Cutting Room Floor: The Secret of Being Secure

Hey, what's up guys?

Welcome to the cutting room floor.

I am here with my main man, Madison Tompkins.

Snip snip snip.

Crackle crackle.

No, that's the crap.

Snap crackle pop.

No.

Rice Krispies.

Rice Krispies, the cereal.

I'm Justin.

I'm Madison.

And uh I already said that.

I don't know who you are.

DJ Snap Crackle Pop.

Wasn't there didn't you?

Hold on.

Hold on.

In our kids' area, way back when.

Were you one of the DJs?

I was one of the DJs.

What was your DJ name?

I didn't have a DJ name.

Did Alex and No one had a DJ name?

No, no, no, no.

That's not true.

DJ It might have been Snapcrackle Pop.

That must be where my brain went.

Like, I feel like someone was DJ Snapcrackle Pop.

I don't know.

We used to do in our kids' area, we used to have uh in our worship time, someone was like running like a little DJ thing.

Which was basically just pressing play.

Pressing play and then acting like you were like you know.

Yeah, which is funny because we've kind of come back to like Herb leading the worship team is like the better version of what we were trying to do back in the day.

If you don't know Herb, he's on our worship team and he leads all of our kids' worship and writes original songs and like the kids love them.

In fact, we actually had a family that was visiting from out of town this week, and uh they really their kids really enjoyed church here, so we reached out to them, hey, what'd you kids think?

Because that's I care a lot about that.

And uh they're like, oh, they loved it, they just didn't know the songs.

And I was like, oh, it's because they're all originals.

Made up.

Like they're all okay.

That's not the point of this podcast to talk about church stuff.

DJ Snap Crackle Pop.

So we do this this thing, the cutting room floor, uh, really just as a follow-up to our Sunday morning messages.

And especially whenever there's a significant bit of content that we had to cut in order for us to like keep the message to a relatively this is this is how we can justify having a two-hour message in secret, you know, but without having to do it on a Sunday morning.

And it's something we we cut a lot from the message.

It's actually something we've been really focused on lately, saying, hey, you know what, we can cut stuff and save it for later.

And so we just do this to do that.

And this week's message on Matthew chapter six, the first chunk of Matthew six, uh, we cut a lot.

And so, Madison, you want to go ahead and like recap for everybody what this section said?

Yeah.

So it was uh Jesus talking about, I guess, spiritual disciplines is is the word you'd use.

Um three of them specifically.

Giving, praying, and fasting.

And it's funny because uh we work on these together.

I do the junior high version, is what I call it, the junior high version of whatever the scripture is.

So whatever's important to a junior high student.

The JV message.

The JV message.

The junior version.

There you go.

Not JV, like less no, I get it.

That's easy.

Um and so they're usually pretty similar.

Like I can usually pretty confidently say to parents, like, hey, talk to your kids about what they learned today because you learned the same thing in the big room.

But this Sunday, when I heard the message, I was like, oh, we talked about totally different stuff.

So let me let me let me know.

Which is good, which is good.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

That's because I changed the entire message on Thursday.

Yeah, you call me every Thursday and say, hey man, I uh I changed things.

I'm like, that's totally it's totally okay because we're working from the same scripture.

The spirit, like the Lord, is gonna want to do different things with different groups of people.

It should be super different, right, in the sixth, seventh, and eighth graders versus the adults.

This was like a conviction thing for me.

So here's here's the deal, and we'll get into this.

Um, the message was going to be called when not if.

When you pray, when you pray fast.

When you give, when you fast.

There's an expectation, obviously, in Jesus' language.

If you read the first part of Matthew 6, he says, when you give, don't do it this way, instead do it like this.

And when you pray, don't do it this way, instead do it like this.

And when you fast, don't do it this way, instead do it like this.

And so I was like really impacted by the fact that he says, when, not if.

And you know me pretty well, and one of the things we're really passionate about as a church, and I think have become more passionate about over the years, is man, we we really want to train up people to do what God asks us to do, yeah, not just have a church full of people who feel good about God's feelings for them.

That's a starting point.

But like, I'm a I'm a husband, I've been married for 15 years almost, which is crazy.

Think about it.

I'm barely 15 years old.

How old are you?

Like 24.

24.

That's okay.

Um so you know, and like at first my relationship with Megan was just all about the feeling.

Like she loves me and I love her, right?

Um But there comes a certain point where me being married to her means like I don't know, I do the dishes and I and I serve her, and I actually like I there's things I work and provide and all those things.

That's not I'm not doing that to earn her love, I'm doing that out of love.

Because I love her so much, there's things I want to do.

Well, we want to be followers of Jesus who who, yes, never lose the feeling.

I never want to lose- I I I'm still madly in love with my wife, I'm blown away by her.

I never want to lose that.

But I also want to take that and do something with it.

And so we're we're really passionate about that.

So I was gonna call it when not if because I wanted to make the point.

Guys, this is it's like the government doesn't say if you pay your taxes, make sure to turn everything in by April 15th.

Right.

It's no when you pay your taxes.

It's not options on a menu, it's it's expectations.

And I think what's really hard for a lot of of Jesus followers today is we live in a culture that does not value authority at all.

So like our president is the the leader of our country, but we make fun of him on a regular it doesn't matter who the president is, we'll bash that person left and right.

Um well, kingdoms don't really work like that.

Like you do what I say, and if not, you die.

Right.

It's true.

Well, it's like to not do the will of the king was like treason, you know, to operate against the king's will.

Right.

But I think we have a hard time with Jesus because of how we're we're we are culturally.

You know, we say he's my king, but we don't actually treat him like a king because we look at what he says to us as suggestions, not as decrees.

So we have this mentality of Jesus being like, hey, if you guys decide to fast, you know, you should do it this way.

And if you ever want to give, if you ever feel led to give, if you ever feel, you know, like led to pray, make sure.

Nope.

He says, when Jesus is comfortable using command language, he says, These are my commandments.

You know, if you love me, you'll obey my commands.

Um I was gonna call it when not if.

The reason I changed.

I'm like, I had it all planned out.

It was it was gonna be great.

Um but the reason I changed it is because on Thursday I sit down to actually like put pen to paper or um fingers to keyboard.

And uh and I'm I'm reading it and I was reading some commentaries, just kind of getting myself in the headspace of and it really just stuck out to me that that's not that's true.

Jesus did say when, yeah.

And he's obviously expect experiencing that.

But the main point of what he is actually saying in that section is don't be a hypocrite.

Don't do it for show.

And it's also repeated in in each section.

Yes.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Well what's repeated in it is when.

And then he also repeats, don't be a hypocrite.

And we talked if listen to the message from from Sunday, hypocrite means actor.

Um, it was the Greek word for like an actual actor.

And then he says, for your father who sees everything will reward you.

Right.

Right?

So he sees he says that in all three.

But but I'm like, the main thing he's saying here, the main gist of what he's saying is don't do things for show, don't live with with people as your audience.

Live to please the father.

And I just felt like I couldn't write the message when not if, kind of taking what Jesus said and going in and like but going in a different direction, focus-wise.

And I think it gets to the the point of what we do pretty much every Sunday is we want to teach what's in the Bible, not just with the Bible.

Yeah.

Not just with the Bible.

That's a huge filter for us.

Like, oh, we said the word giving, we're just gonna talk about giving and like really make people feel terrible about it.

Or you know what I mean?

It's like we can easily do that and put it in the case.

Oh, yeah.

Well, like for example, this and we do it sometimes, and we try to correct and and learn and grow.

No, and we we don't have a perfect tracker.

I think as we're grow as we're growing, and uh and I think our convictions are still being shaped, but we're people of conviction.

And our church churches should be pla places of conviction, like places not where people are just getting convict- I don't mean conviction like being like let's convict everybody.

Right, yeah, exactly.

I mean the the people in leadership, if your people are are not people of conviction, then they're just gonna go wherever the wind blows.

And there's even churches that and people I really disagree with, but I I respect the fact that they have strong convictions and they're doing they're doing what they believe is absolutely right.

I'd rather I'd rather commend that person than the person who's like changing everything.

So we are we are very convicted that we need to teach with or from scripture, not with, which means that whatever the scripture is saying, we gotta make sure that we are teaching that.

That's the main point we're gonna teach.

The the the shape of our messages or the shape of our um mourning is going to reflect the shape of that passage of scripture.

It's not gonna be It's not my job to like do a remix of Jesus' teaching.

Like take a ri take a you know where it's like a rap remix where I take the baseline and then like I put all my own things on top of it, but it's kind of like inspired by Jesus.

Uh my job is not to teach this message, it's inspired by a true story.

Right.

Like inspired by no, it's and it it could be then church ends up becoming like the uh weekly update on how Justin is doing kind of zone.

You know what I mean?

This message I got kind of open about like I've had some stuff in the last few years.

Right, but no, no, no, right.

I mean where it's like if you're just using your personal political agenda or your personal feelings or your personal spiritual growth as the tone setter for the message, you end up missing the point of what's actually in scripture.

And this actually brings up something that is isn't really part of the the the what I would have said on Sunday, but if you're a his hands person and you listen to these, it's good for you to know.

We have a real strong belief that ministry can't be indulgent.

And so I love being funny.

I like making people laugh.

I've always I've always been kind of a jokester.

Even in school, I got in trouble for a lot and all that.

But I just enjoy it.

I enjoy I enjoy making people laugh.

Um well I can't like there's part of me that would love to do do like stand-up comedy.

I think I wouldn't I would enjoy that.

It's way harder, I'm sure, than I think it is.

Right.

Um but you're not as funny as I'm probably not as funny as I think.

Like I'm search funny.

Oh, the Bible guy said a joke.

The low the bar is low.

I I think I can I could like I could get a chuckle.

I could get a no, no, no.

I'm I'm not saying I'd get a comedy special on Netflix.

I'm saying I could get a chuckle if you hand my.

That's true.

Now I probably could.

Yeah.

Um no, but but like the point is, I like making people laugh.

Well, I use a lot of humor when I teach.

But I have to really, I mean, I have to really do a self-examination to say, am I just, am I using humor just because I like the feeling of people laughing at me?

Or am I actually doing this because I think it enhances the message and helps people learn what God says.

The people on our worship team, it's not, can't be indulgent.

They can't be up there because they really wanted to be rock stars and it didn't pan out.

So this is like their way to live that.

Um people can't be teachers in in church because they really deep down inside wanted to be some theological guru and that never worked out, and so they'll use their teaching opportunities a chance to scratch that itch.

You can't do ministry to indulge and to scratch an itch.

So you're right, and that the messages can't just be this is my kick for right now.

Yeah.

We have that, and I think having the filter of what does Jesus actually say or what is the scripture actually saying, and we gotta make sure we teach that, that actually guards us against it just being.

And the recognition of that this week was it was like inconvenient, but you go, hey, this is not actually what the main threat is.

That's not the main thrust.

But it but but I think from the for cutting room floor purposes, yeah, it's important to note that's that's there.

He says when, right, not if.

And so I will say this and with conviction if you are a Christian, if you call yourself a Jesus follower, you cannot read the teachings of Jesus and walk away with the idea that he does not expect you to do certain things.

He ex we we don't have to obey Jesus for him to love us.

He's given his love, that's done.

But any true relationship with love will will obedience will flow out of that.

Like you'll want to do what pleases the other person, you know?

And so there's no way to read the teachings of Jesus and walk away with the idea of like, well, I guess it's cool that I don't I I'm not expected to give any of my finances to help people in need or to serve the kingdom of God.

I just I just do what I want and that and he loves me no matter what.

Like, nope.

Yeah he expects us to be generous, he expects us to pray, to pray for each other.

He expects us to uh to to be in in relationship with God, he expects us to love one another, he expects us to be spiritually disciplined.

You know, I think that's where fasting is such an interesting one because I mean fasting was like we we broke it up into stations and so in the junior high?

Yeah, in junior high, we had like three different stations with three different teachers teaching on each of them.

Fasting was the one I took because I was like, I'm not gonna give that to anyone else because it's just the weird one.

It's like the the one wants to talk about that.

No one wants to talk about America fasting.

Although I feel like it was uh it was a good thing to talk about with the students, and and we had chatted about fasting because I know there's an aspect of that that didn't make it into the message, but what I just ended up landing on is like fasting is to go without so that you can grow within.

Like you're going without a few years.

Ignore it.

I can't just ignore it.

This is staying in the podcast.

Grow go without so that you can grow within.

Oh my gosh, it's kind of oh man.

I'm sorry.

It's okay.

One time I passed gas on stage while I was teaching, and it was so bad that my eyes watered, and I think people thought I was getting emotional, but I wasn't, and I'm far enough away that there's no way anyone else.

It was just real bad.

I'm sorry.

It's okay.

It wasn't on purpose, I just uh I got stuff going on.

So we talked about fasting.

What uh what didn't make it you wanted to use the fasting as an opportunity to talk about spirit and flesh?

Yeah, well, fasting wasn't something that was really part of my church experience at all growing up.

Um I grew up in just a church culture that uh we just it just wasn't anything we ever did.

And so, but it's in the Bible a lot.

Yep.

And um I think it's it's funny right now, even just health-wise, like intermittent fasting is a a pretty big trend in in fitness or dieting.

And I bet I bet it actually works because it's biblical.

Yeah, it's one of those things where um turns out if you don't eat food as much, you lose weight.

It's a crazy idea.

But but fasting, I I had a friend give me a book on fasting by Jensen Franklin a few years back, and there were some points that it made that are it really it made fasting really simple.

And one of the big ones was denying King's stomach, I think is the it was something along those lines.

Yeah.

That most people are super obedient to the cravings of their stomach.

Right.

What and I think in our world it's even more so than it probably ever has been, because I have the ability right now with food to be like, I want this, I want Mexican, and I can go in five minutes and I can have Mexican food.

I didn't have to prepare it.

Right.

It's not what's in season, it's what I want.

And so we just we can live very flesh-driven.

And there's a really basic principle in the New Testament, and it's something we talk about a lot, is it's spirit or flesh.

And so you can read in in Romans 7 and 8, a great example, where Paul just kind of talks about when we have a relationship with God, it's almost like there's two of us.

Yeah, you know, and there's there's our spirit man that desires to do the things of God, and then there's our flesh man, and our flesh man doesn't just go away.

And at times it feels like we're at war with each other.

And if we live by the flesh, that leads to death.

Um, you know, the death of our joy, the death of our our our I mean, just even the death of our maturity, the death of relationships.

We talked about it, like death of relationships, like how many times has sin led to the death of a friendship that you found.

Yeah, well, I mean, you want to be really honest with relationships.

How many times have some has someone followed their flesh, followed their physical attraction, had an affair, and that that led to the death of a marriage?

Yeah.

I mean, that that is a literal example of yeah, I did what I craved, I did what I felt like doing, and as a result, this thing died.

We also talked death of death of freedom, like for middle schoolers and with the eighth graders specifically.

I was like, hey man, like there are there are opportunities where you can see your freedom die because of sin.

Right.

Because if you get a girl pregnant or if you become pregnant, your your freedom has has died, and you have you are now mom and dad instead of what you wanted to be.

And so it was just a cool opportunity to talk about how sin doesn't, and because they were like, oh, drug overdose.

It's like, yeah, sin leads to death in that way, or doing something stupid, like things you don't think about.

Right.

But there's death of a reputation.

I think of people who have who have had their reputations tarnished.

Um and uh you know it's hard to get back.

Yeah.

So sin leads to death.

So all the idea of fasting is that you just don't have to obey your cravings.

And you can say no.

And so Jesus fasted.

A lot of times in scripture, people fasted in preparation for really big things.

Jesus fasted right before he went into his public ministry.

Esther had everyone fast before she went to talk to King Nebuchadnezzar, uh not Nebuchadnezzar, King Xerxes.

Um there's a precedent in kings in the Old Testament would often have the people fast before battles, like, hey, pray and fast.

And so it's just sort of this thing where it's a spiritual discipline where you are training your body to be to be obedient to your spirit.

So just because your body says eat, you can say, nah, I'm gonna pray instead.

Um and just because and that trains you in all aspects.

Like just if if you can say, I I've always said if if you can control what comes in and out of your mouth, you have most of life mastered.

Yeah, like most like I can control what comes in it, comes out of it.

You know what I say.

Um, because the mouth is really hard.

James talks about the mouth, the tongue is is hard to tame.

But uh, but fasting is something I haven't done it in a while.

I really should get back into it as a regular practice.

But there's been seasons of life where I was doing it once a week.

And those days that I was fasting, what was really interesting is I was just so mindful on those days about about the Lord.

I was it was a purpose.

There was a purpose to I wake up in the morning, and normally when I'm I'm going through the Chick-fil-A drive-thru and getting whatever, instead I'm like, I I want I want today's you're participating.

I really want today to be a day where I'm my my mind I'm just more mindful.

Um so I think it's a discipline that gets overlooked, but people would really be blessed to do.

Yeah, and it doesn't always have to be food.

I think in in the Bible it's food pretty much every time.

But um, Paul says that if you and your spouse agree you can fast for from sex for a certain reason or specific season.

Yeah.

Um I told the kids to fast from their phones because that'll impulse out.

Yeah, they're like, no! They started screaming and ran away.

No, but you can fast from your phone if that's like something that you're consistently uh going to as your sustainer.

Like if you need that affirmation or if you need that dopamine, honestly, um, you can fast from that to see that growth.

It's so cool to even think about that because back when this when scripture was written, no one knew what dopamine was.

No one knew that chemicals release in your brain when you taste something you like, and and we do get so addicted to that.

And so we just live like I haven't had a it's been hours since I've had something that artificially made me feel good.

Since I've scrolled.

Right.

You know?

And so people do that just to get that little hit.

And it's not that's so far away from the deep satisfaction and the deep peace of God that comes from just knowing who you are in his eyes and living in relationship with him.

So yeah.

So so one more thing, which I think that didn't make it in the right.

So we cut we cut the when not if focus.

Yep, the and we were gonna talk about fasting because it's people don't really have a category for it.

Right.

Um, a lot of times, and and why in the world would I have to do that?

You don't have to, but it's a it's a spiritual discipline.

It's yeah, yeah.

And then I think the last one was basically just setting what the point of church is supposed to be.

Um, Jesus, every single time, he's saying, like, don't pray in a way that's super obvious and drawn out to impress the people around you on how spiritual you are.

Don't give um extravagantly in the way that you do it so that you can impress the other people around you.

Don't fast with your face all disgruntled.

Don't be like, uh, what's wrong, man?

I'm fasting today.

I'm fasting, you know.

I'm the most spiritual.

But just to say that church shouldn't be a place, and and I don't think it is here.

I don't think so.

But I think personally we can all kind of make things problems that aren't problems, but it's like, oh, I need to be a certain way, I need to worship a certain way, I need to pray a certain way, I need to give a certain way, um, in order to feel like I can be part of this group.

Um, but his hands is not a place where you have to be the certain kind of worshiper or the certain kind of prayer.

I I know a lot of people here that have a hard time praying, um, and we're willing to process that with you, but it's not there's no special way to do it.

That prayer that he gives in Matthew 6 is like a 20-second prayer where you say, Yeah, I think my favorite prayer from the So best way I can first of all, our church culture has always been a culture with a we have a ton of different types of people, and that's always been a good thing.

And we're not a church that requires anyone to look a certain way, behave it, like we have a wonderful variety here in the church.

So there's that.

But but I think like I what I have the most direct influence over would be the the culture of our stage, probably.

I mean, I I I have influence over everything here because I'm a pastor, but but I have direct influence over what happens on stage.

Like I can literally look at a person and be like, don't say that.

Right.

And you know, I know this, so but a lot of people don't see the behind-the-scenes thing.

No one on our team uh practices or or tries to like pray epic prayers.

Yeah.

You know what I mean?

Like, God, like no one shifts into another voice.

Like, I hate it when people do that, when they pray, and all of a sudden, like, why do you whisper talk only when you pray?

Yeah, God, you're so like it's just weird.

Um like Matt, who leads our worship team, he prays.

Like one of the things I love about Matt, he almost prays the same thing all the time.

Yeah.

Like, it's all for you, God.

Everything, every song, every note, every he'll say that a lot because that's that's Matt's heart.

James, who uh who is just an incredible worship leader on our team, James had probably my favorite prayer we've ever had on stage, and he just like it almost felt like he he was like, Oh, I gotta pray.

And he just went, uh, God, we love you.

And yeah, we uh we just we're so glad you love us.

And so just teach us what you want us to learn this morning.

Amen.

And it was the least epic but most genuine thing, and so there's no there's no Reason to you're not gonna impress anyone here with show.

Yeah, you're you're not gonna impress us, and we aren't looking for that.

That's what I mean.

It's not like you're not gonna impress us, like, oh well, we won't be impressed.

But because that's not our culture.

And so church should be a place where you don't walk in and think to yourself, I better shift into like the Christian version of myself.

I better shift into this other because I want these people to be impressed.

I want these people to be try not to cuss, but that's just because there's lots of kids around.

Yeah, and and scripture says don't like have coarse joking and stuff like that, which is good.

Do you follow that?

For the most part, not more than I used to.

It's funny.

There was a time, maybe I don't know, ten years ago, where I was like, I think our church, we were kind of on the in this culture of churches where we're doing things different, you know, and and we're we're not we're not like scripted like other we're genuine, we're raw.

And what that actually meant was sometimes sometimes, not the whole thing, because it was a great church.

Play it up.

But sometimes it just meant like I just don't have good boundaries and I celebrate it somehow.

Yeah, you know what I mean?

So instead of me being careful with what I say or with what I watch, you know, um, like I used I have a so much less tolerance for what I watch on TV now, just because I've actually learned it, it really does affect me.

Yeah.

And so um, yeah.

But anyway, I was a cutting room.

Cutting room floor, cutting room floor.

Well of the cutting room floor square game.

But you don't have to perform here.

No performance.

Jesus isn't concerned with performance.

He says, your father's in heaven who is unseen, will see what you do in secret and reward you in secret.

So and live for that reward.

Essentially, the the main gist is like, look, if you want, and this actually did get cut, the word that Jesus uses for reward in their language means payment and full payment.

It has the idea that you got paid not like a deposit, but you got the full price for what you you needed.

So Jesus, when he says, if you if you live life, if you do the spiritual stuff, go to church, give, serve on a team, you know, go whatever it is in church culture, raise your hands during worship.

Um, if you do those things because you think it's gonna impress the people around you, it might.

And if that's that's what you're going for, that's all you're gonna get out of it.

But your father's not gonna reward that.

That's not that's not moving his heart.

But if you just do what you're doing to please him, regardless of what other people think about it, then he sees that, he recognizes that, and there's a a huge reward for that.

And so your payment is actually your father's like blessing in that way.

He approves of us because he loves us, but he also like like I it's weird.

I think sometimes in church culture now, because of the the we're because we focus so much on grace, as we should, we're also afraid to say that God wants you to do something different than you're doing because we're like, but that doesn't that mean he doesn't love us?

And that's so silly.

I love my children.

Like I unconditionally love my kids as much as is humanly possible.

And at the same time, I can simultaneously love them and look at them and be like, stop that.

Like, don't ever do that again.

Right.

I love you, you need to quit that.

Um and like that's that's that is totally God.

There's so many times where God looks at us and he's like, I love you so much, you also need to completely change what you're doing.

And that's okay.

Like, just be okay with it.

Doesn't mean he doesn't love you if he's asking you to course correct.

Um, you know, and so if you're doing things to please him, in other words, that doesn't mean you're earning his love, he loves you.

But there are things that God really it pleases him, it makes him smile.

That's all it means.

It just makes him smile.

He looks like, heck yeah, I love it when you do that.

Right.

You know?

So if the approval of others is like what your your fleshly desire is, where you're like, oh, I just really want to be approved by others, it it's really easy to exchange social clubs and be like, I used to be the frat guy and now I'm the church guy.

Right.

And and just don't do that.

Be concerned with your relationship, your personal relationship with the Lord.

Um, and you'll see that grow as you put more interest in that specifically rather than the social club aspect, seeking approval, all of that.

Yep, yep.

All right, so this has been the cutting room floor, cutting room out floor.

No, uh not that I can think of.

Great.

Thank you guys for listening, and we will see you on Sunday.

I hope.

Yep.

I really do.

And if you're listening to this years from the recording, I hope that the world still exists.

And if that's true, if it does, then we'll see you on Sunday.

All right.

Have a good one.

Thanks a lot.

Bye.