SPEAKER_00 0:00

This episode of the Young Sunday Show is from a live stream that I recorded on Sunday, April 19th, 2026. It's an open forum. It's an open forum where I interacted with questions that people had about a variety of topics, all related to the new covenant gospel of grace and the law of Moses. And questions surrounding that. Are we under the law of Moses? What is grace? What is the new covenant? We had a good time. There was a lot of interaction. And so I'm sharing it with you as an audio podcast here. I'll put a link in the description below to the video if you want to watch it instead. My name is Mike, and welcome to the Un Sunday show. You're listening to the Un Sunday Show. So, hey, what I wanted to do today is let you kind of decide where we go. I don't know if we want to call this um just an open chat. And any questions you have, any comments that you have, anything that's on your heart that's on your mind that you want to bring up, I want to encourage you to do that today. It's a bold new move, but it's a move that I think would be beneficial for us as well. So as we move down through this, be thinking about you know, is are there issues you want to talk about? Are there topics that are on your heart that you want to bring up that we could talk about? And not just by talk about, I mean not just me answering, but all of us answering, you in the chat to be able to uh talk to each other. And uh yeah, as we kind of sort sort some things out. Okay, so we got a question here. Devin says, Do you believe there's a difference between the new covenant and the new testament? Or do you believe they're the same thing? There's a difference. There's definitely a difference between the new covenant and the new testament. The new the new covenant began with the death and and uh resurrection of Jesus. When you know the night before he was betrayed, Jesus is with the apostles and he's he's uh giving them the cup and the food, and he says, This is the blood of the new covenant, which he's shedding for many. And when he shed that blood, it began, the new covenant began. And that's different than the New Testament. The New Testament was written much later, first of all, and it reaches back pre-New Covenant. Most of what's in the Gospels is old covenant historically, it belongs in the old covenant. That's why it's important to make that distinction because when Jesus is talking in the Gospels, we have to, first of all, understand the context that he's talking in. He was born under the law, and he came and talked to those under the law who were uh there living under the law at the time of Moses. And so a lot of what Jesus said, he's introducing the new covenant, but the new covenant isn't there yet. And a lot of what's going on as he's talking to these old covenant Jews in the Gospels, he's presenting little nuggets of the new covenant to them along the way. But at the same time, he keeps reaching back to the old covenant. The um the Sermon on the Mount is a good example of that. Jesus is showing them the impossibility of trying to live by Moses, that it's it's completely impossible. Be perfect, as your Father in heaven is perfect. Well, how do you do that? You don't. You can't. It's impossible. But by faith, when you believe his death becomes our death, his resurrection becomes our resurrection, in the new covenant, we can look back at that and we see verses like uh Hebrews, by one sacrifice he's made perfect forever. Those who are being saved, those who are being sanctified, those who are being brought into the body of Christ when they believe. That's how it works. It doesn't work under Moses, it doesn't work under trying to do better and be better and be a better person. I'm all for those things, but that isn't going to gain anything as far as eternal life is concerned. It's only by faith. We're made righteous by faith apart from works, according to Paul. So I hope that answers that question. I'm going to scroll back up here because they're kind of flying by. Lydia says, why do pastors always shy away from talking about how the Bible ties into what's going on today? Well, I'm kind of the same way, Lydia, to be honest with you. I don't know if it does or not. You know, uh, current events, the Bible isn't about America. The Bible isn't about necessarily what's happening today. I mean, there might be bits and pieces in there. But example, if we get 20 people in a room to talk about the book of Revelation, we're probably going to get 20 different interpretations. That's kind of why I stay away from it. I can't speak for, you know, pastors doing that too. I just don't know. And I'm afraid that I could be reading something into the Bible by thinking that it does, that there's some direct correlation. You know, I've I've heard people set dates for the second coming, you know, some in 90 in the 1980s. And yet here we are. You know, what happened? Well, somebody, somebody was wrong. And I'd rather talk about what I know. And what I know from scripture is the gospel, it's the good news, it's the cross, it's grace. It's it's de how could you word it? This might be profound, so you might want to write this down, or it might be really dumb, so you might want to ignore it. But it's it's like decluttering law from our minds and our hearts in order to get back to grace. That's what the End Sunday show is all about. That's why it's here. That's why I'm here. Because my life has been spent decluttering my mind from false teaching about righteousness or holiness by what I do, by what I say, by how I'm behaving. And getting back to righteousness by faith, apart from works. It's kind of a decluttering process, cleaning up my own mind. So again, I can't speak for, you know, pastors worldwide, but I can speak for myself. And, you know, that's why I stay away from that. Because I just don't know, and I have more important things to talk about than that. You know, that's beyond my pay grade. And whatever happens, you know, last day stuff or in the future, let's talk last days for a minute, let's talk second coming for whatever happens. We're going to be a part of it. We're going to be there. We're going to see it. We're not going to miss it. None of us is going to miss it. So whatever happens, I'm I view it as a surprise. Lord, surprise me. You know, so that's kind of where I'm at. Happy camper or hippie camper. Whoop? Oops. Oh, you started to type here when you said A, right? Let me get that up here. There it is. And then, oops, yes, I agree with you, Mike. Okay, sunflowers. Let's see what you're bringing up here. My question is: how to deal with family and friends who believe we will go to hell or not for not attending church. I have gone my whole life and still believe greatly. Just tired of the legalism. You know, church, church attendance is a work, it has nothing to do with anything. No one, no one in the early church was going to church. In fact, the word church wasn't even around. Well, it was around, but it had a different meaning. You know, it was a Lord's possession. The word church in the New Testament was used in 1 Corinthians 11 when uh Paul was talking about the Lord's Supper. You know, it's it's the supper of the Lord. It's a possession, it's a Lord's possession, something belonging to a Lord. And then again in Revelation, John uses it in referencing the Lord's day, but those are the only two occurrences of kind of the Greek equivalent of our English word church. Those are the those are the only two places. Everywhere else, or most everywhere else, not everywhere else, but most everywhere else that we see the word church in our New Testaments, it's a bad translation of the Greek word ekklesia, which means an assembly or a congregation. It has nothing to do with modern church. No one was going to modern church. There weren't any. They didn't exist. And for a couple hundred years, no one was really going to those because they didn't exist. And so people were just as justified, they were just as sanctified, they were just as holy as someone saying today, well, you need to be in church. That's not true. That's just not true. So be patient with your friends, number one. I would say be patient with them because sometimes we can we can be a little bit over overbearing in our in our zeal, I think. And you know, we got to fix, we got to fix our friends, we got to fix our family, we have to correct them. I would say, you know, be gentle with them, and as the topic comes up, address it gently, but don't try and be exhaustive. Don't try and be exhaustive in one sitting. But maybe plant a seed here, plant a seed there, let them let them see what what your life is like. You know, share verses here and there with them if you want to do that, if you're comfortable with that. But uh, yeah, you know, once we believe Christ is never going to abandon us. On our worst days, on our best days, it doesn't matter. You are sanctified, you are made holy. And you're not going to get more sanctified by what you do. You're not going to get more holy by what you do. Without holiness, no one's going to see the Lord. Well, how does that work? By faith. Or justified by faith. By believing. And that never goes away, that never dies out. Okay, uh Grant. Is it Grant? Grantl? Grant L? You've mentioned before your experience with New Covenant theology, not what you speak, speak on now, but specifically the model that the believer is under the law of Christ as a new Mosaic law or sort of sorts. That's exactly right. My first exposure, Grant, to the New Covenant, was that. It was this system, and I didn't really catch it at first, you know, it was subtle. Is a system that became known as New Covenant theology. Someone started to take the new covenant, the grace of God in the new covenant, and systematize it. We do that, don't we? You know, dispensationalism did that, covenant theology did that. We take scripture and we try to organize it into a system of theology. And when we do that, I think we end up lacking something or we end up adding something. And my experience with the thing called new covenant theology, and the reason why I avoid it is exactly what you brought up here, Grant, that the at least the brand of it that I was exposed to and that we were exposed to for years, exchanged one moral code for another. They exchanged the law of Moses for what they call the law of Christ. And then they said the law of Christ is every New Testament command. I'm like, what? There's like somebody counted them, I don't know, it was 1100 or 1500 commands, something like that. I don't know. But even that, you know, how do you tell an imperative, a command from an indicative in the Greek New Testament? Again, I'm going to fall back on my Greek here a little bit, so stick with me. They look the same. A command, an imperative, a command, looks the same as an indicative, a statement of fact. They look the same. What determines the difference? Context. Context determines the difference. And so when I see Paul encouraging someone in the New Testament in a particular uh location or whatever, that's for them. They were going through something and that meant something to them. Are there things I can glean from it? Absolutely. Absolutely, I can glean things from it. If I read it in context, and that may not always be the case, maybe there's times I can't glean anything from it because of the context. So we have to be careful with that. We have to be careful how we handle scripture. I like my Bible. I rely on my Bible. I use it all the time. But we have to be careful how we read it. We have to be careful how we're looking at it, because it's so easy to take it out of context. And what did that meme say somewhere back in my past history? I can do all things through a verse taken out of context. And that's what we do. We guilt each other, we put each other on some sort of a guilt trip by taking passages out of context. And that's what happened to me with this new covenant theology. So I steer clear of anything that has systematized New Covenant theology in the same way that I steer clear of other theologies that have been systematized into some kind of systematic theology or biblical theology. And of course, again, that changes from person to person. Even New Covenant theology, there are different flavors of it out there that I was exposed to, and they couldn't agree among themselves. So, you know, uh yeah, I I kind of tossed it. Plus, it was really abusive. It was abusive uh to us personally because there were liberties given to the leadership to be able to be critical of you for not being or doing what they thought you should be or do. And that's not a good place to be. Not at all. So I ditched it. I ditched it, and I'll tell you this a little bit of a story here, too. Um when I ditched it, I really ditched it. Susan and I both ditched it. And when I ditched it, I'm just speaking for myself, I'll let Susan speak for her if she ever wants to. In fact, she has on our podcast. But when I ditched it, I turned completely the other way. I turned completely away from it. I turned, I set my Bible down. I, you know, I stopped. I came to a full halt. I'm done. I'm done with this. And it took years to slowly kind of creep back in and redefine the new covenant, the way that the Bible defines it, not the way that people have defined it for me. One of the things that really helped me in that is the Growing in Grace podcast with um Joel Brizicki, the Breeze Man, Summer Breeze, and Mike Kapler. He's the Cap Man. Remember the Beatlesong Tax Man? I changed that to the Cap Man. But Mike Kapler and Joel Brizicki really helped me, and they didn't even know they were helping me. They didn't even know me at the time. But I found their podcast and it had the words new covenant in it, and I thought at first, oh, stay back. Back, back, keep it at bay. But then I started listening to it, and they had a different new covenant. They had a new covenant that wasn't systematized. They had a new covenant of grace. They had a new covenant where they let scripture be scripture and they let scripture say what scripture said and keep it in context. And I slowly came back, and that was really part of my healing from that whole thing. That's the Growing in Grace podcast. If you're not familiar with it, check it out. In fact, if I remember, I'll put a link to it here in the description after we're done. Okay, Grant, yeah, I just spoke on that a little bit more, so I think that's what you're talking about, Grant. If it's not, let me know. I heard a sermon today. Johnny. Johnny, welcome. First of all, welcome to the uh live. Appreciate you being here. I heard a sermon today about Jesus fulfilled the law. Then he described that there is a ceremonial law, a judicial law, and a moral law. The preacher says we have to obey the moral law. Yeah, that's common out there, isn't it? Dividing the law up into three different pieces, three different sections. It's really convenient for those who want to bring you under the law. Because covenant theology is really good at this. If you're familiar with reform theology, covenant theology, I have a bit of a background in that. And it's really, they're really good at this, good in a bad way, if I can put it that way. They will divide the law of Moses into these three sections. They'll say there's the ceremonial law, which, yeah, has passed away, Jesus fulfilled it. There's the judicial law, or sometimes called a civil law, which Jesus fulfilled as well. That was the law that governed the nation of Israel as far as uh, you know, civil laws. And then there's the what they call the moral law, which to them the moral law is the Ten Commandments, the Ten Seas, the Ten Big ones. And they'll say that the moral law of God has been active in every age, that there's some way Adam and Eve had the moral law in the garden. Of course, that's nowhere in scripture, but again, that's a theological, theologically driven system that has to get the law into you and into me. And it does that by dividing it up into three pieces and saying the moral law has always been there. And the moral law is the Ten Commandments. And Adam and Eve had the Ten Commandments in the garden. My question is where? It's a theologically driven system, it's a theologically driven idea. And they would then they will say that the moral law is in every age, and so you and I need to be obeying the moral law because Jesus didn't fulfill that part. But you know, when we look at the New Testament, what does it say? It says that the law of Moses is a unit, it's not the laws, it's the law. Singular. It's the law of Moses, not the laws of Moses. And when Jesus fulfilled the law, which he did on the cross, he came to fulfill the law, and that's exactly what he did. He fulfilled all of the law. Remember, if someone who was under the law at the time broke any one, any part of the law, they broke it all. They didn't just break the judicial portion or the civil portion or the ceremonial portion. They were lawbreakers. They broke the whole darn thing. And Jesus fulfilled the entire law. The law is not divisible, it can't be divided up. We try because we have to. Something in us, and I say us, I'm not talking about you and I, but something in religion, something in churchianity, something in church leadership a lot of times, has to bring the law of Moses in some form to bear on your heart and on my heart. It's got no business being there. Paul called it a ministry of death in 2 Corinthians 3. In Galatians chapter 3 and chapter 4, Paul talks about how the law has passed away from those who were under it. Now, clarification here: you and I have never been under the law. Ever. The law was only given to ancient Israel. It was never given to me, it was never given to you, it was never given to the non-Israelites at the time that it was given. In Exodus chapter 20, from then on until the cross. The law was never given to anyone outside of old covenant Israel. They're the only ones that received it. No one else was under the law. I'm not under the law. You're not under the law. Someone who's an Israelite living today is not under the law. Why? Because in Ephesians 2, he abolished it at the cross. And the reason that it was abolished is because it stood in the way of Jew and Gentile becoming one new person, the body of Christ, the Ecclesia. It stood in the way. It prevented that from happening. And so it had to be taken out of the way. And that's exactly what Paul is talking about in Ephesians 2, Colossians 2, again, same thing. Galatians 3. Did I say Galatians? Ephesians. Ephesians 2. Sorry. Ephesians 2, Colossians 2, Galatians 3. You know, it's all it all ties together. The law is no more. Not just the Ten Commandments, but the whole thing. 613 of those laws, not just 10. 613 laws of the old covenant are gone. So that's kind of what I do with that. Johnny, I hope that that helped you. Tonight has a question. The question I struggle with is where did all the people, both Jew and everyone else, go and end up before the resurrection? Well, again. Kind of dry, so I need to drink. And that's just water. Um, you know, Jesus said that um we talked a little bit, I think um Amber and I talked a little bit last time about the thief on the cross. Maybe it was the time before. You know, thief on the cross, you know, remember we remember, remember me, he said to Jesus, when you come into your kingdom, Jesus said, Today you're going to be with me in paradise. And that was before the resurrection. So I think those who, you know, those who believed are with Jesus. We're with God. Again, I don't get into that. It's kind of like the last days thing. I don't really go too deep into that. Um wherever they were, we'll find out one day. And I'm okay waiting because again, I think you know, it's a little bit beyond my pay grade again, and uh, you know, I don't know. I don't have all the answers to that one either. So, okay, Lydia says, Thanks, I get it now. You're welcome, Lydia. I'm glad to help. How do you respond to the claim that the new covenant is only for Israel? Well, because the new covenant went to the world. The new covenant was for the world. The new covenant was not only for Jew, but it's also for Gentile. Remember, the Gentiles in Romans 11 were grafted in. We weren't grafted into Israel, we were grafted into Christ. And the new covenant is what made that grafting in possible. Again, let's go back to Ephesians 2 again that I talked about a minute ago. Why was the law a hindrance to Jew and Gentile becoming one body in Christ if the new covenant is only for Israel? That doesn't make any sense. The new covenant was for both Jew and Gentile. You can't read the book of Romans and come away with, I think, any other explanation for that. It's a worldwide covenant. It's a covenant that God initiated, that God made with Himself in order to save a people. I've got like a 60-second timer on these comments, and they eventually time out. I had to do that because I forget to take them off, and then they stay on there forever. So, but yeah, that's, you know, you hear that from time to time. You hear, you hear Jeremiah 31, and it's repeated in Hebrews chapter 8. You know, there's a time coming when I'll make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah. And some will say, well, see, that's just for Israel, and that's just for Judah. But when we get the fuller picture of what's going on in the rest of the New Testament, specifically in the later revelation that Paul got, especially, you know, we see that it's for Jew and Gentile. It's not just for Jew, it's a new age. Jay is here. Hi, Mike with the little guitar symbol. Jay, I'm glad you're here, buddy. It's good to have you. Let me scroll down through here and see what we got. Okay, Amanda says, I appreciate your honesty about not talking about what you don't know. You know, when I was pastoring churches and I had to be right all the time and I had to have all the answers, I talked about what I didn't know. And I had to do it in a convincing way, even if I didn't know it. I had to have some kind of an answer. And now my three favorite words are I don't know. And I'm good with that. So yeah, she says, uh Amanda says, I relate to that. Whatever happens, the Lord will take care of everything and all who trust in him. Isn't that easy? Isn't that so much easier? Doesn't that take the pressure off? Doesn't that make you relax? Doesn't that make it possible to actually rest? When I was you know involved in church unity really thick, and you know, especially as a leader, I wasn't resting. I was on edge all the time. I had to have all the answers. But now, guess what? I get to rest, and you can too. That's the good news, is that there is a rest for the people of God. Jimmy says, I was thinking this morning, why did I end up thinking the Ten Commandments are gospel, meaning good news? I don't know. Why did you think that? The Ten Commandments are bad news, and they're not for you and I. Hands off, don't touch. They're not for you and I. They're there as a historical example. And you know, every time, at least every time that I can think of, and there's like three or four instances in the New Testament of this, where especially Paul is looking at Israel's history in the Old Testament, and he's using it as an example of what not to do, what not to be, an example of unbelief because the law produces that. The law produces unbelief. The law doesn't produce righteousness, it doesn't produce righteous living. An unbeliever can obey the law. That's irrelevant. But when it comes to the new covenant, when it comes to what we have in the new covenant, to the resurrected life of God living in us, all of a sudden everything changes because it's not about the Ten Commandments. The gospel has nothing to do with the Ten Commandments. The gospel is the good news that God stepped into his creation and became a substitute for us in order to redeem us. And our part of that is to believe, simply to come to him by faith, to take him at his word. That's the gospel. In a nutshell. So yeah, I don't know why you were thinking that, Jimmy. Um yeah, maybe that's something that uh you can flush out a little bit more as you go through your day. Those are mouse traps, not churches. Tomato wisdom. Hey, nice name. I like that. Yeah, that's true. They are traps, they will trap you in there and they will hold you in there, they will keep you in there, and they will diminish your hope. They will diminish um your joy, your purpose? It all will fade. It all will go away if we believe that stuff. If church is if church attendance saves you, then how much is enough? That's right. That's right. When am I done? Is Sunday okay? Twice Sunday? Four times Sunday? Do I have to go Wednesday? How about Thursday? How about Friday? How about any midweek thing? When when am I done? When have I done enough? And once I've done enough, can I stop going? I mean, think about it. This is a good point, Rob. This is a really good point. By the way, welcome, welcome to the show. When is it enough? And if I stop going, am I unsaved? Does it suddenly reverse? I don't think so. Okay. Deny says this. Why do so many preach kingdom building when they haven't preached on resting in the finished work? Yeah, I don't know. I don't have the answer to all that. You know, there's uh so many variations to that that can happen. We're not very good at resting. We're not very good in believing that the work is actually finished, are we? We're not real good at that. But it is. It is finished to telesti, hanging on the cross. Jesus said, it is finished. There's nothing to add to it. You can't add to it, you can't subtract from it. It comes from outside of you, it comes from outside of me. This has nothing to do with you and I. This was done for us, outside of ourselves. Grace comes at us from outside of ourselves. Righteousness comes from outside of ourselves. Holiness comes from outside of ourselves. This stuff has nothing to do with our performance at all. Nothing whatsoever. Hippocamper, nothing can separate us from the love of God that is in Christ. Wow, hang on to that one. Absolutely. These are the words of Paul. I'm convinced that nothing can separate us. Hardship can't separate you. Nothing in this life can separate you and I from the love of God. It's that finished. Rest in that, believing. Hold on to that because that's what we have. That's the new covenant gospel of grace, right there. Yeah. Rob says, I wasted so much time wondering if I was ever really saved. I did that too, Rob. You know, in performance-based Christianity, which is what I came out of, you spend your entire time gazing at your spiritual navel. Spiritual navel gazing. How am I doing in the moment? How am I doing right now? How am I doing today? How's my attitude? Check my attitude, check my motives, check my actions, how am I doing? And when we're looking at ourselves and our performance, instead of resting in the finished work of what Jesus did for us and understanding his grace and his mercy, when we're looking at our own performance, our um our experience is like this, isn't it? It's like a roller coaster. You know, my assurance is up one minute and it's down the next. And it's up one minute and it's down the next. And it's up or down depending on how I'm doing in the moment, isn't it? Isn't that true? How I'm doing in the moment determines whether or not I think I'm saved. Again, I can't emphasize enough that all of this comes from outside of us. It has nothing to do with us in the sense of our performing or our performance. Yeah, that's very good. I'm glad you brought that up, Rob. I appreciate that. Lydia says, thank you for this. Uh, that was a great question. Yeah, thank you. Thank you, Lydia. I appreciate that. You know, I like doing this. It's kind of scary in a way. I don't look at these comments ahead of time, obviously. Nothing's filtered. But you know, in the last church that I was uh part of a pastoral team of, even though there were some really weird things going on there, one of the good things that I think went on there was when I would preach on a Sunday, it wasn't your typical preaching. I wasn't up on a platform giving my thing, walking back and forth, you know. I never wore skinny jeans, you don't want to see me in those. But, you know, kind of prancing back and forth and doing my thing and getting all the motions down, you know, that I was taught to do. I allowed questions. We allowed questions. As I would teach at any moment, anybody there could raise their hand and say, I have a question. You gotta be Johnny on the spot with that one. Now, back in that day, the downside was I had to be right. Even if I was wrong. I had to appear to be right. I had to be convincing, even if I didn't know what I was talking about. It isn't that way anymore. But it did it did help prepare me to kind of take on questions fired at you, you know? It helped. It helped. So, yeah, that part of it was uh was a takeaway for me, and it's helping me today. So let's press on here. Lisa says, Is it required to pray back scripture to God so he can understand our prayers? That seems very contradictory. No, it is not, it absolutely is not. I uh prayer is a conversation. You know, prop Paul said pray without ceasing. What did he mean? Did he mean have some big oratory thing going on to pray without ceasing? No, he didn't. You know, Jesus said, when you pray, don't don't be like the uh, you know, the people in the long robes, or even the heathens, or whoever likes to, you know, give long oratory speeches as they're praying, you know, and get all vocal and oh God, you know, and all this stuff that's going on and be dramatic. He said, go in your closet and shut the door. Paul said, pray without ceasing. Prayer is, at least for me, prayer is an ongoing conversation in every moment. You know, it doesn't mean I'm constantly being spiritual and praying. That isn't what I mean. I mean that at any moment I'll say thank you, Jesus. Something will come to mind, and I'll realize how indebted I am to God and how much he loves me. Thank you, Jesus, for this. Thank you. This is great. Thank you. It's an ongoing casual conversation between friends. Jesus said, I'm not calling you servants, I'm calling you friends. And friends, you know, friends don't have long oratory speeches to one another, but they do like we're doing right now. They talk. They communicate in whatever form that is. And prayer isn't formal. We were taught in our religious experience that prayer was so formal that you had to make sure you had all of your ducks in a row before you ever opened your mouth. If you're going to pray publicly, you need to be sure that you're saying this and that you're saying this, and that you're wording it this way. And you know what that did? That discouraged us to the point where we stopped praying. Because doing more and trying harder doesn't make you do more or try harder. It makes you give up. You hit a wall. And that's what happened to us with prayer because we were so, we were getting so indoctrinated with prayer is like this prayer, pray this way, you got to do it this way. This is what we have to do, you gotta ask these questions, you gotta, you gotta probe before you pray for someone, and you've got to know exactly what every every need is, and you have to do it the right way, or don't do it at all. So we didn't do it at all. And that's hard to recover from, Lisa. That's really hard to recover from. Prayer is just a casual conversation between you and your father, who loves you so much that he gave his only son for you in order to redeem you, in order to have time with you. There's no quota for prayer. There's no way to pray and no way not to pray. Just be real with your father. Mercy James says, hello from Texas. Hello, James. Glad you're here, buddy. Rob says, hi Mercy. University of what's UH? UH grad. Houston? University of Houston? I'm gonna assume that for now. Sunflowers says, thank you for answering. I'll be more patient with them. Oh, you're welcome, Sunflowers. Yeah. Sometimes that's hard to do, isn't it? Sometimes you kind of want to just get in there and say, why can't you see? Yeah, I understand that. Michelle says, by the way, Michelle, thank you for joining us. It's good to have you here. The gospel is Jesus who loves us. I'm up here in Bellingham, Washington. I love Washington. I love the state of Washington. Bellingham's on the west side, right? Isn't that like north of Seattle thereways? I think it is. Correct me if I'm wrong. But I love the state of Washington. Grant says this. I got sidelined by that for a while because it had a grace focus on the surface, but it ended up being a red letter Calvinism. Yeah, you know, I have friends that are Calvinists. I was a Calvinist for years. I'm not anymore. Got my card punched. But yeah, I, you know, I have friends that are Calvinists. I understand where they're coming from. You know, I love them. They're still friends. We're still friends. You know, we can talk about it. I'm not there anymore. I don't agree with that. To me, it, me personally, and this is just descriptive. This isn't prescriptive. I'm not telling anyone who holds to Calvinism, you know, this is going to happen to you. But this is what happened to me is it gave me a wrong view of God. It gave me a view of God that he's harsh, that he's impatient, and that he's he's he's there. I'm kind of waiting for you for the other shoe to drop if I mess up too bad. And so I, you know, personally, I I got away from that. Hippy's husband, I love Bellingham. Yeah. Yeah, Washington's a great state. Two of my adult kids live in Bellingham. Wow, nice. Denai says, people want their answers so badly they put their own thoughts and quotations and sign it. Sign it God. Yeah. That's true. That's true. They do. People, a lot of people, especially in leadership roles, have to be in charge. They have to be in control. And that's detrimental because in a system like that, it doesn't really fit into the body of Christ where Jesus said, It shall not be that way among you. No one's in control but Jesus. He's the Lord of Lords and the King of Kings. He's the great shepherd of the sheep. I'm not, you're not, he is. And he said there's to be no hierarchy within the body of Christ. There's not to be the use of uh honorific titles in the body of Christ in order to separate us from them. And yet look around us, that's what we have. Because people want badly to be in charge and to control others. Rob says, excellent podcast. You're talking about this one? I hope so. Thank you. By the way, this will be available in audio as an audio podcast after we're done. I am going to turn it into that since I am interacting with you and um repeating your uh comments on it, so it should be easy to follow in audio too, as well as uh video. Joyful Solutions. Is your name Joy? Joyful Solutions, or the solution is joyful. Either way, welcome. Glad you're here. Really glad you're here. In Reformed theology, the elders come to your home to examine you and your household to make sure you are holy enough. That's right. That's exactly right. That's exactly what happens, isn't it? You know, there was a thing in one of the churches that we were in back when, we which we left in 2009, so that's been a while. But one of the things there, this was kind of the leftovers from what you're talking about here, Joyful Solutions, is if someone wanted to be an elder, if some, you know, Paul said if anyone desires to be an elder, it's a good thing. And if someone wanted to be an elder, there would actually be this kind of an examination. We would pass out these little five by seven cards to everybody. And we would tell the people if there's somebody you think would be a good elder, write down their name. And if there's something that they need to work on that you think's keeping them from being an elder, list it. And so what would happen is these cards would be taken to these two individuals' homes who were mentioned as being an elder. Now get this. It didn't matter if the person wanted to be an elder or not. Their name was mentioned, and so they got a visit. And basically they got a visit that said, um, here's reasons one through whatever why you can't be an elder. And the guy's sitting there thinking, Well, I don't want to be an elder. I have no desire to do that. But they had to listen to that, they had to sit there through that and listen to all that. Isn't that sad? Here's why you can't be what you want to be or what we think you should be. But you're exactly right. Uh, in reformed theology, the elders are intrusive, they come into your home. I say, Don't let them in. Tell them no. You you are in control there, you have the right to do that. So, and they examine your household to make sure you're holy enough. What's going on in your house? You know, is you know, they get back to the to the role thing, which you know, we used to play into that two years ago. We don't anymore. You know, the is the husband leading the home right now, the kids holy enough, and is the wife holy enough and submissive? And you know, the wife basically in that situation becomes the the oldest of the children. She's not really an adult, she doesn't really have a mind of her own and a say of her own, and so uh will of her own. So, um Yeah, that whole thing just tears up families, but you're exactly right. Joyful solutions. I appreciate that. Rob says, Wow, joyful. Yeah. Double wow. Uh Michelle says, Happy Camper, are they connected with a grace community? I'm looking for fellowship. You know, that's a common problem, isn't it? When you leave churchanity, when you leave an institutional church, finding community can be a real um trial. Part of the reason is our definition of community, I think, is a little bit off. I think our definition of community, which is given to us by by institutional Christianity, is needs a little bit of tooling, of retooling. And I'm not even sure how to retool that myself. You know, I think I've done some of it, but not a whole lot, not enough to really talk about it with any kind of remedy. But I think it needs to be retooled because when we look in the New Testament, people weren't people weren't together all the time. Yeah, they would get together maybe once a week, at least in Corinthians. That's what they did that in Corinth. That's what they did, you know. They would come together once a week. That may be in other places too, you know, at the time. We don't really know. We know what was happening in Corinth. And um, but it was different than it is today. Somehow it was different. And again, I'm still kind of retooling that, so I probably should stop right there. Jay says, legalists love their law. Oh, absolutely, they do. They really do love their law. Everything revolves around that, doesn't it, Jay? You remove that law, and their whole system's gonna collapse. Lifelong learner, welcome. Love God and love one another. That's the whole of the law. Yeah, that's the whole of the law. But thankfully, we're not under that law. John said in 1 John, he said that we love, we love because he first loved us. Well, Jesus said, you know, love God with all your heart, mind, and soul, and your neighbor is yourself. And then he made this amazing statement that we read right right past. He said, On this hinges all of the law and the prophets. That's old covenant. It isn't up to you and I and our ability to love God and love one another. In the new covenant, in the gospel of grace in the new covenant, we love because he first loved us. That's grace. That's the new covenant. Old covenant, love the Lord your God with all your heart, mind, and soul, and your neighbor as yourself. New covenant, God loves us so much that in Galatians 2.20, he gave himself for us. That's love. In this is love. Not that we love God, but that he loved us. Now we do love God, but it's imperfect. Under the law, it couldn't be imperfect. Under the law, it was be perfect, as your Father in heaven is perfect. And that means love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your mind, with all your soul. How do you do that? I don't know how to do that. My heart gets divided. My likes and dislikes get divided. You know, I can't do that. But what I can do is believe that God loves me, regardless of my performance. So, yeah, lifelong learner. You're absolutely right. That's the whole law. Thank you, Jesus, that we're not under that law. Hippie Camper talking to Michelle. By the way, I love it when you guys talk to each other. It's awesome. Sadly, no, they were raised knowing Jesus as their savior, but are wandering, but Jesus hasn't left them. Yeah, you know, that's that's so true, Michelle. You know, it's hard to find community. And, you know, with our kids, we go through different chapters in life, don't we? I'm 70 years old, and I can tell you this: that life is long. If you stick around long enough. Life is long and you go through different seasons, you go through different chapters. And it's important that we don't judge someone by the chapter of their life that we happen to walk in on. I've had times in my life where I wasn't believing. It doesn't mean Jesus left me. It means that I got up, I got beat up by religion and I had enough. And I walked away. We both walked away. And that doesn't mean that God gave up on me or that there was ever a time when I wasn't a believer. I was in a season of life where I needed to express myself differently. And I'm thankful for the friends that we had at that time who let us do that. They didn't try to correct us, they let us drop F-bombs, they let us be who we were in the moment. And they were there to help us, to support us, because they had experienced some of the similar things and they knew what we were going through. So, yeah, it's especially tough with our kids. I can relate to that. Um pray for them. Just pray for them. Jay says, Ryan, no business being there. Our fleshly minds desire at the law. That's exactly right. That's exactly right. Lifelong learner says, but my question is, you speak of the church age, but did you say you don't adhere to dispensation dispensationalism? I always understood church age as a dispensational term. You know, I've never used the word church age. I don't think I have. When I was a dispensationalist, I probably did, but that was a long time ago. That was in the 1980s, 1990s, maybe. Um, I don't think this is a church age. I prefer to use the terms that Scripture uses because then I can open scripture and define those terms. And the term that scripture uses is the new covenant. And so that's what we're under right now. Again, church. Let me back up a minute for anyone who may be new, maybe listening to this, you know, after it's done and playing it back. Some of you know this, and so I'll try not to, I'll try not to bore you with it. But um, you know, the word church, our English word church came into existence from what I've been able to tell, which again, I'm you know, I'm no brainiac, I'm no historian. But from the studying that I've done, the research that I've done with it, our word church, modern English word church, came into existence about 500 AD, right around there somewhere. And it it literally meant a Lord's possession. A Lord's possession. Now, when I look in the Greek New Testament, you know, there's a word in there uh translated as something of the Lord's, a Lord's possession. It's kuriokon, the Greek word kuriakon, which doesn't mean anything to anybody, right? But like I said at the beginning of this uh, what is this live stream? I almost said broadcast, the beginning of this broadcast, and I get on my announcer voice. But when I said what I said at the or something I mentioned toward the beginning of this live stream, is that that Greek word Kuriakon only appears two times in the New Testament. It appears regarding the Lord's Supper in 1 Corinthians 11. It appears regarding the Lord's day in the book of Revelation, chapter 1, I believe. Those are the only two occurrences of what should be properly understood as the English word church in the New Testament. Everywhere else, most everywhere else, that the word church is translated in the New Testament, it's not the word church, it's the word ecclesia, which means a congregation. It's a simple word. It's a simple word referring to a gathering, a congregation, not a church. There weren't any churches. And that's an important aspect to get. And in the new covenant, the law of Moses has been abolished, Ephesians 2, again, Colossians 2, Galatians 3. It's no longer around. And what we have today is Jew and Gentile in one body of Christ, which is the new covenant body of Christ. It has nothing to do with the old covenant. And yeah, you're right, that's a dispensational term, um, lifelong. It really is. I don't adhere to dispensationalism. I used to again back in the 80s or you know, probably maybe into the early 90s before I went the Calvinistic way. But um, which again, I'm not a Calvinist anymore. But yeah, I used to use those terms, but no, I'm not a dispensationalist. And uh can I say one more thing about that? I'm keeping you guys kind of long. I'll hurry here. Um, you know, we're talking about dispensationalism and covenant theology. Those are two different systems of theology that view the Bible completely different. Covenant theology has the law of Moses in some form in every age. The moral law again. It was in the it was in the garden with Adam and Eve, and it's here today, and it isn't gonna end. Dispensationalism is the other way. Dispensationalism says, no, no, no, no, no. There's Israel and there's the church, and they're making a strong distinction between the two. Which I, you know, I agree with some aspects of that, but here's the deal. Here's what I want to say. Reformed theology or covenant theology can't get Israel and the church apart. They're one thing. In fact, they call Israel the church in the Old Testament. And so there's no real distinction between the nation of Israel and the body of Christ today, the church today, that they'll call it. Whereas dispensationalism can't get them together. Reformed theology can't get them apart, and dispensationalism can't bring them together because they have such a clear-cut distinction between Jew and Gentile, but Paul brought them together in Ephesians 2, didn't he? When Jesus abolished the law and his body of flesh while he was hanging on the cross in order to bring the two together, Jew and Gentile into one body of Christ. That's all I'll say there. If you want more on that, maybe we can do that as another deal. Jeffrey, question. When exactly did the old covenant end and the new covenant begin? At the cross. Right there at the cross, when Jesus died. Again, I'll refer you back to Ephesians 2. Um, he abolished the law, he abolished the that that covenant ended right there. Remember, the the veil of the temple was torn in two, remember? So the Holy of Holies, this most holy place that only the high priest could enter once a year, because God presented himself there. His presence was there. And you couldn't just walk in there. You couldn't just stroll in. I think I'll go sit in here. In fact, there weren't any chairs. You couldn't sit anywhere in there. Well, when the temple veil was torn in two, scripture tells us that that signified that the way was open. What way? The way to approach God, the way to boldly approach the throne of grace, as we're told. It opened up, and all of a sudden, this holy of holies became just like any other room. I could walk in there and smoke a cigar and live. Because the old covenant came to an end and the new covenant began, and everything changed at that moment. Jay says, right on, Mike, I think our fleshly minds desire the law and works. Absolutely they do. But when are you done? You know? It's like if you're justified by works, which ones, which works are you justified by? And how do you know when you're done? Are you ever done? There's no resting there. Michelle says, we feel like the new life should have the, let me read that again. We feel like the new life should have the familiar. The world system is familiar. Walking with Jesus is not the same at all. Hooray. That's exactly right. It's a new life. It's a new birth. It's a new heart. It's a new existence. Denai says, do you think people preaching obey the law actually think they are obeying it? Maybe some of them do. You know, we we pick and choose, don't we? Even though they say the Ten Commandments is the moral law of God, they don't look at all ten of them. They might have seven or eight. They can't do ten. It's impossible. You can't possibly do that. It's impossible. You can't keep the Sabbath. How are you gonna do that? You can't. There's a lot of stuff in there that just can't can't happen. Larry Sullivan, welcome. Glad you're here, Larry. We're not gonna go too much longer, although this could go on for days. Just kidding. Just kidding. I'll get you out of here as quick as I can. Okay, P. Netter, thank you for being here. I appreciate you being here. I just wish I could give you a great big oomph of a hug. Well, give me a cyber hug. How's that? Um yeah. I uh I got a notice here a second ago that someone did something in the chat, but I don't see it now. Did one of you give me something in the chat? I'm not looking at the website, I'm looking at eCamm, which is my software for doing this. If I bring up the website, that's gonna feed back the audio and it'll get nasty. So uh yeah, let me know if somebody gave me something. It seemed like something flashed on my screen and then it went away. So P Netter, yeah, yeah, hug you back, man. Appreciate it. Appreciate it very much. Christian side hug, you know, no? Church hug, as they call it. Peanutter says, make it two hugs. Patricia in Boston, Massachusetts area area. Patricia, thank you for joining us, man. Boston, what a what a history there, you know. Church history, country history, man, so much began in Boston. I'm really glad you're here. Thank you for uh for letting me know your name, and thank you for being here. Deny Satan says, J Bird, funny worship band story. I was playing next to the preacher, and he looked over at me and quietly said, we don't play minor notes here. Oh man, was it a dirge? Yeah, those minor notes, you know. I tell you, those will get you down. Yeah, that's hilarious. You know, when I led music in church, I uh just me and the guitar mostly. And this was back in the day, so I had an overhead projector, really high tech, right? Me and a guitar, an overhead projector, and I had a notebook full of transparencies of songs, and I got tired of picking out the songs. So one Sunday I showed up and I just told everybody, this is All Request Sunday. What do you want to sing? And they would say a song, and I'd pull it out of my little notebook and throw it on the overhead projector, and we'd do that song, All Request Sunday. And it was kind of fun. I lost all of that when uh that whole thing kind of became a mess. But yeah, um, All Request Sunday was fun. It was just me and the guitar. Nana of seven, this is my wife Susan, everybody. Say hi to Susan. She's been here, she's been listening in, and see what she has to say. When you don't have to have all the answers, it frees us to love one another. Wow. Thank you, babe. That's awesome. Really glad I hired you. I'm gonna hear about that one. So, yeah, Nana of Seven is my wife Susan, and you know, we've been together 52 years coming up this summer, and uh, she's got so much wisdom. Man, you know, we have the Grace Cafe podcast, which we don't do much anymore because you know, life kind of happens, and it's just it's not like it used to be, it's free-flowing. So, but man, she would come on there and say things, you know, she was a glue that held that thing together, and she would say some amazing things. And uh yeah, here's one of them. You know, when you don't have all the answers, it frees you up to love one another. Man, we should frame that. I think that's really good. I appreciate that. Lisa says regarding attendance and works, the church just kept raising the bar. It was exhausting. I couldn't wait to get back to work on Monday. I hear you, Lisa. I hear you. You had to get back to work to take a break. You know, I was approached after we kind of left church a little bit. We were still, we still were dipping our toe in this one a little bit, every once in a while. And they wanted to bring me on the pastor thing. And I said, Well, what does that mean? And they said, Well, first of all, you're going to have to commit to always being here every time the doors are open. This was a you know good-sized church. So their doors were open, I think, three or four times on Sunday, and then during the week, probably three or four times, and you know, you had to be there to do all of that. Talk about raising the bar. Wow, I got tired just thinking about that. I said no thanks, and that's kind of when we made the you know a bigger break. Sunflowers says, Lisa, I agree, and I totally understand. Absolutely, I do too. Grant says, the question isn't how good are you doing today? It's how good is Christ doing today. Amen. And he's always doing good, isn't he? He's always interceding for us by his death on the cross. Hippie Camper looking at our performance is like Peter looking at the wind and waves and not at Jesus. Amen. That's true. Because when we take our eyes off of Jesus, we take our eyes off of the author and finisher of our faith, then the circumstances around us can swallow us up in a hurry. And we lose things like our joy, our confidence, etc., etc. Fruit of the Spirit starts to wane, and in its place comes fruit of the flesh, which isn't a fruit at all. It's sour fruit. Joyful Solutions. In the reformed community, if you are a member and leave and go to another church, they will hunt you down and make sure it is biblically sound. That is so true. Wow, joyful solutions. I um I'm picking up your vibe here. I'm sorry that you've been through so much of this. And uh, but man, we're right there with you. Susan and I are right there with you, and uh we understand, you know, we get that. They will hunt you down. It's so cultish at times, isn't it? And it's got no business uh being what it is. I think, I think um I'm gonna be doing a video soon with a friend who has interviewed us on her podcast a couple of times, who has a reformed background, and she's gonna be talking about her story. And that's a little bit further down the road, but uh you know, you might be interested in that episode when it happens. It's not gonna be a live stream, it's just gonna be a regular video, and I'll be recording that in a couple of weeks, I think. But yeah, similar stories, you know, similar stories to yours. Our story is similar to yours, hers is similar to yours. It's just a controlling environment that uh talks about grace, you know, it talks about uh, it, you know, it talks about grace, but it doesn't know what grace is. Not experientially. It has its own, it has its own version of it on paper. Okay, O O T I, what is that? Uh I'm gonna butcher that one too. So just welcome. Welcome to the show. I'm glad you're here. I heard someone say the ten C's aren't to be looked at as thou shalt not, but rather uh you don't have to's. As in, you don't have you don't need to look to another God because you have me, etc. But that's not what they were. That's not what they were at all. The Ten Commandments were part of the 63 other commands in the old covenant. They were all a unit together, and they were brutal. The law wasn't um, you don't need to look at anyone else because you have me. The law was do this and live, don't do this and die. The law was fail to do what I tell you to do, and I will kill you. That's the law. Deuteronomy 27 and 28. Where they're, you know, the crowds are on Mount Ebel and Mount Gerizim, I think it is, and they're shouting blessings and cursings back and forth. Wow, what a what a day that must have been. If you don't keep the law perfectly, you will die. And so, yeah, it's uh so much more than that, isn't it? Appreciate the comment. Appreciate you being here. Hey, Vicky, how are you? Mike, one of the things I have been most convinced about is how Christianity treats those in the LGBQ, LGBTQ community. How do you handle objections to Christians who seem to think that LGBTQ is worse? You know, we have a calling in this new covenant body of Christ, don't we? And that calling is to love one another. I'm gonna love these people. It isn't my job to condemn, it isn't my job to ostracize. I'm gonna love them. I don't agree with it, but that doesn't stop me from loving them. And so that would be my response to that. Simply to love. Absolutely. Danay says, as a young believer, I walked into a Baptist church. A few minutes later, two elders came in and said, I smelt like a demon. Wow. What is your name, demon? I wanted to say legion. Maybe I needed a shower. You should have said legion and see and kind of get the reaction, see what happens. That's horrible, man. That's absolutely horrible. I'm sorry that happened to you. I've never had that happen to me. Andrew, hi Michelle. We are in Chilin. Chilen, Washington? And hi Mike. Hi, Andrew. Glad you're here. Really glad you're here. Okay, let's move through a couple more of these, and then I think I'm going to close it up here. Humble Meek says, hello from Delaware. I found your show at an important time for me when you spoke in the park. Oh, yeah, I remember that. I have been listening to you since. Thank you for all the questions you answered. Oh, you're welcome. Thank you, Humble Meek, for being here. I really appreciate that. I appreciate the kind comment. Very much so. Denai says, Hippies, Hippies Hub. Hippies Hubby. It has been a ride. Yeah, it sounds like it. Sounds like it really has. Same church, the elders sent me to Pastor who said I was like a reprobate and had handed me the Gospel of John Lol. I'm sorry, man. I'm sorry. Yeah. Isn't it funny how in a lot of churches pastor doesn't have a name, he's just pastor. I hate that word. You know, I dislike that word. Let me put it that way. The word pastor has a bit of history, religious history. The word translated pastors in our Bible, in uh Ephesians, what is it, Ephesians 4? You know, he gave some elders and pastors, whatever. It's only mentioned one time there, but it's the same word that's translated shepherd everywhere else in the New Testament, except that one passage. It's the same word, but for some reason, there it's translated pastor. And the reason why, I think, is because of the social pressure of the interpreter, of those translating the New Testament, who recognize this false layer of authority of this pastor, and so they stuck in the word pastor. The Greek word is poim, it means shepherd. It doesn't mean this professional Christian position who's over everybody else and knows more than everybody else, or has some kind of anointing no one else has. It's not that way. Pastor. I've been in churches like that where pastor doesn't have a name, he's just pastor. Maybe he's executive pastor, you know, and there's this hierarchy that goes on. Don't get me started. Okay. Hey, Deny, it was you. Wow, thank you.$4.99 from Deny. Wow, I appreciate that. If I had some kind of a little graphic, I've got to make a little graphic thing in case anybody does this again. Some little explosion or something, some celebration of uh I appreciate that, man. Thank you very much. Really appreciate it. Lisa says, my late husband and I attended an IFB church for several years. Independent fundamental Baptists is what that means, if you're not familiar with that. Sounds like that's what Denai was in. Uh, he was previously married and divorced. We had the mark of the beast on us. It was considered the unforgivable sin. Gosh. That's disgusting. I'm sorry, Lisa. I'm sorry that happened. God deliver us from this kind of thinking, this kind of nonsense. It's got no place in the Christian's life. So, Lisa, I'm really sorry for that. Joyful Solutions, my name is Susie. Hi, Susie. Thank you for letting us know your name. That's my motto and business name, Joyful Solutions. Glad you're here. Thank you so much for letting us know that. Devon with fishing by faith. What's your take on the book of James and Faith Without Works is dead? I'm going to do a video on that. In fact, I've well, I won't show it to you. I've got some books here that I've been researching that. And I did a there's a video back here on the on my channel if you want to go look for it on that topic. I uh did a video with the guys from Growing and Grace. It's been a probably two years now, um, where we talked about James, and we talked about do James and Paul agree. My take on the book of James is number one, it was the first book written in the New Testament, and Paul got later revelation. And James seems to be all about the law of Moses. Remember, James was written, James is a uh Hebrew, he was a he was an old covenant Jew. He was a half-brother of Jesus, who didn't believe in Jesus during Jesus' earthly ministry, and I guess came to faith sometime after that. But James was an old covenant Jew who was writing to Jews. His audience wasn't Gentiles, his audience was Jews. Let me see, where was the where is that? Uh I want to bring that back up here. There it is. Um James was all about the law. In fact, if you go to what is it, Acts 15, we'll see a little bit of the history there. There were people sent from James telling those Gentile believers that they needed to obey the law of Moses and be circumcised in addition to believe. It's the same James. I think James and Paul disagreed. That's probably about all I'm going to say right now because I want you to watch my video when it comes out. And so be watching for that. But I think James and Paul disagreed. I think Paul had later revelation. I think I think James misunderstood works. When James says works, he's talking about works of the law. He's talking about, you know, faith without works is dead, but Paul says no, faith without works is much, very much alive. So I'll save that. That kind of sets up the scenario for you so that when I do do that video, and I'm not sure when that's going to come out, but I'm going to make it sooner than later. Uh you'll have a little teaser. Call that a teaser right there. All right. Susie says the elders' kids are not working, the elders' kids are not walking with the Lord. Frightening that it's so similar to the Mormon religion I was raised in. Wow, you too, huh? I became a Mormon when I was eight years old, Susie. Not because I believed in Mormonism, but because all my friends were there, and my parents said I had to go to church somewhere. So I went where my friends were. But anyway, yeah, I became, I became a Mormon, part of the Mormon religion. And then in 1973, when I became a believer, probably about, I don't know, four or five years after that, I started looking into Mormonism and uh realized what I had gotten myself into. And so I started speaking to that on Sunday nights in our church and ended up getting excommunicated from that Mormon religion. But yeah. We have that in common, Vicky, or uh Susie. Jay says, deny Satan, that's crazy about the Baptist elders. Yeah, sure is, man. Things are out of control. Hippie Camper, thank you so much for your comments about our adult kids wandering, Mike. Amen. Just love them through all phases and lots of prayer. That's all you can do. You don't want to lose them. You don't want to lose them. You you want you want to be there. You want them to know that you're there, to trust you. Lydia says, I'm glad you said that. I don't remember what we're talking about, but I'm probably glad to. Did I say in J. Bird? Uh that's the that's just the tip of the iceberg. It all started when I was a kid in the audience of Jim and Tammy. Oh wow, you were in the audience there? Okay, that's a story that we'll have to hear someday. Sunflowers needs to go. Have a lovely day. Happy camper, bye, sunflower. Yeah, Jimmy and Tammy Baker. Wow, that's a that's quite a deal. My phone just dinged. I guess I forgot to put it on silent. Okay, Denai. I grew up near uh CBN in Virginia Beach. Okay, I used to be Pentecostal Wesleyan with a touch of Baptist who was taught to be word of faith. There you go. And attended the Holiness Church. Wow. I was never involved in any of that. That just sounds exhausting to me. Yeah. What a background. I did see Petra. I loved Petra. I loved the Praise 2 album. I still listened to it. Petra Praise Two. Great album. Jesus Salvation, the law of the Lord is perfect, converting the soul. Yeah, David said that, didn't he? Back in the Psalms, right? David said that. Yeah, he was a guy who was under the law, and the law of the Lord is perfect. I mean, he was he was committed to obeying that that law which couldn't convert the soul. He said it converted the soul. I don't see that anywhere. You know, by the works of the law, no one's made justified. You know, Paul said it's not going to happen. But when you're living under the law and you're obligated to keeping the law, this makes perfect sense. Absolutely, it makes perfect sense. Again, I think this is a this is an example of interpreting Scripture in context. This isn't for every age. This doesn't apply to you and I. This is David under the law, back right in the thick of things under the law. And so let's let's put it in that context and keep it there and work with it there and see what applies to us. I appreciate you bringing that up. Okay, I'm gonna kind of go through here and just pick out a couple more and then we're gonna close up. Okay, S2A1H. Hi Mike from Chuck and Terry. Yeah, thank you for the names. I appreciate that. Chuck and Terry from Maine. We love your other channel about getting older. Yeah, I have another channel. I don't advertise my channels on other channels because I like to I like to let YouTube find um the people that like those channels. I think it helps the channel, other than me pushing someone over there who may not enjoy it. But yeah, I do have another channel. I will tell you the channel name. It's uh at the aging retiree. Huh? I'm aging and I'm retired. At the aging retiree. And I just talk about retirement over there, I talk about getting older, you know, I bring some faith things into it from time to time. That's not really the point of the chapter, but uh I do I do do that from time to time. And so if you're so inclined to watch an old guy talk about uh uh life getting older and retirement, go check it out. Absolutely. Hippie Camper, yes, we listen to the Grace Cafe podcast. Love them. Yeah, I did too. All right, let me go down through here. Thank you. Mike, you look great at 70. Thanks. I had makeup come in here and do me up before this. And yeah, I got new glasses so I can see now. Oh, by the way, today's episode is brought to you by my chemotherapy hat. This is one of the hats that I wore during chemo with the 1% battery. What that means is that was indicative of my life for about a year and a half or so. Uh, during chemo and radiation, my internal battery was down to about 1%. And I didn't know if I was going to make it or not, but God is good and saw me through it. So, yeah, that's I want to showcase hats from time to time in here, I think. But thank you. I appreciate you saying that. All right. Lisa says this church members would frequently try and ask personal questions like an interrogation. Yeah. Trying to determine if you're spiritually fit. It was disturbing. I would rather be interrogated by the FBI. I hear you. Gets back to the whole spiritual disciplines thing, doesn't it? You know, are you praying enough? What are you reading? Are you reading enough? Are you memorizing scripture? You have people in your life, you know that whole thing. You know, it's all performance-based Christianity, and it's going to defeat you and deflate you if you allow it to. But you don't have to allow it to. You can say no. You cannot answer the door. You can say, I'm not interested. And you get to be an adult. You can do that. Susie, having candid conversations about faith with my adult children has brought us so much closer together. I raised them in church. I am the stepmother. They loved it at the time. Grace and love. Yeah, there you go. Grace and love. Appreciate that. I agree that this is Devin with fishing. I agree. That is what I've come to understand. Thank you and look forward to that video. Oh, you're very welcome. James and uh Paul. I think we need to quit putting Paul's words in James' mouth. All right. Joe, welcome, Joe. Hey Mike, thankful for your passion to expose people to the kindness of God toward believers. Oh, thank you. Thank you very much for that. I appreciate it. Kindness is not out of style. In fact, it's a fruit of the spirit, isn't it? To be kind. Hippie Camper, thank you, Jesus, for getting Mike and Susan through that season of fighting cancer. Thank you very much for that. I am going to, with that, go back here to this screen. And I'm going to close this baby up. We've been going almost an hour and a half. I hope that wasn't too long. I appreciate every one of you. I appreciate you coming on here with me. I appreciate you participating in this. I'd like to do more of these. Maybe, you know, I want to try and do a live stream every Sunday. Not like this, but maybe once a month do one of these. You know, kind of answer questions and bring up issues and just have more of an open discussion, open forum kind of a thing, as it were. And kind of see where that goes. So I am planning on being here again next Sunday at 1 p.m. Eastern Time. That seems to work the best for everybody. I appreciate all of you being here. Again, if you like what's going on, please consider subscribing if you haven't already. And feel free to share this video with others. If you are so inclined, I would appreciate it. So I'm going to sign off. This is Mike signing off from somewhere in Arizona. And uh as soon as I hit end broadcast, it's going to fade to black. So again, thank you for being here. And until next time, y'all take care.

SPEAKER_01 1:23:21

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