The Nerd Out: When Love Requires Confrontation Recap
TRANSCRIPT:
Well, good morning everyone or wherever you're watching this. Welcome to the latest edition of the nerd out. I am your host Jack. My name is Lyall.
[music]
Great to have you back from your epic journeys and trip and we are looking into I know we had a lot of fun.
So, uh I slipped him a Dr. Pepper because uh [clears throat] my Steelers laid an egg yesterday
against your Patriots and stuff. But yeah, you had trip around the world. You got to go to
Well, just across the pond, but across the pond.
Close enough. It was around the world and stuff, but we both had fun. Yeah.
Fun times. So, we both got to visit an iconic golf course. We did. Yep. Saw grass. St. Andrews for me. St. Andrews for you.
And uh had a great time. So, good. Rested, refreshed, ready to go. Landed it on the iconic 17th.
I did. So, I was hap Listen, I'll be honest.
First shot from 120, it hit the railroad tie in front and bounced up to the walkway. So, I could have chipped it up
from there, but we had a guy who was much closer for birdie. And then we went back to where the pros hit it. And that's I hit the middle of the green
then. So, felt confident. I'm like, okay, when I watch it, I'll see it. But, yes. Yeah. Well done.
All right. We are diving in. We continued in 1 Corinthians series uh the better way when love requires
confrontation. And this is getting into chapter 5, 6, 7, 8. Actually, Paul's going to pick up steam here um in the
book and bring some challenges um but always coaching them to the better way of Jesus. So, yeah, absolutely.
Um so, with that, I guess, you know, I dive into some takeaways. I know uh
[clears throat]
we had a um a lengthy uh message and I know you had a bunch on the cutting floor.
So we'll dive into that today.
Even longer a few questions. Thank you for not pulling a marathon [laughter] so in that. But it's great stuff.
It's a church service, not a conver difference.
And I think the caveat I'll give will give maybe with the next few messages is it really would be
We would love as pastors to be able to sit with people at a table around coffee or lunch and have some of these
conversations more so than maybe putting it out online cuz it's just it's weird
how people take clickbait and say one thing and then they label and all that stuff. So everything that we're going to
talk about that Paul's getting into um I hope that you'll hear the pastoral heart um here that we want to be
compassionate and clear. You I think it was a great way to end and it's a great reminder of how he ends this passage or
that we looked at. So all right so key takeaways uh again these are just refreshers the first couple from how
we've gone through so far chapters 1 through 4. Uh your identity is in Christ not in your sin or your struggles. Jesus
tells you who you really are. Uh, number two, the wisdom of God will often appear as foolishness to the world, but following God's design leads to genuine freedom, not bondage.
Number three, church discipline when exercised rightly is always remedial and restorative, never punitive or condemning.
Number four, tolerating unrepentant sin in a community is not loving. It is harmful to the individual and to the
whole body is kind of seeps through there. Uh, number six, the or seven, uh, nope, five. There we go. The goal of confrontation is always restoration.
Paul's hope for the man in 1 Corinthians 5 was that he would repent and be saved.
Next one. Um, such were some of you. The gospel has always been and continues to be the power of God to transform any life.
And then the final one, surrender is a daily decision. Presenting yourself as a living sacrifice means continually choosing God's will over your own
appetites. Um and that probably where we'll camp out the next few uh weeks
um in that in that framework. So um yeah, it it's obviously addressed toward one particular individual sin that's
happening that's affecting or has a ripple effect across the community. uh you talked about um they're kind of
thinking themselves the superior Christians and yet they have they're tolerating some of this stuff in their midst. Um and then he actually gives
a list uh of here's some things that that should not be because you once were, but the grace of God has redeemed
you and called us. And so there's a whole thing about our sexuality, our identity again and all this, but maybe
let's start with some of the stuff. You got the Greco Roman influence. There's a lot here that we dive into.
Oh gosh. Yeah, there's a ton, isn't there? And kind of the interesting thing about first Corinthians, um it
it almost doesn't do it justice the way that we read so devotionally in the way that we do church almost in the western
world because this is a book that well and truly builds upon itself and calls back to itself. And uh gosh, there's multiple points that I
actually could have called forward to stuff Paul said.
Yeah. of um you know, okay, well, some of the stuff with uh how we use our bodies and sex, like what are we supposed to do? And even Paul is like, I wish you were as I was.
You know, that Paul's talking about uh he thinks and he's he even says like this is my opinion. This isn't necessarily what scripture says, but
singleness leads to an undistracted devotion that frees me to do the things of the Lord.
Yep. Um, and if I'm not mistaken, like this is coming from a guy who at one point had to be married because he was a member of a specific society that would
have required a marriage. And so we don't know uh how that works. We don't know was his wife still alive, did she pass away? And
once she passed away, he had the freedom to We don't know any of that. But he still uh was just like, "Listen, I can put all
of my desire into this to have an undistracted devotion to the Lord." And I find that this is far more fulfilling
than any sexual relationship that I could have. Right? Like there's far more value to this for me. You know, we could even point ahead to First Corinthians 8 when he's talking about idol meat and
just uh so you wouldn't deny yourself for the sake of your brother, you know, like your brother is struggling with this thing and then you
flippantly would do this. Like man, the gospel isn't that insensitive. True love for your brother in Christ and for your community isn't that insensitive. So there's a lot that you could call
forward to but also call back to and that's kind of the difficulty but also where we started just kind of trying to build that they would have read this letter in one sitting.
Exactly.
Um Exactly.
And just the way we go through it in typical church fashion in the west uh is we'll work our way through it which we can drill down and get a little bit deeper. Yep.
So it's both and are good things and stuff. So, exactly.
But yeah, from that Greco Roman perspective um quoted Plato uh which was funny that a friend sent me a shout out
Fish uh sent me a Instagram post uh did a full breakdown of kind of what Plato wrote. I think it came from Plato's is
it republic that he did uh where he wrote about uh how democracy can devolve into tyranny and so it had this kind of thing
where it talked about the elevation of freedom to the point where all freedoms are equally valid all pursuits are equally valid and then you get to this
point where we mistake freedom uh for appetite and really it just it becomes our appetites that are driving us not our
freedoms and because we lose the ability to build a proper hierarchy. We can't even submit our appetites to wisdom. So
now it's like appetite dominates all things, right?
Uh which I thought it's crazy how that's when you talked about that like that is where our humanity and our progression
as a human race. Yeah, we haven't progressed at all.
Maybe technologically we found some cool things out. Maybe, [clears throat] you know, because of our knowledge and some of the sciences, we've kind of learned
how to get the most out of the human body for the sake of like athletics and for, you know, uh, average length of life now, some of those things. But
human nature, it's still human nature and we still have a sinful side to us. So the other thing just there wasn't a lot of time
obviously I knew I wouldn't have time to drill down on everything that I would have liked but um Corinth doesn't
necessarily get the uh same shout out that like Colossa you know they talked a lot about aestheticism
and kind of the um this kind of mysticism that the aesthetics kind of had this idea the agnostics is also
agnosticism where there's like the secret knowledge right uh and so there's hints of that with the way that Paul talks about well I follow Paul I follow Apollos I follow Cphus
like they kind of treated knowledge in that way but if if you look at the Gnostics and the way that they treated
um reality and just the world their worldview was that all things that are matter so like flesh even this chair
even this fake plant like it's evil anything physical material uh is evil uh but the spirit is what is good and so we
elevate the spirit it and you kind of create this two-tiered approach of what's evil and what's good. Um, so they
kind of had that and because of that it was like they would take this approach where we have to deny everything in the
body because it's evil. So it's clearly not how Corinth sees it but they still kind of have this separate worldview of like life in the body and then kind of life in the spirit.
It's a downgraded view of the body which is actually what it gets at for the rest of chapter 6. Exactly.
Which we'll camp on next week. Well, and truly, like if I would have had time, I would have shouted out uh a book I recommended to you. But yeah,
Nancy Piery has this book, Love Thy Body, which is probably one of the best books I've read in the last five or six years. One of the more important books.
And if I struck a nerve about anything with sexuality last night, or if it caused you to raise questions or if you want to
drill deeper, this is probably the best thing you can read. Yep.
Um shout out again to Fish. uh he talked about how he had some views that he read this book and it's just it's so well laid
out, so logically laid out that he's like it was the first time in a while he had to admit I was wrong like and he had to change what he viewed about things because of how clearly she
presents um it's a great I mean she's a great author. Yeah.
And one of the key things that she oops that she talks about really it comes from Francis Schaefer in his book Escape from Reason. But there's as we've gotten
into the post-modern age, we have this [snorts] interesting view that's emerged that for centuries, for millennia
really, uh the way that we viewed reality was that there was one kind of unified view of reality, of what's in
the world, of the sciences, of religion, of all these things that there's just different aspects that help us get understanding. And once modern philosophy kind of came about, they were
all about separating uh and creating uh empirical evidentially based like
knowledge. And so they kind of separated knowledge from theology in a way. So uh the way that Francis Schaefer uh shows
it and then Nancy Piery does it um the two is that you've get Yeah.
you've got this like two-tiered approach. So, I don't even know if uh it'll translate on camera, but you know,
we'll see. So, you've got like the theology and then you've got the sciences. And so, science is this is what is fact-based. It's empirical.
There's evidence for it and this is public knowledge. But then you've got theology and because they're separate because you can't like prove
theology and there's no like empirical evidence for that, they put it up to this second tier uh where this is kind of more private. This is subjective
whereas this is the objective truth. And so as this progresses uh in modern times now uh they would uh if you were to go
to universities uh they don't necessarily oop got it wrong already. uh they'll
call it the fact value split and they don't show it this way, but really what they're saying is you have facts that
are on that lower tier of what you can prove and what's got evidence and what's objective, but values are subjective and you keep them private. You kind of keep it to yourself
and it's, you know, it's okay what you believe, think what you think, that's fine. So because we've created this split in postmodernism to live on the
second tier is to transcend and to kind of get to a better place where it's like ooh I can be spiritual. So the way that
we've separated this well we've got our bodies like our bodies are like it's empirically here it's physical
but then our spirituality becomes uh metaphysical and because it's in this upper tier we can kind of transcend to
this point where it's subjective and that's what's led to this really this low view of the body y and this low view of how our bodies are
to be used and the brilliance of Christianity is it's all total truth like it's meant to be unified as a Mhm.
And uh how do I know that? Well, there's a key word that Paul actually uses, and I didn't even drive into this at all, but I I read that passage in 1
Corinthians chapter 2 where it talked about mature. Those who are mature are the ones who hear from the spirit. They walk by the spirit. And so, they walk in
the foolishness of the spirit to the world. And yet, that's really where true wisdom is. And the word that Paul uses for the mature is
tios. So that comes from the Greek word telos which is purpose or design. So everything has a telos. An eye has a
telos. A good eye lets you see. A bad eye is unable to see. So a bad eye does not fulfill its purpose.
And going back to you know for thousands of years the greatest thing that a man could do or woman could do is to understand their purpose in life and
fulfill it and live it out. That's it.
But now that we've kind of separated these things like we've started to um create division where there was meant to
be a wholeness and so the person who is a teos person all the different parts of their life mind body soul spirit is
unified and integrated properly and there's a singular focus following after Christ and everything else submits to that.
That's what it is to be tios. And then you read a passage like James 1 where it talks about the person who's complete or mature lacking in nothing and that's the
person who is tellios. And then after that he talks about the double-minded and they're anxious and they're thrown about and it's like really what he's saying is they have a divided heart.
Their heart is divided in so many different directions that it's creating an anxiety in them. And I would argue in today's day and age because of this
split, because we don't have a unified view of the mind, the body, and the soul, we think that as long as my mind is saved, what I do with my body doesn't
really matter because it's just inherently sinful and I'll never overcome that sinful nature of that. But if I can transcend to the spiritual
level and get that right, it'll be fine.
And we live in the most anxious and depressed generation that we've ever had.
Mhm. It's almost as if scripture addresses that thousands of years ago when it talks about but beios okay if I
can submit my mind body soul spirit all of that to Christ if I can take a biblical worldview and an approach and just try to unify all these things
could it be that I could be happier could it be that we would have less depression and less anxiety if we didn't have these divided hearts that were pulling us in multiple
directions and that's really what Paul is trying to show them that there's division in the church because there's a division in the way that they're going about what
they're doing that they think they're spiritual but what they're doing is actually evil. uh the way I said it that they're confronting what should be forgiven in each other, but they're also
forgiving what should be confronted and allowing incredibly perverse sexual sin happen uh with this man who has his father's wife.
Um right, awful, you know, but then you've got divisions that are leading people to sue each other and they can't even settle disputes amongst themselves. Like
there's just such a lack of maturity in the church that uh Paul had to address it. And so really that's another framework that you could take as you
look at all of that. If you want to go deeper on that framework, again, one of the best books I've read, I'm not even kidding, in the past, uh, five years. It's so important uh,
and so well written um, that it just it gives language to some things in a very theologically sound way, but in a very clear way that
helps us kind of understand where we're at as a culture and how do we speak biblical truth to that.
Yeah. Well, and I think that's again how we ended last night that we want to be compassionate and clear um because we're
we're navigating uh troubled and muddy waters of a whole bunch of narratives
out in our cultural context especially in the western world that that says hey you know use your body this way or do
this or give yourself to appetites and whatever that might be. Um, all right.
So, in trying to be addressing that particular issue, but
Paul also dives into multiple um sins that might be hot topic buttons or hot
buttons uh in our cultural moment uh in this. Is there anything else that that you cut that you wanted to touch on
or that helps us circle back around again? Not for clickbait, but for us to be able to say, "Hey, here's what the
scripture calls us to, how it defines things." Uh, you did a great job laying that out, but I want to give you space just to share more.
Yeah. I think the only thing that just again because of time and like also just when you're in a moment and trying to speak, it's just your brain's
everywhere. So, you just don't always hit the things that you would like to hit. Yeah.
Uh I think the most important thing, you know, I tried to talk about we all have people that are in our lives that we know uh are making decisions that we wish they wouldn't make. Yeah.
Um or we also have people who are in our lives who we love like friends uh family that they aren't walking with Christ and because of that they choose
to let their identity be defined by their sexuality or defined by something else. Like I have a cousin uh who's gay and I
didn't even realize he was gay uh for most of my childhood. It wasn't until later teen years when I kind of pieced it together. Oh, there's a reason
he always has one of his guy friends hanging out with us. Mhm.
Got it. [laughter] Like, oh, okay. So, like anything that we say, you've got to understand if you go back and watch like what we're saying about uh homosexuality
and how the Bible defines same-sex attraction, what it says about it, that it's clear that it says homosexual activity is what it defines as sinful and being against God's design.
So, it goes back to Telos, it goes back to purpose. I don't say that because I I hate people.
Actually have love for people. There's even people that I I worked with at Apple that I deeply care about and um you know, they identify as gay. Like it's not my job to change them.
Nope.
It's not my job to do anything other than to just love them. Uh and to you know, when I have opportunities to speak about my faith and what guides me, like I'll do that.
You know, I had one person that I worked with cancer, prayed for her, she was healed from her cancer. like she I'm praying for her and she's just tearing
up, you know, and just all these things that we would do together, you know, and work together, like built relationship.
So, it's not that we're saying anything uh out of hatred. It's just we think that God has a design and we want to share what that design is because we
think God's way is the best way that we can go about it. That God is not a God who makes mistakes. He didn't make a mistake when he made a person. He didn't
make a mistake when he made you. And yes, he designed all of us with different weaknesses and different temptations. And we've just got to understand that. And that's where the
body of Christ needs to rise up and be so loving and receiving of the people who confess Jesus as Lord and Savior and just so invested in each
other's lives that we can help each other walk uh toward victory and to walk toward what freedom in Christ is supposed to look like. And sometimes
that means submitting our desires uh to uh the Lord and submitting those desires and saying, "I'm struggling with this.
This is a thorn in the flesh for me, but uh I trust that you're better and I trust that what you have for me is better." That's it.
Um I think it's important to kind of say as a church, we don't want to allow
anybody on the platform who is actively and unrepentantly living in sin. Mhm.
in any form of sin um in any form of especially egregious sins. So uh it doesn't matter what that sin might be.
If a person is actively and unrepentantly just like no, I'm going to do this. I'm going to keep doing this.
We don't need you representing Christ because that's not representing his values and it's not representing the power of the gospel. So um that's kind of what we would say.
There's sins that are in secret that we're not always going to know about.
And so there are may be some people who are actively in sin and they may be unrepentant about it and we just we don't know. And if it came to our
attention, yes, we would have a conversation with people and talk about what it would look like to get back to a standard where it's okay
to be on a platformed position. So, uh, the same is true though that we probably if you're actively and unrepentantly
living in sin, we may not let you teach our children at our church cuz again, we need to know that what's going to be
promoted and what's going to be passed along aligns with scripture. So, um,
that's kind of what we feel about uh or how we approach uh leadership on some things at the church, but we still want
to try to find places for everyone to be involved. There's levels to leadership. Absolutely.
And there's levels to participation. And everybody can participate in a lot of things. Um but not everybody gets to
participate in everything, right? Um and that's where we kind of have u a
framework that we want to be a biblical guideline and that um out of compassion and out of clarity uh that we follow
that. And so the reality is like some of those sins may not be public sins. Yeah.
So we would not invoke church discipline and bring someone from the [clears throat] whole church.
Um if someone were in leadership that needed to be removed because of something. But if there was someone at a high enough level of leadership and it became a
scandal like it was like public knowledge. That's what the framework that I mentioned last night. Chapter five. Yeah.
Okay. If you swear on the way to church because someone cut you off, we're not bringing you up on stage and like we need you to repent. But uh you know if
one of uh our elders or pastor uh cheats on their wife then yeah we might have to have a public conversation from the
stage about what church discipline looks like in that matter especially if the entire congregation knows about something. So there's a framework.
There's a context to all of this. We don't want to use this to just beat people into submission. That wasn't Paul's heart. Paul's heart was again you said it in the takeaways.
I said it last night. Paul's heart behind all of this was how do we get people onto a road of reconciliation and
restoration because that is the power of the gospel at work when it really takes root in a community. Uh and
that was I thought pretty humbling even for me as I read what Gordon Fee wrote in his commentary of man how sad it is that uh our view of
the church is so low that we wouldn't even understand that it would be actually punishment to remove someone
from the body that the spirit's doing so much work that a person would grieve not getting to participate in seeing the great
things that God is doing in the midst of a congregation. Like would we ever see that as punishment in our day and age?
I that's but I mean that is the idea of removal from one of the simply means joining another down the street here
in our context. And listen, we've we have pastored long enough. Uh I have seen it. I've witnessed it. I've watched
it. Um I've met it in the sense of people leaving one place coming here or
leaving one here and going one place and um and the problem is when you travel your
baggage goes with you. Um and that's the point Paul's trying to make is let's deal with this so that you can
unpack it and not you could travel lighter uh and not have this be something that's uh around you all the
time. Um, I I don't know if uh he uses the imagery. I know you didn't camp on it a whole lot, but the idea of the leaven and [clears throat] unleavened.
Anything else you want to add about that? I mean, it's kind of straightforward, but is there any nuance that you want to touch on?
Is that a loaded question? Was there nuance you wanted me to touch on?
No, [laughter] no, no. Um, from another pastor's perspective. No, I think it was just Yeah. Uh the whole idea a little bit of sin uh is like a
little bit of leaven that gets into the dough.
So when we can work its way through have a high enough view of holiness, we recognize that that little bit of leaven can
become very destructive if it's unchecked. Mhm.
So, I think that that's where having a community of people who love each other so much but aren't impressed with each
other that they're able to have real conversations of things that they're seeing. Uh but not only that, when
that love exists, like isn't it better to confess temptation than it is to just confess actual sin?
Yeah. Like it's so much better to just be able to be like, man, I was tempted by this and I like I'm ashamed that it was even a thought that creeped into my
mind, but it did and I just got to tell someone about it.
And then to have people who love you and are praying for you and helping strengthen you versus no, I gave into the temptation. I actually did this thing. I think that's what's
important is like we're morally responsible for our behaviors and when we recognize that uh that's the reality. It's like,
okay, the temptation itself is not necessarily sin. It's when I follow through on the temptation and I just give into appetite
as opposed to submitting that appetite and that desire to God, that's when I'm in trouble. So, do I have a group of people around me
that I I love enough and who love me enough that I trust to let into that process to help me mature and become who Christ
wants me to be? And that's really that's the overall thing of all this that Paul has been speaking identity to them and he's using the language this is who you
are and we talked kind of about neurosciences of the importance of identity and goes back to the series we started this whole year with um and
about cultivating gospel- centered community be reminded about who you are and uh that's what Paul hold up to that and really like I could have used the
illustration of uh you think of something like the Lion King uh which is really a retelling of Hamlet if you didn't know that. Um, but uncle kills
king. Uh, but doesn't let anybody know. Now you've got son who's on the run.
Uh, but the whole point of the Lion King is he's always been king. That's his identity. But he's just kind of ignoring that and not choosing to walk in that
identity. And the movie is just about him rediscovering that and kind of becoming who he's always been. Stepping into who he's always been.
Yeah. Really what Paul is saying is become who you've always been through the power of the spirit. Become what you
really are through the power of the spirit. You don't do it on your own. You do it through the grace of God by the power of the spirit. Yeah.
But it's just a matter of recognizing your identity and then stepping into that and allowing the spirit to have uh full control of your heart, of
your mind, of your body, of your soul to do what he needs to do. That renovating work that he wants to do to make you like Christ. Yeah, I think that's part
of the you touched on it last night, but the idea of the restorative nature of the gospel meant to be within our
relationships and is always about a help and a hand up to who you really are and never about a condemnation or shoving
out or isolating. Uh because that's sin is about isolation. Yeah.
Uh the gospel is about reconciliation. Um, and so as a community of gospel- centered people,
we're not about condemnation and kicking people out. He does talk about that, but
the point of it was to, I guess, ignite a restorative uh, flame within
that person to go, "Oh, yeah. I'm not acting like I am meant to be, and I need to submit to that. I need to come back
into community and walk up into who I really am and who Christ has called me to be. And so this it becomes a
challenge but I think that's it's always the nature of the gospel to be restorative and um because he gives a
list um in the first part of 1 Corinthians 6 that so he touches on okay here's this one guy's issue and the ripple effect of
that in the church but then he kind of puts a list of sins in 1 Corinthians 6 which includes okay don't just be sexually immoral but don't
be greedy drunk or given into drunkenness or uh reveling, why do you think certain sins on that list tend to receive more attention or more
confrontation uh in a church culture while others are maybe largely overlooked or passed over?
Um like we have a tendency sometimes to rank sin.
Um Oh, for sure.
And Paul's saying, "No, no, let's root out all of this, not just one, but sometimes people camp on one."
Um, and well, I mean, the fact is we all are the result of millions of decisions that
we've made that others around us have made. Yeah.
That have kind of led us to where we're at and we don't know what those decisions are.
Um, we don't see that people wearing that on their sleeve. I thought that was great how you touched on that at the beginning
is that we as Christians, we don't judge the outside world, nor do we ever expect that we have all the information uh of
what people have wrestled with that led them to the place they're at. Yeah, absolutely.
So anyway, so I think that for one, like we're just sensitive to different things because of history.
Yep. So, uh, I can just say that even from my own family perspective that my aunt was killed by a drunk driver, I
never got to meet her. She was 18 when it happened.
Uh, she was coming home from a date right after she had graduated high school and it happened on my dad's birthday.
So, just with family history there, uh, I made the decision pretty early on that I just wasn't going to drink because I
knew how deeply that impacted and hurt my dad. uh especially more so because he and my mom had just gotten married and
they were in Europe on a choir tour with Grand Canyon College back then. So they weren't even there to grieve with the family when it happened.
So there's just all of this uh what we today would call trauma that's wrapped up in this event that uh
our family just made this decision that we're not going to drink and we're not going to give into alcohol.
it's not even going to be a thing for us just because of how that's hurt the family, right?
But I can't impose that on others, especially when scripture is like, "Hey, don't get drunk with wine, right?" So, as we've said in the past more than two, you're not you.
So, there's just got to be wisdom in how we use alcohol and use it with temperance.
Uh, because it matters what we do, you know? So, drunkenness is on that list, right?
So, I might be more sensitive to drunkenness than I would be to some of the other things. I think really what it is sometimes there's things that we see in
ourselves that disgust us and so we let that disgust be known even though we're guilty of some similar things.
Um other times we see how that sin's affected someone that we love and so there's a lot of disgust with that
because we're angry at how that thing has impacted family or someone that we love. Um, I think other times
we're just we turn a blind eye to certain things because it's easier to rant and rave about this cultural hot button topic where we want to be on the
right side of it where um, you know, it's the age-old joke that you've got the pastor in the pulpit who's 300 lb
and he's ranting and raving about you know sexual sin and it's like meanwhile the guy doesn't want to address gluttony.
Gluttony. Yep.
Right. Like, so there's just there's all these things that uh it if we're being honest, it'd be nice to be able to paint the complete picture,
but in some ways it is kind of like the golf swing where uh if any of you have ever tried to learn how to swing a golf club.
There are so many things to think about that while you're thinking about five of those, you know, 25 things that you should be thinking about, the other 20 are not in
alignment. And it's just it takes time to get to where you can address it all and where you can kind of see a holistic view of all of it. And it takes a lot of
repetitions. So for some of us, we're just newer and some of you are newer in your faith. So yes, you need to focus on
certain things. But over time, the hope would be that you start to get more of a complete picture of what it means to submit the whole self to Christ and to
allow his saving work to the sanctification process to take place in every area
of us. And so he might be working on one person with something that's pretty deeply entrenched in like it may be alcoholism that's really deep or it may
be anger like a pornography addiction or or something. And because he's working so much on that, it's a little difficult
for them to also pay attention to this other problem that maybe the gluttony or some other thing that is sinful.
Uh and so it just it takes time and we don't know where people are at in that process, but it is our responsibility to love them and to support them
and uh you know, maybe it is the time to bring up, hey, have you noticed how this is affecting you? But again, like how do I get to a place where I'm trying to
seek to understand first as opposed to lobbing an accusation uh and just kind of launching straight into condemning someone or to
calling something out that uh would be damaging and demoralizing. That's not helpful if it becomes that.
So, we need wisdom. We need discernment in how we go about doing this in a loving way that is always meant to be
restorative and um helpful, not condemning and kind of piling toxic shame onto a person.
Yeah, I think that the confrontation so re real love always knows how to
confront. Um but real love is always relational. Um and so
confrontation comes in the context of relationship. So even Paul here challenging is these are the people that
he planted this church. Um he gives a rip. He cares like he's invested blood, sweat and tears into these people. And
so when he comes across as confrontational and you may read some of these passages and through chapter 5 6 7 8 and even on
and you can read this from an author perspective and go man this guy sounds mean or this guy sounds but there's a deep relationship with these people.
He's not just abandoning he's not uh ejecting them out and cancelling them.
um he's wanting the best for them and wanting to call them back again to the whole series title to the better way of
Jesus um in that and so all right couple other thoughts here and then we'll land on some practical applications. So sermon close with the image of the
living sacrifice that can crawl off the altar uh describing surrender to God as a daily decision. What specific areas of
your life do you find yourself? Um maybe you or you see from a global
perspective or kind of a what issues do you think what are cultural um that we find ourselves kind of climbing
off the altar and what makes full surrender maybe a difficult challenge or what's the invitation of full surrender look like
uh for either you could personalize it but you know from a context of just pastoring uh what do we see? Yeah, I
think it's definitely a moment by-moment thing. And I think when we see it as moment by moment, um that's where we just kind of recognize that we
are living sacrifices that we can crawl off of the altar. Like I can be fully surrendered to Jesus at 6:30 in the morning after I've done my
Bible reading, right?
And then my wife talks to me about something and I'm suddenly not fully surrendered.
Uh and that's on me. Like I've got to recognize those moments. I think that maybe if that's if that's the prayer of like God
give me more of an awareness moment by moment of where I can re-surrender to you today
you know I have to do that because uh it's really easy to pick a song set list out of my own power
and using my own brain uh and there's also a tension here because you know Paul talks about how we have the mind of Christ and so it's like I want to do the
work that I do as a pastor when it comes to selecting songs for worship and you know when it comes to writing a sermon when it comes to studying during the
sermon getting Bible studies ready all of that I want to do that in the power of the spirit but the reality is because I've done this long enough I can rely on myself
right and I can rely on myself for a long time before I ever notice that the spirit's not involved and that's pretty
scary in some ways and yeah so I have to deal with that Do you
know like I'll confess like I can scroll on Instagram and just the way that algorithms work now. I can see something
pop up that leads me down a rabbit hole that I'm just, you know, looking same for specific types of pictures that
some influencer has posted and it's just like why am I doing this? Like stop it, you know? And like I just have to
so I have to resurrender so I don't go down paths that lead to lust in ways that would uh compromise my own integrity, you
know. So um it's just we live in a culture that kind of puts so many things in front of us that I think the more that we have
this mindset of how can I resurrender to Christ with just moment by moment throughout my day
so that when I I get pulled away from that and I start to operate under my own power. I start to react in a way that I I'm not proud of
or that I don't necessarily want to how do I bring myself back to a place of resurrender? That's kind of honestly
that's just been something that I've um been kind of praying about even of myself of like I I want to continue to walk by the spirit like if that's where
life is I want that so how do I be more reliant on that and it's just asking I think and just consistently kind of coming back to that place and wanting to have
that awareness re-surrender is a good word um quick to confess uh would be the wisdom I would
give you that I I try to practice is that when I when I recognize eyes. Um, and it been walking with Jesus for a
long time. Uh, I know myself better than anyone else. Um, and so it's learning to be self-aware.
And instead of burying it, be quick to confess. Okay, I need to own that thought. I need to own that action. I
need to own and I need to learn from that. and I need to repent and I need to confess that and go God and maybe I need to confess that to someone else if it
impacted someone else in that. Um so those are good. Uh okay Paul reminds Corinthians uh last thought uh for such
were some of you. So this list that he gives uh he's kind of speaking to okay don't get sidetracked by all this stuff
and he kind of puts a list and he does that in a couple other passages other letters uh that he writes to churches.
So people can look at list of sins. They can also look at the list of the fruits of the spirit. And so Paul likes a list.
Um but he doesn't name all the sins uh that are out there. Who could? But he says some of you were these.
So again, he's going back to but you're not anymore because you have a new identity in that. So, how does remembering your
own story of transformation uh shape the compassion and patience that you extend to others who are maybe
still in the middle of their story um and still in that transformation process? How can that keep us humble? Um
any thoughts you want to react to that before we get to some application?
Sure. Yeah, I think um yeah, [snorts] there's a lot you could go with there. Um,
not everyone has that moment where just it feels like just fire burned within your chest and you're like
salvation has happened, you know, like some of us have those moments where it's just like there is a definitive encounter. And I think when you have that moment,
uh, it is so revealing how sinful you are. Like that's the Isaiah 6 of a true vision of God's holiness
uh naturally leads to repentance and a cleansing of sin. Like that's just kind of the natural outcome of something like that. And when
you've got that moment, [snorts] it just gives clarity for so much. So it's just I want that for you. I want that for every believer to have that
moment where you encountered undeniably just the s the saving power of the gospel and just when it took full root within you.
Um and I think sometimes we maybe we just get so far away from that that we can get frustrated with people especially when we see people just
returning to the same sin that they are continuing to struggle through that that it it it can be hard to have patience and grace for that person.
Yeah. Um, and sometimes it gets to a point where you're not the person who's able to help them anymore. And that's okay. That they need to look somewhere else.
And that's what kind of my point was.
Praise the Lord that we have examples in our own selves, in our own Yeah.
body of Christ in our day and age, in our time, the people who've written books about it. But also throughout church history, there's so many people who have so many stories of sin in their
own lives of what God has done and what transformative work he's done that whatever you're struggling with,
there is a story of how God saved a person from that. You're never alone in it.
Um, and I think that that's really powerful. And so for the person who's just like, man, what do I do? Like I didn't have full time to get into this
yesterday. Um, if I would have had time, I would have loved to have just given.
What do you do then? How do I redirect like when I've got appetites that I'm not submitting to wisdom? What do I do? Here's just kind of three quick things.
One, just say no to worldly desires in order to say yes to greater desires.
Like when we can start to recognize where our appetites are leading us and what things like, it's just me. I want it, but I don't really need it. Yeah.
I'm able to say no to that thing because I know that there's a greater desire for holiness. there's a greater desire to walk in the spirit to as I walk in the
spirit, you know, see the fruit of the spirit grow in me so I can be a blessing to others.
I think that's also like Steve Cus, we've talked about the story the name it tamement like literally say it out loud.
Um because when you say it out loud, it kind of puts it in a different framework of like I guess I don't need to give into this appetite
because I'm going to say it out loud and then I go, oh yeah, I that's second best and I don't need to settle. God has something better for me. Yep.
Yep.
Uh number two is redirect your sinful desires into redemptive directions.
So uh when you identify kind of [snorts] when's your weak spot, when does that temptation especially creep in? When is
it especially hard to say no to that temptation? When does your willpower get completely drained? So once I kind of recognize that as I start to to feel
willpower on lower, when I start to see the pattern emerging, how do I redirect into a redemptive direction where it's like this is a moment where I need to go
uh read my Bible. This is a moment where I need to go to a coffee shop. I'm going to pick up a book and I'm going to read instead or I'm going to call a friend or Exactly. So redirect your sinful desires
into redemptive directions. And the last thing, look to Jesus to forgive your guilt and cleanse your shame.
Remind yourself such were some of you like you have your own story. God has met you with his grace once before. At least at least once before.
So when you encounter those moments, bottle them up, write about them, have them ready so that you can return to them to remind yourself of God's
faithfulness towards you. To remind yourself of the redemptive story that the redemptive work that God's already accomplished even in you and through
you. Uh and just know that hey, he can do it again. He wants to do it again.
That's what [clears throat] sanctification is. This is this lifelong process of God continuing to refine me and help me become more like Christ in
what I say, what I do, how I think, how I act, all to the glory of God.
Yeah, we are a living sacrifice. So, it's just a reminder that if you're in that struggle, okay, well, then you still have work to
do and God still has work to do in you and on you and through you and and with you. Um, and that and that that struggle
means you're still alive. um and you still got God's hope and the gospel can still invade and implement itself into
your life. So, uh a couple other applications, we'll just name out a couple of those are great ones. Um examine your community. Uh maybe you
want to practice some of this. Consider the people in your closest circle of Christian community. are those relationships deep enough that they
could speak truth um to one another on the level like so that healthy confrontation of like hey I don't maybe
here's a blind spot here's what I've noticed do you have some people in your life um within your Christian circle that's tight that can call out the blind
spots that maybe they see or say hey I think this might be I don't know I'm not insinuating anything but um I just I'm bringing it
so that maybe you think about it. So, um yeah. So, pursue a hard conversation. If the spirit uh brought someone to mind
during the sermon or this discussion, commit to reaching out to that person this week. Pray first, lead with love,
and keep uh restoration as the goal. Um because that's the point of it. Daily surrender. Surrender is not a one-time
decision. It's that re-surrender that we talked about uh all the time. So, choose one specific area this week where you
are intentionally uh present yourself as a living sacrifice. God, here's maybe the struggle I have. I want to present
that uh to you and ask for your grace to invade and to help me and uh put me on a path toward that better way. Uh number
one, uh number four, uh revisit the four foundations before your next difficult conversation or moment of conviction.
Return to the four reminders from the sermon that your identity is in Christ.
Christ is the wisdom of God. Your body is God's temple and faithfulness is what God's requiring and asking you. Um so in
lie of that lie of who you are and what Christ has done now live from that and then pray for someone who's maybe living
in sin. Uh rather than judging or distancing yourself from someone who is maybe living an unrepentant
uh life, commit to praying for them specifically uh for a week. uh commit to to praying specifically for God to do a
redemptive work and a restorative work uh and for you to be an advocate uh to help them to stand alongside not to
stand over in judgment but to stand alongside saying hey I want to help you up um if you want me to um obviously it
takes two to tango and so you can only control you and your part uh and if someone else doesn't want that then
that's their choice but at the same way if they need someone you can let them know that you're there and your shadow is present that your presence is close
um and you're there for them. You want to help them move forward in toward healthy ways uh and living out the gospel. So yeah, any final thoughts?
No.
Good stuff. Um we'll continue to roll on in chapter 6 uh in uh what Paul is calling us to the better way of Jesus.
So as we work our way through First [music] Corinthians. So may you be blessed, friends. Have a great week and we'll see you next week on the Nerd Out and next Sunday [music] if you're there.
