WWUTT 1180 Q&A Comfort in Corona, Revelation Commentary, Works of the Law, Andy Stanley's Commandments?

How might Psalm 112 be a comfort to us today? Does Romans 328 uphold

Sola Fide? And just how destructive were Andy Stanley's comments about the commandments of God?

The answer is when we understand the text. This is

When We Understand the Text, a daily Bible study in the Word of Christ. In whom there is no condemnation, for the law of the

Spirit of life has set you free in Christ Jesus from the law of sin and death. Tell your friends about our ministry at www .utt

.com. Here once again is Pastor Gabe. Thank you, Becky. You're welcome. It is March the 34th, 2020.

I thought it was the 54th. How could it be March the 54th? Sure. What's the math on that?

It just feels that long? Yeah. So we're up to March the 54th? I mean, really, March has been its whole year.

It feels that way. The longest March of all time. And then just when it felt like it was going to become spring, here we are in April.

And what do we have, like a freezing rain warning or something like that? Yeah, we have a wintry mix warning.

Yeah. Joy of all joys. Oh, yeah. It should be fun. That's what it is in Kansas right now. Hey, a shout out to Melissa in Moscow.

Ooh, fun. Not Russia. Oh, which one? Moscow, Kansas. Woo -hoo. Even better.

I mean, not even better, but pretty cool. The Little Moscow. The Little Moscow. You know how kind of like Manhattan, Kansas is called the

Little Apple? We'll just call Moscow, Kansas the Little Russia. The Little, hmm.

Anyway, I wanted to shout out to Melissa because someone showed me that you were sharing the

Romans teaching on Facebook this week. Oh, that's awesome. And I've been to Moscow, Kansas before.

When I was in Christian radio, I actually went and spoke at a church out there, and I went and sang for a bunch of kids at a church out there one time.

Oh, that's awesome. Took my guitar. I swear I've been through there, but I don't remember what for. Well. It's been a minute.

That's not even really a through city either. No, it's not. Because it's just kind of out there. Yeah. You don't really drive through Moscow going anywhere, except I guess driving a grain truck maybe.

Well, it could have been. Yeah. It's just a little bitty farm town out there. So, thank you,

Melissa, for sharing the Romans study. We're actually down on our listenership right now.

We are. It's kind of strange. The count is something like it's 200 downloads an episode, fewer than we were a month ago.

Yeah. And I think the reason for that is because there's a lot of people that aren't working regularly anymore.

Or not driving to work anymore. Not driving to work anymore. Yeah. So, yeah, that's right. Working from home. Yeah. Because we were getting so many folks that were telling us, you know, it takes me 10 minutes to get to work.

Perfect for the drive. Yeah, that's right. 10 to 15 minutes to get to work. 10 to 15 minutes to get home. So, I listen to half of it on the way and half of it on the way home.

But yeah, since folks aren't driving anymore, we don't have that many downloads. But I kind of wonder if there are other ways that people are listening.

Oh, that could be. Also. We did open up Spotify. That's right. Because we opened up Spotify.

And I don't think whatever gets played on Spotify actually counts toward the numbers that I look at on Podbean.

Got it. Whatever it might happen to be. Even though the listener count is down, emails are up.

That's awesome. I'm getting a lot more emails. So, being the Friday edition of the broadcast, you can send your emails to whenweunderstandthetext at gmail .com.

Ask whatever you want. If I don't know the answer, I will just say, I don't know.

Let me look into that. We'll come back to it next week, perhaps. This first email comes from Stephen in Paris, Texas.

Awesome. So, he went from Moscow, Kansas to Paris, Texas. We're traveling all over. Dear Pastor Gabe and Becky, I just wanted to say thank you for your ministry on the

What Podcast. I received some news today that many others have already received, and that is that I'm going to be laid off from work.

Your message today on Psalm 112 was uplifting and encouraging. I may lose my job, but God is still sovereign, and Jesus is who

I need to truly trust more than myself and my job. Once I received the message of the layoff,

I went into a depressed state, just as many others did, I'm sure. But your message today put things back into perspective, especially how you exposited

Psalm 112, verse 7. That one really got to me. Praise the Lord. So, again, just a thank you for you and your ministry.

May God bless you and your family, and especially your ministry. Keep up the awesome job. A reminder again,

Psalm 112, verse 7. He is not afraid of bad news, and his heart is firm, trusting in the

Lord. This is the man who fears the Lord and greatly delights in his commandments. He fears nothing, not afraid of bad news.

His heart is steady. He will not be afraid until he looks in triumph on his adversaries.

Stephen, we're going to pray for you, and we're going to do it right now. Okay. We're not going to wait until the end of the episode. We're going to go ahead and pray for Stephen.

And for anybody else who may have lost a job, or the future looks quite uncertain because of things that are going on in the world today, we want to lift you up to the

Lord. Heavenly Father, I pray that in the midst of these days, when things look so uncertain to us, that these are days that are calling to our attention, a need to rely on you in all things.

We are assured in 2 Corinthians 1 that you are the God of all comfort and the

Father of mercies. And you have shown mercy to us through your Son, Jesus Christ, and in the message of the gospel, we are comforted.

And though it may feel like that things are gloomy and just bound to get worse, this causes us to rely more upon God who raises the dead.

And so may we stand like the man who is described in Psalm 112, who delights in the commandments of God, because it's your word that upholds the universe.

So therefore, it is your word that is even over our situation, our circumstance right now. Let us not be afraid of the days that are upon us in the present, but help us to rely more fully on you.

And there is a day that we're going to stand in triumph over all of this. As Paul talks about in Romans chapter 8, we are more than conquerors through him who loved us.

And we're even assured of that day when we stand on Mount Zion with our Lord God looking back over everything that had been done in a lifetime and beyond.

And we see how you were in each and every detail, working all things for our good and to your glory.

And so I pray that we trust in you even in these moments and that you give comfort to those who are struggling because of the uncertainty of these times.

They're uncertain to us, but may we be reminded they are not uncertain to you.

And there's nothing that's happening or going on that is beyond the sovereignty of God.

We trust in you in all things. And may that be the courage that is in our heart. May it strengthen, uphold us in all of our present circumstances.

May we even be a light to those who are around us. They see the struggle of our situation and that we yet praise

God in the midst of that. So we may be a message of the gospel to others, whether they have it good or bad, looking for hope in troubled times.

And we point them to the one who reigns, Jesus Christ, our Lord. It's in his name that we pray.

Amen. Thank you, Stephen. It choked me up reading your email. And I do hope that the

Lord's comfort is upon you and in your heart and that you have peace in these days.

God bless you, brother. Next question comes from Scott in Wyoming. I remember a couple of weeks ago, we said that a radio station in Wyoming is airing when we understand the text.

Well, Scott doesn't have an answer for us. Oh, okay. When I saw that I got an email from...

Tease me. I know. Well, it's because it teased me. I saw I got an email from Wyoming. I was like, oh, he's going to tell me what radio station it was.

No. No, he didn't mention it. Okay. So we're still looking for what radio station it is in Wyoming that is airing the

Q &A. I think on Saturday, I know the message that I read said it was a week back.

But like I said, I lost the message. I don't know if I read it on Facebook or Twitter or if it was in my email somewhere.

I did a search in my email for Wyoming and didn't come up with anything. Nothing? No. But if I did it now,

I'd come up with Scott's email. Well, there you go. So Scott says, I have the amazing opportunity to listen to podcasts as I am employed as an electrician.

Oh, nice. I bet that's a still necessary job. Oh, definitely. About six hours a day worth.

That's how many podcasts he listens to. That's awesome. Six hours a day. That's a lot of people talking. Well, you let us gab for a long time there,

Scott. I caught in passing that you thought differently about the book of Revelation than what

I have always been taught. So in about a week, I listened to Votie Bauckham and his entire series on Revelation.

And wow, it looks like I am not what I thought I was. So after listening to it all three times through,

I listened to it all three times through. I've got to make sure I put the right emphasis on the sentence.

Yeah. Yes. I need to get a book that is actually going to grow me. It has changed how

I thought about the quarantine. So I guess I did bring that up. Oh, the subject of the email was an email that's not about coronavirus.

And so when he gets to this part, he says it has changed how I think about the quarantine.

So I guess I did bring that up. Oops. Thanks for your ministry. I pray for it. And you all, as I work and listen.

Scott from Wyoming. Scott, I recommend a book entitled Victory in Jesus, a devotional commentary on the book of Revelation by Donald R.

Johnson from Free Grace Press. And that recommendation comes not from me, but from Alan Nelson in Arkansas.

Because he recommended that book to me. Alan Nelson IV. Quatro, we call him. Yeah. Yeah.

So that book is on sale now for $17 .99. And you can get it through Free Grace Press.

I recommend you look that one up if you're looking for a good devotional commentary on Revelation to help grow what you've started studying through that series that you listen to from Votie Bauckham.

I've listened to that series twice. And I need to do it a third time. Yeah. I usually, whenever I listen to sermons and stuff like that,

I have to listen to it three times before I really grasp and can repeat what

I learned. Yeah. Like the first time is like, wow, wow, wow. And then I forget. So the second time is like, wow,

I need to write that down. And then I miss half of it. So then by the third time, I finally like, oh,

OK. Yeah. Now I can spout off a little bit of what I learned from this. Didn't you do, you did a women's study where it was kind of, it was talking about how to study your

Bible. And wasn't it kind of like that? You read it through once, but don't do any underlining or highlighting.

Right. So you read it through once. You're just absorbing the word. It's just to read it. Right. And then after that. And you're kind of looking for things.

OK. Like you're, you're kind of keeping your eye open for repetitive and things.

Certain things that repeat themselves. Yeah. Things that you've heard before in another part of the Bible and those type of things.

So, but yeah, you just, you just read it through all the way through. Yeah. And then you go back and, and start to dissect it a little bit.

Yeah. It's something I do with the kids when we're going through scripture together is I'll tell them to look at the verbs. What are our verbs here?

Yeah. Because these are the action words. This is where you get the exhortation. It's telling us to do something.

Right. So what are the verbs? And that's always kind of fun for the kids because you've been teaching them all of the, the cool sentence structure and language and vocabulary things.

And then when we apply it to the Bible. Yeah. It's like, wow, there's actually application for this language stuff that we have to learn.

But don't act, don't ask me to diagram those sentences because. Or to edit them.

I thought you were a diagrammer. No, I've never diagrammed in my life until we started teaching.

So we started homeschooling. Yeah. Until we started teaching the kids. So yeah, never, never, ever.

And I must have skipped out on half of that stuff because I have no idea. Oh, you have a teaching degree.

Kind of. It's, it's more early ed. Okay. So for some reason,

I just always, I always thought you just, you were a sentence diagrammer. No, but I learned ahead and therefore

I am able to teach. You're able to do it. Yep. You just don't want to. Oh no. It's kind of neat the more you learn, but man, it does get confusing with, especially with the

Bible verses because they're so long. All right. Sentences are so long and confusing of, okay, what is this word?

What does that mean? Yeah. Yeah. Some sentences can go on several verses. Yes. All I remember is doing the little, you know, pencil shape thing.

And you got the line out here and there's lines down this way. Here's your verbs, your adjectives. You draw this. Here's your subject.

You know what I'm talking about? Nope. You don't do the little carrot thing. It looks like this.

You draw the line out here, kind of, kind of pencils out. Got a word out here. That's not how we diagram.

Okay. I'm sure there's more than one way to do it. Oh, I'm sure there is. Yeah. But no, that doesn't even sound familiar either.

Okay. I just. That's fine. You're the teacher. I'm. I just, I don't know. We draw one line and then, you know, it might have depending upon the sentence.

Oh, yeah. I've seen the kids do that where they're writing like a above the word or there's different. Below the word, but yeah.

Yeah. Below. Yes. Yeah. Different labels for each word. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. That's diagramming the sentence.

Yes. It's not the thing where you're drawing a little carrot out and putting every word in the right spot. Yeah. You don't know what

I'm talking about. I'm still trying to figure out what you're talking about. It was every school that I attended when

I was a kid. That was how they taught you to diagram sentences. But I guess that's not the classical education model.

Apparently. So, yeah, that's not what we're going with. I don't know. Like I said, it's my first time.

So, there's that. Going on to the next email. I tried to put like a bunch of quick emails here first, but we're filling in between with commentary.

Chris says, Pastor Gabe, thank you for answering my question about Sovereign Grace Music on February the 21st.

I only got to listening to it today. See, that's why our listener counts down. See, I told you when they went back.

Everybody's down. Everybody's like dated back. That's right. Because I've missed a few.

I need to go back. I am humbled by your thorough and biblical response.

I am sad to say that our church has been canceled the last two Sundays and moved to a virtual live stream.

A lot of churches doing that. By the way, I talk about that a little bit in a blog I just wrote.

So, go to PastorGabe .com. If you're doing it today, Friday, it'll be the first blog that's up there.

Praying that you and your assembly will not need to make that decision and for your health and submission to Christ amidst irrational panic and politicians who are using this pandemic to impose invasive sanctions.

That's absolutely right. Stay strong in the Lord and know your ministry is not in vain. God bless you.

Well, we are still meeting on Sunday, but I am also doing something online. We have half our congregation lives on Fort Riley.

Yep. So, their commanding officers are telling them they can't go anywhere. Right. And so, it doesn't matter whether we have church or not, they can't go anywhere.

Right. So, our gathering is very, very small, and we're trying to keep it spread out to accommodate.

Accommodating? Am I using the right word there? We're following along with the restrictions that have been put in place.

The suggested. Yes. Suggested restrictions, which they have said. Voluntary.

This is my city. Yeah, that's right. This is my city. It may be different where you are. Right. But in the city where I live, they are saying we're expecting people to voluntarily follow

Right. These restrictions that we put in place. And for the most part, I think we do. Yeah. So, until those needs arise.

Yes. And those Yahoo's. We take precautions, though. I mean, it's not like we go in and cough all over everybody.

Yeah. I mean, we're taking smart precautions even beyond what they tell us to do. Right. But, you know,

Yahoo's out of New York who are making fun of people in the Midwest and the South because they won't stay home.

Y 'all live in New York. Yeah. It's a lot different. It's a totally different lifestyle there. We don't have

Amazon Fresh. Okay. Like, that's how rural we are. We live in a city and we don't have that.

We're still looking for self -rising yeast. We are. It's always sold out.

Fast rising. Fast rising. Is that what it is? Yes. Yes. I have the self -rising flour, the bread flour. Right.

But we don't have the fast rising yeast. Yeah. And I think the self -rising flour has the yeast in it and that's why it's rising.

But I don't know if it's rapid. Rapid? Rapid. Rapid rising yeast.

Stop. Don't make fun. It just sounds like.

I'm not a kitchen person. I don't know. That does just sound like, you know, another label they would stick on food to try to, you know, how they'll always throw.

Yeah. Try new words. Yes. Is this going to attract somebody? I'm sure it has both. Buy this product. So now you're going to get rapid rising yeast.

Rapid rising. Faster than fast. It's rapid. It's the fastest. Anyway.

We're giving somebody an idea right now. Hey, if you coin it and it works out. Let us know. I want to cut.

This next email is from Jonathan. Hey there, I've got a quick question to you about Romans. That's great because that's where we are in our

New Testament study, which is going to be on hold this next week. We're going to do a passion week.

Yeah. So going through passages that relate to the specific day during that week before Jesus was crucified and resurrected.

Then on Sunday, because Easter Sunday is coming up on April the 12th. So we're going to do kind of a passion week study this coming week.

And I'm going to start that on Sunday just via the podcast. That's not in. I'm not disrupting any of the sermons that I'm doing the course that I'm on right now in preaching because I'm going through the sermon on the

Mount. All that's going to be the same. But on the podcast, we're going to do a little sort of a passion week sort of a thing.

We do that in our church every year, but obviously we're not going to do that this year because of the coronavirus restrictions that have been put in place.

We're still meeting on Sunday morning. We're just not going to meet any other time of the week again to follow along and not draw too much attention to ourselves.

The restrictions have been put in place by our city. So anyway, Jonathan's email going on. We Protestants tend to use

Romans 328 in order to prove the doctrine of justification by faith alone.

It says for we hold that one is justified by faith apart from works of the law.

But some people tell me that the phrase works of the law isn't referring to the moral law, but only the ceremonial law, circumcision,

Sabbath, etc. They say this because the very next verse says, or is

God the God of Jews only? Is he not the God of Gentiles? Also, yes of Gentiles.

Also, if works of the law was talking about the moral law, Paul wouldn't need to raise this question since the

Gentiles have the moral law written on their conscience, Romans 215. So do you think that works of the law is talking about the moral law?

Can this verse be used to prove Sola Fide? Thank you for taking my question.

You guys are awesome. You're awesome too, Jonathan. Thank you so much. Romans chapter 3 verse 31.

Do we then overthrow the law by this faith? By no means.

On the contrary, we uphold the law. Is that talking about the ceremonial law or the moral law?

Moral? Yeah, I would be talking about all the law. Yeah. How would you uphold the ceremonial law if the ceremonial law has been fulfilled in Christ?

Yeah. So again, Jonathan quoting from Romans 3 28, for we hold that one is justified by faith apart from works of the law.

He's saying there are people that say works of the law has to do with the ceremonial law because of what's said in verse 29.

Or is God the God of Jews only? Is he not the God of Gentiles also? Yes, of Gentiles also.

Going on to verse 30. Since God is one who will justify the circumcised by faith and the uncircumcised through faith.

Do we then overthrow the law by this faith? By no means. On the contrary, we uphold the law.

What we're talking about there is the whole thing. There's nothing here that distinguishes between moral law and ceremonial law.

I was going to say it doesn't really. I mean, that's where my head was. It's like it doesn't distinguish one from the other.

Yeah. It just kind of encapsulates all of it. Yes. The whole thing.

Right. And like you had quoted in starting tonight from Romans chapter 8 verses 1 and 2.

There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. For the law of the spirit of life has set you free in Christ from the law of sin and death.

The law, as Paul had explained back in Romans 7, just the chapter right before it. The law brought death.

It brought forth death. Right. Because we couldn't keep the law. And so we were condemned by the law.

Right. But in Christ, there is no condemnation. So we now have the law of the spirit of life.

And because the spirit of Christ dwells within us, we do not overthrow the law by this faith.

By no means. On the contrary, we uphold the law. We're talking about the whole law here, folks.

Now, there are certainly certain things that apply differently than other things. The ceremonial law has a different context to it having been fulfilled in Christ than the moral law does.

But you're still talking about a law that is summarized by the Ten Commandments. Right.

That is the summary of the law. And when you keep the law by loving your neighbor or by loving

God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength, that is a work of the law. You cannot accomplish that without the spirit of life.

For as Paul goes on to explain in Romans 8, verse 6, to set the mind on the flesh is death, but to set the mind on the spirit is life and peace.

For the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God, for it does not submit to God's law.

Indeed, it cannot. Those who are in the flesh cannot please God. If you don't have the spirit of life in you, you can't uphold the law.

It isn't possible for you to. So you look like on the outside you're keeping the law, but on the inside you're full of dead men's bones.

Yeah. As Jesus put it in Matthew 23. So then going on to verse 9, Romans 8, 9, you, however, are not in the flesh, but in the spirit.

If, in fact, the spirit of God dwells in you, anyone who does not have the spirit of Christ does not belong to him.

But if Christ is in you, although the body is dead because of sin, the spirit is life because of righteousness.

If the spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised

Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his spirit who dwells in you.

We are able to follow Christ and do the law of God in a way that is pleasing to God because of the spirit that dwells in us.

This is we have no obligation to keep the ceremonial law since that has been fulfilled in Christ.

So when keeping the law, we have to be talking about the moral law there. Yeah. Where Jonathan has heard this statement that works of the law only applies to ceremonial and it doesn't apply to moral.

He's gotten this from guys like N .T. Wright. OK. With his new perspectives on Paul. OK.

And that this is only talking about the Jewish law. It is not talking about like any other thing that we can do.

But if you take that if that's the way that you're breaking apart the law, then you are capable of loving

God or loving your neighbor in and of yourself without the spirit of Christ. Because that doesn't count as a work of the law.

You get what I'm saying? Yeah. That doesn't work. Yeah. Because you cannot love God. You can't.

Yeah. Except by the spirit of Christ that dwells within you. Right. Whoever does not have the spirit of Christ does not belong to him.

So you can't love God and you can't love your neighbor in a way that is pleasing to God except that you have the spirit of Christ dwelling within you.

Yeah. It just that doesn't make any sense. Mind blown. Yeah. I know.

But that's Romans for you. So, yes. When we talk about works of the law.

No, I mean like the N .T. Wright. I know you're saying that N .T.

Wright and what Jonathan's saying that this argument that was raised to him. I know you're saying that doesn't make any sense.

Right. But I'm saying mind blown over what we've just read in Romans 8. Yes. That's what I'm saying. Mind blown.

Yes. Your mind was going in the direction of. Pretty much.

And my mind was going in the direction of. So. Let us focus on such things.

That's right. Let us focus on the spirit of life that has been given to us by faith in Christ Jesus our

Lord. Amen to that. So, everything that we do for God is a work for God.

Because remember that the apostle Paul said to the Philippians. For it is God who works in you to will and to work for his good pleasure.

So, anything that you do for God is a work. But that work is not pleasing to God unless it's done in the spirit of Christ.

Ephesians 2 .10. Is that talking about the ceremonial law?

That's talking about anything that we do for God. Is a work that we do unto his name, to his worship, for his pleasure.

Which again we only do when we're doing it in the spirit. Not according to the flesh, but according to the spirit that dwells within us.

So, I hope that clarifies that Jonathan. It probably blew your mind some more. And you got some stuff to work out a little bit more in that.

But yeah, that absolutely upholds sola fide. Because in connection with Ephesians 2 .10

I just quoted from. Ephesians 2 .8 and 9. It is by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not of yourselves.

It is the gift of God. Not a result of works. So that no one can boast.

That's right. Final question. Final question we have here. Dear Pastor Gabe. I shared your video on Facebook about Andy Stanley's recent comments.

And a friend said that your video wasn't fair. Because you were taking Stanley's comments out of context.

What sermon did this come from? And could you clarify on exactly what he was speaking to?

Thank you for your videos, Audrey. Here is the what video that she's referring to.

And then we'll play Andy Stanley's comments in context. Oh dear. Aren't you looking forward to this? From the man who brought you teaching like this.

For the Bible tells me so. And this is where our trouble began. And like this. Thou shalt not obey the

Ten Commandments. Because those aren't your commandments. Andy Stanley is back. And this time is just like the other times.

God loves you more than God loves his commandments. Except Psalm 138 .2

says. He is exalted above all things. His name and his word. It is an act of love that God condescended himself.

And gave us his commandments. Deuteronomy 4 .8 says. What great nation is there. That has statutes and rules so righteous.

As the law of God. His law is a revelation of his holy character. Romans 7 .12

says. So the law is holy. And the commandment is holy and righteous and good. But we broke

God's law. And through his law we realize. We deserve judgment for our sin. So God sent his son

Jesus. Who kept the law and died in our place. By faith we are forgiven. And his law is written on our hearts.

That we may keep it. In John 14 Jesus said. If you love me you will keep my commandments.

If anyone loves me he will keep my word. And my father will love him. Those who love

God love his law. Those who diminish his law. And teach others to do the same. Jesus said they're in big trouble.

When religious leaders use the law of God. To manipulate people made in the image of God. Jesus was quick to remind them.

That they were on the wrong side. Of God. And Andy Stanley should be really concerned about that.

When we understand the text. Alright you ready babe? Sure. That was the video.

Now we're going to go through Andy Stanley's sermon. This was preached at the beginning of the month of March.

He does not prepare me for these things. I don't. I did not tell her that we were going to do this.

Oh boy. Let's see. I'll tell you exactly the name of the sermon here. I got to wait for it to come up.

The series is called You're Not Far. He's in part 6 right now. This sermon in particular was part 3.

Which aired. It was called The Difference Between Jesus and Religion. And this would have been the sermon that he preached on March the 9th.

So here we go. This is the beginning of the sermon. From which that very clip was taken.

I don't know about your experience. But in my experience the gravitational pull of religion is generally in the way it's presented and the way that many of us experienced it especially growing up.

The gravitational pull of religion is usually towards some sort of behavioral conformity. There's like this is how we do it here.

If you're going to be a part of this church, if you're part of this religion this is how we do it here. In fact if you show up new to an environment that's a religious environment you kind of aren't sure what to do sometimes.

In fact some of you are gathered with us in what you would consider a religious environment and you're not really sure what to do either.

Because there's just stuff you do. You've got to learn the rules. But it goes beyond the rules of a gathering.

There's just stuff you have to do to be a part of that religion. And this may be the reason you left religion.

It may be the reason you left Christianity or you left the church. Either you couldn't keep the rules or you didn't want to keep the rules or they just didn't make any sense to you.

In fact, interestingly enough and maybe all of us have experienced this in some capacity, once you get outside the bubble of any kind of community, especially a religious community, once you get outside of it and look back at it you're kind of like that's just kind of weird.

In fact Sandra and I grew up very similar in a southern traditional church and we loved the way that we were brought up and appreciated it so much but there were just some weird things about it.

But when you're doing it, when you're in it, it doesn't seem weird. It's just a way of life. It's just kind of the flow of life.

It's the rhythm of life. And along with the kind of things that are kind of harmless sometimes a part of those little religious bubbles, sometimes they're a bit harmful.

And once you get outside of it, again it's kind of like you look at it and go you know what that doesn't even make any sense.

It made sense at the time but it doesn't make sense to me now. And this is true of basically any religious system whether it's

Christian or not. But somewhere along the way as part of that little bubble or that little eco, that little microcosm of behavior there are behaviors.

There are things that you're supposed to do and things you're never supposed to do and there's generally some sort of condemnation associated with those kinds of things.

Okay while he was talking there you were making some comments so I'm stopping it because I want you to make these comments.

Sorry what now? What were you saying? What were you saying there? Okay so I was saying he makes a good point that once people leave his church and they look back on this experience they're going to think what was

I thinking? See this is self contradictory because he thinks he's talking about the churches

I was raised up in or the churches you were raised up in. What about Stanley's?

What exempts his church from this thing that he's saying? How do you know that people are not going to be leaving your church and looking back on it going well that was kind of weird.

Why was I listening to that nonsense? That was crazy. Calling for that and sticking up for him.

So there's nothing about what he's saying that establishes that what he's talking about is right.

How do we know it's not just another religious system that you're establishing that's going to make people go we're just kind of doing it while we're doing it because you know it's kind of the life.

It's our culture. It's in our bubble. So yeah there's some self conflicting things about what he's talking about here.

Now this isn't necessarily wrong what he's saying. He's not starting from any objective ground.

It's all just subjective. So the very same thing he's saying about his church from yesteryear could be the case with his own.

That is a backdrop. One of the most perplexing irreverent paradigm shifting mind bending statements that Jesus made in his earthly ministry addressed this.

I'm going to stop there for a moment. I don't know if you caught it or not but he just said something Jesus said was irreverent.

Now I don't know if he meant that as it was irreverent to the

Pharisees but nothing Jesus said was irreverent. Agreed. That's kind of a

I don't know if he picked the wrong word. Which happens. Yeah. I mean sometimes but I don't know how he has his notes either.

He might write everything out and just be reading it. That would be a totally different thing. He very much boasts in the fact that he does not use notes.

He is very very proud of that. Maybe he did use the wrong word. Yeah. That's a strange word to use when you're talking about what

Jesus said. Yes. The Pharisees were behaving irreverently. Jesus was not irreverent.

Ever. Here's what he said and the problem with us is because we're not dialed in to first century

Judean culture if you read a phrase like this when you're reading through the Bible you just read right by it. But I'm telling you when

Jesus said this I would bet just about anything there was a gasp in the crowd. In fact, when you read this the statement in context it was part of the reason that the religious leaders turned on him so quickly.

So one day he's teaching and he makes this statement. The Sabbath was made for man not man for the

Sabbath. Exactly. It's like what? Who cares, right? Just keep going.

Give me something I can apply to my life. This was a paradigm shift of epic proportion and the reason it was is because first century

Judaism and modern Judaism in some capacities the Sabbath is everything. It's one of the hallmarks.

It's one of the things that differentiates Jewish people from the rest of culture how they keep Sabbath. Sabbath was to be kept in such a way that even if you were a visitor in someone's home, even if you were a foreigner living in ancient

Israel especially pre -first century you had to keep Sabbath because that's just what everybody did.

It was like one of the top ten, right? And the bottom line is that people are more important than the

Sabbath. But the way it had been presented and the way it had been lived out is no, no, no. The Sabbath is everything because the

Sabbath is somehow connected to the holiness of God so consequently you don't violate the Sabbath and Jesus comes along and says no, you don't understand my

Father. The Sabbath was made for you. You weren't made for the

Sabbath and as it turns out what was true of the Sabbath was true of the entire law. Now what does that sound like to you?

Wonky. Why? Why does that sound wonky to you? So he's teaching on Mark 2 27.

Jesus said to them the Sabbath was made for man not man for the Sabbath. So everything that Andy Stanley was explaining there about what

Jesus said why does that sound off to you? I don't, I can't put my finger on it.

It's like a lot of things. They just don't sound right but I don't, I can't explain it. Okay.

He has not properly framed here. I'm helping you out. Please do. He's not properly framed what the

Pharisees were doing. He's framed it as if the Pharisees were just lambasting people for not keeping the

Sabbath. Okay. But the Pharisees had added laws to the Sabbath. They had taken the commandments of God and they had turned them into the commandments of men.

And they did this to glorify themselves rather than glorifying God. I've been talking about this very thing going through the

Sermon on the Mount right now in my Sunday sermon, my Sunday sermon series. Right. So the, yes.

So the sermon I just preached in Matthew chapter 5 where Jesus talks about do not commit murder, do not commit adultery.

Did Jesus abolish those commandments? No. Did he abolish the commandment to not murder?

No. Absolutely not. What was going on was the Pharisees were teaching people as long as you don't kill somebody you're righteous.

But Jesus is saying, uh -uh. If you hate a brother in your heart it's the same as if you've murdered in your heart.

He was pointing out you've missed the entire point of the law. Yeah. And same with adultery. Well, I'm righteous because I haven't slept with my neighbor's wife.

Have you lusted after her in your heart? It's the same as if you committed adultery with her in your heart. Right.

So the law exposed the sinfulness from the core of the human that we are sinful right down to our very core.

We need to be changed from the inside out. Hence why Jesus said to the Pharisees you are whitewashed sepulchers full of dead men's bones.

You look good on the outside but you're dead on the inside. Yeah. So the Pharisees had taken the laws of God and they had twisted them into things that was no longer

God's law. It was no longer what God said about the law. Right. So in Mark chapter 2 verse 23, one

Sabbath, Jesus was going through the grain fields and as they, Jesus with his disciples, made their way his disciples began to pluck the heads of grain.

And the Pharisees were saying to him look, why are they doing what is not lawful on the

Sabbath? Do you think Jesus would have been letting the disciples do something that was unlawful on the

Sabbath? No. This was the Pharisees adding to the Sabbath law not upholding the

Sabbath law. And Jesus said to them, have you never read what David did when he was in need and was hungry?

He and those who were with him. How he entered the house of God in the time of Abiathar the high priest and ate the bread of the presence, which it is not lawful for any but the priest to eat.

And also gave it to those who were with him. And he said to them, the Sabbath was made for man, not man for the

Sabbath. So the son of man is Lord even of the Sabbath. What Jesus was saying there was a condemnation of the

Pharisees because you a man was making this law out to be what you wanted it to be.

Right. So this is what this is Jesus condemnation of the Pharisees. It wasn't him it wasn't him saying what

Andy Stanley is about to say. Okay. So listen next to how Stanley explains this passage.

Here we go. But the religious folks in that culture and unfortunately religious folks in modern culture get this turned around.

So let me say it a different way because I can tell they're still kind of like, I'm not even sure what you're talking about.

So let me let me put it in modern terminology. Nobody has children so there will be someone to play with the toys.

Let me say that again. Nobody has couples aren't like, you know, we've got all these toys. We should have some children.

There's nobody playing with these toys. We need to get ourselves some kids so the toys won't be bored. Right? No toys are for the benefit of the children, not the other way around.

What is wrong with that illustration? The law is not a toy.

The law is not a toy. The law is the law. Oh boy.

What do we have laws for but to govern us to guide us? Laws are for our benefit.

Right. And God gave us his law for his glory that we would worship

God by keeping his commandments. Right. Jesus says in John 14 15 you will show me that you love me when you obey my commandments.

The law that God gave in the Garden of Eden. I mean, just think of this. God created everything perfect.

Adam and Eve are living in paradise. Right. God gives them a law. Yep. Don't eat from this tree.

You can eat from every other tree, but do not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil for the day that you eat of it, you will surely die.

Why did God even give them that? Why did he even set that in place for them to stumble and fall and sin and curse all of creation?

Because remember, this was paradise. Everything was perfect. So in perfection we obey

God. We glorify God by being obedient to him.

Even in this paradise, God gave Adam and Eve a law so that they might experience worshiping

God by obeying him. Fully satisfied in God. Yeah.

So when Jesus says the Sabbath was made for man, meaning it is made so that man can enjoy the

Sabbath, worshiping God on the Sabbath, keeping the commandment of God that he gave to them that they may rest to the glory of God.

And this was pointing to Christ, who is our Sabbath rest, the Lord of the Sabbath. Yeah. Any commandment that we have of God is to be for our joy.

David praying in Psalm 119, Lord, how I love your law.

It is my commandment all the day. And remember how we started the podcast today, we had that...

Meditation all the day? What did I say? Commandment all the day. Oh, yes. Sorry.

Yeah, it's my meditation all the day. How I love your law, it is my meditation all the day. It is my commandment all the day, too.

Yes. But yeah, I meditate on it. Well, that's why I was like, I don't know if I should disagree with you because you're right.

Remember how we started that wonderful email we got from Stephen, how uplifted he was by Psalm 112, and how does that begin?

Yeah. Blessed is the man who fears the Lord, who greatly delights in his commandments.

Delighting in the commandments of God. Because again, it's by the command of God that all things are upheld.

Hebrews 1 -3, Christ is upholding everything by the word of His power.

We know that it is by the word of God that all things are working together for good for those who love

God and are called according to His purpose. And so this is our comfort to love God's commandments.

Yes. The way Stanley is diminishing God's commandments. That's what I was going to say. He's making it so low, comparing it to toys.

Yes. I mean... What he's doing is irreverent. That's not rules, it's not guidelines, it's not even anywhere close to...

It's toys. I mean... Ugh. With the way that he's diminishing

God's law like this, it's... Somebody may not even think about it, sitting in his congregation and laughing at his jokes, but he's taking away everybody's hope.

Yeah. Can God's word not be trusted? Should we not delight in this? Is it really a burden to us that we have to diminish

His law in this way? That's what Stanley's doing. He's making God's commandment a burden. He's playing mind tricks with them because he's making them think that he has all the answers and so they have to come back continuously to get the answers from him because they can't trust the

Bible. You can't trust anybody. And anybody who trusts the Bible like that, they obviously don't know because...

Especially with the way that he set up this sermon. He set it up with, yeah, just think about all the stuff you were taught.

It's all wrong. You were in this bubble and now I'm going to set you straight. Right. It's so frustrating.

It is very frustrating. It's exactly what I said on the podcast yesterday when my desire and my burden as a pastor is to get people to love

God's word and here comes this guy diminishing it. Yeah. So back to Jesus' point, let me put it a different way.

This is huge. In fact, this may be hard for you to believe. That God did not create us so there would be someone to keep

His rules. That His commands are for people because God is for people and specifically

God is for you. Now let me put it a different way. God, this is what

Jesus is about to teach us. I'm just kind of giving you a heads up in case you leave early or you lose power. God loves you more than God loves

His commandments. And when you get this reversed, people get hurt.

Nope. What Stanley is doing is hurting people. This thing of God loves you more than His commandments means that He elevates you above His word.

And the Psalm, again, that I followed that up with And His word is Himself. Right?

That's right. God's revelation is in His word. Jesus says in Mark 8 38, Whoever is ashamed of me and my word,

I will be ashamed of him on the day of glory when I return in the glory of my father and of the holy angels.

Again, Psalm 138 verse 2 God has elevated above all things

His name and His word. Yeah. Do you have authority over the word of God?

Absolutely not. Absolutely not. Therefore, you are not elevated above the commandments of God.

There is no point in a commandment at all if you are higher than the commandment.

True. And there's no reason to trust any word of God when you are higher than His word.

Right. Because you are untrustworthy. Your opinions shift and change all the time.

You're being tossed around in the wind. Yep. And suddenly you're higher than the word of God. Oh boy.

You have no assurances of anything at all. We are in trouble if that is the case. Stanley has taken away everybody's hope and peace in the word of Christ by saying you're more important than His word.

Now, I don't think that he's doing that deliberately, but I don't think he's actually thought through what he's saying.

He thinks what he's saying is really, really witty. And he thinks all the people that are sitting under him and all the people that are sitting under him are thinking the same thing.

Wow, this is insightful. I haven't ever thought of this. They think that they're being set free because I don't have to listen to God's word anymore when the reality is

Andy Stanley is enslaving them to the passions of their flesh. Scary.

When you get this reversed, when somehow the be -all end -all is the rule not the people, people get hurt.

And religious leaders have leveraged this backwards for generations. And we're about to discover Jesus dives into this dialogue, into this conversation, and into this tension, and he stirs things up.

And eventually, he'd be arrested and crucified because he just wouldn't play along with the way that people had twisted his

Father's words. In fact, as we're about to discover, when religious leaders, and I'm part of the problem,

I certainly can be. Wow, the lack of self awareness there. No comment.

Well, here's the quote that was at the end of the what video that I made. Alright. When religious leaders use the law of God to manipulate people made in the image of God, Jesus was quick to remind them that they were on the wrong side of God.

And this may be the reason, this may go to the heart of your struggle with organized religion or specifically

Christianity. And I'm hoping today, in the next few minutes, that Jesus' words would penetrate your heart and penetrate your religious paradigm so that you might understand the love of your heavenly

Father, specifically in Jesus' words. Understand this kingdom, this world view, this way of life that he came to introduce.

He's trying to teach the people to love what Jesus said, but you're higher than his commandments.

It's silly. It's absurd. Yeah. I don't know. I'm still in a whirlwind trying to figure out which way is up on what he's saying.

Yeah. Right. It's all over the place. I mean, that last little part, yes,

I hope so. But I don't think he's going to be happy if they really do.

Well, they're not listening to Jesus' words. They're listening to Andy Stanley. Very true.

His explanation of Jesus' words. And where he goes here, I mean, this is just his schtick over the last several years of wanting to get as far away as possible from saying the

Bible says. So today we're in part three of a story that should have died in Nero's Rome, but fortunately it didn't.

It is the story of Jesus of Nazareth as told by his most famous apostle, Simon Peter.

We just know him as Peter, and it's dictated to and edited by a gentleman named John Mark.

And John Mark traveled with the apostle Peter and heard him tell the stories of his life with Jesus for, well,

Peter told the stories for over 30 years. Toward the end of that traveling, he was joined by John Mark who listened and hopefully, perhaps documented some of these stories.

And now Peter is in his 50s. He's in Rome. He's imprisoned and he's not going to leave the city alive, but he doesn't know it at the time.

And so Mark, who's traveling with him, who's very literate, coaxes the story out of him one more time, and it comes to us as the gospel of Mark.

Yeah, that's not exactly how that went. It sounded like he was filling in a lot of blanks.

Yeah, he's kind of making up his own backstory. Yeah. Some of that stuff was right, but then it's almost like he's doing a thing with Mark Burnett and Roma Downey, helping them do the

Bible part too. They're the ones that created the Bible miniseries. So it's almost like Stanley's like, well, here's what you should do.

Mark's going, hey, one more time, Peter, tell me the story one more time. I'm going to write it down in the gospel. Yeah.

Not exactly how that went, but anyway, that's not my last point. I'm just kind of jumping in there to say that, but getting to this last point right here, we'll conclude with this.

Okay. Eventually the gospel of Mark, it's not called the gospel of Mark, eventually this first century document is collected with other accounts of the life of Jesus, the letters of the

Apostle Paul. It's collected and it's given a name in the fourth century and the name is called the Bible.

But today I don't want you to hear me reading the Bible because Mark wasn't writing the

Bible. Mark was documenting Peter's experience with Jesus.

Andy Stanley would walk barefoot over broken glass before he would ever say the

Bible says. Hmm. It sure sounds that way. It's like he wants to say

Mark says, oh, so you mean the Bible says no, no, no, no, no. Because he wasn't writing that.

Even though Peter's the one who said second Peter chapter one, we have the prophetic word more fully confirmed.

Yes. To which you would pay attention. And it is God breathed. All scripture is

God breathed. How on earth? Whatever Stanley thinks he's accomplishing with his audience, whatever, whatever he's got in his mind that he wants to bring his audience to.

He's actually setting up a bunch of people who will not revere the word of God at all.

Yeah. Not at all. They'll even think of it as a book full of stories. Just a book full of stories.

Because when Stanley goes through this and you can hear the way he's even kind of embellishing as he goes, he's going to go through this and he's going to mention a few verses, but then you're getting

Andy Stanley's version in between. So this is Stanley's telling of the story. It's the

Andy Stanley message Bible. The way he preaches is you're getting Eugene Peterson the way he did the message, only worse.

It's Andy Stanley. You can do worse than the message Bible. Believe it or not.

Anyway, so that's that sermon. Audrey, I hope that clarified some things. Every time that I do a critique of Andy Stanley's stuff, he's got a faithful crew who will say exactly what you experienced,

Audrey. And they say this to me. No, you're taking Stanley's comments out of context. You need to listen to the whole sermon.

And then you listen to the whole sermon and they tell you, well, you need to listen to the whole series. I've done this.

I've done this many times. I've listened to the whole sermon. I've listened to the whole series. In this case, I haven't because he's not done with the whole series.

But I've done this. I've done this many times before. And when I do, when I listen to the whole sermon, it's always worse than the little snippet that you heard that I took out to critique.

And this is often the way it goes with false teachers. Yeah. You'll hear a comment from a false teacher that'll kind of go viral and it'll make its way into a video and something like that.

And they'll probably have a select few that'll say, no, you're taking that out of context. It's always worse in context.

The context is 99 .9 % of the time. It's way worse. But babe, you weren't there for the feels.

Thanks for bringing it back to the feels, babe. Anytime. I'm instantly wrong.

I can't argue with my feels. Once somebody says, but I feel. That's it. You're done.

Game over. You're done. That's it. You're out. No matter what you say. Nope. Doesn't matter. It doesn't trump the feels.

Well, God bless you guys. Thank you so much. Let's do a quick prayer at the conclusion here. Heavenly Father, I pray that you keep us faithful to your word and that we would be a people who delight in your commandments.

For it is how we demonstrate our love for God that we keep the commandments of Christ. Help us to love

God with all of our heart and we learn more and more day by day what that means and to love our neighbor as ourself.

That even in loving our neighbor, this is worship to God. Let us not lose sight of your promises which are bound up in your law, in your commandments, in what

Christ fulfilled, in what he commanded and what he promised. Let us hold fast to these things until the day of glory.

It's in Jesus' name that we pray. Amen. Amen. Oh. Thanks.

Anything else? Yeah. Like my sound effects there? Sure. That's sounds it makes when

I'm getting the microphone closer to you. Still can't get it right.

Is this good enough for you? Sounds like I'm moving a washing machine. What are they doing? Funny. When it used to be that I would help people move onto post and all those houses in Forsyth have the washer and dryer hook up on the second floor.

Oh yeah. That's what that would sound like. We're moving the washer and dryer up there. Up the stairs. And pivots because all of them pivot.

Gotta pivot. And everybody downstairs just hears this What are they doing?