Transcription

Connor
You’re listening to The Bible Guys, a podcast where a couple of friends talk about the Bible in fun and practical ways.

Jeff
Chris, this is such an exciting day.

Chris
It is. Dude, I.

Jeff
Am so excited about this day.

Chris
Jeff, every day is an exciting day.

Jeff
I know, but this one is super happy to be alive. This is this is if you’re listening in order. This is a Thursday podcast, right? Yes. And so on Thursdays, this never happens. Ever. It never happens. So super, super excited about what what’s happening today on this podcast. Because normally on a Friday we would ask, what makes Chris mad this week.

Chris
Yeah, that’s usually on a Friday.

Jeff
But we are so excited on a Thursday to come to you. And we are not asking what made Chris mad this week. We are asking. Doo doo doo doo. What made Chris happy this week?

Chris
Yeah yeah yeah. What made Chris.

Jeff
Happy? We’ve heard your grievances. Yes. And all of the all of the suggestions you’ve been putting in the suggestion box and all the angry emails that you’ve been anonymously.

Chris
Sending, none of which are true, none of which are even remotely touching and demanding.

Jeff
That we ask what makes Chris happy this week? Yeah.

Chris
Yeah. So so.

Jeff
Chris, let me ask you. Yes.

Chris
What made you.

Jeff
Happy this week?

Chris
Well, I have to be honest. I’m going to nothing. Nothing. To be honest. It’s a very unusual response. And it’s this. So I’ve been I’ve been trying to eat less and move more. Right. And so I’m my body has been going through a season of change. Did you call your mom and tell her? I guess what I’m saying is the last year and a half, I had two knee surgeries for meniscus repair. Right? And so my knees were extremely bad. And then I had put on weight. And so my my knees have just really, really felt, uh, bad, bad like sore all the time. Like, I can’t do things. Okay. So I’ve dropped a few pounds and I’ve been moving more and eating right. And I’m doing all those things and I still have a ways to go right. But here’s what made me happy this week. So I go once a week to a trainer who works with me one time a week at at Hfp, which is called Heritage Fitness Project.

Jeff
That’s the gym that.

Chris
That’s the gym.

Jeff
In our heritage church.

Chris
In our church. Okay. And it’s and it’s a business that’s sort of run out of our location, our building. So and we have somebody who designated it’s a separate entity and they run that whole thing. So anyway, I go in there once a week and I have this brilliant, brilliant trainer named Mandy. Yeah.

Jeff
And shout out to Mandy.

Chris
Yeah. And so Mandy, the last time that she had me do like these certain kinds of lunges, it hurt me. Like I couldn’t even walk. She almost killed you the next, like, five days. Yeah, yeah.

Jeff
Yeah, it was wheelchair stuff.

Chris
Well, now, because I am moving more and eating less and everything else, she had me do those same, the same exercise. And so I did it. And I was able to lunge all the way down to the ground, which I could never even do that before. Wow. And then I did the whole thing and then I, then I waited and the next morning when I was getting out of bed, I was like, oh no, here it comes. I was like, come on, please, please, please. And I stepped to the ground. I stood up and I thought, I’m perfectly fine. Oh wow. So my knees feel great. Wow. And I’m thinking, this is great. Like and so it just.

Jeff
Getting.

Chris
Stronger. It just goes to show you and better. Don’t ever let yourself be convinced that you’ve come to the point of no return. Yeah. Yeah, right. You can change.

Jeff
So Mandy especially she’s like a physical. She has a physical therapy background too, right? While being.

Chris
A while being a.

Jeff
Trainer. Trainer. Yeah. And so she’ll work a lot of times with.

Chris
She’s very technical.

Jeff
Yeah, yeah. And she’ll work a lot of times with some of our older people, doesn’t she?

Chris
Thanks a lot. Thanks a lot. Yeah.

Jeff
No no no, I’m just saying. So she has a specialty kind of in geriatric care.

Chris
Oh my God. Now now I know you’re going for.

Jeff
Shots that at.

Chris
First I thought you were kidding.

Jeff
She does. And so she she’s able to help pointing something. She’s able to help older people.

Chris
Now you’re going she’s.

Jeff
Able to help some of our older clients go further and accomplish more because she’s so gentle and so careful. And so she’s just a real gift to the heritage fitness project. She’s so gentle.

Chris
Is that true? Is that true? It’s so funny. Is it true? Some of our. No. It’s true, it is true, dude. She she makes people. She makes people hurt. And she is. She is. She’s the person who pushes you. She’s not gentle. She’s just. She’s just technical. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. It’s so funny, dude.

Jeff
I’ve heard it the other way, but maybe that’s.

Chris
So funny, dude. So funny. At first I legitimately thought, oh, wow, does she really do old people? No no no she does. No, she does not. She does. Dude, I talk to her every week. She does not get assigned old people. We have a.

Jeff
Client who’s over 80 years old that works with her. Yeah, on a regular basis, and went from being hardly able to lift her feet off the ground while she was walking. Kind of shuffling, which is so dangerous for elderly people to now just boldly walking and being strong. And she’s stepping up.

Chris
Off the box. I know who you’re talking about. And and so that that does not equal what you said. Mandy’s expertise that does not equal with what you said for everybody. She works. My goodness.

Jeff
That’s all I’m saying.

Chris
We’re at our time to Segway. We’re going to Segway right now.

Jeff
Now I’ve worked out. So I’ve also done some classes that Mandy leads, you know, like the whole fitness classes. And yeah, when I leave those I can’t hardly move.

Chris
So yeah. Yeah. She, she pushes you.

Jeff
Yeah. She’s. So anyways if you’re, if you live in our area and looking for a great gym heritage fitness projects, a great gym. Oh for sure it is fabulous.

Chris
No question.

Jeff
Some of the best trainers I’ve ever been around. So.

Chris
Hey everyone! I’m not sure if you’re an avid Facebook user, or maybe you’re just the kind of person that feels like you have to have Facebook because you know it’s a necessity in life. But either way, it does go a long way. If you were to share a link of the Bible guys or to go to our Facebook and like it because it’ll connect us all. And so we’d appreciate you doing that.

Jeff
And we want everybody to see our happy faces.

Chris
All right. So Luke 11. Luke 11. Thanks. Thanks for that.

Jeff
I bet I can guess what, Chris.

Chris
By the way, thanks for taking what made me happy and trying to. It should make you happy trying to ruin it.

Jeff
Why does it always have to be about you, Chris? Because I was just trying to compliment.

Chris
Segment, quite honestly, is.

Jeff
About me.

Chris
She she does amazing work. It was about me. But you made it. Okay. I’m being about old people.

Jeff
I’m sorry. No, no. I was complimenting the high quality trainers we have at Heritage Fitness project. Yeah. I’m sure. Okay, so here you go. Luke 11, chapter one.

Chris
No. You mean Luke 11, verse one, verse one.

Jeff
What did I say? Chapter one. Chapter one. Yeah. Luke 11. Verse one is where I’d like to start. It says once Jesus was in a certain place praying. As I was just thinking a certain place, just a very certain place. You know what place we’re talking about? Once Jesus was in a certain place praying. As he finished, one of his disciples came to him and said, Lord, teach us to pray, just as John taught his disciples. And Jesus said, this is how you should pray. Father, may your name be kept holy. May your kingdom come soon. Give us each day the food we need. Forgive us our sins as we forgive those who sin against us. And don’t let us yield to temptation. Then, teaching them more about prayer, he used this story. Suppose you went to a friend’s house at midnight wanting to borrow three loaves of bread. You say to him, A friend of mine has come, has just arrived for a visit, and I have nothing for him to eat. And suppose he calls out from his bedroom, don’t bother me. The door is locked for the night. My family and I are all in bed. I can’t help you, but I tell you this though, he won’t do it for friendship’s sake. If you keep knocking long enough, he’ll get up and give you whatever you need because of your shameless persistence. And so I tell you, keep on asking and you will receive what you’re asking for. Keep on seeking and you’ll find. Keep on knocking on the door will be open to you. For everyone who asks receives, everyone who seeks finds, and everyone who knocks the door will be opened. Your fathers. If your children ask for a fish, do you give them a snake instead? Jeff
Or if they ask for an egg, do you give them a scorpion? Of course not. So if you sinful people know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your heavenly father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him? No one lights a lamp and then hides it under a basket. Instead, a lamp is placed on a stand where its light can be seen by all who enter the house. Your eye is a lamp that provides light for your body. When your eye is good, your whole body is filled with light. But when it is bad, your body is filled with darkness. Make sure that the light that you think you have is not actually darkness. If you are filled with light with no dark corners, then your whole life will be radiant as though a floodlight were filling you with light.

Chris
There you go. Yeah, there’s a lot in there, isn’t there. Yeah.

Jeff
So, you know, this is kind of interesting because Matthew chapter five six and seven, he covers these same topics, what we call the sermon on the Mount up in, in the area of Capernaum and Bethsaida, in that area up there in Galilee. And so this seems to be these two topics, because he’d already taught us the Lord’s Prayer before the sermon on the Mount, and he’d already already taught us in the same message there at the Mount of Beatitudes, he teaches about the idea of a light. Right.

Chris
And so he says it a little bit differently.

Jeff
Yeah, yeah. But these seem to be themes in Jesus teaching that he keeps coming back. He’s not saying always all new things. He’s coming back and reminding them of the things he’s already taught.

Chris
Yeah. And and, you know, I mean, and it could be that, you know, again, it’s just one of these things in my mind where when it says disciples, do you automatically think of the 12, right? Or do you think of the crowds of people who may be different? Yeah.

Jeff
Because there was 72 disciples that he sent out just a couple of pages ago.

Chris
Well, not only that, but then the Bible says that a lot of his dedicated followers were disciples. Yeah, yeah. So, you know, a disciple isn’t isn’t beyond the 12 goes beyond the 12. Yeah. Right. So everybody is a disciple if you follow Jesus with good intent and then but only the 12 are given the title apostles. So anyway, I just think that it’s interesting how sometimes it refers to the 12 as disciples, because obviously they were, but they were also apostles. But when it refers to apostles, it’s only the 12. So that’s a little confusing. Yeah, yeah. So in my mind, when he teaches something twice, my mind immediately goes toward maybe they were just different, different groups of people. Yeah, yeah. But yeah.

Jeff
And I think that’s what I was highlighting is that he seems to have this recurring, recurring themes that he brings back often.

Chris
Yeah, yeah, yeah. And and by the way, so let’s start with the Lord’s Prayer, the Our Father which is here. And again, this is the new Living Translation version. And a lot of us memorize it. And the king, well, you know, the traditional one is the king James Version. So our father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Yeah. Well, that one would.

Jeff
Be the Matthew chapter five one.

Chris
Yes, yes. But in terms of the Old English. Yeah. Right. And so and so. Yeah. So that’s really what hallowed be. Thy name is. It means great. Is your name right? Which is why this translates into father. May your name be kept holy. Yeah, right. Thy kingdom come. May your kingdom come soon. Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. That’s summarized in that one sentence here. Right. And so yeah. So a couple of things. We’ve talked about this before in the sermon on the Mount. But I honestly believe that when he was teaching us to pray, it wasn’t a prayer that was meant to be necessarily recited and memorized, not as the only prayer or the main prayer. And the reason why is because he quotes it a couple of different times and they’re different. Yeah. And if it was a prayer to be memorized, why would Jesus say it different? Right? It’s almost like you were to say with Jesus, don’t you? Don’t you know the Our Father? Come on, get it. Right, right, right.

Jeff
Because he doesn’t quote it.

Chris
Exactly. Right. Exactly. Yeah. So, so so that’s why if he doesn’t quote it.

Jeff
Quote it exactly. What does that mean?

Chris
It means did he forget, right. No, of course not. No, it means it’s a it’s a there’s a structure. There’s building blocks here. It’s a template. It’s a template. Yeah. Yeah yeah a template is a great word. And so you know he starts with, you know, declare God’s greatness. Let’s start with declaring God’s greatness.

Jeff
That’s why we come to him.

Chris
Right.

Jeff
That’s why we’re going to him is because he can do what we can’t do.

Chris
Well, I’ve heard a preacher one time, long ago that said, if you there’s a there’s a benefit with starting with God’s greatness. And the benefit is if you if you if you’re worried and you have anxiety and you have, you know, needs, wants and wishes and you’re going to God with them, well, a lot of times what we do is we get on our knees. Guess what we do? We go straight to needs, wants and wishes. Yeah, right. Yeah. But if you spend some time just recognizing just who it is you’re praying to, then by the time you get to your needs, wants and wishes, maybe you’ll be less concerned about them because you’ll recognize God’s. God’s in control. Yeah, God will take care of it. I’m praying to God who loves me right? So spend time recognizing just who he is. Father, great is your name and.

Jeff
It puts the problem in the right place. Yeah, if I come straight to God. The note here says praising God puts first, puts us in the right frame of mind to tell him about our needs. Too often our prayers are more like shopping lists than conversations, right? Right. So if I come with my shopping list, I’m obsessed about what I don’t have or what I desperately need. And my problem is huge. So my prayers are frantic and fearful and I’m so afraid. But when when I come to the father first and I spend time recognizing exactly who it is I’m talking to, my problems begin to shrink because my God becomes bigger and bigger and bigger, right? Sometimes we’re only articulating the problem. We’re not really talking to the father.

Chris
Right. And by the way. That. That’s an indication that prayer is just as much for you as it is. Yes. For God. Yeah, yeah. So it’s not for it’s not like God doesn’t know what we need, right? God knows what we need. You need what? Say that again. Did I hear you correctly? What? Where’s the memo? So? So it’s like God knows what we need. And yet over and over, Jesus tells us. And then later on, the book of James especially talks about it, how we need to go to God for prayer. Right? And so if God knows what we need and he knows all things, then why ever pray? Yeah. Why ever pray? Yeah, because it’s a relational. It’s a relational bridge. It’s a it’s a relational component. And so prayer helps us just as much as it does, you know, making our requests made known to God. Well, that’s.

Jeff
True in a friendship, right? Right. If, if all that ever happened was that I only ever just talked to you. Right. And I.

Chris
Never talked back, and you.

Jeff
Never, never had an opportunity to speak back. One you would get way smarter, right? Because I would just keep pouring into you and pouring into you and pouring to you. So that would be a benefit to you, but you wouldn’t have this feeling of like, this was a relationship at all.

Chris
I was trying to think of something clever to say, but I think I’m just going to allow that.

Jeff
You’re going to carry on. I’m going to carry on.

Chris
I’m going to permit that. I’ll allow that. Keep going.

Jeff
Um, but so if it was only one person talking and it’s not two people, then eventually you begin to feel like this is a lecture and it changes the relationship. It’s no longer an actual two way relationship. It’s an expert and a student. It’s an authority and a subject. It’s a boss and an employee. It’s a right. It’s not a friendship. It requires the fact that we’re both engaging and it begins to change our feeling about this. And so God wants our relationship not to be creator created, although it is that right. It’s not just king and servant.

Chris
He says, I call you friend, right? I call you servants. That’s right.

Jeff
I was going, yeah, it’s it’s friend with friend. It’s father and son. And there’s a whole other way to really experience God. If we would stop starting our prayers with our shopping list and instead, because. Do you have a relationship when I pull up. I stopped at McDonald’s again today on the way here and I got I got a what.

Jeff
I.

Jeff
Here’s my watch, my breakfast. This is my shocked face. That’s my.

Jeff
Breakfast. Stop. Yeah.

Jeff
Exactly.

Jeff
That’s my breakfast. Stop. Right. So I always get a sausage McMuffin with egg and a Diet Coke. So I know it’s bad that I know the people that are handing me the food out the window, right. A couple of them.

Chris
Hey, how’s your son, Bill?

Jeff
Yeah, exactly.

Jeff
Well, I was going to say. So I pull up to the thing. Can I help you? You know. Yeah, yeah. Like a number two with a large Diet Coke, please. Okay. It’s $6.67. Please pull around. So I pull up. I don’t know the person. So I’ve seen the guy who takes my card. Yeah, 250 times. Yeah. I think his name is Brian. Yeah. Beyond that, I don’t know much about him. Okay. Then I pull up and the lady who hand me my food, she’s kind of funny. It’s an older lady, and so we’ll say something funny back and forth. 250 times I’ve done that. I don’t know if she’s married. I don’t know if she has any kids because I just pulled up and said, I need a number two with a large Diet Coke, and here’s my money. Give me what I need. Right. So I haven’t developed a friendship with these people. I have an acquaintance, and I think so many people struggle through life and fear about their problems, and fear about all the things that happen in their life because they have gods and acquaintance. And not a friend, and it’s because we’re putting in our shopping list order rather than going into having this conversation. And that requires that I acknowledge you as as a person that I begin to, to, to get into who you are. And so that’s one of the reasons why Jesus invites us to begin with who God is, and that’s reminding ourselves of the fact that this relationship goes way beyond. Yeah.

Chris
And by the way, the only reason why it’s only 250 interactions with the older lady is because she’s new. It’s exactly what I was going to say was because because she just started 250 days ago. That’s so funny. You stole my punch line. But it was. It was still funny. It was still.

Jeff
Funny.

Chris
That’s. That’s good. So.

Jeff
So you mentioned that Jesus calls us. God calls us friend.

Jeff
Yeah, right.

Jeff
That is it’s beyond comprehension because we positioned ourselves as his enemies.

Jeff
Right?

Jeff
And he calls us friends.

Chris
Yeah. And then. And then he goes on and he goes from declaring God’s greatness to acknowledge our dependence. Right. So we’re dependent on him for food and daily provisions. We’re dependent on him for, you know, even forgiveness, you know, to give us the ability to forgive. Yeah. Number one, he forgives us and then help us to forgive others. You know, please keep us from our, you know, temptation. So everything is our dependence upon him. And we move into that section of the prayer. So I think that I think that there is a template here that really can help us, you know, structure our prayers in a way that really could help us personally. And then and then he goes on from there, and then he then he goes into a story that I think is the most audacious. It is it is the most radical story. Honestly, I think even about the whole kingdom of God. Honestly, I do. You know how he always says the kingdom of God is like, right? And and he says, here the kingdom of God is like. And so he says, wait a minute, where is it? Then teaching them about prayer, he used this story, I think in another version it may actually say the kingdom of God is like but, but, but, but he goes on and he says, you know, you knock at the door and they say, go away. And then you keep on knocking. And he goes, and I’m telling you, if you knock long enough, the guy’s going to get up. And of course, the guy in the story is the Heavenly Father, right? And the knock is the prayer, right? And he says he won’t do it out of relationship. He’s not going to do it because you’re favored. Chris
He’s not going to do it because you’re a name. You’re a celebrity. He’s not going to do it because, okay, you know, it’s you, he says. It’s not any of those things. It’s the persistence of the knocking.

Jeff
It says you’re.

Jeff
Shameless. Persistence.

Chris
Shameless persistence. Yeah. And again, he doesn’t say he’s going to answer the prayer in the way that you ask it, right? He just says, you’re going to get what you you’re going to get a response. Right? Because anyone who asks receives. And so God’s going to answer our prayer. And so he he may not answer your prayer like, you know, hey God, please save my wife from this. You know, terminal illness. Like if your wife ends up passing away, you know, you know, it’s it’s that’s not what he’s talking about.

Jeff
He’ll do the best thing.

Jeff
God will do the best thing. The right thing.

Chris
Yes, yes. And so but he says and then he then he qualifies that. And he says, hey, you don’t give your child a snake when he asks for a fish, right? He’s hungry and he wants a fish. You don’t give him a snake, right, right, he says. And if so, and you’re not perfect like your heavenly father. So you being sinful people know how to give good gifts. Just trust that your heavenly father is going to give you what is best, right? Right. But, but, but the shameless persistence is is a radical concept here. Yeah. And so he invites us to just pray hard. Pray big, you know, just just pray consistently. And guess what? Prayer matters. Prayer changes things. Yeah. And so yeah, there’s a definite command to go to God and pray.

Jeff
In.

Jeff
The in other translations it says ask and you receive. Knock the door will be open to you right seek and you will.

Chris
Find Matthew.

Jeff
Six. Yeah, yeah.

Jeff
Well even here, even here in like I’m looking at the King James here and it says and I say to you, ask and it shall be given to you, seek and you shall find. Knock and it shall be opened unto you. Right. But we all know, you know, Bible students know.

Chris
By the way, you know that song seek ye first.

Jeff
The Kingdom of God. Yeah, okay.

Jeff
Matthew six.

Jeff

3333. Jeff
      But this is so if you know, in the Greek the words Jesus used have a what’s the tense there? It’s a, it’s an active tense that is continuing. I always forget I always forget what that is. But basically it was translated in the New Living Translation. Keep on asking and you will receive what you ask for. Keep on seeking and you will find. Keep on knocking and the door will be open to you. So this translation is such a good translation. For this passage, because that’s exactly what it means.

Chris
As opposed to just ask once, right?

Jeff
Right.

Chris
Ask and it will be given to you. And it says here.

Jeff
The story is.

Jeff
Shameless persistence.

Jeff
Right.

Jeff
So he’s like, continue to knock. Don’t feel like you’re bugging God. So what he’s not saying is you have to keep begging and keep begging and keep begging. What he’s trying to say is you’re not bugging God. It’s not a frustrating thing to him that you keep coming back for the same thing. Don’t be ashamed that you come back again and ask again and ask again and ask again. It does a couple of things. One, it keeps you reliant on him. It keeps you talking to him. Those two things are really important. And then it also sometimes it’s just about time. It’s the timing is the issue. But you coming and asking God over and over and over again what you’re eventually doing is you’re saying, God, I’m surrendering to your timing, not my timing, and I’m not making a demand. I’m making a request. But I’m going to be persistent with this request, and I’m going to believe, you know, my grandmother prayed for my dad for 40 years that he’d become a Christian every single day for 40 years. And, you know, my last her last, I don’t know, ten, 10 or 12 years. She lived on our property. We had a second house. There was another little tiny house, and she lived right behind us. And so she lived within 100ft of me, you know, as a boy and a teenager. And I can remember her telling me, she said, boy, your dad today is a very different man than he was when I was praying for him. And I prayed for him every morning and every evening for 40 years, that he’d come to faith in Christ.

Jeff
It’s amazing.

Jeff
And thank God my grandma didn’t quit praying.

Jeff
Yeah, right.

Chris
Yeah, well, I just I just get choked up just because it’s.

Jeff
So keep on.

Chris
Asking. It’s the greatest example of somebody loving somebody else so much is to say that she prayed for him for 40 years. It chokes me up. Yeah. It’s amazing. Yeah.

Jeff
So that’s what Jesus is telling us is right. The most important things are worth praying about. And in God’s time, he’ll make it happen.

Chris
That’s great. Well, that is definitely our time. So we will see you next time on the Bible, guys.