Lenny 0:02

Welcome to Waking Up the Great, where we cut to religious annoyance, look honestly at scripture, and return to the simplicity of Christ. I'm ready. Let's get into it.

Jack 0:18

A lot of times we forget that we've already passed from death unto life. Our spiritual life is the kingdom, and that's how we live in the kingdom of God. What we live in now is the kingdom. This kingdom is going to continue when our flesh falls off. That's a difficult thing for some people to think because we're so occupied with the natural. Paul said, don't even look at Jesus after the fleck lake, because he's not. So this what would Jesus do bracelet saying, that's sort of nice. But the reality is he's much bigger than that.

Lenny 0:52

Yeah, we can recite the passages, storing up treasures in heaven, but to actually understand what that means, you know, instead of just applying it to good behavior.

Jack 1:01

Right, exactly.

unknown 1:02

Yeah.

Lenny 1:03

We're so obsessed with behaving how we think a Christian behaves, as soon as we hit that mark in our lives, we think we're good.

SPEAKER_02 1:09

Yeah.

Lenny 1:10

And we just walk away from the greatest gift that we have in that relationship with the Lord, that living and active faith that it's about living from that life.

Jack 1:22

Yeah. I mean, it's a simple thing, really. We have to sort through everything, but it's the expectation is a new man. We're a new man, we're a new creation, of course. And we're the new man. And everyone wants to know what we are supposed to do as the new man? Really, the answer is we're supposed to be. We're supposed to, you know, go to bed at night, sleep, get up in the morning, brush our teeth. That's all spiritual stuff. Now, go to work, enjoy our family, help out our neighbor, live in community. That's the new kingdom of God on earth. That's what the new creation man does. It's not like, okay, don't do this, don't do that, do this, don't do that. That's nothing. Just like Adam in the garden got up in the morning, went about his day. That's the new man. That's us.

Melissa 2:12

Yeah, life in the kingdom.

Lenny 2:13

Yeah. We're living it. I think the key though is in the presence of God. Yeah. In the eternal kingdom. Because if we take our mind off that, our physical bodies can easily take our minds off of the spiritual realm. Sure. And all of a sudden we're doing all those things independently without the Lord. And that's that's sad.

SPEAKER_02 2:31

Yeah.

Lenny 2:32

Just kind of drift away from our relationship with the Lord, and this is the kingdom. I do my job, I make my money, I come home. Leaving that relationship in the dust, I think, is where we go wrong there.

Jack 2:45

Sometimes. Sometimes. But if we live in the consciousness of that, we're transformed by the renewing of our mind, the Bible says.

SPEAKER_02 2:52

Mm-hmm.

Jack 2:53

That's what transforms us, is taking that squirrel and realizing that it's an eternal squirrel in God's presence. That He made that be, and my rationale is not it's a coincidence, but that I'm loved by the Father.

Melissa 3:10

Yes. There's a pretty cool song. My dad actually sent it to me last year. Not a Christian artist, but her name is I think it's Casey Musgraves. And she sings a song called Cardinal. And he sent that to me because it talks about that seeing this cardinal and it isn't a message from above. And my dad and I know that sometimes it is. But anyway, there was one time with the squirrel, one time of these 20 times when I was having a particularly difficult day in the morning. Oh, just feeling so bad. And I'm trying to eat my breakfast. I sit down, and I know Sonar sit down, and there he is. There's the squirrel. And he's starting to belly slide across the railing. He's practically laying on his side, you know, posing, looking at me. I had to laugh. But then, because it was such a hard morning, I said, thank you so much, Lord. But the problem is, I'm gonna start eating my breakfast, and the squirrel's gonna leave. And then I'm alone again with my problem and my sadness. And you know what the Lord did? The Lord kept that darn squirrel there for about 30 minutes, just laying there, staring at me, and I am laughing. Okay, Lord, I get it. You don't leave. You don't leave.

Jack 4:35

Awesome. The book of Revelation says, you know, where it states that they they overcame him by the blood of the Lamb and the word of their testimony.

Melissa 4:43

Yes.

Jack 4:44

And I'm convinced of the fact that that's our overcoming in this life.

SPEAKER_02 4:49

Mm-hmm.

Jack 4:50

Really. We confess the fact that the blood of the Lamb has covered us. That's the reality that we live in. And then the word of our testimony is the squirrel sitting on the railing and God being real.

unknown 5:01

Yeah.

Jack 5:02

Those two things are what will be eternal. The blood of the Lamb and the Word of our testimony. Anytime we recognize our Father, it's eternal. Anytime we rest in His presence, it's an eternal resting. It's not a temporary thing. You made it sound so good, Melissa, when you said, you know, oh, it's it's going to be over with, and I'm going to be in the next moment alone. And the Spirit of God would say to you, You're never alone. That type of thing. Those are the things we live in. And it's okay for us to look for those things. Because that puts us in tune with the eternal. And that's pretty overwhelming. You know, uh Dr. Morgan said once, and I maybe I've shared this before, but he said, Not all mystics are Christians, but all Christians are mystics. And that's so true.

SPEAKER_02 5:51

Yeah.

Jack 5:52

It is so true. He said that in the seventies. As I've dwelt on I I mean, I've heard his mess his message I don't know how many times over the years. But God's truth in that says Christianity will push you over the edge every time. The new birth will push you past what you can comprehend because of the verse that we stated earlier. Beyond our comprehension. It has to be beyond our comprehension. If it was within our comprehension, we'd be like any other religion. But it's not. It's beyond that. And it's only grasped by faith. But faith becomes a reality as we practice it and live in it. Those are all the pictures of the great men of faith that were failures in the Old Testament. As we look at their stories, we understand that the fact that it wasn't their lives, it was their convictions and their heart and their relationship. And God is showing us through those stories.

Melissa 6:44

Ah, that's beautiful. Yes. Beautiful reminder.

Jack 6:48

It is. And it's we've got it every day. We look at each other, I look at my wife, look at Vicki, I say good morning, I love you, and I think, wow, what a gift. Hey Dash for Walk. What a gift.

Lenny 7:00

So you use the word practice. And we were talking about that. I I always say last week. I think I should probably explain to some maybe members of the audience that aren't aware of how we're doing this. We have four messages that we do at a time, pretty much has been the rhythm. So sometimes I say last week, I mean like four messages ago, but um we're recording four at a time. I was gonna start saying grace and peace at the beginning and at the end uh to try to mark that, but I forgot. Anyhow, we're talking about practicing discernment. And you said it it's not really like we're practicing, like it's not really the same uh in my words as practicing for baseball, practicing to be a good football player. It's actually quite different. In first John, he mentions practice several times. And he talks about someone who makes the practice of sinning, practicing lawlessness, and then he refers to people practicing righteousness. And you're reading all this and you're like, oh, there's a lot of practicing going on. And uh I want to be the one that practices righteousness, and you know what first goes to everybody's heads there. What does that look like? Well, probably sounds something like doing all the Ten Commandments or something along those lines, right? But John explicitly says, no one born of God makes a practice of sinning. And he says, why? Because God's seed abides in him, and he can't keep on sinning because he's been born of God. So he goes on and talking about all that practice stuff, and then he basically tells you what the practice looks like. It's belief.

Jack 8:36

Yeah.

Lenny 8:37

And whoever doesn't practice righteousness is not of God. It literally sounds like he's talking about works, but he's talking about something else, and it doesn't mean that it doesn't involve living or being, because human beings are beings we have to be. We're being righteous just by being. But it's just fascinating because he uses the word practice there. When we come to practicing discernment, you said it really well. Uh and that actually would have been last week's message, depending on how many messages in this one ends up being. We were talking about practicing discernment, and it's the same thing. Discernment is something that we're given. That's a gift, and that's like the God-given filter that we have in Christ to be able to see the right perceptions on things, the grace perception. So it could be as simple as Melissa seeing the squirrel as a sign from God. It could be as simple as that teaching's legalism. It could be all kinds of things, but it's our filter that we've been given. We've been given discernment. So that discernment can also teach us, I feel afraid, but I shouldn't be. I shouldn't be afraid because God is always comforting me. Remember last week when he sent me all those things to comfort me? He's still there. Even when the squirrel's not present, Jesus still is. And so our discernment filters can train us to keep our minds on grace. I mean, cannot all of our experiences in life become about grace? I mean, when we talk about our lives and we talk about our life experiences, can't grace be part of all of that? Isn't grace in all of it? And if it's in all of it, then talking about Jesus is pretty easy, isn't it?

Jack 10:26

Exactly, because who's who's grace? Grace is Jesus. Yeah. Let me share this quickly with you. When I was you know, a lot younger, I used to be a oil burner mechanic. I serviced oil burners in uh in New England and uh commercial burners, the large ones. I worked for a school, and long story short, we were converting oil burners over. So this one day I told my boss where I'd be, and I went to the oil burner. These are commercial now, these are big. So I opened the door of the oil burner, I got in inside the burner, did what I had to do. I was in there for about a half hour, got out of the burner, closing the door, the electrician came in and said, Hey Jack, how you doing? I said, Good Bill, how are you? He said, Good. I said, What are you up to today? He said, I'm gonna fix that switch right there. It doesn't work. That was a switch that I'd shut off. And I was in the oil burner for over a half hour. I was in a kitchen at noon and I'd actually worked in that oil burner for a half hour, looking right at the ends of those those oil burner burners. When he said that, I looked at him and I said, I just got out of there, I just was in there. And he got tail, and he actually had to sit down because if God's hand hadn't been in that, no one would have ever known what happened to me. Wow. Oh my See, that's grace looking back. Grace does that. We can look back over our life and we can see the majesty of our king and our life and how d how far grace goes and what it does. What opportunities we have, and what would we rather do? Cry about what's happening to us and how unfair things are? When we can actually glean grace like Ruth did.

Lenny 12:18

Yeah, that's discernment.

Jack 12:19

Yes.

Lenny 12:20

Discerning our life through the lens of grace, almost like having our grace goggles on. Somebody's saying certain things like, put your grace goggles back on and look at that again.

Jack 12:30

Yeah, yeah. Be guided by grace. Let your conversations be such. That's not a natural thing. That's a spiritual thing. That's supernatural.

Lenny 12:40

Yeah. That's why people always have the response well, that's easier said than done. Yeah. Because it goes beyond human perception.

Jack 12:50

Yeah. Good point.

Lenny 12:51

If the peace of Christ was attainable through worldly wisdom, everybody would say, Oh, yeah, that's totally easy. I did that last week. I was all worried and I just put it, gave it to Jesus, and it was over.

Jack 13:03

Yeah.

Lenny 13:03

I don't think most of Christianity believes in the mystical side of it. That side where the spirit is actually supernaturally working within us to give us peace that surpasses all understanding.

Jack 13:17

Yeah, that's a good point. We're going to circle around. That's great. Why do you think that is? Why do you think we can accept uh salvation but have trouble living in salvation?

Lenny 13:29

That's a good point. You could say you don't know what you don't know.

Jack 13:32

Yeah. We come to a point where we say, okay, listen, this mystical thing has happened to you. You are now born again. However that happens. You probably did lots of stuff you didn't have to do, but it doesn't matter, you still got there. So now you recognize Jesus and eternity. But the first things we're taught are to deny those things.

SPEAKER_02 13:52

Mm-hmm.

Lenny 13:53

I think it's a combination of understanding, you know, the parable of the seed in the soil, those who understand the message, you know, are gonna bear fruit. So it starts with understanding, but then it's living in it and the experiences that we go through with that knowledge and understanding that seems to build us up to understand all the things that we're talking about. I think grace is an experience. You learn it and then you experience it, and that's to me is like all a gift from God.

Jack 14:26

It is, yes, and we have to walk in the absence of the knowledge of grace to better appreciate it.

Lenny 14:35

Yep. Oh, amen. That's a good point. Because we always think of walk by the Spirit, Paul says, but yet in another place he says that the Lord works out all things for his good purpose. And I always like that. I actually had a plaque on my wall, Proverbs, a man's mind plans his way, but the Lord directs his steps.

Jack 14:55

Proverbs 16 3, I believe.

Lenny 14:57

You think of the peace that that gives you, that always gave me peace.

Jack 15:00

Me too. Lenny, actually, that verse, 16 3 and 16 9, are verses that I've lived in aware of the my whole life. Since I was in Methodist as as a little guy. Nice. A man's mind plans his way, but the Lord directs his steps, and commit your ways unto the Lord, and your plans will be established. Those two verses.

Lenny 15:20

Yeah.

Jack 15:20

Yeah. Awesome.

Lenny 15:21

Very peaceful.

Melissa 15:23

And maybe too, you know, living in the Lord's grace now, maybe it kind of reminds me of, you know, when you're young, a kid, a teenager, you I know for me, like I couldn't imagine who my husband would be. I knew I wanted to be married, but I couldn't imagine what my life would look like. How am I gonna find the I know I'll be married one day, but I don't know how what that looks like, and um but I'm not gonna worry about it. It's so far off. I don't need to worry about it, so I'm just gonna believe it and move on. You know, one day I'll be married. Maybe it's kind of like that, where you know you believe in the salvation. I know I'm gonna have it one day, and you know, it it's so far off, but but it's there, I believe it's there, and that's that. But I don't really know how else to talk about it or or think about it, so I'll just leave it there in the background. I'm safe.

SPEAKER_02 16:14

Yeah.

Melissa 16:15

Maybe it's kinda like that, but then as we experience suffering, I know you would say that you have, I I certainly have experienced uh the Lord's grace through suffering.

SPEAKER_02 16:25

Sure.

Melissa 16:25

Like never before. I I've never understood grace like I do after some good suffering. Then it feels closer, and then you start to understand, you know, more about it and that it's uh it's closer than we think, it's actually right here, right now.

Lenny 16:41

Yes. Grace prepares us for all that.

Jack 16:44

Yes, it does.

Lenny 16:45

Talk about that in the vine and the branches. He he told the disciples why he was teaching them the vine and branches analogy. It's because they were going to have hard times coming, and he didn't want them to fall away.

SPEAKER_02 16:56

Yeah.

Lenny 16:57

Do you think Jesus thought they were gonna lose their salvation or anything like that? No, he he wanted them to keep seeing things through that grace perception.

Jack 17:06

Definitely.

Lenny 17:07

All we have to do is look away for a minute, and we still learn from that. That's the good part about it. All the good news is as Jack said, and I think that's I think that's a reality that is important to understand. Eventually we realize that it is not fun living in the worldly mindset, and we learn that from living in it.

Jack 17:25

Yeah, there's no hope. I mean, we want to blame everybody else for our failures, and we want to have an excuse for any action we take.

Lenny 17:34

Yep.

Jack 17:35

And we're the most important person in the room. Really, that's it, right? If you if you go someplace and I laugh, but that's that's right. It's true. It's it's it is. It's like I'm important, I'm vulnerable, I'm weak, and it's all about me. And Christianity says, I have value. I don't need to prove myself. I'm learning to live as a spiritual child of God. I have value. Well, just start there. That's what grace does, that that the religious crowd hates. They don't like you to have value. They want you to try to attain value. But Grace says Well, they're afraid of it. Yeah, they are.

Lenny 18:13

They're afraid of that value as if that's not gonna absolve all the problems that people have, that that's not gonna stop people from sinning and all that kind of thing. But if you really examine the apostolic letters and the way that they dealt with the churches, all they were doing was leading people back to that identity, back to that value, back to that grace view, because that's where peace was found. Right. And that's where all of the ten can fizzle into the background and become a lot less.