Questions of Faith: Judgment, Worship, and Community

``God doesn't need your worship. The question was, god doesn't need my worship. No. He doesn't. You do. You need your worship. See, god gave you this wonderful thing and we think that we're coming to do it for god as though it somehow benefits god and god knows that it's benefiting us. The same way when you have your kids do chores when they're little. I would have the kids clean up the kitchen, and then you know what I had to do? Go clean up the kitchen. Right? So why did I have them do it? It's just gonna take me twice as long to get it done right, and it's never gonna be exactly the way I want it. And we find sometimes there'll be utensils in the cereal bowl cabinet because they'll just put stuff anyway. So why did I subject myself to this ark? Because it's doing a work in them. Because it's training them for how to run their household when they get old. In the same way, when we come to worship God, God is doing a work in us. Because here's the principle of worship. We become like what we worship. [01:10:34] (71 seconds)  #WorshipTransformsYou

And so when we read the scripture, it you may know it's Matthew chapter seven verse one, judge not least you be judged. You know how that word is used there? It can mean a lot of things. And I imagine if you're reading that in the English language, Chris is gonna hear that word differently than me because he uses the word judge on a daily basis. Right? He goes before judges. Right? I'm gonna hear that word slightly different. You're gonna hear that word slightly different. And so we're going to use it different. Really important to go back and see how is that word used then? How is Jesus using that word? How else is it used in scripture? Because the word used there is in the New Testament a 112 times in the King James version, and it's not always translated as judge. What it means in this context, I believe, is condemn. Do not condemn someone else. [00:56:41] (65 seconds)  #DontCondemnOthers

I just know some of the questions. And so here's one that a lot of people ask sometimes. I I've heard this one a lot before. What happened to Jesus for eighteen years between his thirteenth birthday and his 30 birthday? Was he married? Did he leave the country? And was this deleted from the Bible by the Catholic church? And I'll give the best answer I can to that. It's a three word statement that you are absolutely allowed to give when someone asks you to explain something about your faith. In fact, I want you to say it with me. Don't. Can you guess the last word? Don't. No. We don't know. But there's a reason why we don't know. [00:39:22] (53 seconds)  #TheHiddenYears

So, yes, you get to judge between right and wrong and that judgment does not extend to condemning a person, deciding someone is evil, deciding that someone is unredeemable, deciding that someone just has to be cut off from god. God can do whatever he wants and he is not asking for our opinion on people's salvation. So we might wanna get out of the habit of trying to evaluate theirs. [01:04:56] (36 seconds)  #LeaveSalvationToGod

I know that that is sin. But is god at work in their lives? Could they be saved and still be in a sinful relationship? Sure. I can see how god could do that. You know how I can see that? Because I got sin in my life. You got sin in your life. [01:03:29] (21 seconds)  #GodAtWorkDespiteSin

Personally, I would be happier if churches had services on Monday and Tuesday and Wednesday and and that church did Thursday and this church and then we would not be competing. I think one of the failings of the American church is that we all come together to meet at the same time on the same day. So where do nurses go? You know, some of them have work Sunday mornings. People that care for other living creatures. Where where do they go? Because farmers can't always go. Nurses can't always go. Correctional officers can't always police. Why aren't we offering service on Thursday night or Saturday morning or whenever would be a good time for them? You know, creatures of habit. And it is my hope and desire that the church breaks out of that habit over this next generation. [00:52:40] (51 seconds)  #ChurchBeyondSunday

You're supposed to build into your life a routine of rest. You're not supposed to run at full speed for as long as you can until you just give out and burn out and you fall out and and then you get up and do it all over again. That's called high intensity interval training. That's not what we're doing. We're supposed to build in a rhythm of rest. A rhythm of resting repetitively throughout the week. We feel guilty for resting because we got stuff to do. Right? We got a lot of stuff to do and we don't wanna rest. So, what do we do? We reinvent the idea of rest that's taking an hour to go over to this place and have a church. So, instead of rest. [00:47:46] (50 seconds)  #RhythmOfRest

And I know what most people wonder then is if Jesus was at without sin his entire life, then what did he do when he was 14 and 15? Because I had a 14 year old. I can't imagine them being without sin. Did they sew his mouth shut? How did he do that? We don't get those bits of information. [00:41:39] (23 seconds)  #UnknownYouthOfJesus