SPEAKER_01 0:00

Today's episode of The On Sunday Show is from a live stream that I did on YouTube on Sunday, March 15th, 2026. Amber Stevens joined me for this live stream, and we talked about the freedom that we have to do things not out of religious obligation, but out of overflow of what God has done in us and through us in Jesus. So I hope you enjoy this episode. There's a link below to the video if you'd rather watch it, because it is available in video format as well.

SPEAKER_03 0:36

You're listening to the Un Sunday show.

SPEAKER_01 1:10

It's been a minute. It's been a few minutes since we've done a live together. So I wanted to try this today and uh see how it goes. You know, I get a lot of comments on my videos. By the way, thank you. Thank you all for commenting. Thank you for your subscriptions. Subscriptions? Is that yeah, subscribers? My channel was kind of dormant for a while. I went from under 600 subscribers to now over 8,000. So I wanted to try a live again, a live stream, to be able to interact more. You know, I comments are great, but it's hard to express a thought in a comment, isn't it? Especially when you've got a long comment. And it's hard to read those sometimes, too. You know, time is limited, life happens. I do have a life. And so I wanted to try this live stream as a way to interact more in a more in a real time. And it's just easier for me to talk than it is to type, especially the older that I get. So today I want to talk about doing out of overflow instead of obligation. You know, we've got so much in our lives that God has freely given us, and his intention is for us to live our lives, to do what we do out of the overflow, out of the abundance that he's given us. You know, Jesus said, I came to give them life and to give it abundantly, and he meant it. And yet religion oftentimes hog ties us. Religion can give us the rules and the regulations and the things that we need to be about doing, about saying, about being, be this way, be that way. And religion can also, and easily does, take scripture out of context and make us feel guilty about things that we have no business feeling guilty about and doing that to us, and then you know, as a result um of all of that, the abundant life that we're supposed to have becomes legalistic, it becomes a burden. And Jesus said too that he didn't come to give us a burden, he came to set us free from the burden. You know, my my my yoke is easy and my burden is light. And if the burden isn't light, guess what? It isn't Jesus. It's that simple. So we're gonna talk about that today. And I have a friend who's joining me today. Amber Stevens is here with me, so let me bring her in here. Amber, good morning. Afternoon, I guess, for you. No, I guess it is morning where you're at, too.

SPEAKER_02 3:55

Yep, still morning.

SPEAKER_01 3:57

That's that's good. That's good. So Amber is Amber has a fairly new YouTube channel. I'll put the link to that down below in the uh description when we're done here. And she's also on Instagram. So I'll have both of those links down there. Amber, is there anything you want to say about your channel or your Instagram or anything that you want to bring up before we get started?

SPEAKER_02 4:24

Well, first of all, good morning, and thank you again for having me on. You know, these this topic is always one that touches my heart. And so I love being able to talk about religion versus just loving Jesus. So thank you for having me on again. Um, my Instagram is, like you say, uh under breathing God's grace, and I've had that for a few years now. And I I try to post on that a little bit about just living and expressing your love for Jesus without religion. So that's that's kind of where I sit with there. I talk a lot about grace and what's not expected to love Jesus and have a relationship with him. Uh, then my YouTube channel, which like you said, is relatively new. I recently changed the name of it to Mayhem and Grace because I wanted to start um kind of a new channel about where I'm at right now in my life, this midlife part of, you know, kids growing up, becoming adults, adult parents getting older, and then all the shifts within my own body and my own mind, midlife. And so I'm hoping that will start taking off as I get inspired to make some videos. You know, you're inspiring me, that's for sure. I mean, I enjoy watching your Un Sunday and your uh Mike's retirement corner, right? Is that possible? So if you haven't checked those out, check check his other one out because that's fun to watch too. So you're inspiring me all over the place.

SPEAKER_01 5:53

Well, that's good. I'm I'm glad to hear that. Um, yeah, thanks for mentioning my other channel. I I forget to mention those things.

SPEAKER_02 6:02

I do so fun to watch.

SPEAKER_01 6:04

I do have a fairly new channel. I started it, I think, in August of this year, of last year. August of this year hasn't happened yet. So August of last year. And uh it's called Mike's Retirement Corner. I'll put a link to that in the description too when I'm done here. If I remember to put all these links in, I'm old, I may not remember. Who knows? I'll remember. You know, it's always up in the air. So uh yeah, check out my retirement channel. It's just about me talking about uh growing older and living in retirement and kind of whatever comes to mind is is what I talk about over there. So check it out if you're so inclined. Let me um let me try this real quick. Bring the chat up here, and we see we got hippie camper in here, we got Stefan Reborn, a lot of familiar names here that I see. I'm just scrolling back up through. In fact, let's start at the top. Uh, Sally's here, Stefan is here, hippie camper is back. Glad to have you again. And there's my really important uh tweet or whatever you want to call it, comment. If you do have a question today, I want to get to some of those, as many as I can. But please put QQQ in front of it and then your question. That way I'll see it because this stuff just flies by. And you know, especially as we get more people in here, this chat can just go and I'll I'll miss something. So I think if you put um QQQ, I can filter on that. In fact, let me try that.

SPEAKER_03 7:39

Oh, yeah. Yes, I can.

SPEAKER_01 7:40

I can I can filter on that. So I'll just be able to see the questions, you know, as they come through. And Amber Kid, can you see these okay?

SPEAKER_02 7:50

Yeah, I can. If I if you see me doing this, it's because I'm trying to look through the reader portions of my glasses. See it sometimes.

SPEAKER_01 7:58

Welcome to my world. Welcome to my world.

SPEAKER_02 8:01

I'm not trying to show you the inside of my nostrils. I'm trying to read.

SPEAKER_01 8:08

That's Mike's retirement corner. Yes, I welcome to my world. You know, looking through the old uh, they're not bifocus anymore, I guess. What are they called? Not graduating. What are they called?

SPEAKER_02 8:18

Uh progressives, they're calling them now.

SPEAKER_01 8:20

Progressives, yeah. Progressives. That's the yeah. So yeah, that's good. So we're getting a lot of folks here in the chat. Welcome aboard. Really appreciate you all coming in. I'm gonna leave that up here, I think, for a little while. Um by the way, too, I'm sporting a new hat.

SPEAKER_03 8:38

I saw that. I love it.

SPEAKER_01 8:42

You know? So yeah, life is good. So let's talk. Let's talk about the abundant life, and let's start right here with Jesus' words about living water springing up from within us. And this is John 7, verses 37 through 39. And it says, This is at the Feast of Tabernacles, is the context. And my understanding, the Feast of Tabernacles, one of the things that happened is on the last day there would be pouring out of water. And so this adds to the context of what Jesus is saying. On the last day of the feast, the great day, Jesus stood up and cried out, If anyone thirsts, let him come to me and drink. Whoever believes in me, as the scripture has said, out of his heart, out of his heart will flow rivers of living water. Now this he said about the Spirit, whom those who believed in him were to receive, for as yet the Spirit had not been given, because Jesus was not yet glorified. So here we are on the last day of the feast, and Jesus stands up and he cries out. You know, he's not over in the corner writing on a notepad or journaling. He's he's speaking up, he's saying things so people can hear him, and he's saying, If anyone is thirsty, come to me. He said similar something similar to the woman at the well, didn't he, in John 4? Whoever drinks of this water is going to thirst again, but whoever drinks of the water that I give him will never thirst. And he's not talking about literal physical water, he's talking about, as the text here says, the Holy Spirit. He's talking about the Holy Spirit, which wasn't given until Acts chapter 2. Yeah, Acts chapter 2.

unknown 10:38

Right.

SPEAKER_01 10:38

I know my Bible, you know, so I'm having too much fun. So it's all right. When the hosting when the Holy Yeah, when the Holy Spirit was given, you know, and this new covenant happened. The new covenant began with the with the uh death and resurrection of Jesus. And you know, after that, what was old passed away, and what was new is nothing like the old. And we're living in that new covenant age, and that new covenant age is the age of the spirit. It's not the age of law, it's not the age of rules, it's not the age of, well, do this and live, don't do this and die. That's old covenant, that's Moses. And Moses has no place in this new covenant life that we live. No place at all. And and yet religion convinces us that it does. Religion is all about minimizing the work of the spirit and maximizing human effort. It really is. That's what religion does. That's how religion keeps us hooked, isn't it? That's how religion kept me hooked. And that's what it does. It ignores this truth or it counters it in its own terms. Yeah, you know, the Holy when the Holy Spirit comes, yeah, He He gives living water, but there's always that but always watch out, watch out for butts.

SPEAKER_03 12:16

Big butts.

SPEAKER_01 12:17

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 12:18

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 12:18

Why you know be sensitized to that. Yeah, but yeah, but no, there's no yeah, but there's one but in scripture that I think of and it's but God, who is rich in mercy, poured out his love on us, poured out the spirit on us. We have we have the fullness of the spirit, each of us. He doesn't give the Holy Spirit by measure. He hasn't given you more of it than he's given me. He hasn't given me more of it than he's given you. We all have the Spirit, the fullness of the Spirit. And religion keeps us from enjoying that. Religion keeps us from expressing that because it couches passages passages like this in its own context and says, Yeah, the spirit's fine, but you better be about confessing your sin. You better be about um examining yourself before you take communion. You you better be about you. Jesus only started the work and it's up to you to complete it. That's a lie. That is a bold-faced lie. God has given us richly all things to enjoy. All things. To the pure, Paul said, I think it was Paul, to the pure, all things are pure. That means that as I go through life, there are there aren't holy times, there aren't holy days, there aren't holy actions, but all of life is pure. All of life is holy. He's given us freely everything to enjoy. And yet we get kind of wrapped up in in knots, you know, we get the the religious strait jacket, and it kind of it binds us up so we can't move. So we can't move in the freedom that we have. One of the reasons I started this channel is to remind folks of folks, there's an there's an old word from an old guy, to remind people of uh this immense freedom that we have in Jesus. But we're scared of grace. Grace scares us because religion has convinced us that grace is scary. Hey, listen, grace isn't scary. Jesus was hyper-grace, Paul was hyper-grace, I'm hyper-grace, Amber's hyper-grace. It's grace that trains us to say no to ungodliness in Titus chapter 2. It's grace that teaches us to say no to ungodliness, not law.

unknown 15:04

That's right.

SPEAKER_01 15:05

But grace. Law increases sin. You know, Paul himself called it a ministry of death. So, you know, the topic today, this is what I want to talk about. This is what I want to want us to examine today. Amber, do you have thoughts on that at all? Do you want to say anything about this passage?

SPEAKER_02 15:23

Yeah, you know, this as you were reading it, it, I've never really thought this before until right now, when you were talking about the woman at the well. You know, who, you know, whoever drinks of this water will thirst again, whoever drinks of me will not. And I, for some reason, I just had this image in my mind. Think about going to the well back then. I mean, usually you had to go really early in the morning because it would get too hot. You had to have a lot of women carried like a yoke on their neck with two buckets hanging over it. So it was work. You had to walk there, then you had to drop the bucket down into the well, all the way down, pull back up with all your strengths and water, pour it into your thing, and repeat that as many times as you needed. That in itself, the well, wow, it is an image of religion because it required work. It required you to do everything. And he was telling her, there will be a day when if you drink from me, none of this will be necessary. You won't have to come to the well. You will not thirst, you will not worship on a mountain or in a in a temple. And he was speaking of the spirit. And I think the well is really truly an image of the work that was having to be done under the law. And he was comparing, and that I'm looking at it now. It was like he was comparing what they were under, all of the work that had to be done, the rules they needed to be kept, the 613 laws. You will still thirst. But when I give you the spirit, you will never thirst again. And so all of that stuff just became so irrelevant once we became spirit-filled. And so it's it's just dawned on me when you're reading that that the well represents so much work. And, you know, I am so, we are so blessed, this side of the cross, that that is no longer how we are to live by by working ourselves into favor with the Lord and trying to keep the laws, but through, like you said, the spirit of grace that then teaches us who we truly are to him now. And as we know that and rest in that and learn to trust his love for us and what he's done for us and to us, then the rest is just starts to flow out of you from the abundance that you already have on the inside, not from, you know, instructions from a uh somebody standing in front of a pulpit or, you know, in in front of a camera telling you you need to do this, this, and this to prove your spirituality. I mean, Jesus never, you know, he said it'll show on you because you're filled with me and it'll just come out naturally. And so, yeah, I that whole image of her at the well and him just saying, if you drink from me, you'll never thirst again. I mean, that that is one of the biggest promises I think he's made. I mean, it's an important promise. We can't overlook it and try to fill it up, you know. We can't overlook it and say, oh, well, he said that, like you said, but we need to do A, B, and C. I think that negates everything that he accomplished for us when we when we add, right? But so many, so many of us do, and we've been caught in it, unfortunately. It's been taught for thousands of years. And it's just a it's such a relief when you finally know the true gospel and the rest it provides. And that's that's what what we're doing here today, you know, just to remind people.

SPEAKER_01 18:55

That's so true. And I think part of that reminder, you know, is we need to remind ourselves of the covenant that we're under. So important to understand that everything in scripture isn't directed to me. None of it was written to me. I can glean things from it, I can learn from it, sure. But I have to understand it in context. And, you know, what you said about the woman at the well, you know, being in an environment of law, you know, even though she was a Samaritan, still, you know, the law was there. People knew it was there, it was in force, it was still um in place, it was still active. But it was a law of do. It was a law of of if you don't do it perfectly, you're condemned. You're you're not gonna make it. But in the new covenant, Jesus has all the skin in the game. You know, and it really is finished. Amber, we're getting a couple questions in here I want to bring up. All right. Um if I can here. There we go. Stefan says this what do we do if we feel empty and not full? I know scripture says I am filled, but it does not show. So what do we do when we're just kind of feeling empty inside? We feel dry. You know, the dead bones thing, you know. What do we do? Wow. That's uh yeah, that's a good question. And this is kind of I want to frame this right, this is why I'm taking a moment to think about this. It isn't about doing. It's about remembering. It's about remembering what Jesus did. Not what I need to do, but what he did. And even when I'm when when I'm not feeling it, when I'm having a bad day, a bad week, a bad month, bad year, yeah. It's about reflecting on what Jesus did. Let me bring that back up here. It kind of went away. It's about reflecting on what Jesus did, not on what I need to do. And and it's by faith, it's it's remembering that. Remember in um was it Romans? Yeah, book of Romans, when Paul asks the rhetorical question, shall we continue to sin that grace may abound? What did what was his answer to that in chapter six? He didn't give them law. He didn't say, Well, remember to do this. Excuse me. Remember to do that, remember to prove yourself. Remember that good works are so important. He didn't say that. No, what he did is he reminded them of the gospel. He reminded them that sin is not their master. Romans 6. Sin shall not be your master. Because why? Why is it not your master? Because you're not under law but under grace. Those are Paul's words. And so for me, when I have dry times, you know, once I work through some of those dry times, and there's some working through. That needs to be done, you know, emotionally thinking it through. I always come back, or I most of the time come back, to the cross, to what Jesus did, to the promises that He's given me. And Stefan, you are holy, you are pure, you are righteous, you are above condemnation, you are your sins have been forgiven. Your old record in Adam is gone. It's been obliterated, and your record now is Jesus record for you? You have a new record. It's Jesus' record. It's perfection. He has made us perfect by one sacrifice. And that applies to you as well, Stefan. That's what I come back to. How about you, Amber? What do you do with things like this?

SPEAKER_02 22:54

You know, it's it's so funny he typed that because I just was feeling that way last week. And I remember even when I was talking to Jesus, I said, you know, I I had remembered the scripture where, you know, give life back to these dry bones. And I was just thinking in that. And then I thought, my goodness, I I want to just remember your promises. So whenever I feel like you say, like maybe I'm just not feeling connected somehow, or I'm just kind of up in my own head or my feelings or my circumstances. Because I think we all go through that, every single one of us. Um, I tend to do the same thing. And I'll start going through, I'll I'll think of the gospel and then I'll start going through all of his promises. I will never leave you. I will never forsake you. You are mine. Nobody can snatch you out of my father's hand. And I'll start just reciting those promises to me. And I love to go over my identity in Christ. Because if I'm a lot of times I'll start to feel, you know, if I if I'm having those rough feelings, I'll I'll start to question, you know, like he said, should I be doing something? What should I be doing? And then it'll just hit me. Rest in what he has done. And I have to keep repeating that to myself. And eventually I'll work through it and I'll start feeling better again and remembering who I am, who he's, you know, my new identity that he's given me, his righteousness, like you had said. It's there are times when we just have to focus on the promises and the gospel to pull us back to the truth, because it we can let our minds just run, you know. And then if we're listening to something that's encouraging works and, you know, stress and pressures to do, do, do, do, that'll only confuse us more. So yeah, I I feel like you. I think the best thing that anyone of us could do is to really sit with the gospel every day. Remember what it is, remember his promises to you and just rest. And usually it just passes. It'll, it's just an emotion, it's just a feeling you were feeling, uh a circumstance you were going through. But it's tough. I'm I I definitely understand it. It's um learning to just say it's okay for me to rest and do nothing. Let him love me, let him remind me who I am to him. And and eventually, you know, I I start feeling better.

SPEAKER_01 25:26

Yeah, and you know, even if we don't remember that, it's no less true.

SPEAKER_03 25:32

That's right.

SPEAKER_01 25:33

That's right. Even if, you know, even if the situation that I find myself in in the moment is such that, you know, spiritually, I'm just not thinking that way. It doesn't make it less true. It doesn't, the way that I feel in the moment doesn't affect who I am in reality.

unknown 25:54

Right there.

SPEAKER_01 25:54

And eventually that's what I that's what I come back to at some point because the Holy Spirit isn't gonna leave me there. You know, he's active. He's you know, he's he's working in my life, and his what he does with a believer is to convince us of our position in Christ, to convince us of the righteousness that the gift of righteousness that we've been given. And so even when I can't perform to that level, it's no less true. So that's important. Yeah, there's that. Sunflowers has asked a question here. I want to bring this one up as well. Can you speak about taking communion and what that really means? So I mentioned this just a moment ago in passing, you know, that religion tells us, well, if you're you know, if you're gonna take the Lord's Supper, you need to examine yourself, and it becomes all about self-examination. You know, Paul said that, 1 Corinthians 11, you know, examine yourself. But what did he mean? Well, in religion's version of it, they mean, you know, kind of groveling, you know, making repentance a religious act instead of just a change of mind and you know, kind of mourning your sin. And I used to do this, you know, you sit there with the little cup and the little thing of you know, the little tiny deal, and you're sitting there and you're kind of, oh, woe is me, woe was me. And you hope that you don't forget to confess a sin, you know, because if you forget, then what's gonna happen? You took it, you know, you took it unworthily, you know, you're gonna get you're gonna get struck down. But that isn't the context. The context is this that people were meeting together, which the Lord's Supper was a meal, it was a full meal, full meal deal. Was that McDonald's used to say that? It was a full meal deal. Yeah, and uh sorry, I get I get easily sidetracked. My own humor sidetracks me. Um but yeah, you know, it was it was a meal that they would take together, and what was happening is they weren't waiting for each other. People were eating all the food before everybody got there, people were drinking to the point of getting just drunk and turning it into a drunken party before everyone got there, and when the people that got there who didn't have you know resources for the food and and whatever couldn't eat because the food was gone. So they couldn't participate in the meal. And that's what Paul is talking about there when he's talking about eating in an unworthy manner, and go look at the context. It's right there in 1 Corinthians 11. It's right there. I'm not making this up. The the context is wait for each other before you start to eat. And if you can't wait for each other before you start to eat, hey, examine yourself and see why. Why is that? Don't you have homes to eat in? He asked them. You know, what are you doing? Why are you doing this? It's it's really a failure to think about one another in taking the Lord's Supper. Would you have anything to add to that, Amber?

SPEAKER_02 29:05

No, that's perfect. That's perfect.

SPEAKER_01 29:08

Okay, we're gonna do one more question here, and then we're gonna go on to the next uh next verse. Lukewarm no more. Oh, I see that. That's a great channel name, yeah. Uh Mike, where are you on PSA? PSA does not mean public service announcement, but in this it means penal substitutionary atonement. What that what that means, in my understanding of it, best I remember back in my theological days, my theological egghead days, you know, um Jesus bore our sin on the cross. Jesus bore our condemnation on the cross. He died for our sins. And, you know, the penal substitution, I don't know that I'm answering this really well because it's been a long time since I've read any of this stuff. But that's where I'm at right now is you know, Jesus, Jesus himself bore our sins on the cross, and he took the condemnation that that we deserve. He became a curse for us because cursed is everyone who hangs on a tree. Remember, he was under the law, and there was the law was cursed as everyone who hangs on a tree. He took the curse in our place so that we could be free, so that we could live free. So that's kind of where I'm at right now without getting into all the weeds of it. You know, I'd have to go back and look at that again and you know, be able to uh kind of sift through that a little bit better, but that's where I'm at right now. Let's check out another verse here real quick as we move on. John ten verses seven through ten. This is Jesus' words talking about um the abundant life that we have. And so Jesus again said to them John ten verse seven, truly, truly I say to you, I am the door of the sheep. I all who came before me are thieves and robbers, but the sheep did not listen to them. I am the door, if anyone enters by me he will be saved, and will go in and out and find pasture. The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have life and have it abundantly. So here's another instance where the purpose of Jesus coming in the in the first place was to give us life abundantly, and he did that. But again, you know, in in religiosity, in church andity, so often this gets diminished, this gets taken away, this gets minimized, because again, we have the yah but and the religious yah but enters into the into the scheme of things again and it takes away that abundant life that Jesus has given us. It obscures it, it obscures it to the point where we forget, where instead of living freely in this abundance that God has provided for us in this amazing grace that He's given to us, we start to comply to the rules that are around us, to the rules that are laid on us, which take away from the very gift that God has given us. That's what happens. And so we start to do out of obligation instead of out of overflow. You know, the fruit of the spirit is an amazing thing. But the fruit of the spirit is just that. It's the fruit of the spirit. It's not the fruit of Mike, it's not the fruit of Amber, it's not the fruit of you, it's not the fruit of me, it's the fruit of the spirit. And the Holy Spirit produces that fruit in us as we move through life. I've been around the earth seventy times now. I've had 70 birthdays, and I can tell you just from life experience, I became a believer when I was uh seventeen. And I can tell you from life experience that fruit bears itself in its season. There are seasons, there are times in your life when fruit is less or not at all. And my point is it's the fruit of the spirit, and just like a fruit tree or any other you know, fruit plant of any kind, it doesn't bear fruit year-round. Usually, I guess maybe some of them do, but most of them don't. There are seasons of fruit bearing. There are seasons when it's it's it seems richer to me, you know. It seems like I'm having a better experience with bearing fruit. And then there are barren seasons. There are seasons when it's dry. It gets back to Stefan's question a minute ago. You know, what do you do when when it gets dry, when it dries up? Well, you keep going. You know, you you keep going where you're at. You don't try and fix it, you don't try to you know, fake it out to pull some kind of a third-level fake. That's what my Greek professor used to call it. Third level fake. You don't you don't try and fake it till you make it. You just understand that this is life. This is how life works. It isn't always fruitful. But when it is, man, it's good. It can be really good. But there's nothing to prove. There's you know, it gets back to what you said a minute ago, Amber. There's you have nothing there is no list. Well, you need to be, you know, showing showing good works in order to convince everybody around you that you're a believer. Well, what are those good works? Every time I ask someone that question, what are those good works? It's usually met with silence. Because how what are they? How do I know when I'm doing them? How do I know when I've done enough? How do I know when I'm done when I've when I'm doing them often enough? All of these questions play into that because it's at that point the Christian life becomes about works. It becomes about doing instead of about being. And about being, me by about being, I mean just being who we are in Christ. That we are secure in Him. And that'll never change. So, you know, Jesus came to give us life abundantly, and man, so much of our experience destroys that. And let me just say this while I'm thinking about it. You know, I didn't start this channel to convince people to leave church. That's not what I'm about. I started this channel to remind people of who they are in Jesus. That it's by grace alone, through faith alone, that we have this amazing relationship with the God of the universe through Jesus. That's it. And if people are, you know, thinking about leaving a church, I want to be here for them. I want to encourage them in their life, whatever that means for them. But I'm not all about trying to get people out of the building. If you're happy there, please stay there.

unknown 36:51

Right.

SPEAKER_01 36:51

You know, if you feel like that's where God has you, stay there. Don't leave. But for those who are leaving or have left or are thinking about leaving, I want to be a resource for them too. And I want you to know that this abundant life can sometimes be tied to that action of leaving some religious setting. And if that's you, just know you're not alone. Sometimes I get accused of uh, well, you're you're trying to pull people out of church. No, I'm not. I'm not selling you anything, I don't have an email list. You know, people I've had a few people in the comments say things like, um, well, you're just trying to get a following so that you can start getting support. And when's that ever happened? What do you mean, getting support? I you know, I'm not looking for any of that. But this is the stuff that religion takes from us and it takes away from that abundant life. But, you know, I'm separated from that. So I just wanted to say that. I wanted to clear the air on that little thing right there because I do get comments from time to time that are geared toward that. So, Amber, what are your thoughts on this? You know, this abundant life. I mean, obviously it relates back to the living water thing, but any additional things you want to say about this verse that came to mind?

SPEAKER_02 38:17

Well, I I think, like you say, when you see the word abundant and Jesus saying, you know, that his yoke was easy and his burden is light, those three words right there, for me, this is my experience, like you say, my experience in a church setting, in a box church setting, those started to just disappear on me every week. And the obligation of having to what I felt like was being taught of having to produce the fruit on my own, you know, that's like a branch going like this and trying to produce their own fruit. If I bear down enough, you know, if I if I suffer enough, if I do enough, if I busy my schedule enough, if I read long enough, if I pray long enough, if I fast, if I speak in tongues, whatever, whatever it is that that you think you've got to do, having, you know, and and and then you throw the giving on top of it, I think that obligation for me, it took the joy, it stole the joy out of expressing the fruit of the spirit. Because, like you say, it's his fruit to begin with. And so when I would meddle it all up by a bunch of works, because that's what my leaders were telling me that that's what is a good Christian, if you're doing all of these things, I started to feel like there was no joy anytime I did want to give. Um, there was no joy when I did want to volunteer because it was expected. And so one of the things that I felt such freedom in when I decided to leave the institution of you know, institutionalized gathering, um, because I still love gathering and talking about Jesus. I could sit in a coffee shop all day, you know, and just talk about Jesus and what he's done for me and how I love him and who he is. But leaving the institution for me, Mike, it alleviated a heavy pressure to produce and perform. And when I took me out of the equation, the Holy Spirit had room to shine. And then when I when when he did urge me, hey, this person just lost their job, you know, you can offer them some money. It was a it was a blessing for me to do that. I didn't feel as heavy as when they're saying, hey, we need a new roof, or we're gonna build this church and you guys need to be giving more. You know, there's a different motive. The motive from from the institution feels like I gotta do to impress or to prove. The motive from the spirit is love. And that is such a different sensation and a different feeling for me. That once I got a taste of motivation because of love, because of grace, because of just resting and trusting in the gospel, everything that flowed out of me was loving and joyful and warm and wanted and easy and light and abundant. You know, all of those words we just talked about. So I think religion for me, anyway, gathering in that type of setting, I could never enjoy the abundant life. Even though I was doing a bunch of stuff, I didn't, I was doing it from my own strength and my own checklist or the pastor's checklist for me, or you know, Susie Q's Bible study checklist for me. So I don't know. For me, I I find removing myself from that, I am so much more able, if that's even a proper sentence, to hear from the Holy Spirit and to be guided by him. You know what I mean? If I if I have all these other voices coming at me all the time, I can't hear him. He tends to whisper a little more than you know, our shouting pastors and and priests. You know, the Holy Spirit whispers into your the quietness of your mind and your heart. And so for me, it really helped me to have that freedom and realize that it was okay to have that freedom, that waking up every day and saying, Spirit, whatever you have for me today, bring it. And I didn't have to listen to all the noise. So that's for me when I found the abundant life. And like you say, Mike, if if if that gathering, you're happy there and you feel like the spirit is wanting you in that place, by all means, we love that for you. Like stay, do what the Lord and be where he wants you to be. But for those that don't, we don't want you to feel condemned. We don't want you to think that there's something wrong with you because maybe the spirit is leading you in a different direction. And it there's space for both. There's space for all of it, depending on what the spirit is telling you. So, but that's my personal experience with finding that freedom and that abundant that Christ talked about. For me, that's the environment I found it in was just being with him and removing myself and listening. Really helped me.

SPEAKER_01 43:42

I think that um I think that's so important too, because you know, I heard uh I have a friend, I just want you to know I have a friend. Uh our friend, our friend Chris Stapleton, not the singer. Chris Stapleton lives in uh Tennessee. I heard him give an analogy one time that you mentioned, you know, that bearing down to bear fruit, you know, that a branch in a branch in a tree isn't going, oh, I gotta bear fruit today. I gotta, you know, I gotta do this right. I gotta make sure that I bear down, I gotta strain, I gotta get there, you know.

SPEAKER_02 44:22

Right.

SPEAKER_01 44:23

The Christian life is about resting. It's not about striving. It's about resting. It's about it's about enjoying this free gift that's already been done for us. There's nothing undone in our lives. There's nothing undone as far as what God has given us. There's nothing that that we're obligated to complete that Jesus hasn't already finished. You know, He did it all. In Ephesians 2, Paul said that the law has been abolished. It was abolished by Jesus on the cross, Ephesians 2, uh, Colossians 2, Galatians 3. You know, you can reference all of this stuff. After Jesus fulfilled the law, which he came to do, and he did, it was abolished. It was taken away because it prevented Jew and Gentile, Jew and non-Jew, from becoming one in the body of Christ. The law was in the way, it had to be removed. And so there is no more effort, if I can put it that way. There is no more make sure we're doing it right. Make sure that you've got all your spiritual ducks in a row. There's none of that. That stuff doesn't exist anymore. It's not there. It's make believe. We put it there, religion puts it there in order to keep us bound up. But it's not really there. It's not there at all. It's it's human made, it's man-made, and you know, these the idea that we need to keep, you know, effort our effort up and our effort going is an insult, I believe, to the spirit of grace. And you know, it's we don't understand what it means to rest. Rest doesn't mean we're lazy, although we can be lazy. I have lazy days. Sometimes I have lazy weeks. Lazy months, I don't know. We can just go on true true true confessions here, but rest is a rest is a is a confidence in what Christ has done for me. And it frees me to do or not do what I want to do or not do. Because my righteousness isn't tied to my efforts. The forgiveness of my sins isn't tied to my efforts. You know, my identity isn't tied to my efforts. And that's the whole title of this video, the whole you know, title of what we're doing today is doing out of overflow, not obligation. Religion says you're obligated to do it this way, to do it this way, to do it this way, to be this way, to prove yourself. Overflow says it is finished. Now go live your life.

SPEAKER_03 47:36

Right.

SPEAKER_01 47:37

That's that's pretty liberating to me anyway. You know, it seems pretty liberating. Let's look at a couple more things here. Deny Satan says this. Have you ever heard a pastor say they prepared all week, but at the last second, God changed their sermon? Sure. I probably did that. Actually, I got the wrong thing up here. Hold on a minute. There, now we can see each other.

SPEAKER_03 48:06

Hey.

SPEAKER_01 48:07

I'm so high tech it gets out of control sometimes. By the way, this is going to be both podcast and video. So if you're listening to the podcast and you're wondering what I'm talking about, check out the video. If I remember, I'll have a link to the video in the podcast description. If I remember, that's you know, always cue. So he says, Have you ever heard a pastor say they prepared all week, but at the last second, God changed their sermon? Absolutely, I've heard that. Maybe that happened. Maybe that's true. Maybe, you know, at the last second the Holy Spirit did something to, you know, in this person's life and said, Hey, I want to go this direction instead. You know, that's entirely possible. But the whole idea of a sermon isn't in Scripture. The sermon, you know, we call it the Sermon on the Mount. It's not a sermon, it's a dialogue. And the idea of sermons, you know, sermons, okay, what the body of Christ did early on, I'll say what church did early on in the history of the church, is they reached back into the culture of the day and even the culture preceding that time by a few hundred years, and they grabbed this idea of the sermon, you know, a homily. There were people who were hired professionally to come in and speak to groups of people. I'm not talking about the church, I'm talking about in society, that were hired to come in and speak eloquently to entertain a group of people. They were paid to do that. And if they were really good, what they would do is they would they would speak initially to represent one side of an argument convincingly, to convince people, yeah, this is the way it should be. And then they would turn right around and argue the other side of the argument and convince people. And if they were really good at that, they got hired a lot. And they would get paid these these um people, these professional homily people, I forget what they're called. Put that comment back up here. Um it was homilies, and they were paid professionally to do that. They were polished speakers who who were there to entertain, whether they believed what they were saying or not, was irrelevant. Can you convince me of it? That was relevant. Well, the church grabbed that and said, Hey, we can use this. Let's bring this into the church and let's call it the sermon, and let's make the homily the central part of our time together. That's what happened in church history. And so the sermon became the high point of our time together. But it's a homily, it's someone who has been trained. I was in a homiletics class, you know, they they train you to speak a certain way, to have the mannerisms, you know, to kind of prance back and forth on the stage and to convince people of what you're saying. And then in homiletics, you would practice in front of the class, and then the class would uh judge you on your performance.

SPEAKER_03 51:32

Oh my gosh.

SPEAKER_01 51:33

That's how that's how pastors are trained. Just being honest. But the idea of a sermon, you know, it's not in the New Testament. What we see in the New Testament is every person in the body of Christ having an opportunity to share their gifts, to function, to participate. 1 Corinthians 14. That's our only model. That's our only model that's there. And we've lost that because the sermon has become central. We've elevated the sermon, we've elevated the pastor, we've elevated the pulpit, we've put them on a platform, we've put these special people up there. You know, maybe we have the fog machine going to kind of add the ambiance. But that's the whole idea. That's what happened. And that has become more prominent. So, yeah, you know, maybe, maybe so. Maybe the Holy Spirit spoke to this person who's giving a sermon and said, go this, go this route instead. That's entirely possible. But keep in mind that the idea of a sermon, it's one-way communication. It's not dialogue, it's not what Amber and I, and even all of you in the chat are doing with us. It's not that. It's one way, it's not dialogue, it's a monologue.

unknown 52:56

Right.

SPEAKER_01 52:57

It's one person's opinion about the Bible, about grace, about God, about the gospel, about what you should be doing, what you shouldn't be doing. It's one person's opinion. So I think that's the bigger issue than whether or not, you know, God has prompted someone to change the sermon at the last minute. I don't want to diminish that. You know, it's possible. There's good, there's good stuff out there, you know. My friend Chris that I mentioned a minute ago, I listened to his sermons, you know, and and he's got some good things to say. So I don't want to minimize that, but I want us to just know, I want us to just be aware. I want, I want you to have the information to be able to think it through for yourself, you know, because religion teaches us what to think, not how to think. And so it's important that we have the tools to discern, this to be able to discern this kind of stuff. Devin with fishing by faith. I'm sorry, Amber, did you have something you wanted to say on that one?

SPEAKER_02 54:08

Um, just real quick, I think one of the things that I wanted to mention is that, like you say, and it's very possible that the Holy Spirit is talking to the pastor and he is trying to relate what the spirit is teaching him, but that same spirit lives in each of us. And so I would assume that the Holy Spirit works in each of us differently according to our circumstances, according to our personalities, according to his wishes and his wants for each of us. So I think for me, the the most important thing that I feel is that everybody listening, everybody in a church building, anybody watching this video, the same Holy Spirit who is supposedly guiding that man up front or that woman lives in you too, my friend. And it's okay for us to listen to him inside of our own selves, right? I guess that's what I'm trying to say is so much, so often we think that oh, only he is the person standing up there is the only one able to teach me. Or, you know, the Holy Spirit inside of me just sits down and is quiet and doesn't ever move me. I I think that's false. He he's active and alive in each one of us just as much as the next person. Like you say, there's no portion control. I didn't get a quarter cup and you got a full cup, and maybe someone got a pint. No, that's not how any of that works. So I think that's important just to remind all of us believers that we all have the same spirit and we all have something important to say when he speaks to us because it's it's through him and it's because of him.

SPEAKER_01 55:49

So that's well, isn't that isn't that what John said, you know, in first John, somewhere? Somewhere it says in 1 John, um, you know, that we all have an anointing by the Spirit and we don't have a need for anyone to teach us.

SPEAKER_02 56:03

That's right.

SPEAKER_01 56:04

Wow. Are you serious, John? Yeah. I mean, you can benefit from, you know, a good a good teacher, someone with a gift of teaching who understands context, who understands the gospel, who understands the new covenant, old covenant, how to handle scripture. Man, you can you can benefit from that, you know, all day long. But it's not a need. It's not a requirement. You have no need for anyone to teach you. Why? Well, because we all have the spirit of Christ in us, and you know, we have the mind of Christ because of that. So important stuff. All right, let's look at this one here, real quick. We've got to kind of move along here because I don't want to keep you all day. I know you've got plans, Amber.

SPEAKER_02 56:46

St. Patty's Day plans.

SPEAKER_01 56:49

Yeah, I know. So let's look at this one. Uh, Devin with Fishing by Faith. There you go. It says, hello, Mike. My family and I have recently left the institutional church and find we struggle with what and how to teach our kids. Do you have any, I guess, resources or recommendations? You know, my recommendation, I guess, would just be to teach them the pure gospel, teach them what Jesus did, you know, and and how it's complete, and how much he loves us, how much the Father loves us so much that he gave his only one and only Son to bring us into the kingdom. You know, that just that message, unencumbered by religion, unencumbered by religious obligation. Keeping up pure, Susan and I have a lot of regrets about spending so much time in religious settings in church and indoctrinating our kids with things they didn't need to hear. Yeah, that becomes a regret after a while. So take advantage of this time, would be my recommendation, and undo that as much as you can. And just yeah, just tell them the plain truth that God loves them so much so that he gave his one and only son, that whosoever believes will not perish, but have life.

unknown 58:17

That's right.

SPEAKER_01 58:18

Thoughts, Amber? You probably got some deep thoughts on this one, right?

SPEAKER_02 58:21

Well, and make sure that you say uh 317 as well, that he did not come into the world to condemn it, but to save it to him. So that's I used to just say 316 all the time, and then I realized how important verse 17 was.

SPEAKER_01 58:34

Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 58:35

Um, because religion sometimes uh they wouldn't want to mention verse 17. You know, there's there's no condemnation in Christ. We're we are loved and we're made holy. And like you say, for for me, I felt the same way exiting the church. I was a little afraid to, okay, how am I going to teach my children? Um, but it's the I did exactly what you said. I focused on the gospel. I focused on what Christ accomplished on the cross. And I focused on the simplicity of his love and the salvation that he has gifted us. And that is the meat. That is what they need to know. You focus on that, and their love will bloom with Christ. I mean, it just because you're taking away all the stress and the pressure, and that relationship just builds naturally and deeply. So great advice, Mike.

SPEAKER_01 59:29

Amanda asks this question of us, wondering if the abundant life here means physically or spiritually or both. I feel like I've had the pressure to feel, I feel like I've had the pressure to feel that it means financially. There's no excuse to not be rich. Well, I think that it means abundant life. I think it's primarily at its root, it's at its base, it's spiritual. And I think that that overflows into other areas. It can. I don't think it means physical. 2024 knocked me out of the saddle with cancer. I had cancer, cancer treatments the majority of that year in the 2025. It wasn't fun. I wasn't having a physically abundant life. But you know what? Those times that I was laying there in bed, unable to really do anything. I was contemplating what God had done for me. And it was a rich time for me, even though I was hurting that physically I couldn't do a lot. You know, that um that that part of my life wasn't functioning, and it's still not 100%. But spiritually, I'm doing better than I ever have, I think, you know, because I understand I've experienced it. You know, the Holy Spirit is a comforter. It isn't just that you understand things, it isn't intellectual, it's it's real. The Holy Spirit is a comforter, Jesus said. So he comforts. And he he makes himself real to you. And he does that a lot of times when I'm struggling physically or even struggling financially. You can do that. You know, God doesn't want us rich. That isn't the I that isn't the idea. We've misrepresented the tithe religion has. The tithe has nothing to do with money. God doesn't need your money. You know, use it on something else. Do something else with it. Buy your kids a present, buy your spouse a present. That's really important, you know. But you know, it's spiritual. And yes, that can overflow into other areas of your life, but for me, it, you know, it's it's just spiritual. Lisa Barnes is here. Let's bring this one up. The work of the Holy Spirit was constantly being compared among members in church. It was discouraging. I'm reminded of a quote: When you compare, you despair. I wanted to bring Lisa's comment up here because she comments on a lot of my videos, and I appreciate her comments. I get a lot out of them, and this one's no different. You know, when you compare, you despair. And man, is that true? There's no comparison. That's good. There's just resting, resting in Jesus. I'm kind of moving along here. Let's look at this one here, and then we'll start to wrap a ribbon around this.

SPEAKER_03 1:02:27

All right.

SPEAKER_01 1:02:28

James says this the beauty of grace, your comment on only two examples of asking for forgiveness and confessing sins. Lord's Prayer in 1 John 1.9. Yeah, those are great examples of grace. Um the Lord's Prayer, actually, I did a video on the Lord's Prayer. It's here on my site somewhere. It wasn't too long ago. Looking at the Lord's Prayer and what the Lord's Prayer meant and how that it's been fulfilled. It's not a Christian prayer, I don't believe. But it's something that's been fulfilled, it's something that's been done away, that's completed. And uh, it's not something that we should be reciting necessarily. You can if you want, but it's kind of meaningless. And then 1 John 1:9. You know, it's evangelistic. It's not it's not a command to believers to keep confessing all of your sins. It's evangelistic in that in the context of 1 John chapter 1, he's talking about those who have denied sin, those who have uh are in the active state of sin denial. They don't view sin as sinful, and they don't understand what sin is. And John is saying, look, until you understand that, until you understand what sin is and that you confess sin, confess doesn't mean you enumerate them, that you lay them out and you say, I've done this, I've done this, I've done this. Hama lego is the Greek word. That sounds kind of cool, right? Hama legeto. You think of homogenized, and it means homogenized and then lego means to speak. And it's really talking about saying the same thing that God says about your sins, that you've sinned. That's what it means. To agree with God, to say the same thing. And when we understand that, then we realize that, and we look at the context of 1 John chapter 1, he's talking to those people who are saying, sin doesn't exist, there's no such thing. And that's you know, kind of what he's what he's addressing there. So yeah. All right, listen, uh Amber, is there anything else you want to say here?

SPEAKER_02 1:04:42

I'm just kind of going through some of the uh comments here.

SPEAKER_01 1:04:50

Yes, Frank Frank Viola does a good job showing where sermons are. Absolutely, he does.

SPEAKER_02 1:04:55

Uh oh yeah, pagan Christianity.

SPEAKER_01 1:04:58

What is it?

SPEAKER_02 1:04:58

Yeah, yeah, pagan Christianity. I just looked at that book. That's a good one. The stage, all of that came from came from the Roman uh, you know, how they would have meetings and stuff, nothing to do with faith.

SPEAKER_01 1:05:12

So yeah, that's a good thing. That's exactly right. So good stuff. Amber, is there anything else you want to say? Uh just as we close.

SPEAKER_02 1:05:22

Anything else? Just to remind, just to remind people that you know, the Holy Spirit is incredible on each side of and on the inside of each one of us. And that abundant life, I I just encourage each one of us to realize that we already have it, that we already have it regardless of what we're where we're going every Sunday or what we're doing on Wednesday nights. We already have the abundant life because we have him inside of us. And to just let that be your restful thought this week, you know, that you have an abundant life. Life and I do agree with you, it is it is spiritual and it can leak out into other areas of our life, but that abundance is ours, folks. It's ours. We're sealed up in it.

SPEAKER_01 1:06:11

Lillian says, Hey there from Portugal. Hi, Lillian. Oh, wow. Thanks for helping me to uh not not to feel always defensive ever since I've left the congregation. You're very welcome. I know that's a hard step to take. I know that can feel empty. I know you lose friends. I know you lose relationships. That can be a hard thing, but you know, if that's what the Holy Spirit's leading you to do, He's going to come through for you, whatever that means. Right. And He's going to retool your thinking. He's going to retool your view of religion, your view of church, your view of life. It's all part of that. Some of it's not easy, but it's a blessing. It's a blessing as you learn more about the grace of God, the grace of God alone. Alright, man. Well, um and I say man in the sense of humanity.

SPEAKER_02 1:07:03

Hey, you don't have to worry about offending me. I got in trouble. I always call everyone dude. So whether you're a girl or an old man or a young kid, I'm hey dude. So I don't mean my own.

SPEAKER_01 1:07:18

Hey dude. Hey dude. All right. Well, listen, y'all, thank you so much for uh joining us on this. We went a little over an hour. I really appreciate you being here. I want to pick these back up again and do them regularly. I just think it's healthy to do a live live stream, and uh at some point it would be good somehow. I'm not even sure how. You know, if we could all get on one screen together, a lot of us get on one screen together and chat and kind of chat this stuff up. So maybe I'll work on something with that.

unknown 1:07:52

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 1:07:52

But anyway, Amber, thank you for joining. Please don't hang up right away after we stop. I want to talk to you a minute. But thank you all for uh being a part of the live stream. Uh, this will be available as an on-demand video as soon as YouTube does its thing. And the live chat will be available for replay as well if you want to look through it. So I appreciate your time, and I'm gonna let you go. And until next time, y'all take care.

SPEAKER_00 1:08:24

Thank you for joining us on the Unsundae show. To be a part of this ongoing conversation, visit us online at unsunday.com.