Speaker 1 (00:00) Libby Vantocomo, welcome back to Live Like It’s True.

Speaker 2 (00:02) Thank you. Thanks so much for having me.

Speaker 1 (00:04) I

loved our conversation last time about the story of Jesus in the wheat field with the disciples. And we’re just going to keep rolling today and talk about the next one in that same passage. Let me tell our listeners a little bit about you though if they didn’t catch that first one. So you’re my pastor’s wife for one. I don’t know if we even mentioned the name of our church, Crossroads Bible Church, downtown Grand Rapids. How long has it been in existence?

Speaker 2 (00:27) It’s over 20, maybe 21. And when we first started it, we almost just called it a pretty good church. Like that was gonna be the name of it because you know, everyone’s like, where do you go to church? A pretty good church. Yeah, it’s, we are so grateful for Crossroads.

Speaker 1 (00:40) I love it. That kind of maybe speaks though to one of the distinctives. It’s pretty like, would you say simple? Like we just try to keep things simple? Is that one of the distinctives?

Speaker 2 (00:53) Simple, restful and real. Those are some of our value statements. Simple. It means we’re,

Speaker 1 (00:57) I get the word right. Simple. You feel that

way. You know, and we talked, we talked about Sabbath last time and yeah, you feel that way at Crossroads. It’s restful. doesn’t have a lot of busy work. You know, it’s like, just keep it, keep it to the basics and serving our people well.

without a lot of the stuff that takes up a lot of time and energy. So I love that. I love that about our church. ⁓ And so you are one of the directors at church. help with curriculum. You and Rod lead trips to Israel, which has really been, ⁓ you know, impacted the DNA of our church. You also studied at the Jerusalem University College. So you got to study in Jerusalem.

first semester, which is super helpful with our conversations. Like I think just having been there, you know, and, um, and learned, you you’re just one of those learned people.

Speaker 2 (01:53) Well, I always say I consider myself a lifelong learner. I’ve never got, I mean, I have an undergrad degree. I’ve never gotten a master’s degree, but I have just picked and chosen classes. we live in Grand Rapids, which has, you know, just a wealth of Christian universities. So I try to audit classes. I never actually take them because I don’t want to actually write the papers and stuff, but just so it’s just a luxury to be able to go sit and do the reading and.

So I love, yeah, kind of, told Rod, like, we should actually get your masters. And I’m just, I like doing what I want to do and not having to like do all these classes I don’t care about. So yeah, I love learning and you yourself are similar.

Speaker 1 (02:38) Well, I mean, I haven’t done that though. Maybe you’re gonna have to tell me more about that. love that I did.

Speaker 2 (02:44) It’s fun.

Anyone can do it. Anyone can do it. So wherever you’re listening, if there’s a local Christian graduate program seminary, I highly encourage it. It’s very reasonably priced. It’s not the full price. And you can just use some of your time and have guided learning. That’s why I like to look at it. Cause they give you reading and you know, around the text and the Bible. And so you just have a growth program that is built in. So I don’t think I have amazing, but thank you.

Speaker 1 (03:07) You’re amazing. love it.

I think you’re so, ⁓ we’re going to be talking about a passage that is centered at the synagogue, a local synagogue, which is kind of the equivalent of our church. Yes. so church people, church ways of doing church. And, ⁓ and I feel like that is one of the contexts where there’s a lot of judging, you know,

whether one church looking at another church, how, you know, we just talked about how some of the ways our church is unique and distinct, ⁓ or even within the church, you’re doing it wrong. You’re doing it wrong. Like the individuals in the church have an idea of how things should be. Has that been an issue for you at all in your, in your church ministry experience, like judge, either dealing with other judgey people or your own judgey heart.

Speaker 2 (03:59) Yes, and yes. So I actually grew up in the church. My dad was a pastor. I remember I went to Wheaton College for undergrad, and my dad was the president of a local school ⁓ at the same time. And I remember I had a couple groups of friends at college.

Speaker 1 (04:17) First off, was it a problem that you didn’t go to your dad’s school?

Speaker 2 (04:21) ⁓ No, not for him nor for me. ⁓ people always ask me that, like, why do you go there and not where your dad’s in charge, you know? And so we…

Speaker 1 (04:24) But like did other people though have it?

Because

my dad’s in charge.

Speaker 2 (04:32) Well,

before we moved to Wheaton, which is where we lived, I’d always wanted to go to Wheaton College. So we moved right between my sophomore and junior year. So I kind of had my heart set on that before. So he was great. He knew that was always kind of what I wanted to do. And I think he was actually really glad that I went to college in the same town where we lived. So that was nice too. ⁓ He wasn’t mad about that. ⁓ And so I would say though, I got a little flack in college. I had a couple different friend groups.

Some were a little more edgy and then some were a little bit more, ⁓ you know, straight laced, I would say. And so a couple of the straight laced friends came to me and said, why are you hanging out with those people? You should, you’re dad’s so-and-so. You need to be an example. They were friends. So they were friends and still are great friends.

Speaker 1 (05:13) those people.

These friends or were they adults?

Speaker 2 (05:26) of mine to this day, both sets. ⁓ So I just remember feeling really judged by that. Like people are watching and I have to be friends with a certain group of people and you know, kind of pigeonholed and chained into. Yeah. Yeah. So, and also being a pastor’s kid, you always feel those pressures of extra eyes peering at you.

Speaker 1 (05:47) feel that way to

some degree in what I do, with, you know, who am I going to endorse? Who’s, you know, are you part of this group? Are you part of that group? Right. If you go to this conference, what does that say about you? You know, if you share the platform with someone, wait, are they, I actually found someone who had done a whole write up of me.

and my doctrines and theological beliefs. And it was stuff like this, Libby. was like, well, she is friends on Twitter with that person and that person believes. I’m like, I don’t know who I’m friends with on Twitter. Like, please do not build my theological stance off of who I have followed on Twitter. Like I, you know more about me.

from that than I do. And she endorsed this person or that person has endorsed her and they believe this. it’s like, my goodness, if you have questions about who I am and what I believe, I would love to share that with you. But it feels a little like you’re under a microscope and being judged. And I get it that we have to be clear on.

Like I, I, I’m very forthright and these are my doctrinal stances. Like I want, I want to share that I want. And that’s important to me. And I think that as leaders in the church, we’re called to shepherd God’s people and, and like endorsements are very biblical. Right. So P Paul was consistently saying like, here’s who you can trust. Here’s who you can’t trust. So endorsing and the opposite of endorsing. so like, I’m, I’m all for that. ⁓ but I think that these like.

visions and the way that we do church. It’s like, where, what are we after here? Right? Like, where are we trying to box people into like your friends in college? You know, you, you fit in this circle and these two circles do not, there, this is not a Venn diagram. Not overlap.

Speaker 2 (07:42) They do not overlap.

And I was like, but they can, ⁓ they actually can overlap. And I know that’s true even in, Crossroads over 20 years. We’ve had people write articles about Crossroads and be very from the outside in that aren’t actually, you know, firsthand knowledge. And so why is that as believers that we’re just so critical?

Speaker 1 (08:06) Well, and I think, I think it’s interesting that Jesus experienced that. Totally. Like this story is him dealing with, he is in church and he is doing it wrong and he’s going to hear about it. Right. From a whole group of leaders who have all gotten together. I mean, that’s another thing. It’s like one thing if you’re called out by one, but if there’s a whole group of people who are getting together, they’re the firing squad and you’re under their scrutiny. That is very intimidating. And I just love the way Jesus handles this in this story. So would you.

it for us. We’re going to look at Luke chapter 6 verses 6 through 11 in the

Speaker 2 (08:43) On another Sabbath, he entered the synagogue and was teaching and a man was there whose right hand was withered. And the scribes and the Pharisees watched him to see whether he would heal on the Sabbath so that they might find a reason to accuse him. But he knew their thoughts and he said to the man with the withered hand, come and stand here. And he rose and stood there. And Jesus said to them, I ask you, is it lawful on the Sabbath to do good or to do harm, to save life or to destroy it?

And after looking around at them, all he said to him was, stretch out your hand. And he did so and his hand was restored. But they were filled with fury and disgust with one another what they might do to Jesus.

Speaker 1 (09:26) There you go. So what’s the big surprise in this story?

Speaker 2 (09:30) ⁓

As I was reading it, I was thinking about the Pharisees and it says in verse seven, the scribes and the Pharisees were watching him to see whether he would heal on the Sabbath so that they would find something to accuse him of. So they’re actually just looking for him to slip up. They’re kind of hoping he does almost.

Speaker 1 (09:53) That’s so that word. like that’s it’s an explanation of you. It joins to, know, that’s one of our connector words. So that, and it joins like, here’s what happened and here’s why. And so they are watching him. Like that’s interesting that they’re watching him like a hawk.

Speaker 2 (10:09) Which reminds

me of some of the stories we’ve already shared about being judged. There’s people just watching like hawks so that they might find something that they could.

Speaker 1 (10:18) You know, right. Like that woman who wrote up this article about me, she’s watching me like a hawk. So that why I got, you know, and I mean, this woman, I think, let me give her some credit. She said someone had asked whether she recommended my Bible studies and she was like, you know, I’m trying to put it out there. Like she approved me. So that was great. Right. ⁓ but.

Yeah, I think they’re, they’re watching Jesus and not so that they can approve him. They’re watching him with the opposites. They were watching closely to see if he would heal in the Sabbath so that they could find a charge against him. They’ve got their little checklists. They’ve got their, you know, their laws about the Sabbath. We talked about the Sabbath in extent last time and they’ve got their 34 laws and they want to charge him. Like, is that find a charge? That sounds like legal talk there. it?

Is it? they like, how did this work? Did they like actually hold court in the synagogue and

Speaker 2 (11:13) That’s

a great question. they would not have held court in the synagogue, but if you think about Israel, even today, it’s a theocracy. it’s based on, I remember when we were, we have a great friend in Israel who was our guide for many trips. And I remember one time I just asked him, what do you teach in like history and civics in your schools? And my question was actually based on the fact that they don’t have a long history in the land. Just since World War II, they’ve had it. obviously what’s your history because everyone has a different

history, because they came from all different countries. And he said, are you serious? And I said, yeah. Again, feeling like I’m asking a dumb question. He’s like, the Bible, the Old Testament, that’s our history and that’s our law. And I’m kind of like, okay, duh, know, duh. But yeah, so in answer to your question, especially in the first century in the temple,

Speaker 1 (11:44) That’s interesting. What a good question.

Speaker 2 (12:06) There was a group called the Sanhedrin that met in a court there. And so yes, they were tried ⁓ in court cases based on whether or not they obeyed the law of Moses. So if these Pharisees are gathering evidence, I would say, for a larger court case at some point for him to actually be deposed as a rabbi or an influential person, ⁓ that he would be illegal and he would be subject to them to their punishments, according to the…

Torah or the Bible.

Speaker 1 (12:38) And so, what’s Jesus’ heart here in the synagogue with this man with the withered hand? why did Jesus, I don’t know, what’s surprising about the way Jesus handled this?

Speaker 2 (12:52) Yeah, I

think the fact that Jesus, it says he knew what they were thinking in their hearts, right? And so he knows. And so he ⁓ is gonna go for it anyway, even though he knows that they’re trying to build a case. So he doesn’t care. He doesn’t back down. And so he sees the man with a withered hand and he says, come here, come to me. And the man obeys. And then just by the word of his mouth, he recreates his hand.

Speaker 1 (13:05) Yeah, that’s surprising. He doesn’t back down.

Speaker 2 (13:20) and restores the tendons and soles. Yeah, I think Jesus is not afraid to ⁓ have an earthly accuser. He’s not afraid to have someone who’s looking at him and say, you’re ruining your reputation. You know, he’s not afraid to have a group say to him like,

Speaker 1 (13:21) That’s amazing.

Speaker 2 (13:42) you’re not a part of this circle over here that we’re, in fact, he almost relishes it. Do you know what I’m saying? He’s like flagrant in it. So, yeah, it’s fascinating to me, but.

Speaker 1 (13:51) Wow, that’s interesting.

And, and I mean, when it says at the end that he looked around at all of them after verse 10, after looking around at all of them, he told the man, stretch out your hands. So I picture him making eye contact with these different guys with their checklists. know, he had just asked the question. I think this is a really interesting question too. Jesus said, I ask you, is it lawful to do good on the Sabbath or to do evil?

to save life or to destroy it? What do you hear? Like, what is he getting at with that question?

Speaker 2 (14:28) Well,

I think the whole point of Sabbath is to restore all the way back in Genesis. So Sabbath is a restorative practice. It’s to restore your energy, to restore your relationship with God, to restore your rest. And so ⁓ what they’re saying, and I think what the Pharisees have wrong here is that they’re willing to tolerate unrestoration based on the Sabbath, which is…

just antithetical. The Sabbath isn’t unrestoration. They should say it’s unlawful to not restore on the Sabbath, actually. Because that is the heart of the Sabbath.

Speaker 1 (15:10) Right. And so like you wondered, is Jesus even going to be in this town, you know, tomorrow to heal this guy’s hand? Right. But Jesus just doesn’t care. He’s going to go ahead and heal the guy’s hand. I love that because he uses the word restored in verse 10. He did. And his hand was restored, which is the heart of the Sabbath. I love that.

Speaker 2 (15:31) Yeah.

So, but he’s, I think what he’s saying to them, and we talked about this in our previous podcast a little bit, that he’s going for the heart of what Sabbath is about. He’s not going for the check the boxes. He’s like, let’s return to actually Eden and what Sabbath was for. It was to restore and renew. And so you guys have it all wrong. You’re just trying to control and give people boxes and let’s go for those broad strokes again.

This is what Sabbath is for. This is what it’s about.

Speaker 1 (16:02) Two things I love about the fact that you just brought us back to Eden is first of all, restoring the sky’s hand. This is just a taste of the new creation. Like it’s like, here’s the appetizers. The kingdom is coming. It’s here. I can speak and this is restored. It’s not like, I love it that he didn’t use the word healed. It’s restored. It was never intended to be withered. know, withered hand, that doesn’t happen from a disease. That’s like a birth defect, right? And so it’s.

my intention was never that this man’s hand was withered. So I’m going to restore it back to what it was intended to be. We live in this broken, cursed world, right? Where everything, you know, genetic deformities, right? Are things that were not, were not intended to be that way. ⁓ and, and one day it will all be restored, right? And we’ll experience that. But the other thing I love about

you bringing us back to Eden is I love the idea that the Sabbath was to restore us. But also in that verse ⁓ nine, he talks about good and evil. Is it lawful to do good on the Sabbath or to do evil? And that always reminds me of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, which if you, if you contrast the last story and this story. So in the last story, they were eating the grain in the wheat fields.

That was like an authority issue. Jesus says, he’s the Lord of the Sabbath. He gets to decide whether it’s okay, right? He’s in charge. And then in this story, we’re kind of zeroing in on good and evil. So the tree of the knowledge of good and evil in this, in the Garden of Eden, I see it as a twofold test. First of all, who’s in charge, right? Are you going to live?

you know, there’s nothing else withheld from you. And from the beginning, God wanted us to recognize He’s God, we’re not. Are you going to live under my authority as you’re like king and queen, right? You have dominion over the whole earth. Like, are you going to answer to me? So it’s first of all authority. But then second of all, this tree was, it had a name. It was the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. And so are you going to live under my authority? Are you going to let me be the one to determine good and evil? What’s good? What’s good? And like I, in this book I’m writing,

Speaker 2 (18:08) See you.

Speaker 1 (18:12) I called it the good judgment tree. It’s like we were designed to defer to God on what’s good and what’s evil. And so this tree was all about saying, God, I’m gonna let you decide. And when they ate of it, they were like, no, I’m gonna decide for myself. The tree actually looks good. And it’s gonna make me wise, open my eyes so that I can see what’s good and evil and I don’t need God in that process. So I’m gonna be like God. ⁓ So this story I see as like…

This is, this also is a Garden of Eden issue. It’s not only who’s in charge, but who decides what’s good. And like the 10 commandments, all of the commandments in the Bible, but particularly these 10, they’re trying to restore our eyesight. You know, Eve thought her eyes were going to be open. She was going to see what God sees and know what he knows. And we’re blind. Like we look at what God says is good and it doesn’t look good to us. Like Sabbath in particular, we look at resting and I have many times wanted to just.

don’t feel tired. can work on the Sabbath, right? It doesn’t feel restorative to me where it is, you know? So our eyesight is warped. We look at it all wrong and the commandments are helping us to see correctly. They’re helping to restore our perspective on what is good and what is bad.

And yet we talked last time about how even with the commandments, we’re getting it wrong. It’s not restoring us. It’s like we’re back to self salvation. We’re back to checking our boxes and turning it into like, I’ll decide what’s good for me. I’ll determine how to keep these commands and do what’s good so that I can be good. And I don’t need you God again, even with this command.

Speaker 2 (19:51) Well, and if you, as you’re saying that, I’m sitting here thinking, I can’t think of anything more unrestful than me deciding what’s good and bad and me making sure that I follow these. Like, there’s no rest in that. There’s just absolutely, there’s striving. There’s striving and even trying to decide what’s good and bad and what should I do? And, know, then checking boxes and making sure I’m frantically meeting all the, you know, all the benchmarks that are out there. And I think when we read this story,

I love that he says, it lawful on the Sabbath to do good or to do evil? And these Pharisees have so lost perspective that they’ve actually decided what is good is evil and what is evil is good in the sense that they’re like, don’t do it Jesus, don’t restore that hand. If you do it, you’re Can you think of anything, like if we were looking at someone who was actually healing someone, if our perspective was genuine,

Speaker 1 (20:39) Do.

Speaker 2 (20:49) Genuinely, oh no, don’t do it. Don’t do that. Don’t restore that person. Don’t turn their horror into happiness. Don’t turn their situation that is painful into something good. Like that’s what they’re actually saying. They’re saying, and he’s calling them out. He said, you are, what you’re doing is actually evil. Holding people back, not allowing restoration to happen. They’re calling what’s good evil and what’s evil is good. You know what I’m saying? how, Lord help us that we get to that.

where we’re so intent on the boxes, that we’re calling what is good evil and what’s evil good, ⁓ because we’re not seeing the forest through the trees.

Speaker 1 (21:29) I picture them in this setting at synagogue and there’s nothing restful about them sitting there in this, you know, watching him. Like, what’s he going to do? What’s he going to do? They’re on the edge of their seats.

Speaker 2 (21:40) Do something really

good.

Speaker 1 (21:42) Like, as opposed to picture the person who just came and they’re just enjoying the Sabbath, the gathering of God’s people, the taking in of His Word, and they get to witness something amazing and rejoice over it. I mean, that’s the intentionality here. That’s…

That’s the, the King of the universe has just stepped onto the planet, right? And he’s walking around and he’s just touching things, speaking, and things are being restored little by little. We’re getting little glimpses of our eternal rest, right? Which is called our, we’re going to be entering this rest. We’re getting little glimpses of it and they’re militantly against it. Like they don’t want it. They don’t want the rest.

Speaker 2 (22:25) To me, just shows again, you said this, but how blinded they are to actually what the kingdom of heaven is about. What the mission of God is and like Aslan is on the move, like you said, like the snow is starting to melt, things, spring is coming back again and they don’t like it. They don’t like it and they’re against it.

Speaker 1 (22:32) Calling this evil.

Yeah, they don’t.

I

just, wonder where we do this. Like, I wonder where we so like that part that you just said of like, we call something that is so good and so restorative. We call it evil. We look at something God is doing and we don’t want it. Can you think of any, any way?

Speaker 2 (23:07) You know, actually

when we were talking, I was thinking in my mind about baptism. I was comparing it in my mind to crossroads and there’s baptisms. Everyone rejoices. I mean, it’s true. It says, you know, in heaven, people are rejoice or the angels are rejoicing. And I’m sure that’s true of all churches. But to me, it would be like if someone came up and wanted to get baptized and then all of a sudden they got sprinkled instead of immersed. And we’d be like, no.

No, don’t do that. Exactly. That’s kind of like to me you miss the forest through the trees. I ⁓ that’s not important. That’s not the broad strokes of what’s happening here. That’s the detail in the check the box.

Speaker 1 (23:53) I’m somebody who I like to do it right. I like it and I struggle with like, Ooh, this could be, you know, this could be wrong doctrine. This could be, and I’m trying to think of an example, ⁓ it makes, I want for my church to be having those hard conversations about how we’re going to adhere to the truth. And I want there to be people who challenge that in those meetings. I will wait, what is biblical? What is that? ⁓

Speaker 2 (23:56) Yes, I did.

Speaker 1 (24:23) what I don’t want is for it to be only that. You know, I mean, I think we can easily people like me who love the scriptures and want to do it right. can so easily miss the forest for the trees and rejoice over it being done right, but not have it be.

Speaker 2 (24:43) Well, I think it has a bomb even because Easter’s coming up and you know, I’m going to make an Easter dinner and I want it to be right. I want it to be perfect. I want the table to be set. I want the food to turn out really well. ⁓ But it doesn’t matter if I’m barking and you know, trying to make it perfect, but I’m missing.

the broad strokes of like family time and grace. for me, there’s so many ways that I fall short in this area because of just how I’m wired. And so I’m constantly like, I have to go for my own heart and I have to go for my kids. I have to constantly tell myself that.

Speaker 1 (25:22) And I think what’s easy is to look in in this story and identify with Jesus and be like, yeah, I want to be like Him and celebrate the healed hand. What’s harder is to see myself as the Pharisee. Like, how do I love the rules and how am I so offended by somebody who does it wrong?

Speaker 2 (25:41) or love the appearance,

you know, or love the, yeah.

Speaker 1 (25:45) Yeah. So I had a situation Libby where, this was super hard for me. I had a friend who was sick with cancer and, ⁓ I had forwarded up. She had sent out a prayer update and I forwarded it to a group, a Christian group that I was part of, just said, you know, I was asking anybody and everybody, can you pray for my friend? She had stage for a pancreatic cancer, which as you know, is not, not good at all. ⁓

And so I just, she’s one of my best friends and I was desperate for God to heal her. And so I was just sending out these notes. And, and so there was this, this group that I’m part of that didn’t, they didn’t, I got the email, the next update email and it wasn’t included. so I reached out to somebody and I said, you know, I’m just curious, like, why did this not get included? And there, and I was told that there was, let’s say someone, let’s call her Mary. Okay.

didn’t approve of my friend’s prayer update. And I was like, what? And ⁓ she said, yeah, she had used that verse. I think it’s in second Corinthians about like, you know, we would hope that our suffering, that God would use it for others, faith and salvation. And my friend had used that verse in her update. And Mary was outraged because she,

said, well, then they’re obviously not praying for her healing. And then I was outraged. I’m like, what are you talking about? Of course we’re praying for her healing. And you thought her prayer update was so wrong, so theologically wrong that you’re not going to include it in this email. was like, it was, that was really, really hard for me. But then

To me, it was like this good and evil kind of thing. Like, this is so good. Like, I have sent you something good. And I thought it was so good that my friend was like, this is so selfless of her saying like, I would pray that my cancer, even if I don’t live, that God

Speaker 2 (27:58) It

sounds like Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane. Like, take this, come for me. But if you need me to, yeah.

Speaker 1 (28:04) Nevertheless, not my will, but yours be done. Like that’s what I heard. I heard this deep surrender and wanting God’s purposes. And that’s what I heard in her prayer. To me, it was so good. And for someone to call that evil, like that was so offensive to me. ⁓ But yet then I had to back up and realize like, is it right for me to be the judge? Right? For me to judge Mary, quote unquote, Mary’s heart.

Is that my place? Is that my role? think so much of our life is like sitting in those Pharisee seats, watching like a hawk. Mary could, I could blame Mary of that. She could blame me of that. And we’re just like from two different mindsets about healing, apparently, ⁓ where, know, two different ways to pray. Like, are we allowed? I think what’s at the heart of that discussion is, we allowed to pray in a way that leaves room that God might not heal?

you know, are we allowed to pray that way? It’s like, I believe yes, that’s a godly way to pray. And I think she, I’m assuming that she believes that was an ungodly way to pray. And so my goodness, are we going to sit here and judge each other?

Speaker 2 (29:16) Yeah, the biggest takeaway or sadness or tragedy of that is that we waste our kingdom energy. We waste, I mean we…

Speaker 1 (29:25) I wasted a

lot of energy that I could have been using praying for my friend. Right? I mean, I was so bent out of shape about this situation. Now the Lord, I was in the middle of, of, you know, working through like judgy girl matters. And so he very quickly convicted me and I realized I have picked up my gavel again. I’m the one drawing the lines. This person is on the other line of right. You know, I’ve, it’s this whole judgment thing. Good judgment is I don’t see it correctly.

I’m still in this post Eden eyesight where I look at good and call it evil. look at evil and call it good. And I have to defer to God. He is the judge. He draws all of the lines perfectly between good and evil. He alone holds that final gavel in his hand. And it’s not really my place. And so if someone wants to pray differently than me, I need to be focusing my energy on.

Like just deferring to Him. Like that’s the whole point of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. It’s about deferring to God, not deciding for myself.

Speaker 2 (30:26) Yeah, that’s so, so good and so true. one prayer that I’ve learned to pray recently, when I’m in those situations where I feel really out of control, if that makes sense, I can’t control what this other person’s doing. I can’t control the behavior or the thoughts of someone else. And it’s disrupting my own peace and my own spirit is to constantly pray, just Jesus, I give everyone and everything to you. That one sentence for me has been so helpful with my kids, with these

of situations that we inevitably get ourselves in with other believers. Because he’s the one is ⁓ it’s rightfully to be in his hands.

because he’s like you said, the only one who can actually not just judge, but actually do anything about any of it. He can actually fix it if he wants to, he can work in other people’s hearts. can do, we always say, we pray for healing miraculously, with physical things. He can miraculously heal relationships. He can cause someone that you’ve had a beef with for a long time, just come up to you randomly one day and say, I’m sorry. can do that.

Speaker 1 (31:12) Exactly.

Jesus Christ. ⁓

Speaker 2 (31:34) So we just say, Jesus, I give everyone and everything to you. And it’s in a sense, it’s a way of detaching, but it’s a good detaching. It’s a rightful detaching because if we spend our whole kingdom energies wrapped up in these kind of he said, she said, or I should have done this, or I should have done that, or why do they get to do this and I don’t get to do this? And why do they have more and I have less or whatever it is, then we’ve lost it.

Speaker 1 (32:00) Well, and I wonder if having this kingdom perspective, knowing that one day all will be restored. I wonder if that really helps us to back up and look at this thing like either this person’s doing it wrong. Like I’m the Pharisee and they’re doing it wrong. They haven’t kept those 34 laws for the Sabbath or whatever it is or.

Like I really do think, you know, matters like this, this guy with the withered hand or my friend with cancer. think like those things that we feel they’re so personal, you know, where it’s so easy to take up an offense. Like for me, I was like just grieving over my friend and anything anybody said, it would be so easy for me to be hurt and offended. ⁓ and

here though, God was doing something amazing. He actually healed her of that cancer. He was doing something. I mean, so many people’s lives have been touched by this. This is like amazing. And I didn’t know that that was going to happen, but he was in the middle of doing it. And like you’re saying so much sideways energy to the wrong sort of things. Like if I could just those things that are deeply personal.

Speaker 2 (32:49) Thank

Speaker 1 (33:08) deeply offensive. know, you’re talking about my kids, you’re talking about my ministry, you’re talking about me, you know, all of these, we were just so easy. I feel judged. I become judgy. And if I could just back up and have the mindset of like, look at what God is doing. He is making all things new, whether it be here on earth or on the new earth, right?

He is restoring all things and I just, don’t have to get all that out of shape about it. Like, I love your prayer. I surrender all of these people, all of these outcomes, all of the right or wrong, good and bad to you because none of us like repeatedly throughout the series, like none of us are good.

You know, we’re all on the other side of, if there’s a line, we’ve all crossed it. We are all on the side where we need mercy. Otherwise without his mercy, we’re sunk. that’s, yeah, that’s where we are. How does the story, ⁓ correct the false narratives that the world wants to sell us?

Speaker 2 (34:13) Well, I’ll twist that a little bit if I can. How does it correct the false narratives that religion wants to tell us? Because for me, that’s maybe more where I fall into just the trap of behavior modification. ⁓

to know that the Pharisees actually had devoted their lives to studying God’s word and wanting to live it out. That’s scary, that’s haunting in a sense. So to be like, how does this correct a narrative in my own heart, in my own eyes? It’s like a warning to me to have the heart of God or be open to being taught something new. Because I think if I were alive at this time, I might’ve actually been anti-Jesus.

in a sense, I might’ve been such a rule keeper that I would’ve been like, hmm, I don’t know about this guy. Like would I have missed him, do you know? So I don’t wanna miss anything. And so I wanna try to shed that narrative that, you know, we can.

Check the boxes, we can be better, we can have it all together and actually have my eyes open for what Jesus is doing, even if that’s surprising to me. ⁓ Always with guardrails of God’s word and how he works and what his heart is, ⁓ to continue to be open to that. ⁓

Speaker 1 (35:30) I

love that. That’s so powerful. So we live like this story is true how?

Speaker 2 (35:39) We could take that one of two ways. So we could take that through the eyes of Jesus. Let’s do both. Yeah. So with the eyes of Jesus, always looking for the people around us that are in need. Like one thing I love about Jesus is he wasn’t afraid to stand with people in need. He didn’t care at all about his own reputation here. He was being watched like a hawk. And so just being afraid, not being afraid to stand on the side of what might feel that I’m going to lose something.

Speaker 1 (36:05) Yeah, like

that Venn diagram, know, I’ve this, you know, this circle over here. Am I allowed to step into it? Absolutely. Yeah, because there was.

Speaker 2 (36:13) If we stay in this circle over here and we don’t ever create a Venn diagram, then the kingdom is never gonna come. You know what mean? We’re never gonna cross over into muddy waters, messy muddy waters.

Speaker 1 (36:26) No circles that Jesus didn’t enter, right?

Speaker 2 (36:29) So I think that’s one for me. And then kind of like I’ve already said in the book of Matthew, Mark, this is told again. And it says at the end that after the Pharisees went out, they began to collaborate with the Herodians as to how they might kill him. Like they were so anti him doing this good that they wanted to kill him.

Speaker 1 (36:50) This

was the ultimate looking at good and calling it evil.

Speaker 2 (36:53) Yeah,

100%. And then the people that the Pharisees were, you know, trying to create this plan with were the Herodians, which are people that they’re enemies with. So common enemies make strange bedfellows. Like they were so lost, so totally lost and deceived. So deceived. And so I think

Speaker 1 (37:16) I was learning Bible scholars, right?

Speaker 2 (37:20) Checking my heart, like where am I not submitting to your ways? And where am I relying on my own strength and checking the boxes? And how am I not coming humbly to you and allowing you to be Lord of everything? So I don’t know, there’s a lot there and it’s very convicting. Really convicting.

Speaker 1 (37:39) me too. And I want to live like it’s true too, that the kingdom of restoration is coming. That’s what the Sabbath is all about. Everything’s being restored. And it happens weekly for me as I practice the Sabbath, physically, spiritually, I’m being renewed, restored. But also we have a coming rest where every withered hand, every broken relationship, every…

everything wrong in me is all going to be restored. And so we don’t have to sort it all out right now. It’s we can really just leave it to Jesus and trust that that day is coming. So let me this has just been a joy.

Speaker 2 (38:15) It sounds restful. Sounds Sabbath-like.

It was fun.