S8E6 - Living Out Your Faith

is not as important as living the Bible? That's how Jesus closes the entire sermon on the Mount. Today we're gonna finish the sermon on the Mount and you wanna hang to the end because there's a surprise story that's gonna make you laugh and really challenge you in your faith. (upbeat music) (upbeat music) - Welcome to the Forgotten Jesus podcast where you'll learn about the real Jesus from the Bible. I'm your host, Pastor Adam French, here with Pastor Robbie Gallady and Candy Gallady. Both Bible communicators, authors, Robbie's the pastor of Long Hollow Church and the founder of Replicate Ministries, a discipleship ministry that helps disciples, churches, helps churches learn how to implement a game plan of discipleship in their church. And we've been doing that here for going on 11 plus years at our church, at every age, from kindergarten all the way up to seasoned people, inside prisons, outside prisons. So just a valuable tool in ministry for sure. And you're an author and a speaker as well. And Adam French is up, tell him, he's speaking on the big stage at Long Hollow, October the 4th. - Let's go. - Yeah.

- It's gonna be awesome, Adam. - I'm excited, I'm excited. - We won't be here, but we're gonna watch from afar and we'll go get feet. - Robbie leaves what I preach. I don't know if that's about. - That's a compliment, I leave knowing. - A confidence, that's a good hand. - That's right, he's putting on. - He prepared that, he prepared. - He's a good hand. Like all state, baby, like all state. (laughing) - Good hands, baby. - Yeah, come to me, come to me. - Yeah, I love it, I love it. - Handy's back. - Handy in last week, which is great as usual. - Yes, baby. - And he's back. - We should back in all black too, so he's back in black. - Well, the last two podcasts, I was out and then you were out. - I know, it's been a little... - We got, look, maybe the Lord knew. We need to get out of here. - We need a little break. - It's a busy time right now. - It is.

- It's like the busiest time of our lives. - You get a senior, a football player. - I know, senior, I want you to. - The baby pictures, that's a tough one. - Josie takes me yesterday. So they need a picture of JR from age two to five. I'm like, hold on a second, I'm like, wait. I have to pick one, first of all, there's a thousand. - Oh my gosh. - And then how do I, I mean, you know, so anyways. Yeah, I'm looking at him shedding tears. - We'll use this one. - Oh, well, that's sweet that you shed tears. I don't think Robbie does when he looks at him. I do. - I don't maybe shed tear every now and then, but. - Maybe she's teary, like. - Every now and then. - No, no, no. - We just had a break. - I'm actually saying tears of joy that they've finally grown up. Everybody kept saying they're gonna grow up quick. I kept saying, not my two. It can't grow fast up. But anyway. - JR's a rock in our house. He kind of keeps his own, I'll be calling him for advice when he gets to go.

- No, no, no. We got one like that too. - No, yeah. - We got one like me and one like that. But anyway. - Big rig. - Big rig, big rig. - All right. - Big rig. - Matthew 724, we're coming off last week, asking the question, does Jesus know you? And this week, Jesus, how does Jesus land the sermon on the mount? The greatest sermon ever given by any human being on earth? Start to finish, Pop Quiz. How long will it take you to, if Jesus would say this just in normal conversation, how long does it take Jesus to say this sermon? How many minutes? - The whole thing? - Yeah. How many minutes from five to seven? How long would it take you? - Five to seven minutes? Are you saying five to seven? - No. - From chapter five. - If you listen, you can play along. From chapter five through seven is the sermon on mount. How long would it take Jesus to read it

or say it in its entirety? - Well. - How many minutes would you go with, Candy? - I'm guessing 15 to 20. - Okay, Adam. - I was thinking like days. - I would pick-- - I think it takes so time. - I would say it's two minutes. - You can't go 15 to 20. You gotta get one by 'cause that's a rant. You and Vivian are saying, I asked Vivian last podcast, "How many you think--" - Wait a second. Wait a second. This is a double standard. You let Vivian say a bunch. - A bunch. - It's really a bunch. - 15 to 20. - I said, "How many times did we have a disciple use "of the details of Vivian says a bunch?" - She said a bunch. - I said, "That's not enough for me." - Wait, no, Jeremy, that's right, he's everyone. - I'm only saying the reason I'm saying 15 to 20 is because it, on average, 'cause I memorized the ceremony. - No, I know.

So y'all shouldn't ask you. You already know. - She's an expert, actually. - I know when you-- - That's the answer. That's 15 to 20. That's the answer. - But I think it could be a little more depending on him like-- - It's about 20 minutes. - It's going, you know, he's off the cuff, so he's like, you know. - It's about, yeah, it's 15 to 20. - Well, it actually takes him, but he does it a couple of days, right? - Well, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. - No, I think he said-- - Well, I don't know if he, I mean, he probably did let him think about, but if you just read it through, it's 15 to 20. - Yeah. - But again, we talked about this. He probably said these sayings through the whole ministry over and over and over. It's like you. How many times have you preached your sugar stick sermon? 24 through 27 here we go. Therefore, everyone who hears these words of mine and acts on them will be like a wise man who built his house on the rock.

The rain fell, the rivers rose, and the winds blew and pounded the house, yet it didn't collapse because its foundation was on the rock. But everyone who hears these words of mine and doesn't act on them will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand. The rain fell, the rivers rose, the winds blew and pounded that house and it collapsed. It collapsed with a great crash. Okay, what Jesus is saying here is there's no middle ground. He's going to end this message, this collection and notice how he starts. Therefore, everyone, the ESV says everyone then, not strong enough in my opinion, it's therefore everyone. And we know whenever there's a therefore, you have to know what the therefore is therefore. Okay. You have said that at the same time. I knew that's where he was going. Yeah, therefore is there for a reason, therefore we have to stand with the therefore is there for. Okay. Therefore means what? And Paul, by the way, this is a little cool insight. Paul structures Romans around three therefore, did you know this? Three therefore is in Romans structure the whole book and so I'll give you the hand. I'll give you the answer quickly just for time, but therefore means based on everything I just said. So you have to understand everything I just said to understand the impact of this one statement. Paul structures Romans, Romans around three therefore, therefore you've been justified by faith in Christ or reconciled through Christ chapter five verse one. Therefore there's their now, no condemnation verse at chapter eight for those who in Christ Jesus chapter 12 verse one, therefore do not be conformed to the ways of the word three therefore.

So whenever you see the word therefore, it's a Bible principle, you have to take in consideration everything before Paul uses, I think therefore in Ephesians chapter four, therefore based on what I just said, okay, what is Jesus, what is Jesus saying in light of what I just said about true and false conversions, there's no gray area. Okay. There's no great, there's no purgatory. There's no middle ground here. You have two categories of people in the world. You have lost and saved. You have believer. You have unbeliever. You have those who are far from God, those are close to the Lord. Okay. So look what he says. If we, if we use that logic, there are two roads. So all he says narrow and wide. There are two trees. One produces fruit. One doesn't. And now he ends with there are two ways to build a house. Now when he talks about building a house, what is he talking about a physical building in the backyard or a piece of property building your life, building your life, which is interesting because it shows us that everybody in here is a handyman or yeah, everybody in here is either a contractor handyman, you're building. You didn't know you're building, but everybody's building something in here, right? You didn't even know you're building, right? You didn't even know you like building. You're building something. But the point is not what you're building. Everybody's building, he says.

Everybody knows how to build. The question is not the building. The question and question here is what? The foundation you're building on. The ground. The ground you're building on. Luke 648, let's read the context of this. This is the parallel to this. Jesus has one insight in Luke 648 that Matthew leaves out, which is an interesting insight and a play into what he's actually saying. So let's start with Luke 648. He is like a man building a house who dug deep and laid the foundation on the rock. When the flood came, the river crashed against that house and couldn't shake it because it was well built. Okay. He's like a man building a house who did what? Dug deep. Wow. That's interesting. Dug deep. Now we know about this, Candy and I and Jeremy, we know about digging deep into the ground before you lay any foundation because we were from a place where the sea level, Louisiana, is very high. The water table in Louisiana, especially New Orleans, Chomet, Plaquemins, Slidell, Base St. Louis, you know, the water level is really high. So in order to build a house, what do you have to do, Candy? You have to go deep and high. Okay. With what? One thing.

What do you drive in the ground? I like mine medium. - Like, you're talking about like concrete pillars or something? - Yeah, yeah. Pilings, sorry, stakes. You know, yeah, stakes. - Big pilings. - Pilings, you're seeing this, Adam. These big pilings, they get, (imitates peeling) they just keep driving them in the ground. Why would they drive pilings into the ground? What is the point of that? - Because the top soil's gonna always be moist and soft and easily moved because it's so much moisture. And when the rain comes. - That's it, yes. And it rain, by the way. - Or the flood. - Or the flood, exactly. So Jesus didn't know it, but he was talking about South Louisiana. (laughing) And I'm convinced Jesus could have been occasioned. He could have been occasioned. He liked fish for breakfast on 21. But anyway, not catfish. I always joke and say catfish sandwiches.

He couldn't, catfish was not kosher. It would have been tallot, tallot. By the way, when you go to Israel, you go to Israel. - St. Peter's fish. - Yes, maybe you'd ate that St. Peter's fish. And the funny thing is we never tell the people this until it comes out on the plate. Vivian remembers this. We always say, you want to try it once. St. Peter's fish is for lunch. We eat Capernaum, I think. But we eat the fish. And the fish comes out what, Vivian? - Holy shit. - Whole head. - Everything, dairy, eyeball. Look at that. - All the bones, everything. - And the funny thing is. - Do they stuff it with seasoning and stuff though? - It's pretty good. Yeah, I mean, yeah. - It's kind of grilled, I guess. - Yeah, it's not, it's not very flavorful. It's not like, it's not like, yeah, redfish, a chaffalaya or something, you know? Or, but anyway, okay. So, what was the term right there? - We were talking about foundations. - Foundations.

- We dug deep-- - The mountains were deep. - The mountains were deep. - We went away from-- - They went from deep to deep water. - He went off on the fact that Jesus might have been a cage. - Yeah, I cut a cage around on him. - He's probably a Tennesseean, but go ahead. - I think he's Jewish, hun. - He does do that. He's a volunteer state. He volunteered his life for it. But anyway-- - Here we go. - There you go. Come on. - Okay. Let's get back to that. In Nazareth, Jesus is hometown. There is a rock quarry that is a stone's throw, no pun intended, called Cephyrus or Zapuri, okay? This was probably six, seven miles, which would have been a stone's throw, maybe four to six miles away from Nazareth. It was the major place where all the rock was cut from the quarry used around the country of Israel. So everything Herod the Great built came, or all the structures. Masada, all these places that use rock quarrying Beechion,

which was another Greek-influenced city. All of the stone came from Zapuri or Cephyrus, six to six, four to six miles away from Nazareth. Now, why is that important? Because Joseph Jesus' father, we always wrongly say, was a carpenter. But the problem with carpentry in the first century is, and you can see it today when you go, guess what the homes are made of, wood or stone? What do you think? - Stone, there's no wood. - You're from the Israel? - Not much. - There's not much wood in Israel. Now, could he have used wood for door frames and some tables? Of course. But 90% of the building of homes and huts and buildings were made with stone. Now, when you reprogram your mind from that, now, you probably wonder, why do they get the word? Crafts are carpenter. They take the word tecton, which is the word, you can make a carpenter, but it's not. It's actually the word for craftsmen. It just means someone who works with their hands. And when you take the word and you put it in the context, which is what we do in this podcast, the context of the forgotten Jesus from the first century, then you realize if a man works with his hands

and he's in the construction building business, he's cutting stone. He's working with stone. Now, why is that important? Because it changes the entire New Testament, particularly the gospels. Because Jesus is going to refer to stone a lot more than he ever refers to wood. Now, obviously trees and thorns it, but Jesus is always referring to stone. And in this case, he uses rock. They would have known that. Rock, this word rock here is the word petra, okay? Not the word petros, which you'll see Jesus is gonna use. Remember this? I know some of you think, I know what you're thinking. Upon this rock, your name is petros, Peter, Little Rock. In fact, I love this, we'll get to here, but when Jesus says your name is petros, you know, Peter means rock. That's what his name means, but it means pebble, okay? It actually means hard-headed. Some people say you could have called Peter Rocky. (laughs) I could have been his nickname. 'Cause Peter means rock and he's like a little stone, pebble, okay? And he was hard-headed, that guy was Rocky. Come on, Rocky, come on, hard-headed Peter, you know?

And, but Jesus says your name is petros, but upon this petra, but that's why again, I'm not trying to offend anybody by race Catholic, but you cannot use this argument to say Peter was the first pope of the church and Jesus was going to build. We've been in Italy a few times. You go to St. Peter's Basilica. They literally built the church on Peter. It's crazy. No, Peter's buried. Yeah, there's bonkers. They literally took it literally. They said, no, we're going to build a church on Peter. Like literal Peter, his bones, everything upon this rock. Well, the problem is in the Greek, that's not what Jesus is saying. Jesus is saying, your name is Petros, but upon this Petra, what you said, the words you said, which is you're the Christ, the Son of the living God, which means if he's the Christ, the Messiah, then it changes everything upon that rock. Okay, that's the word he uses here. The man built his house on the Petra, not Petros, Petra, which is not a pebble or stone. It's actually a great outcropping of rock. Think of it like this. It's bedrock picture ground that is solid, stable, unmovable or immovable. Okay. Life built on bedrock doesn't move. Okay. What is Jesus saying here? This is a person who is obedient to the word of God. If you live in obedience to the word of God, it doesn't matter what life throws at you, you're going to be able to stand. What he, what he really saying is, who are the influences in your life? Because the way you build your life, the foundation is based on the word. Now, see the call back here. He just said, how do you determine a true false prophet, a false prophet from a true prophet? The word. How do you determine if someone's bearing fruit or not? The word, are they living by the word? So, the whole thing is going to culminate here. And Jesus is saying a truly wise person listens to the words of me. Okay, starts everyone who hears these words of mine and acts on them will be someone who builds on the bedrock. Then he flips the script and then he says, what, Candy? Let's read. It doesn't matter what rain and wind. That's just trials of life. Okay. So, let's read the second part here, but everyone, but this is a contract. But everyone who hears these words of mine and doesn't act on them will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand. The rain fell, the rivers rose, the winds blew and pounded that house and it collapsed. It collapsed with a great crash. Great crash. That means, you know, always say, the higher you climb a ladder, there's no graceful way down, graceful way down. The, the, the, the, the longer you build on the wrong foundation, the worse it will be, the more carnage you will have, the more

wreckage you will cause to the, it's going to be a great fall. That's why we see false, take a false, take a false pastor. He builds this big ministry and you think, oh man, this guy, and the whole time he's a wolf in sheep's clothing. And then he falls and the whole thing capitulate. The whole thing is decimated. You know, I mean, I hate to throw this out, but you think of Mars Hill, the podcast, the rise and fall of Mars Hill. And again, I don't know Mark Driscoll at all, but I know I've heard the podcast and I've heard the stories of people who were affected, who put their faith in a man, or whatever reason. I don't know what he's doing now. I know he's pastor, but the point is there's carnage there. There's records there. There's people's lives who were destroyed from that, that was built. And I don't know what it was built on, but apparently it was built on Sam because there's no more anymore. Okay. So what does it mean to build on Sam? It seems kind of foolish because if you've ever gone to the beach with your kids and Estela, I just got to be you can build a sand castle in the sand. But if you leave it overnight, you come back the next day. What happened to it? The guys that come to pick up the trash or if you get it too close to water. That's what I was going to say. If it's too close to the water, what happens? I guess the water takes it away. Yeah, it's destroyed. So if you wouldn't build a sand castle, knowing on sand, knowing it won't last because it's not permanent, you'd never build your life or your house on that. Okay. So what is the sand? Okay. So I ask you, what is Jesus getting at? If building your life on the foundation of the rock of Christ is the word of God, following the word obey in the word, what is building your life on the sand look like practically? What is he saying practically? If you were trying to say this is what it means for you, listen, those who are listening, what does that mean? I would just say I've seen so many lives collapse and fall apart, whether it be divorce or because of drugs or alcohol or all kinds of different things. And I always think of, you know, my thoughts and my actions, that actually determines my will and that determines what I truly believe. So some people get this idea that that they've their spouse is the most important thing in life or we just we don't even know that we believe these things but our actions and our thoughts or our kids or our reputation. Oh, that's a big one. Yeah. My kids going to play play in the NFL or my kids going to play baseball.

We wouldn't even know we built our whole life around travel baseball. I was talking to my parents about this other week. I was like, yeah, my son's shoulder is messed up and I said, it sounds like he need to stop playing baseball too much. Oh, no, we got even real. I was like, dude. He's like, no, he was a little older, but not much older, but no, I think I think that's what I think of is all these lives has collapsed because we put all this energy into things that actually don't have any value and we don't even realize we're attaching our stuff. That's what when you're thinking about building the house, like it, the house doesn't collapse because of the structure of the house collapse because of what it was connected to like the rock. Yeah. You know, it wasn't built. I was tethered to. And so when I think practically, I think, you know, and it's a great exercise. I was sitting there thinking this when he was talking, I was thinking, oh my gosh, what in my life, you know, am I, am I, is the point of my day to get home and get on my couch and watch my favorite TV show and sad to say it is sometimes. It is. Yeah. It's like, it's like, and it shouldn't be. Right. It should be, get home. Hey, what, you know, Josie, how can I help you? Right? I hope she's not going to stop you. I was about to say you say what? I know, but you don't want to go home and that would be awesome. I'm just saying.

How can I help you? That's what I think practically. Okay. And I think it's a good exercise. Don't give her a name. Yeah. We'll, we'll, DoorDash. No. Anyway, let's go ahead. Listen, I love these guys. We have, we have, we have, we have plans. We're going to. Yeah, we got it. We got to hold yours. We don't want to, we're building up anyway, but no, that's what I think practically, right? It's like, what is, where is all my energy and my thoughts going to? Yeah. And I think that's what he's, he's getting at and going back to the episodes before where they have this, this false, they have all these false prophets around them and all their efforts and their energy is going to what, the outside? Yes. What you see. Okay. No, no, you're getting to it. Okay. No, you're going to nail it. Okay. Now, if you would say what is the root of that, the outside people looking, what is the root of that? It's all about who?

The self. Okay. So think of this. You can base the sand and the rock on two things. One person builds on self of the sand. One person builds on the savior on the rock. And that's it. There's no in between. The sand is a person who constructs on self fulfillment, self purpose, self sufficiency, self satisfaction, self righteousness. It's all about them. Whereas the one who builds on the sand says, yeah, and I'm not saying it's not, when you build on Christ, it's not saying it's not about you because you will benefit from this. God wants to bless those he can trust. Of course. But these folks are building on themselves. Now watch this. Let's put it in the context of where we just got out of Jesus's warning against listening to the words of self prophets. So you can think of it this way. The real estate agent selling lots on the sand or the false prophets, Jesus just warned about they're selling high rise condos to you, babe. Come follow us. Come listen to us. And Jesus is like, don't fall for it. Their road is going to be easy. It's going to be a lot of people on it. Look at everybody going to them. You know, that's always the criticism, by the way, for mega churches. I hear people say this.

And again, I get when, you know, mega churches, larger churches are easy to criticize. I get that. You know how I know? I used to criticize them too. When I was a little, you know, young in the ministry knew they're very easy. They're big targets. You could throw rocks at them. I get it. Now we're here at a church. Hello. I tell people in line on Sunday sometimes, I didn't set out like you to be on staff at a mega church. That's not why I got in ministry. Guys listen, we never got in ministry to go, I don't even think I could pass or any church, much larger church. I just set out to make disciples and make Jesus know. That's literally what I did. And again, the only reason I'm sitting here in someone's nod is the grace of God. And I could fail tomorrow and fall and God could take me away and replace me. I get that. But the reality is I know the pushback on mega churches because they'll say, oh, they're big. They're doors wide open on the front. They just want people to come. It's lights. It's, you know, sounds or whatever. My question is this. It's not who comes to your church because you can have a, you know, they're a bad mega churches and they're a bad small churches. They're a good mega churches and megaphone, right?

Yeah. Yeah, exactly. They're the mega churches. What's being said? To your point, they can say anything in a little church. Yeah. My question is what do you do with the people after they come to your church? Because the line we always use at Long Hollow is baptism is never the finish line. it's the starting line. - Starting point. - This is where, it's starting point, which maybe-- - We're gonna have a message. - Yeah, look at the guy. He's gonna roll today. - Starting point. - It's the starting point. So my question is, what are you doing with the people? Because God sends people to your church. That's a story, we tell this, you know, there's our teller staff all the time. We can't make people come to Long Hollow. We can't make them, we can't force them to come. But what we can do is we can store the people that God sends to us, and here's a number, again, I'm not gonna get on the discipleship bandwagon, but it's passionate, we're all passionate. Three of us at this table, five of us, six of us in this room, we're passionate about discipleship. By the way, I didn't say this last episode. But if you're on staff at Long Hollow, you're expected to be in a discipleship group

or leading a discipleship group. Because here's what we know at Long Hollow, and this is any church. A person who's on a church staff or in a church ministry, listen to me, a nonprofit who is not in the word of God daily and not listening to the voice of God and getting words from Jesus through His word and through people and sort of, if they're not in the word of God, they're not only harmful to themselves, they are dangerous. - Dangerous. - They are dangerous. Because the enemy would love nothing else to attack and destroy, and if you're not in the word, then what are you listening to? And so Mike Glenn, who was a mentor of mine years ago, I'd meet with him, and he said he would ask his staff regularly, he'd walk down the hall and say, "What is Jesus teaching you today?" - I love this, I love when you say it. - And if you say, I don't know, if you don't have an answer, he says you need to go home and spend time with God, 'cause you're a detriment to the staff and you're dangerous to yourself. Or you're a detriment to yourself or dangerous to the staff. - What makes me think about this

is literally what he's saying. It's like they're telling, 'cause really if you don't have the rock, you can only tell people how to build a house on sand. - Ooh. - And I love your illustration. - Oh, that's good, yeah. - Have you ever thought about, this is the artist's kind of mind how we are, we think crazy stuff, so this may sound wild, so don't judge on this. But have you ever tried to win out and try to stop a wave? - Oh yeah. - It's hilarious. - It's coming forward, yeah. - Can you stop a wave? - No. - You can't, we don't have the power to stop that wave. And that thing is funny, it uses that sand illustration. That water is gonna come, and me and my own, I don't have the power to stand on my own. I have to build my life on something that can uphold me. It's like when they held up his arms. - Aaron and Eric, yeah. - You see what I'm saying? - Yeah. - It has to be built on something that's stronger.

- Yes. - Well, I always say this, if I'm the problem, I can't be the solution. Well, I know I'm the problem. - Yeah. - And those people don't want to admit, yeah. - Yeah, that's good. - No, I just said that's good. - Yeah, most people don't want to admit the problem. - Yeah, so the reality is, you need to be, everybody's listening to somebody. Everybody's building a life on something. And so what Jesus is saying here is, if you build your life on self, it may stand for a while. You can get a sand castle up for a day, you may, you know, a couple of hours or a day, but eventually it's coming down, right? And so Jesus gives a parallel insight. Go to Matthew 1320. He spoke on the parable of the sower and the seed. If you remember this, which I think this is about what happens. This is not, again, a pre-sow sermon on this, we'll get to this soon. I don't think this is about who's saved and who's not saved. Again, we gotta retrain ourselves.

The parable of the sower and the seed, I think, is about how people in the crowd or in church hear the word of God and apply it. Hear the word of God and apply it, okay? So, Kenny, I want you to read this, and then I wanted to show you the word Jesus uses here, which is pretty interesting. - Verse 20. - Yeah. - Okay. And the one sown on Rocky Ground, this is one who hears the word and immediately receives it with joy. But he has no root in his short-lived. When distress or persecution comes because of the word, immediately he falls away. - Okay, the same idea here. He's using the same kind of concept. As fast as the word is planted, it's uprooted. Why? Because it has no what? - Root. - Depth of soil. There's no root. - That's what you said from the beginning, yeah. - Yes, okay. So, what Jesus is getting out here is this. Not just hearing, a lot of people hear the Bible. A lot of people love the Bible. A lot of people listening, quote the Bible.

You put Instagram stories about the Bible. It's on your Facebook page. I could go to your profile and you have, you know, Proverbs three, five, and six, you know, or Proverbs three? Yeah, oh yeah, I mean, you can have all that. But you're not living the word of God. Richard Wormbrand was a Romanian Christian who was tortured for his faith. You may know the ministry called, what's it called? Tortured for Christ was the book. But the book is called The Voice of the Martyrs. You ever heard of The Voice of the Martyrs? Okay, you heard of this. They memorize just one of the things I heard about him. He memorized Scripture in prison. They put him in prison for believing in Christ, tortured him, and they couldn't communicate to other prisoners, so they would tap like in Morse code on the pipes, the Word of God, and the only Word that nourished their soul was the Word they memorized and hid in their heart. And that racked me years ago. I read that early on with Platt about... David Platt and I were talking about this. Yeah, tortured for Christ, but here's the thing. The question I want to ask you is, if you were in prison, God forbid today, would you have enough Word in your heart to be able to communicate to other prisoners to keep you going another day? Warren Brandt said this,

we don't need Bible-believing churches. We need Bible-living churches. That's good. It's very good. Alive. I want to finish with a story. It's a little bit of a long story, but it's probably the best story I've ever heard on this concept, and it's by Chuck Swindall. If you're interested, you can look at... Oh, yeah, this old Chuck. I've been watching him later. He's improving your serve, that's his book, improving your serve, and here's what he said. He said, "I want you to pretend that you work for me. In fact, you are my executive assistant in the company, and it's a rapidly growing company. I'm the owner of the company, and I'm interested in expanding overseas with Adam French." I'm ad-libbing here. To pull... or Jeremy Brown. To pull this off, I make plans to travel abroad, and I'm going to stay there until the new branch opens. So, I'm going to go abroad. You're going to stay here. I make all the arrangements to take my family, candy, and the boys. We're moving to Europe for six to eight months, and I'm leaving the entire company stateside to Adam French Incorporated, okay?

Or if you listen to it. I tell you that I will write to you regularly and give you directions and instructions on how to leave the company. Pretty simple. I leave, you stay back, months' paths. A couple months will pass. A flow of letters are mailed from Europe to Hendersonville, Tennessee, and you receive them to figure out what to do at the national headquarters in the country. I'm going to spell out everything in these letters, all the expectations. When I finally come home after a few months, I arrive at the office, and I'm stunned. When I walk in, I realize that the grass and the weeds outside the building are grown up. (chuckles) A few windows, Vivian, or broken, and you can see it from the street. I walk in the receptionist room and she's doing her nails, chewing gum, and listening to her favorite techno music. (chuckles) - 80s hair? - No, she's got 80s hair, I guess. - I look around and notice-- - Is that really in the story? - It's really, I made that one up. I made that, it's a disco music, but he's showing me, I made it a little bit up.

I look around and notice the waste baskets are overflowing, the carpet hasn't been vacuumed for weeks, and nobody seems concerned that the owner has returned. Nobody cares. I ask about your whereabouts. Where is Adam French and someone in the crowded lounge room, lounge area, points down the hall and yells, "I think he's down there." Disturbed, I moved in your direction, and bump into you, finishing a chess game with our sales manager. (chuckles) - I love this, I love this. - I like chess. - I get to go. You do, I ask you to step into my office, which has been temporarily turned into a TV game room for watching afternoon soap operas. - Oh, geez. What in the world is going on, Adam? You say, "What do you mean?" Well, look at this place. Did you get any of my letters? You say letters? Oh, yeah, sure. We got every one of your letters. As a matter of fact, we even had a letter study every Friday night since you left. We have even divided up all the personnel into small groups and discussed all the things

that you wrote to us. Some of those things, by the way, Robbie, are very interesting to read. And you'll be pleased to know that a few of us have actually committed to memorize some of the sentences and the paragraphs you wrote. One or two memorized an entire letter or two. Great stuff, by the way, Robbie, and those letters. I say, okay, okay, wait a minute. You got the letters. You studied them, you meditated on them, you discussed it, you even memorized them. But what did you do about them? Do, you say, (chuckles) we didn't do anything with the letters. Friends, that is sadly the Christian life for many people. - Wow. - We have disregarded the command of Christ or the commands of Christ. We memorize his word, we share his word, we post his word, but we never live his word. Matt Chandler always says, living the Bible is always better than reading the Bible. Reading the Bible is good, but living the Bible is better, and so that's the challenge for us. And that's how Jesus finishes this session. He says, do the words that I tell you, and then I'm gonna leave you with a cliffhanger. Now remember Jesus is the new Moses. He comes down the mountain, you're gonna love this.

And he's approached next week. Drum roll, we're getting back into the real good stuff. He's approached by a man. And you gotta remember, when Matthew's putting this together, when the gospel is putting this together, there's no accident to the people he encounters, or the places he goes, or the talents he visited. After Jesus just gives, I'll give you a heads up, the kingdom ethic for how to live on earth, I'm the kid, there's a new sheriff of town, I'm the king, here's a new way to live. And the first person he meets, you gotta look it up chronologically, is a man. And it's no accident, it's him. And what Jesus does to him is crazy. - I love him. - Gotta sit right next week for a moment. - Can't wait to see that for next week, or listen to that, get a part of that next week. Thank you so much for joining in with us. We would love for you to become a part of the forgotten Jesus team. A way that you can do that is to hit subscribe. That way you don't miss any of the new content we have coming out. If you could like, comment, and share, maybe wanna send this to a friend, something that sparked your interest, or something that you remember, or a family member that you may know,

you can share that to help get the word out more about the forgotten Jesus. (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (gentle music) [MUSIC PLAYING]