Josh: Hello. Hello. Hello. We’re just two normal dudes trying to live this Jesus’ life. My name’s Josh.

Andrew: Hey, Hey, I’m Andrew. And we are this Jesus life podcast coming back at you today with an episode called is your God good, Josh, how are you doing, man?

Josh: You good? Good. I’m good. I cannot complain. I sat a bunch of family in town for my mom’s 60th birthday.

Andrew: Hey. Oh.

Josh: She wasn’t a huge fan about, uh, but I think all the surprises of everybody visiting, uh, made it much better. Yeah. So that was a good trip.

Andrew: Nice.

Josh: Awesome. Other than that, pretty normal. How about you?

Andrew: Yeah. Uh, pretty good. We, uh, We had an it’s Monday when we were recording this, by the way. So over the weekend, it was nice.

We had like a ton of friends and people from our church over for pre suite cookout, really from our like small group, you know, we’ve been taking a break for the summer. So it was like, it was really good to just be around people. I don’t know about human, but this coronavirus thing it’s been going on a long time and it’s been serious here in Pennsylvania.

Technically, we’re not supposed to have more than 10 people at our house at one time, even right now. Yeah. We definitely broke that, but we did it all outside.

Josh: So I’m going to have to notify the state of Pennsylvania.

Andrew: Yeah, I’m on the record at this point, but no, man, it was just like really good to, we had really a weekend of just.

Being with people. We hosted home church on Sunday where like four families came over and then Saturday, we had that sweet get together. Just like, I don’t know, kind of end of summer kind of relaunching life group for the year, but it was just fun. It was really good. Last night I shot my bow, which I haven’t done for a long time and turns out that’s a buck right now.

You, what?

Josh: You should

Andrew: add something. It’s just that a target, just set a target. Yeah.

Josh: But your neighbor, like

Andrew: in the direction of the chickens and I thought to myself, wow. Multiple times, like, man, if I miss this target and go, hi. There’s a chance I could skewer a chicken. It’d be a low chance.

Josh: I wonder how you explain that one to your wife.

Did you just come in with the chicken on the arrows still? And you’re just like, Hey honey,

Andrew: I think I would, I’d have to fence out. I couldn’t, I wouldn’t try to like,

Josh: or you just leave it until she notices. Oh my gosh, you have to put some fear in the other chickens or like, like these sticks come out of nowhere.

They just kill us. Just

Andrew: fly out of the air. So, no, that’s, it is, I did not kill one of the chickens. They are

Josh: happy to die on their own.

Andrew: No, they didn’t die. I’m

Josh: still at the beautiful one six.

Andrew: And after our party, we had like a crazy amount of cantaloupe and all this like berries and stuff left over.

Somebody brought a bunch of it and we ate a lot. There’s a lot left. So I just went out and dumped it for all the chickens. Did they love cantaloupe. They went nuts. They add to be like four or five pounds. I’m

Josh: glad somebody likes cantaloupe.

Andrew: They ate it all, dude. There’s not a scrap left of that today. So there’s some happy birds.

Josh: Yeah, I bet. Yeah. I’m glad somebody eats cantaloupe. Cause that’s, that’s a miserable fruit right there. Yeah. Man, cantaloupe and melon. The last two that are always left in the fruit salad. Nobody wants to eat them. It’s

Andrew: true. Yeah, man. So that’s, what’s going on with me? Anything, anything crazy happening with Jack?

Is he, is he happy your mom’s 60? Or how do you feel about that? Oh,

Josh: that’s a good question. I didn’t ask him. Yeah. He spent a lot of time avoiding people this weekend and even last week, my brother was in town last week and he was a little overwhelmed, I think, by the amount of people that are around. So he was.

He was hiding often.

Andrew: You don’t think it was just the emotion of like, I can’t believe she’s turning 60. This is such a life

Josh: that I guess I’m going to ask him,

Andrew: you know, just kind of isolating to just avoid it. Or, you know,

Josh: I wonder if it’s like, if it’s his own mortality, it was just like coming into view and you’re just like, ah, like.

Cause he’s coming up.

Andrew: If dogs were deep thinking beings and they just like, they really had a lot of deep thoughts like that. And then other times they’re just like, Oh, I wonder if that poop tastes good. And they’re like, I’m going to roll in it and

Josh: try it out. Pretty sure dogs just go food, food, food, food, food, food.

That’s all. I think so. Yeah. He’s yeah, he’s coming up on 42. So it might be a midlife crisis kind of thing where he’s

Andrew: probably is. Probably is man. That makes sense. Well, cool. Well dude, um, we’re talking, we’re continuing our series kind of talking about like attributes of God. So who was your idea to talk about God as just her justice love loving and God’s attribute of mercy together this week.

So. Um, I don’t know. What are your kind of intro thoughts or why did you, why did you think those three fit together? I think we’re going to call this easier. God good. So

Josh: we definitely are calling it that since you’ve already

Andrew: called it, that it’s locked in,

Josh: it’s locked in. Yeah. Why are they together? I don’t know.

They fit together. Look at the words, just love and merciful. They seem to fit more together. Then they fit with sovereign. Holy absolute truth. It righteous

Andrew: if it fits it ships, as they say.

Josh: Yeah. Yeah. Well, it comes from, you know, we’ve said this every episode, but yeah. Um, having the right view of God and having a holistic view of God is, is extremely important.

And, you know, as I’ve learned over the last, you know, couple of years, how important that really is, and in terms of, um, our view of hope in our future or our view of, of God wanting to work on our behalf, uh, when bad things happen inside your life, how do you process those things? Those are all gonna be dictated, good things to the happier life.

Those are all going to be dictated by your view of God. So. If your view of God is he’s vengeful, you see he’s out to get you. Um, he’s like, you know, you’re your dad that you know, is just waiting for you to screw up so you could be punished. Well, that’s going to have a massive effect on how you interact with God, but you know, if your God is good, if your God is just excuse me and how he interacts with us and.

You know, if he’s full of love, if you know, or, or in the way the scripture says that God is love. Um, and if he’s merciful, you’re going to interact with God drastically different than, you know, if he was the opposite of those things. And I think oftentimes for us, we, we, um, we don’t even realize when our view of God is faulty.

Um, and, and I think that’s what gets us in trouble. You know, we didn’t even know we were focusing on this one attribute or we didn’t realize we had a faulty view in general of God. This is why. So, like I was thinking about this last week, uh, sometime, but like, If you’re finding yourself in a place of hopelessness where you just like, it’s always gonna be this way.

I’m frustrated. My life feels mundane. It feels like, you know, it’s always just going to be full of struggle. You know, I don’t know where God is in the midst of this where, you know, God feels distant. I think a lot of that has to do with, with, we have a faulty view of God and we should probably be digging into, you know, these, what did we determined?

Was it like 11 characteristics or something like that?

If we dig into these things and figure out where, um, where do we have these faulty views that we need to fix to readjust. Um, and then the other side is, you know, you have faulty views about yourself or how God sees you. You have faulty views about how you interact with, um, and I think that’s where that hopelessness or that mundane life comes into.

Be.

Andrew: Yeah, I think you’re right. And I think there’s the, I have a bad view and I don’t realize it. And let me just be honest, I probably have some views of God that aren’t complete. I’m sure I do in my life that all kind of learn over time. Like, Oh, I was thinking too much about just forgiveness. I was thinking too much about how important my actions were versus God grace.

Like I’m sure there’s things like that, that I. Don’t know blind spots and we call them blind spots because you don’t know about a blind spot, as I was thinking about kind of what we’re going to talk about today. Um, when we talk about justice, which we’re going to do soon, like right now, I don’t think I’ve ever heard justice discussed more in my lifetime than I do right now, but it’s like social justice.

It’s. Like, do you care about the, the lesser than, do you care about the, not the lesser than those, those with different social status, economic status, all of that, all the racial stuff, all the gender stuff it’s like, do you care about those who it’d be easier not to see maybe. So I just, I wonder if we’re coming into this conversation, starting with justice on a kind of plane of like, We hear God is just, or God is the one who brings justice to all things.

And it’s like, well then obviously he’s in on social justice. You know, obviously that’s what that means, but I don’t know. I don’t know what thoughts you have, but I think that so often we like to take this concept of like, God is the standard. God is truth. God is justice. God is. Love mercy. God is sovereign and we take little pieces of that and apply them to different things in our lives and in our own way.

And then we miss the bigger image we missed the bigger truth of God. Not, not God sometimes just, but God is perfectly just all the time. And for all time. So, I don’t know when you hear that kind of conundrum of, of social justice versus just God being just what, what Springs to mind for you in that?

Josh: Mmm. I think there’s some overlap to some extent in terms of.

Like justice is a pillar of society, right? Like without it, things start to corrode and fall apart, you see that in nations that have a justice system that doesn’t actually work. Like there’s full of corruption. It’s full of crappy judges, you know, incompetent lawyers or however it plays out. And you could argue that to some extent with our justice system, but the foundation is relatively there.

Um, And, and yes, God is the ultimate judge and he is absolutely just, and how he judges, um, yeah. And, you know, you can’t bribe him, you can’t corrupt him. You can’t fool him. You can’t trick him. You can’t like none of those things are true. Um, the, the, I think the biggest thing that shifts and changes though, is, you know, Jesus going to the cross and dying for us makes a massive change to how God now interacts with us.

Right. Um, like if yeah, right. Without Jesus, every human being that has existed in this earth is not. Would be judged guilty, right? Yeah. Like we’ve all sinned now, old covenant. There is ways to get that gift sent forgiven and, you know, new covenant Jesus was was that, that sacrifice for forgiveness. But so that shifts the game for us.

And I think that’s important piece too, of, of like, yeah, the God is ultimately just, um, and he is the ultimate judge. Um, But you also remember when he looks at you, he doesn’t look at your sin. He doesn’t look at your actions. He looks at Jesus and that’s the thing that, you know, restored everything. Um, no, I think, you know, we see an M uh, in revelation, we see it in, uh, some of the epistles, um, this idea that Jesus is going to judge us.

So it’s the. Do you know, the second judgment, you know, for lack of a better term, um, that people have coined it as, um, that judges are actions and that dictates the treasures that we earn in heaven, right? Like that, that piece of it. Um, and I think too often we get into this mindset of God is currently judging now us.

And though he. Is that he isn’t like he sees Jesus. So he’s not technically judging us. Like it gets them. This whole idea from the old covenant is when I do good. God blesses me when I do bad, got curses me. And that just doesn’t exist inside of today’s relationship with Jesus when I do bad. God might still continue to bless me when I do good.

God, I still continue to curse me. Um, and cursing and Laci is probably bad terminology when we get into that side of things. But like, so there’s that piece too. So going back to today’s society and this fight for, for social justice across our nation, um, in so many different ways, not just, you know, the current black lives movement, you know, we’ve seen social stresses for a long time and that lack of justice.

Really bothers people to a great degree. We get that. Um, I think that comes from God’s character being imprinted on our hearts. Like things should be fair. Things should be just, and when they’re not, you know, we’re frustrated by that. Cause that’s not like it’s not fair to us for things not to be fair. Um, So there’s that piece of it too.

So I guess there’s some overlap, but yeah, we’re not talking about social justice here. We’re not like, in all reality, Jesus, I don’t think Jesus cares. And the ultimate realm of things about social justices. Um, I think he cares about people needing him and coming to salvation through him. Um, and that’s the thing that’s ultimately going to change this society, um, your heart, our lives, um, in this life.

And I think that’s what Jesus deeply cares

Andrew: about. Have you ever watched the show the good place? Have you checked that out at all?

Josh: I tried. Yeah. Huge fan.

Andrew: I liked it. So I, it was a show that she would watch. And if I were in the room, I’d check it out. You know, it wasn’t like I’m not missing an episode show, but there was this one episode where they find out that basically the system had been rigged.

So a bunch of people used to get into the good place, you know, heaven. But now the system had been rigged and they were counting all these things that people didn’t even know they were counting. So it was impossible to get into heaven. Everybody was winding up in the bad place. So there wasn’t, it

Josh: wasn’t that the, the whole thing though, they were in the bad place, they were

Andrew: spoiler leg.

They were, they were in the bad place, but they, they thought, you know, they thought they were in a good place, basically. Yeah. Um, basically it worked out that people found out like everything was being hyper analyzed, like basically old covenant style analyzed. I say old covenant, but old Testament, like Jesus hadn’t come yet.

So it was your action versus your justice. You know, if he didn’t. If you, if he committed a sin and didn’t do a sacrifice of an animal, right before you died, you were in the bad place. You were going to hell, you know, but they were looking at that through this lens of like, if you bought rice and you bought it for a dollar and 10 cents, instead of paying the premium cost that you knew was more ethically sourced or whatever, that, that would be a sin.

You know? So people were like, Making all these decisions. They had no idea where we’re sins, because of course they don’t know all the trade offs all the way down the road. And that’s one just goofy example. But, but I do think like that’s, I think a lot of people look at Christians and they think of us as the Westboro Baptist followers.

And I say that because everybody recognizes that, you know, like known for known for protests, known for condemning people known for only talking about. God is justice and you are in sin. You know, you’re going to hell

Josh: all that stuff. God hates gays people. If you don’t have what

Andrew: God hates gays. And they always like go and protests soldiers’ funerals for some reason, like they just pick all the things that make people

Josh: it’s because we’ve allowed gay marriage.

So God’s killing our soldiers.

Andrew: Yeah. Now

Josh: it’s crazy,

Andrew: but it’s like this weird

Josh: twist is going to come out that like all their men were gay this whole time.

Andrew: It might, it might, but like, it’s, it’s this weird, like everybody thinks of justice, not everybody, but a lot of people think of Christians as being focused on justice so that they can tell everybody else they’re sending and they suck and her bad.

But the reality is that’s not it at all. Like when we

Josh: think about God, you think it’s that way though? Before you go to that next thought, like, why do they do that way? Cause it’s, it’s a legitimate view. It’s true. Then why do you think people function from that side of

Andrew: it’s? It’s a lot easier to, I don’t know.

Maybe it’s easier. It’s like you can. I think you can easily take a stand when you read a Bible verse that says one thing, you could just take that verse in context and say, that’s what I’m going to be about. You could look at part of Romans one and, and say, Well, it’s because of sin that, that God has stance in Romans one about people in sexual immorality.

Like it’s very clear sexual and morality is not cool in God’s eyes. That’s a sin, you know, whether it’s. Um, whether it’s porn, whether it’s gay relationship, there’s a lot of things that God is very clear on

Josh: that his porn relationship

Andrew: or that he’s not cool with sexual morality, but then you could make just the whole, like you could say, well, that’s God is against because I read it in Romans one.

So obviously I’m going to be super against that. And that’s what I’m going to talk about because I’m going to be doing God’s will and. Maybe I’m oversimplifying that. But man, in today’s like social media environment and in today’s constant, I say 24 hour news cycle, but we just always are focused on what’s going on in the world.

It’s easy to find stories of Christians doing things that make people hate them and maybe doing it just for the shock value of that. Like Westboro Baptist, maybe they’re just like, we know we’re not going to attract a ton of people. You can attract some followers who believe what we believe by doing all these crazy things by, by being

Josh: there

Andrew: being super anti-gay and super anted soldiers and all this stuff, like they can be known.

I don’t know. What do you think.

Josh: Well, I don’t think Westboro is trying to grow their, their congregation. I think they’re content on their size, but, um, I, uh, I don’t know. I think there’s a part of it that. Um, if you’re doing worse things than I am, that I’m better than you. It’s the whole idea. Like this is kind of the underlying idea that that plagues Christians is.

If I do enough good things and I do few bad things that I’m godly, like I’m going to please, God, I’m going to be, and I think that’s kind of that play here and it’s, well, if I can show that I’m better, like I’m not looking at porn or I’m not having gay sex. Um, so I’m better than that person, which is an easy thing to do.

Cause like, I assume there’s probably fewer people having gay sex than regular sex. Right. But you’re also sleeping with your girlfriend on a regular basis, but that’s just not as big of a deal. Like that’s a worsen cause that’s right.

Andrew: That’s worse than what I’m doing. Is that what you’re saying? Like I’m going to focus on the level worse, or

Josh: then I feel better about myself, right?

Like I’m going to focus on this lady’s gossip, but I’m not going to think anything about my gluttony. Or my greed or my jealousy, I can deal with any of those things. Um, it’s, you know, it’s the, it’s what Jesus said, you know? And in the end of the sermon on the Mount, uh, I think it’s in seven might be the end of six of Matthew.

Yeah. Yeah. Um, but he, where he says, you know, take the plank out of your eyes. You stupid hypocrite. He didn’t say stupid. I added stupid. That’s my interpretation. Right? He might’ve, you don’t know a stupid might not, it might’ve been a different word. We just didn’t know what it was. We couldn’t train escalated.

So when you get you hypocrite, not you stupid hypocrite. Um, but you know, take, take the plank out of your own stink and I, before you focus on it and think, I think in that whole, that whole section is about judging others, right? Like, yeah. You know, the, the whole section, I think it is the beginning of seven.

Uh, it starts with do not judge

Andrew: lest you be

Josh: just the first. Yeah. That’s, that’s the first thing. And they, all reality is like, you’ve committed sins, just like anyone else’s committed sins, like you’re in no different place. Um, and then, you know, Christians take other verses throughout the epistles and so, well, no Christians are allowed to judge other Christians and you’re like, yes and no.

Like, we’re not judging in the sense of, I’m saying I’m better than you. So I’m going to point out all the things that suck about you. Yeah, no, we judge in the sense of great love for that individual, because we see the destruction that sin causes and we’re trying to get them out of the destruction of the sin.

Not necessarily like we’re not judging in a moment, like I’m not. Yeah, I’m not creating a line in the sand saying, you know, you’re evil. You’re not like that’s essentially what judges, what you’re doing as a judge. And we’re not the judge. Like God is the judge. She’s the, just, he is the Jessica and think.

Lord Jesus, that he is because he’s fair. He is black and white. He’s not going to be moved one way or the other. It’s not his emotions that are dictating or his pride. That’s dictating all these things. Like thank you that he’s the judge and not some human being that exists inside of this world. But so I think there’s a part of it in that of like, I feel better about myself when I can point out the crap about other people’s lives was around me.

Um, or it’s, you know, sin is causing me to go down, you know, to point out these other things, because I have the secret sin that I’ve been feeding for decades, and I don’t want to deal with it. Um, like there’s that piece of it too. So I think. I think we get twisted in there somewhere along the way. And they were kind of going back to old, back to Westborough, like they’re going after dead soldiers because they believe that God is cursing America because of the decisions.

God like America is making well, that’s not the covenant. That’s not how this covenant works. Sure. God did that with Israel, but God doesn’t. God’s not doing that with us. It’s not how he functions. Our covenant got shifted when Jesus went to the cross, died and Rose from the dead to an individual covenant, his covenant is between me and him.

That’s the covenant. Do I choose to follow Jesus? And if I do, I’m considered righteous, not because of anything I’ve done because of jesus’ sacrifice. He doesn’t like, he’s not putting my actions on the country and vice versa. Like, that’s just not how it works anymore. And I think that’s where we find ourselves oftentimes of, well, I have to call out this sin or, you know, God’s going to judge our nation.

Well, now that’s not how this works. You ha you don’t have to call it that sin for any reason, or are you looking at, bring it even more micro into the church? We’ll have to call that sinner. God’s not gonna bless our church. Yeah. I don’t know. Jesus was pretty clear. I’m going to. Bring rain. And I’m going to bring sorrow on both the good and the evil and the just, and the unjust, uh, like it has nothing to our actions.

Don’t dictate any of those things. And that’s important now, sin, if not dealt with is going to cause destructions what it does, it leads to death, but there’s. Yeah, but there’s a way of dealing with it inside of community, um, compared outside of the community. And like you get into the verses of, you know, bring, you know, the verses of conflict and it’s bring it to the church, you know, this individual sin.

And if they choose not to send at that point, then throw them out. Um, I think it says a nicer than that, but that’s essentially what’s going on. Well, there’s a difference between today’s church and the community that was built. You know, at the early church, like that was their entire lives. Was that community.

Um, so you’re pulling your, you’re saying, Hey, like you’ve got to fix these things cause you’re going to hurt us. That’s a different, that’s one on one. We’re having this conversation with people. Like it’s not a judgment thing of, I’m just trying to draw a line in the sand is you suck, get out, which we see often today it’s.

It’s not, no, no. This is how, like, this is the destruction you’re causing. This destruction is going to hurt these people around you in this way. And, and like, we want you to change. So we’re going to pull community away from you for the sake of you to make a difference in a change I’m like, right. That’s kind of the piece there they’re getting at there.

Um, now you can argue, what does the church mean? Is it the elders of the church? Is that who they’re going before? Yeah, it’s hard to say that that’s what those verses are arguing, you know, is it the church body in general? It’s hard to argue. Like it’s kind of gets muddy waters pretty fast, but, um, back to Jesus or God is just, um, Yeah, I think we’re so quick to be God right.

In our own lives that we think it’s our responsibility in our place to decide what is right and what is wrong. Cause I think it just makes us feel better about our own actions.

Andrew: I don’t want that responsibility. Most of the time

Josh: I do. I’ve taken a heartbeat. See,

Andrew: that’s the thing though, man, you say that.

And there are moments where I’ve like, I’ve asked God to judge people. I’ve asked God to bring justice on people in life, in different times, not going to get into all of the specifics of why, but there’s been times when I’ve known that that some really bad stuff is going on in people’s lives. That’s hurting a lot of other people’s lives and.

Looked at that and said, God, could you just bring justice on this person? Because half of that is like, I’m angry because I see what’s going on in most people don’t, don’t see it. They don’t know about it. They’re not privy to it through no fault of their own. Just most people don’t. No when bad stuff is going on.

Cause I mean, naturally in, in humans, when something bad is going on, we don’t want to announce it to the world. We don’t want to tell people we’re hurting people. But so have been moments when I’ve legitimately asked God, would you bring justice on this man or this woman? Not necessarily this, this organization, not necessarily this country.

God would you rip down? So, and so country, you know, for the sin? No, but like, would you bring, would you express your justice in this person soon? I know you’re going to one day, but could you speed it up? Could you let me see some glimmer of that now? And I don’t think God’s ever done that in a way I could tangibly see quickly.

I don’t think God has any obligation to say, of course, Andrew I’ll do that for you because the reality is there’s times when I’m causing pain in other people’s lives and. God, doesn’t just immediately bring justice into that, you know, so, but what I was thinking, as you were saying, that was, was I just, I don’t really want that weight on my shoulders all time.

Like, I can’t imagine being a, a judge in our legal system, just carrying the responsibility of. I’m going to interpret this law. I’m going to hear all the evidence of this person did, or didn’t do this thing or this organization did or didn’t do it. And then I’m going to decide, well, do you pay a thousand dollars?

Do you walk away with, with no penalty? Are you, you know, are you judged and found innocent or do you go spend 10 years of your life in jail? I can’t imagine that level of. I can imagine it. I just don’t want that level of responsibility on my day to day work, you know, like that, that would be intense. And that’s just a small expression of the character of justice is saying, okay, here’s the law that we agreed to.

Here’s the standards we agreed to live on. Your actions either did or didn’t break them. We’re going to find out, break that law, you know, that’s just one like micro way. We try to take justice and apply it. And like you were saying, I think we have good foundations of our system. I think there’s a lot of good people working in that world.

There’s definitely some bad people working in that world, but Hey, same, thing’s true of the church. That’s supposed to be all about following Christ. There’s good people and bad people in it, but. I’ll have to say, I can’t imagine it on that micro scale. I wouldn’t want that responsibility in my life to be the judge of men and of women.

Like I just don’t have any desire for it, but there’s times I’m pissed off about something and I want it. I want to be the judge. I want to just execute justice. I want to just see that person’s. Deeds made known to everybody so that they can be dealt with, but it’s not my role. And that’s freeing. And a lot of ways to say we have a God who is perfectly just weak God, like our God, God, the father, um, attribute of him as justice.

And sometimes that means that the things that we do to today are known tomorrow and that are there is justice in our lifetime. And. All the time. It means that the things we do today, the things we did last year, that year before will be seen and judged by God. At some point it might be when we’re dead, it may be when we’re alive, but it’s going to happen.

I say maybe when we’re alive, I believe there’s going to be a final judgment for everybody. But I do think that sometimes God allows. Sins to be made known in our lifetime. So that you’re truly in a sense judged you, you experience at least partial judgment, not necessarily in the eternal sense while you’re alive, but, but those sins have consequences.

All I’m trying to say. And sometimes God allows those things to be made, known, to push people out of positions, of influence out of positions of leadership, or to bring up a person that’s more God honoring in today’s life. But God is just, and when we see stuff going on badly, at least we can take comfort in saying he’s perfectly, just so there will be judgment at some point, and he’s given us way to follow him better through Jesus.

So that’s real rambley, man. But what do you think?

Josh: Yeah, I think the easiest way to look at this is to remind yourself that God is suggest God is fair. Um, Ultimately. Um, and when I say ultimately, I mean, like in the end of time, God will be just and deal with everybody and adjust fashion. Um, but in this life, God, Uh, still allows a sin to be ramp it, um, and send to cause destruction and harm.

Um, and other people, uh, I think this is, it comes down to, we do have a choice and how we live this life. We choose it to live with Jesus and aligned with Jesus and where you are abiding in Jesus, or we choose to do it the opposite. Um, I think where you start to struggle is, you know, Jesus says at one point, like all sin will be brought to light.

That’s true. Um, but it doesn’t necessarily mean it’s going to be true in this life. Um, and that’s the piece you have to kind of remind yourself. So when people will just use your example of, of leaders that have influence and authority, um, over others and they’re living in sin, they’re causing destruction to those around them, whether it’s hidden center, public sin, and it doesn’t really matter.

Um, But God’s gonna allow that oftentimes, um, he’s not going to intervene and you have to remember that kind of going back to, you know, God is also good, like, um, that even so sin is causing destruction. Like there’s, you know, God can take sin and turn it around to, to, to be used for. Good. So you have to remember from that side of like, though this individual may not be, um, Living a godly fashion.

It doesn’t necessarily mean God’s just going to remove them. And I say all this to say this, if you’re still in a position and you’re a shitty person, um, You can’t use that as well. I’m still in the position. I’m still in here. 40 I’m still, I still obviously got it. It’s my actions, right? Like that’s not the case because one day you’ll stand before Jesus, Jesus for jut.

And to be judged about this action, whether, you know, Jesus or don’t know Jesus, like if you know Jesus, in terms of, you know him, you’ve given your life to him, you recognize you need a savior. Well, The effects of that is this next life or eternity is going to be drastically different for you than those that chose to live this life.

The way Jesus asked us, right? Like that’s what you’re kind of going up against. It’s all. That’s why, you know, Paul constantly said over and over again, like you live this life in the next, like, you keep your eyes on the treasures, you’re building in the next life and focus on these things. It’s like, those are all important things.

Um, but yeah, ultimately I think that’s the easiest way to look at it. So though, you’re looking at a situation. Yeah. You’re saying this is not just, this is not okay. So much injustice is happening all around this. It’s so easy for us to take that. Just say, well, God must not be present now. Like. God is working on their lives as much as he’s working on your lives.

And he will be just, um, he will be fair. And when it all comes down to the end of it all, but in this life, he’s going to let us make some decisions that are going to be sinful and they’re going to cause harm. Um, and God’s not gonna do anything about it in this life. And that’s okay. We have to be okay with that.

I’m like, it’s hard to be okay with that. It’s hard to wrap our heads around that, but we choose to be okay with that because Jesus seems to be okay with that. Um, and then we just look to the next life of what, what God’s going to do.

Andrew: Yeah. You’re right. It’s, it’s a good perspective to look through. It’s a good thing to believe if you believe it, because there is just so much injustice constantly.

That’s out of our control, but we were not, I don’t think we’re put here to make other people know that they’re sending. I don’t think like the primary responsibility of a Christian, a Christ follower is to make everybody else aware of their sin. I think people are usually pretty aware of their sin. And I say, I think people are because I think I am like there sometimes there’s things that I, excuse me, that I don’t know that I’m doing that are, are sinful that God later reveals to me.

99% of the time. I’m very aware of my sin. I think God, God puts that. Dennis. I talked about the conscience last, last episode, and I really think there’s a reason that God gives us the ability to know good and evil that he allows us to do that because that’s, that’s the way we can kind of choose. Okay. No.

Maybe, maybe I want to do sin in this moment. Maybe I want to do something that is outside of God’s will right now, but I’m going to submit to God and I’m going to do the good that I know I can, instead through his power, through his strength, I’m going to choose to follow God better in this right now. So I don’t know.

I think on the topic of justice, God is just, I don’t know what it’s going to look like to stand before God one day and to be. Add judgment in front of his throne. That seems terrifying, but, but I’m glad that it’s his job and I’m glad it’s not mine to do that. I think we just mix it up sometimes and go down roads of, well, I need to make sure everybody else knows what their sin is.

That’s my primary calling as a Christ follower. No, it’s a follower.

Josh: You’re trying to control them too. Right? Like that’s the other side of this too, is like, You know, I have to point out all your sins and I have to intervene on all these sins because it’s my job to. As soon as you get you to fix your ways.

Um, and it’s really just control. You’re just trying to control somebody else’s actions and motives, and it has nothing to do with you. Like live your life. There’s enough going on there. You don’t need to live there, let them deal with what they need to deal with with God or it’s pain, like Hmm. That person has caused you pain.

So you’re going to spend a lot of time pointing out all the sins that they’ve committed. Like there’s that piece of it too, that, you know, when we, um, When we’ve been hurt by somebody so easily, we’re going to take the time to focus on all the evil that they do and point all that evil out, um, to that individuals just so they know that, you know, they’re worse than you are or have replaced them.

Right. There’s just this level of pride, this level of insecurity that just exists inside of people that I think oftentimes goes, goes missed. Um, In their own life. So, and all of this, what, what is the important thing? It has nothing to do with other things, cause you can’t control other people and has everything to do with you.

So your actions, um, really, you know, you have to focus in on wealth. God is just, he’s going to treat me fairly when, you know, if, if I live this life in the way opposite of what he wanted me to live, it will. Like, he’s going to be fair on that. And he’s going to give me what I deserve now. If I’m, if I’m a saved follower of Jesus, then you know, I get eternity with him, but I don’t get the same level of eternity with him that maybe someone else would get that that’s been an entire time serving in a biding and Jesus.

Like there’s that piece. If I chose to just live my life the way I want to live my entire life. And I never came to that point of salvation with Jesus. Well, then he’s going to treat me fairly you’ve sinned against God forever. Um, nothing has fixed that for you and, you know, God is going to separate you from him for eternity.

I’m like, that’s what justice is going to look like for God. But focusing on your actions, um, focus in on how you’re living this life, because that’s the only thing you can control. Take Jesus’s words. Stop judging people, stop, stop. You know, making it, making yourself God is the God of justice. Like you’re not that role don’t play that role.

It’s with probably any of these things. You’re also not the God of all being all powerful. So stop trying to force your power on everybody because that’s just like, you’re, you’re not playing your role. In all of this, um, now we’re going to get to this next one I’ve got is love, and God is very clear that we’re to imitate this characteristic of him, uh, in, in our lives, um, uh, and in the lives of those around us.

But.

Andrew: There’s

Josh: this let’s kind of push forward.

Andrew: All right. We will. Um, maybe this helps, maybe there’s a quote in a Chronicles of Narnia C S Lewis. Um, I think it’s the line, which, and wardrobe where mr. Beaver is like taking someone to, uh, to see Azlan, um, as lens align, if you’ve never read the book, um, and he kind of represents God in this kingdom of, of Narnia, um, and.

They, they basically say, um, well, is he dangerous? Um, and, and mr. Beavers says, um, something like, or is he safe? That’s what they say. Is he safe? Mr. Beaver goes, is he safe? Who, who said anything about being safe as Leanne is terrifying, but he’s good. He’s the King. Um, like, and I, I think maybe your point about justice is.

That God is good and he’s going to be for us, even in judgment, he’s going to be fair to us, even in judgment. Um, and through the expression of Jesus, through all the things you just laid out, he’s way better to us than he needed to be, uh, for us. Um, but yeah,

Josh: well for sure, we’ll get that one, but he’s good to talk about being merciful.

Andrew: Yeah. God is love. What, what do you think about the kind of love thing? Where do we. Where did we get this right. And how do we get this wrong?

Josh: Um, I think, I think it gives me some, we’ll get some it up in this statement is like he is unconditionally committed to my wellbeing. Like that’s what it means for God to be love.

Hmm. And now he’s not just that for me, he’s that for all humanity and everyone that has lived and will live, um, he is unconditionally committed to. Our wellbeing, but he also, isn’t going to control us. He’s going to let us make decisions. So if we want to live in sin, we want to pursue these things. He’s going to let us do that.

Um, and then you’re going to suffer the consequences of those actions. Um, that’s just going to be the reality of how this plays out now. There’s the ultimate goal is that you don’t go down those roads that you fully experience this life with him, um, for the sake of the next. But, um, he’ll let you do it.

Um, yeah, I would assume that those that live that life and are able to look back at essentially probably on judgment. Um, To look back and him point out like all the ways that like, Hey, I tried to get your attention here. And I tried to get your attention there. And I tried, you know, you hit rock bottom here.

And I sent this person to try to get your attention and all those moments you didn’t listen to me. I’m like, I think that’s what the conversation is going to be more like than God’s saying. Yeah, you all suck. You all suck as human beings. You ignore me the whole time. I hate you. I’ll get rid of, I’m getting rid of you.

Um, I don’t think that’s the, I think it’s going to be, God’s showing you over and over again, of all the ways he tried to get your attention and you chose sin instead of, of him. Um, so I think that’s a big piece of it. Uh, Romans eight 35 says this, I’ll read this and I’ll read this with a big booming voice and not quiet as one of our listeners pointed out this whole Prince.

That when I read scripture, apparently I get really quiet and I was spreading, whatever, in all reality, I’m reading something. So I’m trying to concentrate and my voice might change. So chill out I’m dyslexic. So you’re kind of a turd for bringing all that up and pointing out my insecurities. But Romans eight says this can anything ever separate us from Christ love doesn’t mean that he no longer loves us.

If we have. Have trouble or calamity or are persecuted or hungry or cold or endangered or threatened with death? No, despite all these things, overwhelming victory is ours through Christ, no matter what happens in this life, I added that part, uh, who loved us. And I am convinced this is Paul talking to the Romans.

I am convinced that nothing can ever separate us from his love death. Can’t. In life, can’t the angels can’t and the demons. Can’t our fears for today. Our worries about tomorrow, or even the powers of hell cannot keep God’s love away. Whether we are high above the sky or in the deepest ocean, nothing in all creation will ever be able to separate us from the love of God that is revealed to us in Christ Jesus, our Lord.

Andrew: Do you ever just read that stuff and think, why am I saying anything other than just reading that that is like, so stinking. Good man. Overwhelming victory is ours. Despite all of these things. No. Overwhelming victory is ours through Christ. Like that’s so good, man. Anyway, I’m I know I’m totally interrupted.

So to say, but that’s so

Josh: good. But like so often, how do we not like we don’t take that posture of overall because the circumstances right now in this life are saying that I’m losing and you’re like, it’s not about this life. Like you win in the end. That’s how this has played out. Continue pushing, continue moving through it, continue doing what Jesus has called you to do.

And you’re going to find these things like death can separate you and life. Can’t separate you. I think it’s going to separate you from the love of Jesus Christ. Because of what Jesus did on the cross. Like that’s whew. That’s good stuff.

Andrew: Good. I heard this, I heard a phrase recently that one person, uh, in God’s will the majority, um, I was like, that’s cool.

I like that. But like, regardless of circumstance, you know, regardless of what’s going on, if you are in God’s will you’re the majority and not you’re going to win the argument, nothing like that. But like, if you are. Acting in living in God’s will, if you’re in this sense, knowing that you’re, you’re looking beyond your, your common circumstances, you’re looking beyond your, your hardship or whatever.

And you’re saying no overwhelming victory is ours through Christ who loved us. And then you can go on and talk about how nothing can possibly separate us from the love of God. It’s beautiful thing. But yeah, sometimes I read scripts. She was like that, and I’m just like, man, my words fall so far short to this, these ideas that I’m like, why don’t we just read great passages of scriptures, their entire podcast?

Why are we adding anything to it?

Josh: Yeah, no, that’s definitely true. There’s definitely versus just like, Oh, it’s just good. But the problem is like so many people miss those things. Yeah. Right? Like it’s, it’s Jesus speaking in parables, right? It’s the same kind of deal is, you know, he, he says these sinks in parables.

So those that aren’t, uh, haven’t been revealed, you know, God hasn’t revealed to them, then they’re going to miss it completely. And it’s kind of the same with, with the recorded word of God, of like, uh, there’s so many people that read those verses and completely. Completely missed what was just said. Yeah.

And I think this is where Christians come into play in terms of, Hey, this is what God has said, and this is what it means, and this is how you can experience it. And, but even going back to like, you know, we look at it and say, well, you know, nothing is going to separate from God’s love, you know, that’s true.

But remember, God is just, so if you live this life full of sin, you never come to salvation with Jesus. Um, God still loves. You got so deeply loves you, but God is also fair and God is going to give you what you deserve. I’m like, that’s just the reality of it. And that’s hard for people to. To see a God that’s just, and see a God that, that is full of the same time, because love in our society means you do everything.

Uh, so I feel good about myself, right? Like the second you do something I don’t feel good about then you don’t like for me anymore. And this is kind of where we live right now in our society. Right? Like, um, if you disagree with me, Then you don’t love me. You’re like, no, no, no, no. Like I can still love you in a deep, passionate way and disagree with you.

That’s okay. I’m like, and so there’s that piece of it too. It’s like, yes, God is 100% love, but that doesn’t mean that God is blind to everything going on around him. And he’s just gonna, yeah. Cuddle you and tell you how awesome you are. Like that’s just a, that’s a, that’s a lie that we’ve believed, especially American society.

And that’s not what love true love looks like because true love is going to point out the things in my life that are causing destruction in my life. Like true love is going to walk with me in the midst of those things to help me overcome those things. That’s what true love is going to look like. It’s not going to feel great all the time.

I’m not going to have all these Ooh, and all his moments because when God’s. Showing me my sin that doesn’t feel good. I feel guilty. It feels bad, but when God shows my sentence from a place of great love. So when he reviews those things, it’s out of care for me, it’s out of desire to see me live the full life that he has for me.

And, and to be conquering these, these things that are causing destruction in my life and in the lives of those around me. Yeah. But no, God is 100%. God, he is love.

Andrew: Absolutely. And I. We talked about kind of injustice like that, that people know Christianity here in the U S of being like very judgmental.

That’s the thing we’re told a lot, but I, I do think that we, I think the church works really hard to express. God’s love to people. Like, I think most Christians, I know work hard to try to do that. We don’t always have the perfect way to do it, but, but we’re. It Christians in general are pretty quick to show up, um, and, and try to, to do things, things out of love and because we’re loved, like just, I think of like, Just ministries that exist, man, just serving, serving the homeless, you know, like a lot of those things are powered and propelled forward by the church.

A lot of those things were founded by Christians trying to express you are loved because you’re a child of God. So I’m going to meet these needs in a way that I can’t a lot of people who adopt children or do foster care, do it of saying like, I can be, I can be the father, mother too. To this child, you know, because, um, because I was kind of an orphan and Jesus took me in, um, Jesus cared for me.

Um, I don’t know. I think there’s just a lot of, we beat ourselves up a lot, but I think there’s a lot of things that, that the church pushes forward and the people of God do that are all about expressing God’s love.

Josh: Yeah,

Andrew: no, that’s true. What do you think? No, that’s good.

Josh: No, that’s true. I think, I think that escapes, you look at shoot, the Catholic church is responsible for, um, hospitals across the world and I’m being put into place when there was no hospitals.

Like it was the Catholic church that did that. Um, I think that there’s a bad side of that, of if like, I think this is institutional side of like, if I. Create a system that does this. Um, I don’t have to love like Jesus called me love because I built something that did a for me, like there’s that piece of it too.

Like, um, the love that Jesus hauling us delay with sacrificial in nature is the same love he showed us. Right. You know, though, you know, You know, God’s one and only son, John three 16. He gave his one and only son that was out of sacrifice. Um, and it’s the same love he calls us to function in. So I can love you from a distance by doing things for you.

Um, but there’s no sacrifice involved in doing those things. It’s when I see you as a human, I see you as a person and we’re love. Truly exists. And you got to dig into those things, but no, God’s love is unconditional. It’s not based on how good you are. It’s not based on how bad you are. God’s going to love you no matter what.

Yeah. Um, and, and that’s a great thing to hold on to, right? Like God’s not going to be like Joe, you know, Josh you’ve, that was like your 17th sin today. Um, I’m going to pull back, right. Want to look kind of let you be on your own at the, no, God’s in the midst of that, a moment with our sin, right? Like that’s the beauty of who God is and why he sent his son Jesus, to take on that sentence.

So we can be in the midst of that sin with us, um, to help us get out of it, right. Like to help us avoid the destruction that’s coming. Um, like that’s what we’re kind of diving into and digging into. But, um, you know, God’s not going to create conditions for him to love you. He loves you greatly.

Andrew: So if we want to express God’s love best.

If we want to live this out. Probably the best way to do it is just tweeting. Love you, bro, at people who are going through hard stuff or Hey, thoughts and prayers on the web. Love ya. That debt for sure. That what you’re saying. Yep.

Josh: I think that’d be the easiest way to do it. You just do like big blanket statements to like hit everybody, um, just to make sure everyone feels praying for everybody else.

Yeah. Um, but no love is sacrificial love is sacrificial and extent of patient too, right? Like, um, you know, say you’re, you’re dealing with the sin that I see in a, I’m trying to get you to understand those things. Um, love, isn’t going to draw a line in the sand and say, no, like I’ve already had this conversation with you three times and you’re not going to do anything like.

Good luck. No love is going to keep having a conversation. Got love is going to keep showing compassion to that person. Love is going to keep, I’m not going to, I’m not here to give you warm and fuzzy. I’m here to love you well and loving you well, is. You know, like as Jesus loved unconditionally committed to your wellbeing, like, that’s what love is.

So I’m going to continue to do those things. Um, but yeah, typically human beings, we have, we have a line, right? Like our patients only go so far. Our love is hyper conditional. Um, and I just, and for you to love me, Defined by our society is you just do everything I want.

Andrew: Yeah. Love either.

Josh: We’re missing it.

We’re missing out on so much. Like then you’re just this do that. Never achieves anything in this life because I just kept giving you everything you wanted and that’s not love. I’m like, that’s not going to drive you to the full life that Jesus promised you. That’s just giving you what you want.

Andrew: Yeah. I gave you, I gave you all the sweets you could ever eat because you love eating cake.

That’s not, that’s not love, you know, it’s, I like that addition unconditionally committed to my wellbeing because God actually knows what our wellbeing is. He actually knows what our best interest is. Yeah. If you listen to lab last time we talked, you know, God. If you’ve listened to any of this, God is fall in these traits.

He’s not just, he’s not just sometimes loving, not just sometimes just sometimes merciful. Um, he is, he’s all of these things all the time in their most pure form in the way that defines these words, like in the way that is deeper than our definition of the words, um, God is good and he is about our wellbeing and these fall and all of these things.

So. Yeah, man.

Josh: And in the, in the midst of troubles, in the midst of hard times, it’s easy to think. Well, God’s not present, God’s not here. He doesn’t care about me. Um, and in those moments, it’s the most important to be reminded that no, God is, is love. God is good. God is here. Um, God is for justice and I may not see it right away, but God’s justice will prevail and I’m just going to be okay with that.

Um, now I’m not gonna, you know, as Jesus said, I’m not gonna worry about tomorrow. Tomorrow is going to worry about itself. I’m just going to abide and be in with relationship with Jesus. Right. Like I, you know, I got bad news this past week. Um, I thought one thing was going to happen for sure. And now it’s all up in the air.

Um, and in that moment, you know, Feel the emotion experience, the emotion. Um, yeah, and it could be, it’s like, God, like I thought this was a done deal. Like, what are you doing here? That’s not the response. The response is God, whether this comes through or it doesn’t come through, you’re still my God, I’m still your, your son.

And I’m just going to continue to live in that relationship, trusting that whatever you have for me, whatever that might look like is what’s best for me. And I’m going to believe that to be true. Like it’s holding onto those things that I think are important.

Andrew: Yeah. That’s good, man. That’s good. Well, I know we’re, we’re going on to kind of, our third peace of God is merciful.

And, um, when I think about mercy, um, you can’t, you can’t give up somebody’s mercy and less, unless they’ve done wrong to you. Basically. I don’t know if that’s that’s perfectly right, but. Tip to give mercy, you have to be able to not give mercy. If that makes sense. Like, I think mercy and justice are pretty tied.

Um, because like, I think about it, if you say you, um, do something dumb, you have, um, couple drinks and then you decide you’re going to drive my car and, and you run it into a light pole. And basically at that point, I have some level of ability to. To control justice, you know, say you’re fine, car’s fine. But it’s, it’s dinged up, you know, and I know the full story of what happened.

Well, I have the chance to be like, I’m going to make sure that Josh gets, uh, every bit of justice possibly can get under our law. In this moment, because I’m just so ticked. He ran my car into a pole and he got, um, got my paint messed up, you know, cost me $500 to put a new bumper on that. Um, or I can be like, you know what?

There’s. There is a moment here, and this is all, you know, sometimes true sometimes not, but there’s a moment where I can express mercy to you in this, where of course you’re going to know exactly what you did, that was wrong in that. But I have this chance to be kind of judge in your life. In that moment, I have a chance to affect the outcome of whatever comes next.

And so often we’re tempted to just be like, well, Obviously they did bad, so they need to pay for it. But it’s like how much more powerful is it in that type of moment where you. Have the ability to say, you know what, I could exact justice, but I’m going to give mercy and I’m going to do it to honor God, because God gives me mercy constantly.

You know, where, where I could talk to you and be like, listen, she did, it was wrong. You know that, I know that. Dude. I love you. My God gives me mercy constantly. He forgives me. I’m not going to report this. I’m not going to ask you to pay for it. I don’t want you to do it again. Maybe there’s more to that conversation, whatever, but there’s,

Josh: there’s a chance it’s not give me my keys again.

Andrew: That’s for sure. You never drove in my car again. Uh, you’re kind of on the outs as my friend, but. Uh, but we’re good, you know, but you have the chance to give mercy when you have the chance to judge is what I’m trying to say. Um, so what do you think about that? I just, I just think of mercy really tied to judgment.

Josh: No, and I think it is to some extent, I think, um,

I think what happens with, with Christians, um, is we. Downplay our own sin and the destruction that it’s caused so we can feel better about ourselves. Um, so when that comes into mercy, um, like I downplay the ugliness of my sin. Even I downplay it with God and just ask them for forgiveness and what ends up happening when we do that is we don’t feel the weight of what.

What mercy really is when I fully understand my sin and what it’s the destruction? Not only is it causing me, but it’s causing those I’m in a relationship with. And the fact that, you know, as first John says, if we confess our sins to him, he’s faithful and just, or we could replace that word as he’s faithful.

And he is the judge to forgive us and cleanse us from all the wrong. When we have the proper view of our sin, we look at and say, Whoa, like, what did Jesus just do? Like, there’s those moments. So now we’re going back to what you’re saying is now when someone wrongs us, we’re not jumping to judge or to justice, we’re going to fix this.

And I want you to feel the pain that you’ve caused me. We’re jumping to it, to, to mercy and saying, Whoa, like. I so easily could be where you are. Um, at times I’ve been where you are and my God forgave me wiped it clean as he sent my sin, as far as the East is from the West. So scripture tells us like, this is what God has done for me.

Um, and I’m so grateful to what God has done for me. I’m going to do the same for you. I’m like, that’s the posture we start to take when we start to. Truly understand the mercy that God has shown us. Um, we want to show other people that mercy, because that’s contagious. There’s a piece of that. You’re like, Oh man, like, like how exciting was this for me?

I get to now give it to somebody else. And you know, you could play judge, I guess, in those moments, but it’s not, you know, Jesus was pretty clear do not judge, right? Like that’s, that’s the posture we’re supposed to take, or you will be judged in the same way. And according, um, So you think there’s that piece of it to you, but you know, all humanity function, you know, benefits from God’s mercy.

Like how many times has God had to have looked at. Somebody or society and just be like, are you freaking kidding me again? Like, yeah. How many times are we going to go down this road? Like, this makes no sense. Now God is love. And he’s looking at us from a place of compassion. Um, we oftentimes don’t look at people that way.

So we get the other side of, we put this God in this other side of the box. I’m like, no, God, it’s like, you’re a freaking idiot and I’m going to take you out now. No, like, you know, he, you know, Jesus said in, in the, um, And the sermon on the Mount, you know, uh, he gives his sunlight to both the evil and the good, and he sends his rain just on, uh, to the, just, and the unjust, like, and that’s hard for us to comprehend, cause that doesn’t seem fair, but yet for a member, um, that God is merciful.

And then God is going to show mercy to those that don’t deserve mercy, just like we don’t deserve mercy, but God chose to send it, like, look at it this way. So here you are. As a follower of Jesus. For whatever reason, you got to hear the message of Jesus Christ. What we call the gospel, that you are a sinner separated from God that Jesus, that God sent Jesus Christ to live the perfect life, to be the perfect sacrifice taking on your sins and mine dying in our place.

The consequence of sin. Death. Um, so we can experience forgiveness hope in a future. Like that’s what Jesus has done. So like the, see the Jesus has shown us and I think that’s where we get lost. You’re Christian Long enough, you kind of forget about, Oh yeah, that’s what Jesus did. No, no, no, no. Keep going back to the gospel over and over again, to remind us of what Jesus did.

So we show mercy. She has, God has shown mercy. Um, and we look at people and say, no, like. Yeah, God’s given him another chance. I get it. God’s given me plenty of chances too. And I want them to find freedom, just like I found freedom. So of course I want God. Now there’s some people that you just don’t understand why God was showing, you know, you, people that, that, that abuse children or her children.

And you’re like, no, just kill them all. God, who cares. Um, but. That’s not who God is. God is merciful. And even though they’re still going to get a chance until they breathe their last breath, um, to choose to follow Jesus over and over again, it doesn’t make sense. I don’t think it’s fair. Cause I, I look at and say, I didn’t kill no child, but you did take, God’s still going to give you a chance.

But the reality is like, I could easily find myself in situations like that too. I don’t know how things are going to play out. Like there’s that piece of it. And for God has shown me mercy. So I want God to show others mercy. And because he’s shown me mercy and that’s humility, right? Like that’s the posture we should be taking as followers of Jesus.

Andrew: There’s a, there’s a verse somewhere in the Bible that I think Jesus said it, but basically. Yeah, Jesus said at some point, uh, he was re revealing to people. He was saying, um, all make you understand what, what, uh, what God meant when he said, um, talked about making sacrifices for your sin. He said, um, basically long story short is that mercy triumphs judgment.

Um, like the expression of mercy is greater than the expression of, so you can, you can get what’s owed to you in the moment and you can do that with the force of the law or whatever, if somebody committed wrong against you, but that’s like, finite, that happens. It’s done. And it’s gone. You know, you, you got what was right in that moment.

Um, and you made it, you know, he did it by whatever law, but man, yeah. When you express mercy, like God has expressed mercy to us. When you legitimately forgive somebody sin against you, small or large, and you do it from a posture of mercy of like, Hey, I know this was wrong, you know, this was wrong, but I’m, I’m for, I’m completely forgiving you and I’m doing it because.

Um, the God I serve constantly forgives me for, gives me more than I deserve deeper than I deserve better than I deserve. And he does it out of my best. Well, my wellbeing that art, you know, God, God forgives us. And he’s not just like, I’m just good of like, yeah. Got ya. I’ll take care of you once or twice.

No, it’s God is so stinking good that, that he can forgive us. Forget our sin from our lives. Like put it as far as these days from the West, just like you said, and then lead us into better living, lead us into the next step of following him. Um, I don’t know, I feel ill equipped to talk about mercy because I feel the weight sometimes of the things that I’ve done in my life that are sinful.

And I think about the moments where I realized I’m forgiven and that God is showing me a new path forward. It’s just humbling, dude. It’s like, you just feel. The weight of it. Like sometimes you feel physical weight on your shoulders. I felt that in the spiritual sense before, and in the moments when I realized I’m forgiven and that God is separating that sin for me and given me a better path forward, it’s mind blowing because I know to the core of my bones, I didn’t deserve that.

I did wrong. Well deserved to get

Josh: one. Yeah. Yeah. And that’s the other side of God is being merciful. Is we don’t, we don’t believe that to be true. Like our we’re not good enough to experience this mercy, whatever our shoes. So we send them, we keep holding onto that sin. Yeah. Um, you know, I suck as a human being.

I’m horrible. And. Live in that cycle of thing rather than saying no, no scripture said that if I ask for forgiveness, that Jesus is quick to forgive. Um, he’s, he’s taken care of it. He’s white, he’s washed as white as snow. So I have to live inside of that. So I’m like, now I’m, I’m good or I’m right with God.

Um, and I have to own that. And for some people that’s just as hard as, uh, Those that don’t own their sin. It’s hard to, to not own it when, when, when he’s taking care of it at that point. Um, there’s that piece of it too. So like, depending on what camp you’re living in or what posture you’re living in, like if you’re beating yourself up for all your sin, um, Feel the weight of your sin.

But remember that Jesus’s mercy was greater than it’s taken care of now live in that mercy, or you’re never going to find the freedom and the hope, right? Like there’s that piece of it too, that we got to hold onto. But you know, what I think is we kind of sum all this up, you know, God is, is good. And I think oftentimes, um, we believe that intellectually.

Yeah, God is good. God is merciful. He’s just, and he’s, and he is full of love. Um, or the definition of love, I should say. Um, but we don’t practically live that way. Um, like we, we create these new boundaries and rules of are we live on just one other aspect of God? And you’re like, we talked about the throne characteristics of God last, last episode.

And we just focus on those that God’s yeah. Have to get me the goddess. I’m going to, um, he’s fully in control and sovereign. He’s going to discipline me, um, or punish me is probably a better word than discipline. Discipline is done in love. Punishment is just you being an ass. Um, and that’s not who God is.

Uh, So I think it’s important just to step back over and over again. And even as we talk about all these characteristics, I find myself stepping back and just being like, you know, Jesus. Like where, where am I not believing these things to be true in my own life? How have I taken the fact that your judge and your full full of justice, that’s not my place to take from you.

You know, you never commanded me to live in those places. Um, unlike you’ve commanded me to be merciful and full of love. So I’m going to take on those traits, like wherever I try to take control back from you and not let you be, you. And maybe me and may hold on to my position as your son, um, and your air, but not taking on any of your responsibilities and positions, um, that I should be taking that I shouldn’t be taking on.

Andrew: Yeah, that’s good, man. And I, as you were saying this, I was thinking about just these, the traits that we just talked about, justice, um, love and mercy. Um, And out of all of that, I like that we’re calling. This is your God good, because the reality is the backdrop is that God is good. He’s ridiculously good to us ridiculously just to us ridiculously merciful to us.

Um, just kind to us, you know, in general. Um, and, and very loving God expresses the love to us constantly, but. Man. I find myself, if I’m, if I’m in a moment where I’m like, crap, I’m going to be judged for this or crap, I just committed sin or, or whatever. Um, remembering that God is good. Really helps me, like, you know,

Josh: yeah.

Change your posture too. Right? Like there’s two, there’s two options when we sent, right? Like you should feel guilty. That’s normal. Um, but. Shame starts into the picture and it said, hi hydrogen. Yeah. You know, when we sin, it’s like, I got a high from God. Like. He’s he’s the dad with the weapon. He’s going to punish me.

And you’re like, well, God already knows what’s going on. He was present when you sinned. He’s not surprised by it. Um, he’s all sovereign. So we knew it was happening anyways. Um, but in that, so our posture, because God is good, should be the second we do it. The second we realized we’ve done what we’ve done.

Yeah. We should be running to Jesus. We should be running to God saying God. Yeah. Before it, I just did, like, I screwed up. Aye, aye. Aye. Gave into the temptation. I was asked to that person. I was, I don’t love, I wasn’t loving whatever it happens to be like, we should be so quick to get back to. And this is kind of, I think we talked about, I don’t know, one of the first weeks of this, as we dove into this topic of God’s characters, um, we.

We so often relate how our fathers interacted with us and disciplined us, or it should probably say punished us if we have a poor view of it. Um, and it’s, Oh, I can’t be caught. So I’m just going to hide it. And we take that, that relation we had, rather than if it was a ho you know, A healthy, godly relationship.

And I’m not blaming dads. I’m just like, you’re a sinful, human being. It’s all part of the, the job comes with it. I get it. But, uh, we take that trip. We put it on God. Well, that’s not the position that God’s in. It’s our response should be no, I just send a guy to run to Jesus. Like I’ve got her on there.

He’s the only, he’s the only thing that’s going to fix anything that should be our posture instead of hiding, because when we hide like this and just gets bigger and destructive and sure. God’s in the midst, you know, he’s there with you, but he’s gonna let you do it too.

Andrew: Yeah. Yeah, that’s good, man. That’s true.

It’s totally true. And a good thing is that God is good. And thank the Lord for it, because if he was just, just you’re just merciful or, or just one of these traits, uh, I don’t know, things would look different. So this is. This is part of, of our bigger conversations. Like you said, we picked, I think 11 total ones.

There might be more traits that we should have put in there, but, um, I know next week we’re going to talk about God being faithful, which is just like the steadiness of, of him. Coming through, as these things perfectly expressed over time, God is faithful to us. So check that out. If you’re listening now, that’s what we’re talking about.

Josh: I try to do it a little bit differently too. We reached out to some of the people we know that listen, we asked, you know, how has God been faithful to you? And, um, we’re kinda kinda changed the format just a little bit and spend some time just sharing stories of God’s faithfulness since, um, you know, it’s easier to.

Convinced ourselves that God is faithful. When we hear stories of God’s faithfulness, then it is just have a conversation about it. Yeah. So we want to share those stories and if you have a story you’d like us to share, email us@helloatthisjesuslifepodcast.com send us those stories of God’s faithfulness.

I think it’d be really cool to have a collection of those stories and yeah. Be able to do different things with them because, you know, God, 100% is faithful. So faithful, um, in our lives and our hearts and how many chances over and over again, he gives us, um, because he’s so merciful, um, to get it right. Um, and how God comes through.

So often our lives, right? Even in the moments he doesn’t come through, like we hoped he would. Um, even in those moments when a little bit of time and perspective, we’ll look back and see, Oh, this is how God was working it. I didn’t even see it. I missed it in the moment. But take, Hey, thank you so much for listening.

If you do, if you’ve kind of stumbled upon us, um, please subscribe to us. Um, we always say, Hey, rate us as well, unless you don’t like us. And then that was the cases. Just delete our podcasts from your podcast app. And don’t think about us ever again, rather than rating us poorly. Cause that would just,

Andrew: you know, we’re we’re,

Josh: we’re just trying to please human beings around here that would break our hearts.

Um, If, you know, either of us really well, we care very much about what, what others think about us. So we need those positive reinforcements. Um, or we just, you can’t go on anymore. Um, but now I’ll read that, please, please write a subscribe to us. Uh, it definitely helps us get the word out. If you want to share us with your friends, your family.

People you barely even know. That’s always super helpful to us as well and have a great week. Andrew has always my friend. It’s good to see you. Good to see you, man.