Welcome And Series Kickoff

SPEAKER_00 0:08

Welcome and thanks for joining us on this episode of the Midweek Podcast, brought to you by a Fresh Wind Church. Each week, our team brings you new content to help you take steps towards Jesus and discover more in Christ. Today's episode is hosted by Pastor Ryan.

SPEAKER_03 0:27

Well, hey, welcome back to the Midweek Podcast. Pastor Ryan joined us always with Pastor Tim, and this week we are kicking off our brand new series called Dinner Party. And uh, Tim, you had the uh the honor of kind of kicking this one off.

SPEAKER_01 0:43

Yeah, it was a it was a good study for me. I, you know, a lot of times um when we're doing a series, it doesn't always turn out the uh way I would actually want it to go. But this time, uh, I think I like this, this whole dinner party thing. Uh it's something Teresa and I were talking about it. It's something that doesn't happen anymore, you know? Um sit-down dinners. Uh, you still having sit-down dinners at your house?

SPEAKER_03 1:15

We try fall, is is probably the toughest season, but we make it a point as often as we can to, yeah, we like we don't eat in the living room, um, in front of the TV. No, everyone's sitting down at the table. Um, one of my boys tries to eat as fast as he can and then get off and go do whatever. And it's like, uh, no, you come sit back down here. We're this is family time. So we we try to prioritize that still. Um, but I think by and large, it has it has become kind of a relic of the past, man. Um just in the busyness of of life and sports and uh recitals and rehearsals and all this stuff, people are just running everywhere, you know, and people are are working crazy hours and swing shifts and all this stuff. It it's hard to kind of build in that that space. And then I just think culturally, we've kind of we've lost it's lost its appeal for us. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 2:12

Burgers, burgers in the car and a nine o'clock snack, and that's about all the time that we get.

SPEAKER_03 2:18

And I mean, we you know, we're gonna we're gonna watch the game tonight, and so that's pizza and wings on you know Thursday night. And it so you just it becomes easier and easier to do those things disassociated

Whatever Happened To Family Dinner

SPEAKER_03 2:30

from the table, you know, and so it's it's kind of a rare thing, I think, for for a lot of people to actually have that moment. And then, you know, I if you remember the last Christmas series we did, I kind of went this 90s nostalgic vibe on the graphics and stage setting, because I kind of had I don't know, that's when I grew up, you know, Christmas in the 90s. And so there's kind of this longing for for that, that you know, I'll be home for Christmas idea and and what home look like. Um and and as I picture, you know, Thanksgiving dinner party, you know, so we're obviously making a playoff of that whole thing here. Um, and I just remember growing up and having these giant table spreads and everybody being there. And you did, you brought out the the nice dishes, and um, I think at my grandma's house, you know, they would put a giant tablecloth over the pool table. It was the biggest table that they had, and that's where everything got set up. Um, but everybody was there, you know, we're all eating together around this place, and now it just seems a little more chaotic. And we still get together for Thanksgiving, but uh people are kind of rolling in and out, and they got multiple places to go. And so it just it doesn't seem like it has that that same connection that it used to.

SPEAKER_01 3:48

Growing up, my dad uh we would have our dinners um, you know, after school. Everybody get your homework done, okay. Everybody's gotta be home and at the house at 5, 5.30, and then we had dinner. And um it it was when um it was when we talked about stuff as a family, you know, what we liked, what we didn't like, politics, um something dad said in the pulpit or something we disagreed with, and you know, and we would argue and get loud and and uh but that was our dinner, you know, whoever whoever was the loudest winds type thing. And um and we kinda we kinda got into it and until um Tammy and I started driving and then we had cars and work, we could be somewhere else and and all that kind of stuff, and and it kinda faded out. And uh then when Trace and I had kids, we s we started that and uh we'd always start the conversation what was the best part of your day, what was the worst part of your day and um we we talked about things too and then they got a little bit older and then it and uh now my kids all moved out and it's just me and Teresa and you know uh for a while there we got a somebody got us a uh membership or subscription to this food that would come to your house but you had to cook it.

SPEAKER_03 5:31

Which like HelloFresh or one of those things?

SPEAKER_01 5:33

Yeah, or one of those things. And uh we started having kind of fun. We would we would make that and we'd sit down and eat together and and uh and that was kind of fun. And then you end up back into um what'd you have for you're gonna get something for dinner? I had a salami sandwich. So okay. Oh, so now I gotta go get my own dinner. Um and it's easy it's easy to fall into that uh when you don't have those kids anymore, uh kind of pulling you all together, and you think, man, we need to do this as a family.

When Politics Turns Meals Into Fights

SPEAKER_01 6:05

Uh but dinner has always been a huge thing through history, uh sitting down to dinner. And uh I think Trump might have ruined it. We've had Trump now for how long has it been? Uh ten years. And uh now everybody's um instead of having a a political conversation, they have a fight. And uh I'm not coming back. And if your friends are Republicans, you're not a friend of mine, or uh I can't believe you would, you know, you'd be a Democrat and or whatever. And it's really split families up, and we've got our counselors out there saying, hey, you know, you can cut those people off. It's like, what are you talking about? Dinner was always a safe spot. That's what it was supposed to be. It wasn't supposed to be the uh, you know, the ring, what it what do they call the ring for MMA? The octagon. The octagon. Yeah, you're supposed to sit down and and be courteous enough to understand that someone made you dinner. And uh, yeah, you might not agree with them, but you don't have to slam that down at the table every time you speak. Um I I really don't know what's happened to our culture in that way. It's just everybody wants to be mad. Um, they want to cut off their friends, and then they want all their other friends to know that they cut them off and that they should cut them off too, and then it just goes on and on and on and on. And uh I think the dinner could pull us back together. You know, getting um getting a chance to be invited to someone

A Church Experiment With Shared Meals

SPEAKER_01 7:55

else's house. So we have embarked as a church on the dinner party. It's called uh family dinner, and uh Troy is our guinea pig. He's uh trying this out, he's taking a few families from the church, and uh for a month or so they have dinner together once a week.

SPEAKER_03 8:15

I think they're meeting once a month, but he's doing it like three or four times. And uh he came to us, yeah, with this idea of this family dinner and inviting different families in the church, and he's being pretty strategic about who he's picking, trying to get some people who maybe normally wouldn't come together for dinner and making them a meal and saying, Hey, here's the night, you guys come over, we're gonna have a meal together.

SPEAKER_01 8:39

Yep. And the kids are involved and all that kind of stuff. And now I seen him uh Sunday before left, uh recruiting another cook, you know, someone else to have a family dinner and and invite people over and and uh trying to bring them together because that you know dinner used to be intimate. And uh when someone made dinner for you, it was to honor you. And we look at the other way around, you know. Uh when Teresa and I were raising our kids, you know, my mom's making dinner um so I may grace her with my presence. You know, it's like, no, she's making dinner, and you know what goes with that cleaning the house, um grocery shopping, getting all that stuff together. Um she's not grub hubbing and you're showing up to eat it, it's dinner. She cooked it. And if you've ever cooked, which is I know there's a lot of people who love to cook out there, and that's because you're crazy. That's just I don't know. I don't know. Um, I can't cook anything anymore. I used to thought I was a pretty good cook. I burn everything, every medium steak that I'm trying to make is, you know, like the leather of my shoe, and uh Teresa can't trust me anymore. Did your alarm go off? Go out there and look. What's going on? Um,

Matthew Hears Two Words Follow Me

SPEAKER_01 10:10

but it takes a lot of effort to put together a dinner, and uh that's what uh we see Matthew do for Jesus. Jesus singled him out in front of everybody and said, Follow me. And he did. And instead of being embarrassed or saying no or whatever, Matthew got up and left.

SPEAKER_03 10:37

It's interesting to think about what what was running through Matthew's head when when Jesus said that, right? Because we look at that and and you read it, and it just seems I think a lot of us we've we've read the Bible stories, right? Or we grew up in church, so we we've heard this. But these tax collectors made some s pretty serious money. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 10:57

Just look at the Zacchaeus story, how much money he promised to pay back.

SPEAKER_03 11:01

It's like whoa, whoa. Yeah, he he's paying back how much? Right. And so, yeah, they they when when it says that he he got up and followed Jesus, I mean, to walk away from all of that is is a pretty significant thing. And it's like, man, what was it about Jesus that when he looked at looked at Matthew and said, Follow me, he was like, All right, wherever you go.

SPEAKER_01 11:29

And it wasn't follow me to the mall. Remember, this is uh Jesus is a rabbi, and those words everybody heard, you know, the rabbi would come through, test the children, those who had the uh Torah completely memorized and uh could answer some questions about the prophets and stuff like that, then a rabbi might say, Follow me, and you would become his disciple. Well, everybody who Jesus went to had had a rabbi come through their village and say, Not you. You know? Yeah, Peter, John, Andrew, uh Simon the Zealot, all those guys and Levi, they were the ones that the rabbi said, not good enough. And then right out here in the middle of Matthew's career, he steps in and says, Follow me. And he did. He did. Now he was um probably where he was in Capernaum, he was probably uh taxing stuff coming into the city and uh not taxing the villages and every farmer and you know uh that kind of thing. I got you on the rolls, you owe this much tax or whatever. He was taxing things that were coming in. Now here's the interesting thing about tax collectors

Why Tax Collectors Were Despised

SPEAKER_01 13:01

is that they paid the government, they paid uh Herod, who then paid Rome up front. Rome said, I want this amount much amount money, so they said, Well, I got this many tax collectors, let's divide it by the tax collector. So each tax collector owes, you know, a thousand gold. And they paid it up front. They haven't got a dime yet. Now they have to go get the money from the people.

unknown 13:32

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 13:32

Now they had enforcers, they had their uh guards and stuff to make sure people paid and there was a system involved, so it wasn't like they just went and beat up people and took money and they were allowed to do that, but they then went and collected the tax. As soon as they got a thousand gold and they were in the black, everything else was profit. And uh I don't think a lot of them stopped after they got their thousand gold and you know, ten percent profit on that, you know, uh take a vacation until next year. I just kept going.

SPEAKER_03 14:08

Yeah, what a attempting business model, right? Yeah, if you had that upfront money. Yeah. Well, I I mean to get more, you know, like you human nature is I'm not gonna stop, I'm gonna get as much as I can. Rome was smart to say, hey, you want to light a fire under these guys, you collect this money up front. Make they owe us, and so I don't know what that negotiation between the government and the tax collectors look like, but they they pay that up front, and then now, all right, I gotta go and I gotta recoup what I've already paid out, and then I gotta try to get as much as I can for me. Right. And like like you said with Zach Keus, man, when Jesus confronts him, he's like, listen, whatever I've taken, I'll give back four times as much. You're like, four times? Where is all that money coming from?

SPEAKER_01 15:03

Yeah. So these guys that showed up at this banquet, which were tax collectors and sinners, they were all wealthy men.

SPEAKER_02 15:10

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 15:11

Um and economically wealthy in that time puts you in a type of leadership, uh, whether the Jews wanted to recognize it or not. You know, they got a lot of money, and uh money can bribe, and then you can get what you want. So these guys had a lot of money, they had a lot of um uh social power, even though they were hated.

unknown 15:36

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 15:36

Kind of like the the tech bros, right? Everybody hates them, but they got a lot of power. Um the Jews hated them. They decided that they were traitors uh from the get-go. Um, and there was a really deep hostility uh towards the tax collectors, and they became the bottom of the barrel with the shepherds.

SPEAKER_03 16:02

Well, I think they were under murderers, right? Like Did you kill a guy? Okay, you can come for dinner. Tax collector, no, sorry, you're not fighting like how crazy is this system?

SPEAKER_01 16:13

I mentioned in the sermon that the Mishnah uh had a phrase there that said, uh you could lie to a tax collector and it's okay with God.

SPEAKER_03 16:26

Wow.

SPEAKER_01 16:27

How about that?

SPEAKER_03 16:28

They were driving is that gospel?

SPEAKER_01 16:30

Yeah, it is something about those ten commandments, I think. Yeah, just lying that one out when there's a tax collector around. So the implication, I think, is um Jesus calls Levi and his willingness to recline at a table full of tax collectors was a deliberate, highly visible act of crossing a major social barrier for Jesus. And he

The Kingdom Invites The Unwanted

SPEAKER_01 17:05

did it on purpose. And uh and I think what what he's modeling here is the kingdom. You know, when he preached and he said, Well, the kingdom of God is like. The kingdom of God is like. This is what the kingdom of God is like. You pick out the guy that you think is the worst guy in the crowd, and Jesus will walk up to him and say, Follow me. And we need to recognize the kingdom for what it is. Because there's some people that we don't actually like. It's uh um we're running through this election today. Uh this is the Tuesday before this podcast comes out, and um there's some people out there saying stuff. We know they're lying. You know, how do you know when a politician is lying? It's when his lips are moving, right? Everybody he says one thing and we got video of him saying something else. And uh just all kinds of crazy things going out there, and man, it's uh today's the day for Christians to lean into the Holy Spirit and um because he's the only one who can figure all this mess out. I think our country is in a in um a quagmire because people have lost so much faith in the system itself. Uh Congress isn't doing his job, we're forty trillion dollars in debt, you know. Um all those different things we're like what's going on and does it matter? Do I matter? Does my vote matter? Um I think we're called in Romans chapter thirteen, I think we're called to because the government is placed on our shoulders, uh, we're responsible and we should vote. And there should, you know, there'll be some things that we stand in front of God. Um I want to have voted no for that. Right. You know, I want it I want it to be known from now and for eternity more that I said no. Yeah, whatever the country did.

SPEAKER_03 19:13

And I, you know, can't be responsible for what the leader ended up doing with that vote, but you can go back and you can look at the voter rolls in history. I said no. Right. Um man, and I think I hear so many people, it's like, I'm just so sick of you know voting for the lesser of two evils. I I think a lot of people have just checked out completely. Because I don't like any of them, and I'm just voting for the lesser of two evils, and so why even bother? Well, here's why, because if you won't vote for the lesser of two evils, there's there's people out there who are gonna vote for the greater evil, right? And and that's the the country in the future your kids and grandkids are gonna inherit. Someone's gotta stand up and vote for at least the lesser of the two evils, you know. Right. Um, and and like you say, we we can't be responsible for what they do with it, but man, it's a it's an important thing. But man, we we don't trust these people. And I think we've gotten to this point where man, we despise. I I I jokingly told someone uh today, I was like, I'm almost gonna not vote on principle because of all the dang text messages. Like, stop texting. Right. You want my vote, just leave me alone. How did that happen? How did they I mean who let that happen? I don't know. I get them at 11 57 at night. It's crazy. Vote for this guy. I'm like, I might not vote just on principle. I'm so mad about it with these text. I did vote today. Um, but it is infuriating. And and these guys, I mean, tax collectors were were hated, man. Uh they couldn't stand these guys. And the the relationship relationship Jesus has with the religious leaders is is pretty unique because they can't stand them, yet they can't stay away from them either. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 20:56

And I'm afraid that's that's the Jesus disease, you know. We hear hear all these guys uh getting fired up on YouTube, and someone says, Do you believe in Jesus? No. How can how can you have this much passion about it then? You know, do you get this passionate about Santa Claus or Spider-Man? You know? Yeah. What where is all this coming from? I don't know. And it's it's like, you guys want me to, dude, you don't believe like I believe? Relax. Right, right.

SPEAKER_03 21:30

Do your own thing. And and these the claim of the religious leaders is we don't believe this guy's the Messiah. And yet everything they do is like, well, he he he

Jesus Challenges Purity And Pride

SPEAKER_03 21:40

might be it.

SPEAKER_01 21:41

They are fired up, man. Right. And I think that's written in everybody's heart, and we see it when we talk to people all the time.

SPEAKER_03 21:47

All the time. And so you look at the the dinner parties Jesus has, because he wouldn't he'd go to dinner parties with the Pharisees and religious leaders too. Um, and he'd get there, and man, he said some rough things. To him. Yeah. You know, he's like, you guys are so focused on cleaning the outside of the cup, but inside you are wicked and full of greed. You are whitewashed tombs. Right. It looks nice on the outside, dead and rotting on the inside.

SPEAKER_01 22:15

He called them vipers, too, which is a direct um he pointed directly to the serpent in the garden. You're the sons of Satan. Yeah. You know? And um there is there's this idea of grace that we talk about all the time. The Pharisees were trying to pull down um temple level purity into everyday life, you know. Um, so you had to go out and um you killed a rabbit. Well, now you gotta skin it, you gotta clean it, you gotta, you know, and then your wife cooks it up. She's touching it too. You all touched it, you had rabbit soup, and it was great, but now you can't go worship at the temple because everybody touched this dead thing, right? And uh so they had prayers and they had customs to do that, but the Pharisees were like, we're gonna try to extend our purity through everyday life and have everybody else touch the bad things for us and look how holy we are and this kind of stuff. I don't know how that stuff catches on. Um, but I I'm sure that so many people in their um communities just roll their eyes. Oh my gosh, here comes that guy again, you know.

SPEAKER_03 23:37

Even if they're rolling their eyes, though, they they they look at them and they they would say, This is the representation of of the godly, righteous life. This is what it's supposed to look like, you know. Even if they're like, I'm never doing that. Right. They wreck and you would think when Jesus comes to town and he gets invited to these dinner parties, who's those rough conversations going to be reserved for? You would think it would be for the tax collector who's worse than the murderers. Right. And yet Jesus gets there and hangs out, and the religious leaders are looking like he never talks nice like this when he's with us. What is going on? Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 24:17

It's interesting. Uh I hate to, you know, I talked about uh Sunday being called out, but also called in, and how we have to walk that tension all the time. Yeah, because um then Paul Paul said, don't hang out with sexually immoral people. And then he said that in his first letter to Corinthians, which is the letter we don't have. But he this is uh the second letter to Corinthians, which is our first Corinthians, and uh, if you can get all that straight. That's clear as mud. That's clear as mud. Um he wrote in there hey, I didn't say get rid of all these immoral people. I said the sexually immoral. All these other other people, you'd have to get off the planet to get away from them because it's everywhere. I said don't associate with those guys because it's dangerous. Yeah. It's it's terribly, horrifically temptation, you know. Um, and so stay away from them. But these rest of these people are just people, yep. You know, just like you were before Christ saved you. So he had to make that distinction. Hey, you can't get away from this. If you keep trying to get away from this, you're just gonna find it in the holiest place that you think you can go. And that's what they found in the Pharisees, right?

unknown 25:46

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 25:47

So um it's it's it's really um interesting because Jesus was opposite of everybody else, right? If you touched an unclean person like a leper, you know, you become unclean. And that's that's kind of the way um they put all this together. And just like when we hear unclean, we hear unholy, we hear bad, we hear sinful. But that's not what that meant. Right. It meant you you're gonna have to clean up before you go to the temple.

SPEAKER_03 26:23

There's some purification process you gotta go through.

SPEAKER_01 26:25

Right. And so uh, but Jesus, when he got in an unclean situation, he didn't become unclean, they became clean. Right? He didn't become dirty when he touched a dead person, the dead person became alive. You know? Every time he touched someone, the opposite of what they thought would happen would happen. And uh so uh he he definitely uh had a better uh what am I looking for? What are the word I'm looking for? Uh average when it came into walking into a group of sinners uh than we have. But he told us, you know, you'll be doing greater works than I do. You'll be doing greater works than I do. So don't be afraid when you get wrapped up um with a you're sitting in a group of guys at a ball game and you're like, oh boy, I'm in a mess. You know, um you can you can still uh be Jesus to them in in the middle of all that kind of stuff. You might have to be a uh peacemaker and and uh wear beer all over your shirt for the rest of the night, whatever it is, and a designated driver and a design the whole thing, right? But at the at the same time, uh Jesus just jumped right in the middle. I I think it's funny uh he says, I'm gonna throw a banquet for you and I'm gonna invite all these people, and he only knew tax collectors.

SPEAKER_03 27:58

Well, yeah, nobody else would talk to him, right? Uh who's calling again? Matt? No, no, don't even answer the call. Um, not going there. And it it's man, he flips the script you said earlier. Like he does this on purpose, and so much of what he does, he does intentionally to just I mean, it's almost like this whole shock in all thing, you know, like he healed on the Sabbath when we did that signs and glory series and walked through the Gospel of John. How many times have we read on the Sabbath, Jesus did this? Right. It's like he knew, like he could have done it on Friday or Thursday, but he's like, hold on, I gotta, I gotta prove a point on this here. Yeah, and so he would wait, he would do it on the Sabbath, and then he would touch the lepers. No, you're not supposed to, now you're unclean. And he would like, nope, we're gonna go do that, and we're gonna touch them. And then here, he's like, Oh, I'm not not supposed to eat with these these people, this group. All right, watch me. I'm gonna go and recline at not just one of their like a whole party, a whole house full of them. Right. He constantly just, I'm not who you think I am. This isn't gonna look how you think it's supposed to look. I came to call those who know that they're sick.

SPEAKER_01 29:19

Yeah. And more than that, it's his SOP in every area of life. Yeah. He, I mean, he did it to the disciples. Up sit down, guys. I'm gonna wash your feet. Whoa. What? Yeah, yeah. We just confessed you as the son of

The Lion In The House Faith

SPEAKER_01 29:35

God. And you're gonna wash our feet? You don't let me wash your feet, you don't have anything to do with me. Get out. Oh, well, it's like it's like he even did it to his disciples. Right. He did it to me. I used to have this phrase uh when I was in college and we used to debate on Wednesday nights, we'd debate everything. And I'd say, God doesn't work that way. God doesn't work that way. And he spent the next 20 years of my life showing, oh yes, I do. I don't care what you think. Watch this, Tim Holt. And I I I think um he's doing that in our lives all the time. Well, God wouldn't me w want me in that position. Oh, guess what? You got that position. Well, do I get out or do I not get out? And then there's the thing that you know you need to minister to in that thing. Like I you're telling your wife, I don't I don't even know how I got here. You know? Um people. Hey, let's go on vacation. Uh that's what happened to um Matt. Oh, I can't think of his name. The guy who started uh Matt Peterson? Yeah, Matt Peterson. He um he was in um he was a spy and he was in uh Southeast Asia and uh his dad said, Hey, I want you to go over to this island and meet with this pastor. And uh he goes, Well, I got some vacation time going up. I w I want to look around a little bit out here in Southeast Asia, so I'm gonna go on vacation and maybe I'll stop by and see that pastor. He stopped and saw that pastor on vacation and turned around and quit being a spy and uh started a church, became a pastor. Uh and that stuff happens to people all the time, you know. I mean, how much better career can you have than sneaking into buildings and planting bugs and you know, uh taking pictures and you know all the books I read, man.

SPEAKER_03 31:39

And yeah, I know.

SPEAKER_01 31:40

And uh he's like, I watched this pastor for uh a day and every weekend, everything. You know, I took the ferry to get over to to be involved with what he's doing. And he said, I I couldn't get enough of it. And that is what Jesus will do to you, you know, he'll say, Oh, this you got a good life, but it's not a great life. Come over here. And I I think um we're all in that. God is always saying, Um, let's let's crank this up a bit. And I think we need to be ready for that. We we never know when the Lord's uh gonna call us and get everything set up. Uh Keith Green, Teresa was telling me how he he mortgaged his home to to start his own record album so he could give his music away for free.

unknown 32:39

Wow.

SPEAKER_01 32:40

That's crazy. And he just said, pay what you can. And and his music went out, it drove all the old pastors crazy. Well, you can't play the piano like that and sing like that in church. That's not that's so you want to go back to Egypt? That's not amazing, grace, that's not so. He was he he got a lot of pushback, but the churches that embraced that grew like crazy, and we see that all over the place. That was the um start of putting good music in churches, and not saying that that some people did the old hymns and stuff in a great way, but most couldn't do it in a great way, so they decided that good music was from Satan. And uh so uh, but we see we see how God just steps in and says, you know, when someone says, No, you'd never put drums in a church, you know. They over in Africa, the drums, you know, bring Satan, and then suddenly God says, Well, let's put drums in a church and see what happens. And uh, so that's the Jesus you're dealing with. You know, he'll poke you right in the eye when you get like you get a little full of yourself. He'll just say, Oh, oh, it we'll give you a second. You really want to lay that down? Because I will pick it up.

SPEAKER_03 34:09

I mean, I've jokingly, you know, you've heard people say, Well, you know, I I don't want to go and be a missionary in Africa, and I'm like, uh, be real careful saying you won't do that. You might just want to say, I'm will, I don't prefer it, but I'm willing if I had to, just so the Lord doesn't say, Ryan, watch this.

SPEAKER_01 34:31

Unfortunate part of that, God knows your heart, which is no, no, no, no, no.

SPEAKER_03 34:37

But man, I you know, you on Sunday, you brought up this idea of you know cheap versus costly grace. And um, man, I think a lot of us we we want that cheap grace. I I want I want the forgiveness with without the the repentance and everything that goes along with that, without the changed life, without the responsibility. Um and this this following Jesus thing, he'll he'll mess it all up, man. And and here's the thing it is it easy? It's not always easy. I love what you know you've been quoting that uh Narnia movie. Is he safe? He's a lion, of course he's not safe, you know. Um and man, that that illustration you shared of I'm getting all over the place here, but we've been all over the place since we started since we started.

SPEAKER_01 35:30

I got an outline. We're somewhere over here off the computer.

SPEAKER_03 35:37

That illustration of those people going and looking at a lion at the zoo and it's roaring, and it's like, wow, this is awesome. And then could you imagine opening your front door and that same lion roaring in your living room? And now everything changes. Yeah. And I think we so many of us we want the lion behind the cage. I want to look at it and I want to know he's here. And I want to appreciate it. Yep. Um, yeah, yeah. I'm gonna come every week and I'll sing some songs to him.

SPEAKER_01 36:10

Right.

SPEAKER_03 36:10

I might even lift my hands when I sing those songs, and and I'll donate a little bit of money so that they can feed this lion and keep him, you know, keep him going. You bring him in my house, and all of a sudden it's like, oh, that's not what I signed up for.

SPEAKER_01 36:27

Right.

SPEAKER_03 36:28

Man, he's in the house. And you were like, everything changes now. Your dinner decisions revolve around that lion. Right. What we watch on TV, if we can turn the TV, if we can walk in the living room, right, revolves around that lion. He's now in charge here. Yeah. And if he don't want me in that room, I'm not going in that room. And it's like, man, that's that's the God we're dealing with here.

SPEAKER_01 36:53

That's right. That's what happened to Levi here. I mean, in just one boom, follow me. Suddenly there's this huge opportunity for Levi to know God. He knows he was turned down. He was probably so uh bitter about his life that he scraped together everything he could to be a tax collector just to give it back to the Jewish hierarchy, you know. I don't know if they messed with his dad or his mom, but you can play anything into that. But at this moment, Jesus said, Follow me. Do you want to be who you are right now? Or do you want to be with me? And um and it was not safe. It was not safe. And yeah, that's a that's a a great illustration. Teresa sent me sent me that illustration. She always sends me good ones. She sent me one, uh, the Toledo Zoo, put a big um cardboard box in their lion pen. And you know you just throw out a box and a cat'll jump in it, and sure enough, a big big cat jumped in that box. It's funny. But um, yeah, that's I don't like to think about that too much because you as you as you sink down into that idea, I I can't go to the kitchen without crossing paths with him. Which is a big deal for a guy who's struggled with his eating habits his whole life, you know. I can't, you know, go for my morning coffee, you know, everything I do, I'm passing this lion. And if he decides I'm not gonna do that, guess what? I'm not gonna do that. Right. You know, he's the boss. And and that's something that Levi saw and jumped in both feet. So we say he was a tax collector, and you know, we we didn't hear much about Matthew as we go down the line, but all these disciples, he said, follow me. And they jumped in both feet. Yep. That's man, we need to have an attitude like that.

SPEAKER_03 39:13

Well, Jesus said, if you don't, you're not even worthy to follow him. Right, you know. Well, I just started a business, I gotta go make sure it's doing okay. Oh, my my dad just died, I gotta go home, I gotta bury him. She's like, let the dead bury their dead, and you're like, What in the world? Who says stuff like this? A lion. A lion. And so this he is, man, I just that imagery of that lion being in the house and how everything now revolves around it. I was like, oh my gosh. How many of us want the lion at the zoo and not the lion in the house? Right. Now here's the difference about the lion and in this story is uh he's great. Yeah. He's great. And and he wants he wants to be with you, you know? Yeah. And now he's not gonna let you do things that that are gonna mess you up because he loves you too much.

SPEAKER_01 40:11

Right.

SPEAKER_03 40:12

And it's not safe having him around, but it's good.

SPEAKER_01 40:15

He's the king of the jungle, he's the king of your house when he shows up. But

Grace Offends The Older Brother

SPEAKER_01 40:20

I think um one thing I love about this, he didn't tell Levi, hey, get rid of this thing. He didn't tell Levi, um, you need to clean up, go purify yourself. Um you know, get all this stuff straightened out, and then I'll be over here. Come find me. He just walked up and said, Follow me now. And he did. And no, clean yourself up. That kind of that kind of grace extended from the Lord is something that the inside of us push back against. My dad said pride was the toughest thing people had to overcome to be saved. And I used to think, that's silly. What are you talking about? But we see it everywhere where people um Pat had a uh his father-in-law said, What do you think about these people? You think someone can get bit saved uh at at their deathbed? Do you think that's true? And Pat said, Well, yeah. I think it's true. He says, Well, but what about guys like me? I I've been in the church for 40 years, I've been an usher for 40 years. I never missed a Sunday, I was always there. And Pat's like, so he's like, Well, don't you think, you know, it should be somebody's gotta do something. You just can't walk in. And that is that is something that that we don't understand. And and it is right, it is pride. What do I gotta do? I gotta be at church every Sunday, okay. I can do that. I gotta show up for this thing. Okay, I gotta give a little bit of money, I gotta show up for church, and I gotta read my Bible. I get it. I get I'm gonna do this thing and I'm gonna get that. But man, we we slip into it all the time. Um, it's just it's just how our brain operates, and that's pride.

SPEAKER_03 42:27

Well, it's the prodigal son story fits right into that, right? And but not the not the son you think, it's the other son. Right. Because the prodigal comes home and everybody's celebrating. The dad's throwing a party. This is great. Everyone's excited, except the brother who was there the whole time. And he says, Dad, I'm not going in there. I'm not celebrating this. I have been with you all the time. I've done everything you've asked. And you've never once thrown a party like this for me. That that here's that pride, you know. What about what I've done? What about me and all the time I've served, all the effort I've put in. Um and the father has to look at him and say, son, everything I have is yours. This this brother of yours was lost. He was dead. And he has come back like he is found. We have to celebrate.

unknown 43:24

Right.

SPEAKER_03 43:25

And and that's people, that's the kind of God you serve.

SPEAKER_01 43:29

Yeah, and put your put yourself in the the shoes of the older brother. He's like, is he like totally vested again? Is he gonna say, I want my money again, and you're gonna give him that same amount, and he's gonna you're gonna start working into my money sooner or later. But God says, Oh, hey, nobody can run me dry. You'll get everything I wanna give you, son. But I love the way Jesus just leaves that conversation. He doesn't fix it, right? It's not resolved. And we live in a world of the unresolved. Yep. You know? That's good. And Jesus says, follow me. Follow me. Yeah, but this has got to get fixed. Follow me now. You know? Right now. Don't worry about that stuff. You know, yeah, but it has to be resolved. Are you going to resolve it, Dad? Are you going to resolve it? Yeah, I'm going to throw a party. Are you going to resolve it the way I want it resolved? Probably not. Follow me now. And man, we could we could talk about that forever.

SPEAKER_03 44:44

Um here's the thing, man. Grace, it looks so different than than the religious leaders expected. And one of them said, You make this sound so easy. This is too easy. And he goes, it's easy for you, but Jesus had to die. Right. Wasn't very easy for him. Um this grace thing is it's so different than any of us expected. We feel like I gotta do something, I gotta, I gotta clean this up, I gotta, I gotta be better. And we live in that, you know, and then there's Matthew, who Jesus just says, follow me. To the person nobody was letting in. I mean, Jesus tells a story of, you know, the religious leader standing up and praying, and he's thanking God for for all that God's done for him and how much he, you know, he gives to the gives to God. He goes, you know, I give you a tenth of everything and all this stuff. And I thank you that I'm not a sinner. I'm not like this tax collector.

Set The Table And Invite Jesus

SPEAKER_03 46:10

Then Jesus says, the tax collector was the one who went home justified, the one who stood afar off, who just beat his chest and said, Have mercy on me.

SPEAKER_01 46:20

Yeah, I'm excited about this. And this is what we do at church every Sunday. We're setting a table for Jesus. I know we got to have a service, it's got to be good, we want to attract people, we want people coming back. But what we're really doing is we're setting the table and inviting Jesus so he can just come right into our presence and say, Follow me. Follow me. And I wish if you could grab a hold of that, is that the reason we come to the church and the reason we serve each other, the reason God gave us gifts is so that we can set a table for Jesus. Because one day He's gonna set a table for us. And I'd hate to get there, you know, like the thief on the cross. Uh and never in my life set a table for Jesus to come. Think about that this week as you're um kind of running this around in your head. Have have I been setting a table for Jesus in my with my family, with my friends, um with my friends at church? Am I in this game at all? Now look, that guy uh on the cross, hey, he didn't he didn't know why he was there. If somebody walked up to him in heaven and said, How did you get in there? Well, um, you know, there was this guy and he invited me, and I'm here.

SPEAKER_03 47:53

You want to hear a powerful sermon on that? Go listen to Alistair Begg preach on that. Why am I here? The man on the middle cross said I could come. That's why.

SPEAKER_01 48:03

And I think um out of gratefulness, we should set a table for Jesus to say just to your friends or just to your family, hey, you want to be me be with me in paradise? And that's that's what we're trying to do. So set that table. You might have to set it in the line at Lowe's. You might have to um I I got a text from a guy who can't figure out how to put his gospel conversations on the So an hour later, I finally get the story out of him, and I have to put it into the He says, We were just sitting at dinner, and he said he didn't even know why he did it. He just looked up and says, Do you know Jesus? Boom, boom, boom. Ten minutes later, she's praying to receive Christ right there in the restaurant, their server. And you never know, you know, are but will you set a table and uh and invite Jesus to come and s and see what he does when the lion walks in the room? It's the lion's room.

SPEAKER_03 49:14

What an incredible thing Matthew did, man. I mean, gave up everything, invites Jesus over, throws this party, and then thinks of everybody that'll come. And it was the drudges, right? The tax, I mean, they had some money, but it was the people nobody else would let in. But they came. And Jesus sat there and at the table with them all. And man, I think as we head into November and Thanksgiving and Christmas and and the new year, you're gonna be given some opportunities to set a table for for some people to meet Jesus, the savior who radically changed your life. And um don't miss that opportunity. And don't let politics and all this other stuff get in the way. It's I'm not saying it's not important for our time down here, but it's meaningless in eternity. But these are people who need to know the savior, and you're gonna have an opportunity to set that table, set it, and invite

Prayer Plus How To Respond

SPEAKER_03 50:20

invite the lion to come and watch what he does. It's gonna be great. Will you pray for us?

SPEAKER_01 50:25

Father, I want to thank you for this series. I pray that the thing that Ryan and I have in our heart here, and we don't even know how to describe it. That's why we ended up calling it dinner party. We don't even but it's a heaviness that our world, our church world, our Christian world has got to get serious about setting the table. I see you showing up in Iran and the Middle East uh with dreams and and um Lord, I don't want you to do that here. I want it to be us. I want it to be every Christian and every church setting a table for you to where you don't have to show up with dreams because we're there telling them about you, telling them what you've done in our life already. I don't know if it's either or or both an and uh, Father, but Lord, I pray that you'll give us this, the whole church, the heaviness that Ryan and I are feeling about setting a table so that you'll come. I pray that you'll give it to everyone here at A Fresh Wind. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen.

SPEAKER_00 51:41

Thanks again for joining us for this episode of the Midweek Podcast. We'd love to hear from you. Let us know how God is using this resource in your life or send any podcast questions or topic ideas too. Podcast at a freshwind.org. If you would like to support this ministry financially and help us continue offering new resources that equip you to discover more in Christ, simply text any amount to the number 84321. We're so grateful for your support. Make sure to tune in next week for a brand new episode of the Midweek Podcast. Be blessed and have a great week.