him right?

So, you know, to that extent, like going with an open heart

and open ears and ask, just ask. Yeah.

All right. I think we got it.

We answered the question, Kristen.

Sounds amazing. Did you want to jump in?

No, OK, no, no. You're welcome.

You might get to jump in on this next one.

Though oh goodness. All right, so a little lighter.

What are some faith-based routines that you and your

family do together that you feel make the biggest impact on their

growth and development of a relationship with Jesus?

OK, being in the throes of young minds right now, I'll I have I

have some ideas. I have some things that we do.

Levi Lusko, you maybe hear him. He was the host for Greg

Laurie's. Why can't I think of his revival

nights? Darn it, I.

Know what you're talking? About yeah, Pastor Greg Laurie.

Anyway, Levi was like kind of the intro pastor for a lot of

these revival nights across the nation with Greg Laurie.

He has a couple devotional series. 1 is called Roar Like a

Lion. There's another one about

marveling in God's creation. And we just we go around

breakfast. Three of our kids can read.

The other two are still working on it, but they just, they take

turns. It's like it's like 2 pages.

It starts with either a Bible verse or a short passage and

just kind of gives a realistic scenario for a kids day in which

that relates to it. And then there's a, there's a

fun, did you know sort of sort of thing about about God's

creation, just like a random fact about whatever, how many

plankton a blue whale eats or something like that.

And, and then there's like a prayer prompt at the, at the end

of it takes even, even even our seven-year old takes them like 3

minutes to read. It's, it's not, it's not long,

but it is a good kind of like singular solo thought settling

thought for the day. We do that during breakfast so

that whatever happens the rest of the day throughout the day,

like we, we started there together.

I'll, I'll link a couple of these.

I'll, I'll link those DeVos in the show notes here too.

They're they're easy to find and get them on Amazon.

What we also do, we have well, we haven't we haven't always

employed it when they were younger and we are still trying

to impress consequences upon them.

We had a consequence jar. And I've, I've heard this from

others of you as well, that there were a variety of

punishments when they, when they acted out or whatever hit one of

their siblings or just didn't listen or whatever it was.

There's like 5 or 6 stick you can use like popsicle sticks and

just write something on there. You can use like rolled up

pieces of paper in a jar. And there are like whatever 5

minute timeout, whatever, whatever it might be, no screen

time, I don't know we don't really do screen time anymore

anyways, But you can you can have consequences in there.

But there's also one of this you got like 5 of them in there.

One of the sticks, one of the pieces of paper is grace is like

you get out of jail free card basically like there.

And, and you can still explain, OK, this is the consequence that

would have happened for this, but I need you to learn grace

and I need you to learn God's how God sees you because of what

Jesus did. So they're still understanding

the gravity of the of the punishment.

And they still kind of felt that fear and grief of that there was

going to be a punishment because they're reaching in the jar for

punishment. But there's also that teachable

grace moment in that too. Yeah.

So those those couple of things are what immediately comes to

mind for me. Sorry, I didn't, I didn't prep

as much of that. But those are our those are some

regular habits that we have either of you.

Oh, Chris. All right, I know Chris left.

That it was aggressive it. Was aggressive.

Yeah, I think as a routine, just making our kids do stuff

sometimes. Yeah, to be honest, I think not

to make fun of gentle parenting, but you know, like asking what

they want or feel like. When it comes to faith-based

routines, there are things that have never been optional.

We come to church as a family. We sit together.

The more we serve. We really love being able to sit

together when we can. Like that's one of those.

We hit the parking lot. Like all five of us should be

sitting together like it's this is the Sunday.

But also just all of those kids club and youth group.

I mean, even before we lived in DeWitt, we took the time and

made sure that everybody was here and got to interact with

that. I think when I think of

routines, that's what I think of first is just not giving them

the option of interacting with other people within our our

church body. Now, I know just from being

friends with Derek that he's mentioned on multiple occasions

that like you and him, so we've definitely hit the parent

aspect, right. But like you and him have done

devotionals together. Is that correct?

Yeah. Tell me about that.

There's some really good ones on the Bible app, and the ones that

were always our favorite, to be honest, were the ones that had

some of those questions at the end.

So sometimes you have a devotional and just read and

consume it. And the ones that had those

questions at the end led to some like huge moments in our

marriage. Like when I think about, you

know, we're coming up on 18 years and to have been together

that long, but still like, Oh my gosh, I didn't know that.

Like to be able to have those moments together and to seek

God's will together, I think has been huge for us.

And and that then impacts our family.

Wow, that's awesome. I have two things fairly

quickly, one of which may not relate well.

It could. The first of which is like when

we decided to go off to seminary, although my, my, my

daughter for sure was not excited about the prospect of

moving, but we, we've always kept the, the line that like,

no, like this isn't just dad's new job.

This is something that we do together as a family.

So again, you talked about walking in church and, you know,

you sit together and stuff like, man, yeah, this is not a job or

career for me. I mean, it is, but like, to the

extent that like, no, we all do these things together.

Now it may not always look the same because I don't have my 18

year old son up on the stage preaching, but it does mean that

like, like when we are doing, when we're doing life through

the lens of faith, which it should always be that right?

We're doing that together holistically as as a family.

And so that's, that's one thing that's always true is like, so

like I would say, you know, if you're volunteering for

something, we see this and this is awesome.

I love it. Like for example, you're

volunteering to hold the door at church once a month.

Dude, get your kids involved. I think that's so much fun and

they love it and it shows them a piece of this is what it looks

like to serve my faith community.

It's a way it can look and I think that's super powerful.

The one thing that we have consistently done in my family

that I absolutely love is before every meal, we do the verse of

the day. So you can get on the Bible app,

you can do that however you want, but like we do a verse of

the day. And what that has specifically

done for us is it has taught us how to pray and it continues to

do that because the verse of the day, it will feel kind of

random. So maybe it's Jesus in the

Sermon on the mount. Maybe it's something from, you

know, Exodus and, and in that story.

But no matter what, that one verse, it is going to teach us

something about how then after we read this verse, are we going

to pray to God? And I in particular, I know I've

modeled that pretty intentionally.

So if it is something about, you know, giving God glory, which

sure, then that prayer will be led by Lord, we thank you.

You are so good. You are so gracious to us.

You have done, you know, countless things that we don't

even see, but you're always doing them, you know, And so

like hearing that one verse and then allowing that verse to

teach us how to pray, how to speak to God.

That's been, I think, powerful in our family.

And it's so simple. We even do it when we go out to

eat. And it's funny, at first it

might feel awkward if you've never done anything like that.

But guess what? At some point, and I, I don't

know how long it took, but at some point, like we're, you

know, getting our food, you know, bringing it to the table

and, and somebody who's not me is like, OK, who's got the verse

of the day. Like it just becomes part of our

the culture of our family and it's awesome.

Yeah. And I, I would agree with all

that the church is teaching them how to be part of a body of

believers. Just to add on to that, just

more emphatically, pray with your kids in, in the things that

are hard and the things that bring anxiety or sadness into

their day. Well, how can we, how can we

pray to God for that? How can we ask for God's help in

this, in the things that are awesome that they can have

gratitude for or be thankful for?

Yes, pray those for sure. That's usually where our bedtime

prayers kind of wind up. Like what was what was something

that was brought you joy today, so it was something you were

happy about today or what was something that was hard today.

And we kind of bring those to to God in prayer in that moment

too. So it might feel awkward.

It will it will. I'm not, I'm not sure if you, if

you're not in the habit of praying already, it does feel

awkward and I can't really give you a prescription of when that

will get away, but I can like once you're at some point in the

habit, it will just be natural. It will be like you said with

the verse of the day, like, oh, this is just this is what we do.

This is this is how we handle these things.

Looping back to the kind of consequence jar thing too.

I know not all of you have some of you just have a single child

that there isn't always siblings.

We definitely when they wrong each other, We also try to have

some sort of consequence related to how they kind of acted out.

If it's whatever, if it's breaking something, they need to

help them to fix it. If it if it's taking something

away, they they need to figure out how to get that, give that

back to them or gift something back to them, something like

that. But that can work even if it's

even if it's this child like not listening to you as a parent.

Well then maybe they need to write you a card telling the

telling you how sorry they are specifically for that.

Just apply the teaching teach reconciliation.

Basically, I guess it is what is what the consequences are.

Teach your children how to make a wrong situation right as as

far as it depends on you live at peace with each other.

Like to teach, teach them that because there's going to be

people that don't want to live at peace with them.

Even at school. There's there's going to be

kids. And it's funny for me to hear

Mike. They come home and like, yeah,

this I I don't know. I can't think of it.

Rex was Rex wasn't listening to the teacher today.

And and he was bad. Like, darn it, Rex.

Always. Causing problems, right?

Like so they can they're they're smart, your kids are smart, they

can identify when something's out of whack.

So teach them as far as it depends on them to, yeah, to be

peaceful with others, to bring reconciliation.

And I think the the misbehavior in your house is a good platform

for teaching them how to do that out in the world.

Yeah. Let me let me add one more thing

now that you brought that up that I think has been incredibly

powerful in the culture of our family, in the culture, in the

faith of our family, which is I learned some number of years ago

how important it is, you know, for me as dad and as husband to

just really own my sin. So in other words, I made a

mistake. I blew up.

I, I whatever. It's really important for me not

just to go, well, I'm dad. So therefore, you know what,

they'll get over it. And I was in the right anyway.

I had every right to yell. I had every well, I mean, no,

not really. I didn't, you know.

And so like for me to own that in front of my kids, in front of

my wife and do those things like that, that teaches this is what

repentance looks like. And that also gives them an

opportunity to learn and to feel what forgiveness feels like.

And that also teaches me then what it feels like to receive

that grace even when I know I don't deserve it because I blew

up for no reason or whatever. Like all of those lessons that

we can, that we can provide, Man, I'll tell you what, the

first couple times I did that, that was really difficult.

Like, that was hard for me to do, to look at my kids and say,

you know what? I'm the adult, but guess what?

I was wrong. Yeah.

And to allow them to see that that was that was difficult the

first couple times. But I will tell you, not that

you it takes in casually, but it became easier for me to swallow

my pride and repent in a very real way and ask for their

forgiveness. And so that is also something

that, you know, has been incredibly helpful for us as a

family. Yep, absolutely.

Model that for them. You take the first step on it.

Yeah, absolutely. Be the leader.

And this is a very we're very musical family and like that,

but even just the piece of we we have worship music on in our

house a lot of the time. And Kristen, I know, I know you

guys do it most of the time that I'm over at your house.

That's also there's some playlist playing that sounds

that sounds really simple and really cliche, But it's it's

crazy. Just the piece that those simple

melodic truths can bring to a space.

Melodies get stuck in our kids heads.

I know, I know not everyone out there is a musical family, but

even if you're not, I'll tell like God wired our brains in a

cool way to appreciate truths and and melody and music and to

be moved to understanding to emotional feeling in music and

things. I'm not saying I'm not saying

your kids are going to grow to know and love Jesus just because

there's songs, but they could like, I think it could move that

powerfully. So, yeah, just not not that you

always have to have something on nothing.

You always have to like fill empty space.

Quiet is good too. But yeah, I, I would, I would

encourage that the pit, the peace and truthful Christian

worship songs in your household too.

That can go a long way. That's cool.

Yeah, all right, let's do another.

We got time for probably one more is my guess.

I'm sorry we were talking today. We got a long long winded

answers. Do you?

OK, we got a couple options here.

I know. Let's do Wow.

Yeah, I know which one I think is the fastest question to

answer. Oh man, and I have notes for

that one too. OK, go for.

It well, there's the website. OK, yes.

OK so last one, in my Catholic upbringing the Blessed Virgin

Mary was mentioned often and the Hail Mary was prayed often.

How does the church, like ERC, recognize, honor or value Mary?

OK, so let me let me jump out of the gate here for a second.

Qualify this. Let's let's let's.

Do I have an answer? But it needs to go through the

salty filter first. Go through the salt filter.

Yep. But let me, let me give, let me

give some historical context background to start this answer.

Well, you know, there, there's this website I've been looking

at classical theology.org. So in other words, like what are

some theological leanings that people may have?

And do they date back to the very first century church?

So they would report, and others would report the same, that

there is no evidence for Marian veneration in the 1st century

church. That doesn't exist.

The earliest thing that we see for Mary in terms of like she is

with Jesus, in terms of not even worship.

But in the second, yeah, 3rd century, what you see for the

first time is you see artwork with Mary and Jesus together.

But that doesn't happen until like the 3rd century.

So Mary, at least in the earliest church, the first, you

know, 2 centuries of the church, we are not seeing any sense of

worship of Mary. That's not happening in the

first church. You know, by the time you get to

this, this, this article, by the way, it says it's, it's kind of

funny how it leaves out the article.

It's not as early, you know, this veneration of Mary, it's

not as early as Catholics would like it to be.

You don't see it there. But for Protestants, it's way

earlier. It's it's way earlier than what

you'd want it to be. So by, you know, 5th, 6th

century, we're starting to see some of this stuff with Mary pop

up. And you know, from my

perspective theologically, like was Mary a blessed AKA seen by

God person? Absolutely she was she was used

in a way that no other human being in all of human history

can can be used. That was that was just that was

just for her. But does that make her perfect?

Absolutely not. Mary it there is no indication

biblically that Mary is a sinless person.

There's also no biblical indication that we should seek

her as like in in a mediator between US and God.

There is nothing in the Bible that points to that.

Not a single thing. I cannot make that clear enough.

So like, to the extent that we can look at Mary and say, wow,

God really used her in some pretty amazing ways.

But I can look at Paul the same way.

I can look at Peter the same way.

In fact, I can look at my brothers and sisters right here

in ERC and say, man, isn't God using them in some pretty

amazing ways? That doesn't mean I'm going to

ask any of them to be a mediator between me and God, right?

So to to sum that up, I think we can look at Mary and I think we

can say like, wow, that that was really cool what God did in her

life. But to honor her above Paul or

Peter or anybody else that we may quote UN quote honor, I

don't. I don't think there's a biblical

basis for it. No, there's not.

And that's it may be toned down a little bit going through the

salt filter, but my answer to the the Blessed Virgin Mary was

mentioned often. Hail Mary was prayed often.

How does ERC recognize honor or value Mary?

We don't like that's, that's the salty answer, I guess, because

but for the reasons that you said, there's nothing in the

Bible. She certainly wasn't perfect.

She's not divine. I would even argue that we

shouldn't pray to her like the the the Hail Mary prayer, I

think falls on deaf ears. I don't I don't think Mary hears

that prayer, to be honest with you.

So that that's a different issue of praying and where those go

and how they're heard. But I, I, I don't think she

does. I think, I think God and the

Holy Spirit and, and Jesus probably hear that prayer, but

there's nothing to set Mary apart more.

So yes, she had that specific instance, but also how, how many

other were jumping into Moses? How many other people in the

Bible had an encounter with a burning Bush that was the voice

and presence of God? None of them.

But so but is is Moses and yes, it was.

Is Moses a a pillar of the faith talk?

I mean, pillar of faith talked about even in Hebrews, Abraham,

David, Yeah, these are significant figures throughout

the course of biblical history and and were real, but Mary's on

I think the same level ground as them, right.

Well, and we see for the first time, and I'm just looking at

this more thoroughly, it is not until late 3rd century that we

even see the phrase Mother of God in reference to her.

That doesn't even happen till the late 3rd century.

So I mean, but I mean, like, is she technically like the earthly

mother of God? Yep.

She bore him out. So therefore she is that.

But like it seems to be that origin is misquoted somewhere.

Yeah, in that 3rd century period and they took that phrase Mother

of God and they credited to origin as somebody who said, oh,

look, see we've got this high level biblical scholar who

really understands this Christianity thing and he is

like putting her on a high pedestal.

Well, no, that's they have taken what he said out of context and

they have ran with it into places that it just absolutely

doesn't belong. There's other there's other

parts of the figure of Mary where like some will go so far

as to say, and again, there is 0 biblical backing for this, but

they'll go so far as to say that Mary was a virgin her entire

life. Therefore, the other kids that

she bore, she also did, was not ever sexually intimate to have

those children. And you're like, I don't know

where you got that, but it's not in the Bible.

That's not real. Yeah.

And to the other part of that, I mean, devil's advocate side of

this would be OK, but she conceived by the Holy Spirit,

she was a virgin when she bore Jesus.

That's a miracle that never happened to anyone else.

OK, yeah, true. But also what about the the

blind who were made to see or the lame made to walk, or those

that had demons cast out of them or, or like many other people,

had miraculous things happen to them?

We don't we don't address them in in some sort of divine way.

We don't put them on a divine pedestal with God.

And again, there's nothing in the Bible that would suggest we

should. There's it's, it's a Trinity,

Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Mary was obviously an integral

part of the earthly plan of, of Jesus coming to earth, but

that's, that's it. Yeah.

Yeah. I mean, there's, there's a lot,

there's a lot more you can get into, quite honestly.

We have that there's, yeah, there's a number of things that,

you know, the Catholic Church would say about her in terms of

like who she was or why we should use her as a mediator.

But I think you will be not, you will be more than hard pressed

to find any biblical backing for for some of the claims that

they're making. Yeah, and we have that classic

theology.org article, LinkedIn. The show notes that.

Well, if you want to dig into that some more for your own

knowledge, that's where we're going to wrap episode for today,

though we might, I don't want to promise, but I did want to get a

couple more questions. So we might drop like a little

mini episode because I think it relates pretty well to current

events, but that don't have to be later in the week.

Maybe a little surprise. So I surprised both of you by

saying. That you really did it'll.

Be a surprise for everyone else too.

So thanks for hanging with us. Reminder, if you haven't jumped

in on the 90 days in the New Testament plan, go to the Bible

app, find us as a church near you.

And we're working through the New Testament in the months of

September, October and November. It's going to lead us right up

to our Advent series. So you can jump in on that and

you can still catch up. We're just working through the

book of Luke right now. And the plan is kind of cool.

I like that it doesn't go, it doesn't go like Matthew,

Revelation, it, it starts in Luke and does Acts and Romans

and then we jump back to Matthew and then we jump to some letters

of some of Paul's letters and things like that.

So it's not not that the New Testament is laid out

chronologically anyway. It's not even if you read

straight through it. But it also doesn't follow the

regular reading. So you get a little variety.

You don't get all four gospels right in a row.

I think it's laid out pretty well and it's only about 3

chapters a day. It's like 20 minutes worth of

worth. Of reading or so, and if you

just hit the play button on the Bible app, you can just listen

to it. It's great.

That's how I do it honestly. Perfect.

All right, thanks for hanging with us, y'all.

Have a blessed week.