Episode Transcript
[00:00:01] Well, Ethan, am I missing Ethan? Ethan and Benjamin aren't here. They'll be here probably next Sunday. Kelsey is here. We're missing Trey.
[00:00:10] Or is Trey? I didn't see Trey. But Anthony, Kaden and King are here with us today. So give them one more round of applause.
[00:00:19] Oh, yes, yes. Sorry, I only saw the back of your head in the video. You never really looked at the video. Very. You knew where it was.
[00:00:31] Yeah.
[00:00:32] So we are so proud of them.
[00:00:36] I have spent my life interested in really two things while I was growing up. I was interested in two things. I was interested in Jesus and I was interested in things that were funny.
[00:00:52] And at my church those did not get along.
[00:00:59] But one of the things that I think is fun to do, I do this whenever. Like you'll see these big, big billboards of they're having a guest speaker at a church and he's some big, big well known guy and he is.
[00:01:12] It says it'll be like Tim Tebow or something. You know, Tim Tebow's always preaching somewhere and it'll say Tim Tebow speaking at Six Flags over Jesus or whatever and will we? And then I'll always say out loud. Typically when I'm in the car by myself, I'll say out loud. I bet Christianity is a lot like playing football.
[00:01:35] Like I think it's just they always have.
[00:01:37] If it's a soldier. Christianity is a lot like combat or preparing or whatever. Like that's what that is great Jesus is. Jesus does conform a lot of times he meets us where we are and our life experiences. A lot of times can connect to following Jesus.
[00:02:00] Being a child of God. When you had kids, when you have kids, sometimes you're just like, oh my goodness, I bet this is what God feels like. You connect it, you connect God with all sorts of things and that's good. And I'm going to connect Jesus to something that may feel like I'm pulling a Tim Tebow today.
[00:02:19] But I just think this is the way Jesus was. I see it in scripture and I hope I've questioned myself enough on this that I hope you take me somewhat seriously in this.
[00:02:32] I think Jesus was more light hearted than we give him credit for.
[00:02:41] A lot of times, especially in, you know the passage that was read that Claire read this morning about you judge people and you have this and you have a plank sticking out of your own eye, but you judge the speck in someone else's eye.
[00:02:57] That what you have to watch for. And humor differs from age to age. Right. So the way something that's funny to your generation, might not be funny to the next generation.
[00:03:12] Something your kids show you they think is hilarious. You might not find it all that funny at all.
[00:03:19] And humor is different depending on the group you're in front of. There are things that are funny to Church of Christ people that aren't funny to Baptist people.
[00:03:32] It just is like, that's. And even. Even from just like life experience, humor is different. Now it's hard for us to track with the humor of 1st century Jewish people speaking Aramaic translated into Greek.
[00:03:55] The speech was Aramaic, the Greek is the text. The English is in our Bible.
[00:04:00] And if you're reading the King James, there's a Latin middleman there.
[00:04:07] And so there's all sorts of language problems. And it's hard to find one language funny and one culture. We don't really get other cultures sense of humor. You remember the first time you saw a British comedy?
[00:04:24] Maybe you haven't seen one. Don't look it up.
[00:04:27] It's gonna be weird. At first.
[00:04:30] There's a man in a dress for no reason in the 80s and they laughed and then they moved on and didn't explain it.
[00:04:38] Well, maybe you like Mr. Bean, but he was just universally good.
[00:04:43] So there is different humor in different places.
[00:04:48] Jesus and in his day, and this is all you need to know, you don't have to find it funny as well, but Jesus in his day, the whole group thought two things were funny.
[00:05:01] They enjoyed.
[00:05:04] They enjoyed hyperbole, which is spelt hyperbole for those of you who've been mispronouncing it your whole life.
[00:05:14] Hyperbole and puns.
[00:05:18] If you made a pun, if you could say a thing where one word sounded like the next word and you were making a point, if you could double that up and say something like extremely hilarious, like a plank sticking out of your eye. If you could conjure up some ridiculous imagery with a hyperbole, well, it was pretty funny to them. And if you could do it with a pun, my goodness, you might as well just be like, goodness, I want to name a comedian that all of you would like not doing it.
[00:05:59] I know most of you are Big Dave Chappelle people, but.
[00:06:07] But so when Jesus, sometimes when we interpret him as sounding really harsh, because that's the way we read it, he is throwing in bits of pun and hyperbole and efficient. We'll say name calling, which that's something they enjoyed quite well.
[00:06:32] It's like the ancient roast, as youth today are. They love roasts. They're not good at it, but they like it.
[00:06:39] They like making fun of each other.
[00:06:42] And that was kind of good spirited.
[00:06:46] To be able to approach brokenness with the, with levity almost at times can heal it because we all know when we sometimes aha moments are like one letter away from haha moments.
[00:07:05] See that's a pun and it's dumb and you didn't find it funny.
[00:07:12] But Jesus would have you sinners.
[00:07:19] So there is a.
[00:07:22] For Jesus, he is telling them very serious, they need to change, they need to change, they need to make a shift from one place to another. It needs to affect their whole life.
[00:07:37] But if you read the language where he. If you read like his phrasing, he is throwing in some funny bits.
[00:07:47] He's keeping it light in a way so you can imagine Jesus just ranting. I had a preacher growing up that, that pounded the pulpit.
[00:08:00] Did you have one of those that you would start nodding and almost like he saw you. He would, Jesus, you know, he would just.
[00:08:09] It was loud and aggressive and so I sort of heard Jesus as loud and aggressive.
[00:08:20] There is a big difference though between saying why do you judge the one with a speck in his eye when you have a plank in your eye and why do you judge the one with a speck in his eye when you've got a plank sticking out of your eye?
[00:08:42] Tonally we can't hear Jesus tone but the indicators within the text seem to me, seem to me at least that he's.
[00:08:52] His delivery is more of the second than the first that his delivery can be. It has a soft touch and a light hearted feel, but it's serious.
[00:09:07] I love you, but you gotta change.
[00:09:15] I was with a group of preachers sitting around a circle.
[00:09:20] We do sometimes and they. We were talking about what's going on at your place.
[00:09:28] I was in Teague, Texas at the time and I was, it was in Waco with Jim Martin. Jim Martin's been here, mentor of mine, just amazing man.
[00:09:37] And he, we were going around the room talking about things and I talked about what's going on at Teague.
[00:09:44] This was happening, that was happening. I'm you know, thankful for it. Here's a difficulty but you know, and we got to one guy and we'll call him Ernie because that was his name.
[00:09:57] We got, we got to one guy and he said, he said oh, my church is just, it's awful.
[00:10:05] Deacons are this and the elders are this and the women are this and the just. I mean he wouldn't quit.
[00:10:14] I just grumbled, grumbled, grumbled and my instinct would have Been like, hey, man, then quit.
[00:10:24] I was frustrated with him. I thought, just what are you doing if you hate every part of this church you're supposed to love the church you're with.
[00:10:33] Love them well.
[00:10:35] But if all you see is negative, what are you doing in this job? That was my instinct. But I wasn't in charge of the room.
[00:10:45] Jim was, and he got done. Jim just let him run out of gas.
[00:10:51] And his complaints rolled to a stop.
[00:10:55] And Jim looked at him, smiled, and said, well, Ernie, what would it look like if you got everything you wanted?
[00:11:05] Just that tone, just the sharpest dart I've ever seen thrown across the room with kindness.
[00:11:18] And we've all had people who lovingly asked us good questions or lovingly pointed out to us what we were doing in a way that cut right to the right to the heart of it.
[00:11:37] But I still knew.
[00:11:39] I still knew what they felt in the moment.
[00:11:43] You can see this in Jesus language.
[00:11:47] Yes, it is. They are woes to the religious.
[00:11:53] But notice what he says here.
[00:11:55] Woe to you teachers of the law and Pharisees, you pretenders, you actors, you hypocrites.
[00:12:04] You give a tenth of your spices, mint, dill, cumin, like he names.
[00:12:11] He names the tiniest things to tithe. Now, it is interesting, obviously, to tithe your mint and your dill and your cumin, you.
[00:12:22] You separate out a tenth of it. But I like picturing cutting it, cutting each little one. That's funnier to me.
[00:12:32] You tithe. You give away like just this tiny little, like, oh, look, you did it.
[00:12:37] Good job.
[00:12:39] Tiny little tithe.
[00:12:42] But you have neglected the more important or weightier matters of the law, justice, mercy and faithfulness.
[00:12:54] You've neglected the things that matter. You've tithed out this little bit of stuff, but then this heavy, this weighty stuff doesn't.
[00:13:04] You don't do it.
[00:13:06] You've forgotten about that.
[00:13:09] You've divorced yourself from those acts, but you feel holy for tithing dill.
[00:13:16] Now, this is a comparison that they all. It's a hyperbolic comparison, and they're seeing it as such, and it's hitting them right in the heart. But it's not coming from an angry messiah. It's coming from a loving God.
[00:13:35] The God who loves us unconditionally, wants us to be better followers in his kingdom.
[00:13:43] He wants that from us for the kingdom's sake, for our sake. He wants it from us.
[00:13:54] And then Jesus calls him. Jesus tells him, you should practice the latter with. Without neglecting the former.
[00:14:02] Yeah, keep doing. Keep doing. The tiny Tithe.
[00:14:08] But the big part of this, justice, mercy, faithfulness, that needs to hold up.
[00:14:19] I want you to hear Jesus remarks, as kind in nature but cutting deep.
[00:14:30] He makes his point.
[00:14:36] And we're not going to go to the next scripture yet because he calls them names.
[00:14:42] He's a name caller here.
[00:14:45] He calls them three things, actually.
[00:14:50] But I. I want you to know that, that I.
[00:14:56] So I. I have a. I have. I have a complicated name.
[00:15:01] Benjamin.
[00:15:02] It's not.
[00:15:04] It's. It's difficult when we're in a culture now where people ask for your name at every interaction. You pay. If you're going to hand them money, they're going to go, what name do I put on it? I'm like, I don't know. It's car insurance.
[00:15:18] You don't have to put names on it.
[00:15:20] That's a bad example. It's target order.
[00:15:23] They got a new. For Benjamin. Yes, for Benjamin. But they'll say, what name do I put on it? They'll be holding the coffee cup, ready to write a name on it. And I say, Benjamin. And they go.
[00:15:36] And I'll say, you can write Ben if you'd like. And they go, okay.
[00:15:40] But my name is spelled the same way every time.
[00:15:46] Like, Benjamin is one of the most universally spelled names in the world. It's spelt one way in the Bible and then the rest of us. It doesn't even change spellings. When it shifts into Spanish, it's Benjamin. It's the same letters and everything.
[00:16:04] Except one time I was. When we moved away from Teague, we were just tired of the hustle and bustle.
[00:16:15] It was a town of 5,000 and we moved to a town of 2,000.
[00:16:19] We were just. Every day you were just getting stuck in traffic behind a horse on 8th street or being harassed by a delinquent goose on a walk in the park.
[00:16:30] Just. Crime had gone up. So we moved.
[00:16:34] But as I was turning off my water, I went to the place to where you had to turn off your water at the parsonage. And I said, and the lady said, well, what's the name? And I said, benjamin. And she said, how do you spell that? And the only time I've ever been smart with it, the only time I've ever been snarky about it was in this room. And I said, well, the only way it's ever spelled, she said, actually, my husband spells it B, E, N, J, A, M, E, N.
[00:17:06] And I said, well, then his parents were wrong.
[00:17:10] And then she leaned across the table and she goes, I don't like them very much either.
[00:17:19] But actually, on my Sam's card, it's misspelled, too. It's actually spelled phonetically the way most.
[00:17:27] The most Texans say. It's. Well, actually, most Arkansans Texans are pretty good about it. But Arkansans, they pronounce. They throw an R in there. They just can't help it.
[00:17:37] They'll say, benjamin.
[00:17:40] Hey, it's Benjamin. Yep.
[00:17:43] Used to be German.
[00:17:46] But the lady who did my Sam's card, it says B, E, N, J, E, R, M, A, N.
[00:17:52] Sweet.
[00:17:55] But when someone calls me by name, full name, like, it feels like love, they did.
[00:18:03] They.
[00:18:04] They acted. They. They had to say the whole thing. They went the whole way. It's convertible. You can cut it short. That's fine. I'm fine with that. I understand it.
[00:18:15] But sometimes they say my parents didn't even need to give me a middle name. They just had to say Benjamin. It's like Phil's, like, first and last. Like, they just said it.
[00:18:27] But, like, when someone says my full name, it means they know me.
[00:18:32] They went the whole way. And that means a lot. There's a lot in a name.
[00:18:38] Some of you have things that you have your name, but then you have something, someone you love calls you, and no one else gets to call you that or something in the name like that.
[00:19:00] My family.
[00:19:02] And listen, don't you dare do anything with this information.
[00:19:08] My family calls me Boop.
[00:19:13] I guess I look a lot like Betty Boop.
[00:19:20] At least when I was a baby. That's what they always called me. Booper Boop. They just called me.
[00:19:25] That's what my teammates in basketball called me in high school. Like, that's just. That was my name in high school.
[00:19:33] And if I hear that yelled out, I think someone from Da Queen is there, you know, someone from a certain era is with me.
[00:19:51] There's a lot in a name.
[00:19:56] Jesus says three names here, and it's not translated this way in any of our translations, but they're all names. In verse 24 in the Greek, you can tell he's naming somebody by.
[00:20:09] Some languages have a tense called vocative. We do, too, but we don't talk about it in school where it's saying a name and they have certain endings that make sure that Hebrew has it, Greek has it three names. He calls them blind guides, strainers of gnats.
[00:20:32] So this verse should be.
[00:20:34] Would be well trained or well translated to say, you blind guides you, those who strain out gnats. You camel connoisseurs.
[00:20:43] Like, he's calling them something, you strainers of gnats, you swallowers of camels, you blind guides, you strainers of gnats, you swallowers of camels. Now back to puns and hyperbole. Man. This is a great hyperbole.
[00:21:03] It's also a pun in Aramaic.
[00:21:07] Nat, oddly, is kamal and camel is gamal.
[00:21:16] It's very similar sounding words.
[00:21:21] He's punching up, which is a way of saying he's making it more light hearted.
[00:21:26] The, this condemnation of sorts.
[00:21:33] You, you have, you have good intentions about the small things, but the big things you miss completely.
[00:21:44] And Jesus desperately wants them to change that. He desperately wants us to change that. When we get all the little small things right, but the big things we miss when we're concerned about just nonsense that church people get concerned about. But then we go into the world and we don't treat people like they're created loved human beings created and loved by God, saved by Jesus. We don't see them with the weight they deserve when we don't see them like that. Jesus wants us to change that.
[00:22:23] But he's. He's. He's not griping at us.
[00:22:32] He's not griping at us.
[00:22:35] Instead, he's. He's saying, guys, you strain out a. You strain out a.
[00:22:42] You're the type of people that strain out gnats and then you swallow camels.
[00:22:49] There were chuckles.
[00:22:54] And I've found, I found that a lot of times with humor, you're more likely to make someone say, yeah, I do that.
[00:23:07] I once in the middle of a sermon, because I'd been watching it for about three months, I once in the middle of the sermon was talking about how it doesn't matter, but I said, some of you can't even make it through a whole sermon without getting on Facebook.
[00:23:29] And I saw a lady right here out of the corner of my eye go, it wasn't Rachel. It was a different church.
[00:23:43] She put it down.
[00:23:46] That was a tag team effort too. Rachel had told me she was on Facebook the whole sermon.
[00:23:51] I knew, but the.
[00:23:57] Now I didn't go get off Facebook, but she might have. If I would have done that, she would have gotten up and left.
[00:24:05] But I said, some of you can't even get through a whole sermon without getting on Facebook.
[00:24:14] The way.
[00:24:15] But here's also how we should treat the world.
[00:24:21] Because some of the things we get angry about with the world, they're serious things.
[00:24:28] Some of the things we wish were different in this broken world, they are serious things.
[00:24:35] But you cannot approach people with Anger in your voice.
[00:24:42] You cannot approach people with anger in your voice and expect them to hear you all that. Well, we can't call them stupid.
[00:24:57] We can't demean them.
[00:25:01] If there are people you disagree with and you disagree with them publicly and you call them stupid. Repentance, particularly if you're lazy enough to do it on Facebook or cowardly enough.
[00:25:20] This isn't.
[00:25:22] That's not the place.
[00:25:24] Social media is not the place to have disagreements. Show us what you're eating. Show us your grandkids. Put it away.
[00:25:35] Those sorts of like, well, I'm telling somebody this or that. Okay, good luck.
[00:25:43] They don't hear it with the humor you're giving it.
[00:25:51] This.
[00:25:52] The way we approach the world, the tone with which we approach the world matters.
[00:25:59] We are saying, well, I believe in the Holy Spirit and we take communion every Sunday, and we think that's important. We baptize people whenever they want to give their life to Jesus. We think that's important. So on and so forth.
[00:26:12] That's all very important. Keep that up.
[00:26:16] But don't feel good because you're doing your tiny tithing and you're rejecting the weightier matters of the law, like justice and mercy, faithfulness, living that out most. That's the most important part.
[00:26:48] And you won't change a soul if you don't know their name.
[00:26:56] You won't speak the gospel into the world to just faceless, nameless people. What will happen if you want to change the world? You start with the people who. Whose names you know.
[00:27:10] And they're happy that you're saying their name because you've shown them mercy, you've shown them grace, you've shown them you've been righteous with them, you've been faithful as a friend.
[00:27:23] That's weightier matters.
[00:27:30] Don't strain out gnats and swallow camels, but follow Jesus and take into account those heavier matters of the law.
[00:27:44] You're thinking of a name right now who needs a church family, group of people who aren't like them but will be with them.
[00:27:57] And maybe you've been at this church for just a couple of years, couple of months, or maybe you've been here for a couple of decades.
[00:28:09] Invite them by name.
[00:28:13] Show them justice and mercy and love.
[00:28:16] Be faithful to them.
[00:28:21] If you can have that blessing, that interaction with them where you're saying, I want you to be a part of my family.
[00:28:35] You, Benjamin, you Ernie, I want you to be with us, then the name church really matters because we are a church together and we don't have to.
[00:28:58] We don't have to say that we've done everything right and we've gotten everything right and we've tithed all the tiny things we just get to say.
[00:29:13] Benjamin, I think you should join us.
[00:29:21] I'd love it if you joined us. I'll save you a seat.
[00:29:26] I'll kick the person who usually sits beside me out and you can sit there to invite someone to the kingdom.
[00:29:37] 1. That's the only way churches grow, really.
[00:29:39] We can do big programs and we can do. We can give away playstations and switch twos or whatever and go to camp. But the way this church will grow is when you say to somebody by name, I am. I want you with us.
[00:29:56] That's when that happens.
[00:29:59] And not all of our actions, but just Jesus.
[00:30:03] Just Jesus.
[00:30:06] Because he wants us to change.
[00:30:08] But he loves us where we sit.
[00:30:12] You can tell that by the way he talks to us when he calls us by name.
[00:30:17] Let's pray together.
