Brewing Peace: Coffee and Reconciliation in a complicated world

Dive into a rich, conversational exploration of faith, life, and biblical insights with the TNC Podcast. Join Pastor Joe Liles, Pastor Tom, and Roseann as they unpack the book of Romans, share personal stories, and explore a range of topics, from coffee preferences to profound spiritual truths. 

Each podcast offers a blend of humor, personal reflection, and meaningful biblical teaching that brings scripture to life. Whether you're a long-time believer or just curious about faith, this podcast provides engaging conversations that connect real-life experiences with timeless spiritual wisdom. 

Grab a cup of coffee and join the conversation as we explore peace, reconciliation, and what it means to live out our faith in today's world.

Transcript

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I don't know. Hey, good. Welcome to the TNC podcast. Guess what? We've been talking about coffee. So if you're just joining us, guess what? You get a coffee conversation to start this podcast. Roseanne, what were you going to say about coffee? You were just about to jump in. Are you also like a connoisseur? Like have the station of coffee at home and everything else? No, no, I have a Hamilton Beach single cup. Not even a Keurig, probably one step above Folgers. You're one step above Folger. Oh, every day I wake up, pour myself a cup of the rich Folgers aroma. The best part of waking up, it's the do up. Do what? Anybody the Folgers theme song? That's Oh, well, that's not the one that was on, like when I was a kid. I don't think watching TV Well, I don't remember the one from the 50s. What was the one like, the best part of waking up? Yeah, it wasn't near as fancy as what you're no that was the acapella version that rockapel is saying for them, like out of the brain commercial, awesome. I've seen that for years, so I'm in between you two. So like Keurig on Tom's side, Hamilton Beach, I love it. You said that on your side, like the 10 cup coffee pot you're just going for. I got a bur grinder. I have the Chemex pour over, but I don't use that too often, right? And then we have just a regular coffee pot, but I burger grind it in the fellow ODE, which is great, right? Awesome, right? And then I put it into, I usually make, like, six cups, right? And I put it into just our regular coffee pot, but then I sprinkle cinnamon on the top. I love to sprinkle spices on the top of my coffee. Oh, like, it's so good. And then my favorite type of coffee is Cuban coffee. Have you ever had Cuban coffee? Yes, cute. The little shots of coffee that are, like, super high packed of like, espresso and sugar and all that kind of Yeah, that fits. I don't get it that option. So it might fit my personality, but I don't get it that chance to get Turkish coffee. I love Turkish coffee. Oh my gosh, that is so strong. Love Turkish coffee. Yeah, we had that when we were in Uganda on mission. We had Turkish coffee, and it was delicious. I love it. I had it in Turkey, and I think it made my hair grow faster for about 24 hours. Yeah, that was great. Yeah, yeah, oh, it just gets you going. Just absolutely chew it though, you know, I mean, you need dental floss afterwards. Yeah, it's beautiful, beautiful. Now, if you're joining us now, we are talking some coffee conversation, which I think church and coffee go together. They are synonymous, right? You have to have great if it's a good church, there will be coffee. There will be, you know what? You know, good coffee. Well, so here, I don't want to make that distinction, so I was going to appreciate Tom for not making the distinction. I think church and coffee go together. I don't necessarily think that churches have to have great coffee, because what's good varies. Like I had a humbling moment when we were at the youth gathering in New Orleans, and they had a it was a group from Africa. It was all, all women, yeah, who, I think they were all widows. And they, they set up their their coffee company to support themselves like a little community, because the way the culture is set up there not kind to to women other than being supported by a man, yeah. And so they had this whole setup of this coffee, and they were bragging on their coffee, and they had a blind taste test, where you go through and think the one that was best. And I was like, Oh, that's a little too much going on. That one, man, I like this one. And she's like, you literally just picked Folgers. It tastes like cup coffee. Yeah. It's just like, here's where it's at. And she's like, just, I mean, there was shame in her eyes. And she looked at me like, How dare you I will tell people that we drink fo chairs, and they're like, it's a French coffee. And they're like, what you can probably buy it at Target. My brother, who's coffee connoisseur. He I mean, he's the Bougie coffee kind of guy, right? And goes into it. He came to our church, and he's like, dude, love your coffee. What coffee do you have here? And I was like, dude, straight Folgers, man. I was like, and that was in the past. Now we have fun. You know, we had great coffee that we buy. We go to our local our coffee roasters. So we're getting the onyx, we're getting the heroes. We're getting the airship. Best coffee in the country is here, isn't why would we not have the best coffee on Sunday morning when we're here? People love coffee drinking on Sunday morning. So I think there's a really important part about that in the church environment. But I think coffee is synonymous with church and like Sunday morning, I don't necessarily think has to be great coffee. I think people kind of just will drink coffee at church, right? Do you want it to be great coffee? Roseanne? I want it to be good coffee. I have poured out coffee from here. Yeah, from here. You've what can I sip? Yeah, yeah, here in other churches, wow. So Miss 10 cup. Hamilton Beach, over here is pouring out one cup at a time. Okay, how much do you pour? At home, when you make a coffee pot, it's just one cup. Oh, it's a one cup. Oh, 10 ounces. There you go. Okay, so what? What is your palate? Are you like a dark roast? Are you light roaster? I don't like a dark roast. You don't like a dark roast. No, I like a medium roast. But So Starbucks has the little Keurig Yeah, cups of fall blend. That is yummy. That is yummy. Okay, fall blends in me, and my favorite coffee is spirit of 76 oh, black rifle coffee cup. Yes, that is so good. Wow, okay. All right, yeah, so that's beautiful. I love bougie, nothing. It's great. Yeah, so what we ought to do if we're gonna up our church game? Yeah, we got the coffee down pat. We got good coffee. Yeah, we need, like, homemade cookies after church. Oh, you know what? We have a chef. All right, we can give a chef Troy and be like, Man, what if he made some, like, just some bakery goods for, like, every Sunday to have out, right, when we were there, right? We could do it, like, as a fundraiser for the youth or something like that. Even he's not a baker, though, yeah, he's not a baker. He's a cook, Chef, yeah. He's like, Yeah, well, we're always about growing here. We're always about expanding reality. So let's make it potluck and have, like, the borrow cookies. I borrow cookies. So everyone just brings man. Tom, I'm, I'm trying to maintain my weight here, like you're talking about, like a church pot. Like, every Sunday 50. How much? How much the pork line did you eat yesterday for our police when we cater to the police, for our Fraternal Order of Police. So each beach plate, I had at least four slices, yes, and I had four plates during lunch, and then I went back, got another one at staff meeting of pork loin. Oh, it was freaking fabulous. And I woke up this morning, like coffee. I was like, oh, I want to still in the fridge. Get done a podcast. I'm gonna go Heat some more up, because that was fabulous. Best pork loin ever had. My entire that's great. Like, I woke up thinking about it this morning. Yeah, did you really, yeah, wow, I don't do that. You don't wake up thinking about meat. Okay, thinking about coffee, yeah? But no, I woke up like, yeah. So, like, I intentionally did not pack my lunch today, even though I got it in the fridge. Oh, with the intent of raiding that fridge. Oh, nice. That's really good. Okay, yeah, we have some extra for that tonight for you. Um, it's gonna be delicious. It's gonna be delicious the whole day, which is gonna be wonderful. Um, so that, I mean, it kind of brings us into our message yesterday, which was about peace, because apparently pork alone provides you peace, and you found earthly peace. Well, cooked meats and a nice cup of coffee, you're good to go. Everything is right in the world, everything is right. Everything's absolutely so we've been breaking down a study in Romans, that Psalm, this is part on what you're doing right with our life groups. Yup, right. You're going through a book. Can you share a little bit more about the book and what you're going through? Yeah? So it's a historical fiction a week in the life of Rome, and it's, it's real circumstances that we know are historically correct, yeah. And then we know we're actually going on in Rome from from multiple sources, and we're just building out, or the author builds out plausible dialog between characters that are kind of adjacent in the Bible, like their names that are mentioned in the Bible that we don't know anything about. And so he's building out plausible fictional dialog with them so we can get attached to the characters, so we can get a better personal understanding and appreciation for the circumstances I'm living in. Yeah, in the hope that it'll make it easier to interpret the book of Romans. Great. Going through the sermon series get people real, hopefully, really interested in the Bible app. There's a reading plan where they can go through and read the book of Romans over this four weeks. And hopefully they'll make notes and send me suggestions they haven't yet. Hint, hint, please send some so I know exactly what to address for a spring Bible study. I could deep dive Bible study into Romans, so we can start to address some of these issues now that they have a better understanding of of what these things mean. Yeah, that's great. And then there's what two weeks into the study. Right now, we just put out the week two, the the day of Mars, which is it's set as seven days, so starting on Monday, the day of the moon, and then Tuesday, the day of Mars, which we just sent live on the Bible app yesterday. Oh, great. So my group does have a suggestion? We met last night? Oh, awesome, yeah. How did it go? Um, it was interesting. It was a tough content. Last time it was a tough chapter, yeah, and there were a lot of social issues in that chapter that are swirling now in present day. And so it was. It was painful. A lot of that's been around for about 2000 years. Yeah. So their suggestion was, do the disclaimer or the trigger or a little warning before we read the chapter. So, oh yeah, cuz that it, it was a rough chapter, rough chapter, to be honest, when I read the book, like, I got to that chapter and about halfway through, like, I had to set it down for the day, oh yeah. I'm like, Oh yeah, okay, I gotta get through it. And I went back to it, and I'm like, Oh, man. And there's, there's other books in the series. There's one the week in the life of a Greco Roman woman, and it's a lot like that. It's one that Amy read for me make notes on to look at for potential study going forward, like, if we did, like, a women's group specific study, because there's also, like, a week in the life of a centurion, and, yeah, stuff like that. And there's just a lot of really difficult realities that the Christians were dealing with, yeah, that really put them at risk and and made them, you know, stand out from the rest of society. Yup, things that that definitely they're really judged for, and that they had to fight. And you get to really see huge amount of progress in the first 300 years. Of the church, that the church did to benefit humanity, that most people right now have no idea, right, anything about, like the concept of orphanages, yes, and the fact that just a little, you know, a little, not really spoiler, but it was better for many infants when Constantine, when he became a Christian, and he made it illegal to sell unwanted infants. Oh, geez. And that actually made their potential future better. If you want to know why, read the book, read the book. Yeah. But, yeah, it was a difficult time. I'm glad that I'm born here and now and not then and there. Yeah. I mean, I think it's important, I mean, that those life groups are really meant for kind of those deeper studies, right? They're meant to drill down even deeper on the content that we're doing on Sundays, which is why we paired, like a study in Romans for a Sunday forward facing study, right, to a book study that was done in life groups, where you could really unpack that your groups about six to eight people, so you could really unpack that among the group, right? And say, hey, great. How do we deal with this? And kind of break this down and to be kind of raw with it, right? Like, hey, that's a chapter, different things like that as we kind of grow forward and to hopefully have time to to kind of ruminate on that, leave it in your back of your mind while you're going through and then get after the holidays, come back and get into a deep dive and really start digging into Paul's letter through that lens, through that lens. Because I never realized how gritty and dangerous and just how unsafe it was like the threat of fire, and then to hit to know that fire swept through it and nearly consumed half of Rome. It's just, wow, yeah, you know. And there, there weren't firemen or fire prevention or, you know, and I just take that for granted. Yeah, there's an alarm that when smoke is somewhere, it's going to go off, and that tells me to get out of the building, but they didn't have that. And these people lived on the fifth floor and worried about that constantly, yeah, right. And there's no electricity, no, yeah. So all their energy for heating, for lighting, for heat, was all fire, yeah. And everything they lived in was extremely flammable, and so it's just, it's something we take, we kind of take for granted. So on a question along that note that that week is the longest reading as far as the content in the Bible app, because Chapter Two just throws so much stuff out there, yeah, that a lot of people aren't aware of. Like, I kind of wonder, was it too much? Because as far as the Bible app went, I mean, there was a ton of stuff in the Bible app because I put more than I figured people are actually going to read, yeah, people are curious about parts. There's places to go into different websites to different places to get more information. I just wonder, was it, was it too much, or was it like, I mean, I want to be people think they have to sit there for two hours to go through all of it, but it was a lot. Well, our conversation revolved around, you know, the historical data and what was going on at that time. And so we honestly did not get into a lot of what was in the Bible app, but it, we got through it, yeah, cuz there's, there's, there's a lot, a ton of stuff in there. So I don't want to be overwhelming, but there's just, there's just so much you can almost do, like a four week series on Chapter Two, reflecting back to the social issues of today. Yeah, right? You know, it's like, Well, nothing's changed, yeah, 2000 years, right? Yeah, just sitting in it. What, I think that's important part about why, you know, we look at a Sunday morning in a 30 minute message, why we can't drill down for an hour in a Bible study, right? People like, I'm just yearning for that deeper study. And I'm like, Yeah, that's really hard on a Sunday. It's really hard to take apart a whole scripture. And people like, when we were moving through this past Sunday, we did four verses, right? So we did, you know, Romans five, walk them through that, and three verses there, and then jump to Romans eight and pull them forward a little bit in Romans, right? And kind of got through there. Got through there. But, you know, at some comments and be like, Oh, that was, you know, really good. I love kind of that breakdown of the different words and, like, I just want more of that on Sunday. I was like, that's wonderful. But, like, I could preach for six weeks on Romans, one, five verses, one and two, oh, yeah. Like, I could do that, right? I said, but that's why we have the life groups, that's why we have Bible study is so that we can drill down in a different way. You know, people crave that because it's hard. It's hard to read on your own, because there's stuff that, if you don't, if you're not studied the context, it's hard to understand it. It's also hard because, like, that's not really what Sunday's for. And Sunday's to proclaim the good news, and we do it through reading different places, like in Romans, to show them. You know what the good news is, what it's saying. You know, to us, but it's no we. We have a responsibility to go and deep dive by ourselves, because that's where the personal relationship with God comes from. Yeah, you can't make me have a relationship with God. I have to pursue. Do that relationship with God, that's right, that's right. And we're going to talk about that. Well, that's important. I mean, one of the words we're going to talk about today on this podcast is reconciliation, right? And what is this relationship that with God that we have? And so we're going to break it open, but before we do that, we're going to sing our jingle. Yes, I remember the jingle, right? Are you guys? I know Tom, you deserve me like he's gonna forget again. I'm not gonna forget again. We're gonna we're gonna, we're gonna say this number, and you can call Roseanne at any time. And it goes like this, 479-367-2285, neighborhood church. All right. Welcome now to the TNC podcast. We're gonna be in Romans chapter five, verses one and two, and then we're gonna jump to 11. So Roseanne, if you could read verse one, Tom, if you could read verse two, and then when we move into verse 11, I'll close us on that also. So Roseanne, would you mind starting us off in Romans chapter five? Therefore, since we are justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. And then Continuing in verse two, through whom we have obtained access to this grace in which we stand and we boast in our hope of sharing the glory of God, we are going to live there for a hot second. And I want to jump back into verse one. Therefore, since we are justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. So there's a lot to unpack in that statement, and I want to concentrate on the word peace, but I just want to give you the kind of the formulaic nature of this verse. Therefore says, Hey, we want you to read something that's happening before this. Therefore says, Hey, because of all the things we've already talked about. Therefore, so whenever you read that in Scripture and hear that you should go back and read a little bit about what's happening before, and what's happening before is God's promise realized through faith. For the promise, then this is back in verse 13 of chapter four, for the promise that he would inherit the world did not come to Abraham or to his descendants through the law, but through the righteousness of faith. Right? So what we're saying is that okay, if you're going to take faith forward, and this is going to be your relationship to God, therefore these things happen. So if we take that relationship to faith, let's hear it again. Therefore, since we are justified by faith, hey, we just talked about all these things, we're justified by in faith. Therefore, since we're justified by faith, we now have peace with God. So here's the equation. We're justified by faith, we have peace with God now, justified by faith says, what? That's a big theological language, right? The doctrine of justification, right? Like, what does it mean to be justified by faith? And I talked about this on Sunday, justification truly means to have an approval from God, right? This is divine approval justified by God. So this is God imparting faith to us. We are justified by faith. We have right relationship and approval from God by faith, through faith, for faith. And then here's where it leads to we lead that now leads us to have peace with God. So for those of us who sit in faith, right, as three here, right? I think there's a part of this equation where those who are discovering Christ for the first time are discovering the first part of this being justified by faith, not by works, right, not by law, not by these other things that are happening, but by faith. And they're discovering that part of the relationship to get to the peace. Now if we're justified by faith sitting here, it means that at some level, we understand the nature of peace. So my question to you all is that, if we are justified by faith, what do you understand about peace in your life, where do you have it, and where do you not have it? And so I would love to hear where you guys are at with peace, you know, it reminds me of some of the stuff, like, historically, you see, like Luke, like Luther story, like, you know, he, he was a teacher, right? He had gone to school to, you know, was in it was a monk already, but he wasn't at peace with God until he had read the gospel. And so it's like for me as a kid, reading the Bible, trying to figure it out. Of course, you start at a book, at the beginning of the book, and you start reading all these do's and don'ts. I'm like, oh, oh, geez. And I didn't really have peace with it until I got to better understanding as I got older. Of the back of the book, you know, of the gospel message in it, because it does take all the pressure off of us. I think of peace. I think of with no pressure, no anxiety, no fear. And so it doesn't mean there's no fear of death, but there's like no fear of what comes after. Yeah, right. You know that this idea that, you know, that's something in my, one thing in my life, I don't have to, I don't have to worry about, you know, people think about peace like a lack of war, or peace, you know, a lack of fighting, but really it's, we're talking about like a lack of consequence, you know, which maybe is the closest somebody can understand in our culture as maybe somebody who's committed a crime but then gotten pardoned, yeah, you know, or wronged somebody important to them and was forgiven, there's that moment where, oh, okay, I'm not rejected, I'm yeah. So feeling that like, where to find it in my life. I mean, I think we find different kinds of peace with different relations. Relationships, yeah, you know. And I think it's important to to fight for peace in relationships. But coming to church, for some reason, is typically very peaceful to me, yeah, and especially for something like evening services, a little darker outside, it's the mood, right? It's just a mood, but just knowing that I'm coming not to try to fulfill something, not not to try to achieve something, not to check a box, to hold my place, but just to know that that I'm enough, just as I am. Yeah, you know. And as far as feeling peace around me, man, it's either out in the middle of the woods or at night under a clear sky, yeah, Sky, we can look up at all these stars. I'm like, of all that vacuum of space and the cold and all that stuff, like, God has put me where I need to be to be able to sit here and be warm and breathe air and be grounded in the earth. Has that always been your same piece? Like, would you say that? Like, that's you've grown into that? Yeah, totally, because I didn't understand as a kid enough about it to be able to realize what it was, yeah, you know. And I think, for, like, for the Christian, if all you read is the New Testament, and you have no idea what's in the law, yeah, you don't know what you have, you know. Just like if, if somebody says, I forgive you, but you have no idea what they're talking about and what you did wrong. You can't appreciate what you have. Yeah, right. And I think that appreciation comes as we start to get older. We do more study, we start to realize that, because we always want to remember ourselves in most positive light, yep, and we're going to find somebody worse than us to compare ourselves to, to make us feel better, but until we really realize that how far we missed the mark and everything, and that it's okay anyway. And I think that takes a certain amount of maturity, yeah, to, you know, to get to that point. So yeah, very, like, in my teenage years, is very much about trying to achieve. Yeah, we didn't seek peace. I mean, we didn't know, I would even make a venture to say, we didn't know what piece was. No, I had no interest in it, which is because I didn't know what it was, seeking achievement, but that's an empty promise, right? There's always somebody faster, stronger, better, you know, there's no, you know, it gets into like Ecclesiastes, you know, that's, it's a waste of time. It's a good to try to achieve to an extent, but not to find, not to find, I think you just said something kind of helping to define peace is that lack of peace is believing in an empty promise, right? There's no way to find peace in an empty promise. The only place we can find peace is in the promise of the kingdom. And you can't try to understand it like book level, because it's, you know, Scripture tells us it's a peace beyond understanding, yeah, that it's just like, Finally, uh oh, yeah, okay, I'm here. It's just, yeah. What about you, Roseanne? Where do you find peace in your life? And has it always been the same? I don't think it's always been the same. I don't think I was on an achievement to directory, to whatever that is, a trajectory, to director. Trajectory. I could see that's great. I love it for some reason. I want to hang here for a second and really get it, but I don't want to hang there. Also. That's good. But having peace isn't necessarily a lack of tension, but it's a, it's a it's an understanding that and an acceptance, that I'm accepted. I can remember time sitting in church, and I think that is one place I find peace, absolutely, um, but also when my sisters and I are trying to start a habit of walking every Sunday afternoon. So we went again this past Sunday, but just being out in nature, yeah, and and having fun, being joking around, nature is where I find peace. And in prayer, yeah, I feel like I'm a prayer warrior. So I find peace in that I always, even in the turmoil that has happened in our world. Most recently, I've I pray, and I find that God's got it, yeah, and we just give it over to him, he'll take care of it. Yeah. I don't have to worry about it. I don't have to worry about retribution, or, Oh, I said that, yeah, you got that one, right? But it's just the I don't have to worry about it. God's got it, yeah, yeah. I think there's a beautiful nature of, I mean, when you give yourself over to the promise, right? I mean, if we're nesting this in the promise of the kingdom, when you finally give yourself over to that, you realize that God does have. It, right? And that provides a sense of peace that you cannot get from this world, right? We can try so many things, and that was part of the message on Sunday. I said, you cannot have peace without relationship with God, and you can seek it. But I said, and yes, you might feel it, but it's fleeting. It withers and it fades, right? And as quickly as you have it is as quick as it goes away, because it's not a sustaining peace, right? It's an everlasting peace, right? It's not a gift from God in this piece. It's a worldly peace. And I think so many of us crave worldly peace, right? We crave just a freeness from the distraction, right? I think that's why sitting out among the stars you find this sense of contemplative peace, yeah? Because that peace never comes to being a crowd of people. No, yeah, because you can't trust a crowd of people, yeah, right, yeah, absolutely. But you can trust God people flip flop, yeah, you know. But God's the same, always forever. Mm, hmm, yeah. I've been finding peace by sitting out in the my truck bed. And I'll put some cushions out there, and I'll just stare up at the stars, right? And kind of that like evening dusk, right? And I'll just kind of look and there's a humbleness, and there's like, my place in the in the creation, you know, like kind of space that I sit in and and it's just, it's just peaceful, right? I just allow myself to be in the breeze, right? And to feel that I experienced the same thing on the trails when, when I'm way out on the trails, and I'm just in it, and then a breeze comes along, Oh, I get so excited because I'm like, it's just peace to me, right? It's just peace of this kind of, you know, being free from the distractions of the world that would distract us from our relationship with God, and entering fully into relationship with God and being part of that. I love the sound of the wind blowing through leaves and branches right middle of the woods. It's great. It's just, it's, that's neat. Yeah, and the other place I find pieces in a Steam Sauna. So let's just put that out there. Oh, gosh, like, a really hot, 120 130 degree Steam Sauna with a little bit of eucalyptus in the steam. Oh, I tell you right now, like, when I go to like, hey, what's rest and recovery a Steam Sauna with Eucalyptus like that, that's my jam. I can spend all day in there. And the last time was in when I spent like, 45 minutes to an hour in there. Don't recommend that definitely came out. Sure, is probably a labor. Yeah, yeah, there's I definitely blew whatever time frame was supposed to be in there seeking my worldly peace, and got smited by the sauna. Is what happened. I walked out as like, Ooh, I'm a little dizzy. I don't I don't feel good. So here we go. So, I mean, I think this is important. So one, we've been justified by faith, we have peace with God. Here's the next part of that equation. We have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, right? So I think they're extending this relationship with God, right? Justified by faith, we have peace with God through Jesus Christ. This is where our relationship quotient comes in about how we have this peace. It can only be through Jesus Christ that we have this peace, because Jesus Christ came for the promise of the kingdom. And so I was starting to relate this all together on Sunday, just talking through what it means that we have to have relationship with God in order to find peace. And then if you move into verse two, it says we've obtained access to this grace, which is from Jesus Christ, right? The word made flesh. We have this grace to which we stand and we boast in the hope of sharing the glory of God. So it's interesting, this boast language is a very proud language, and I struggle whenever there's the word boast in Scripture to say about our relationship with God. Well, then we were thinking about a modern, yeah, a modern usage of how we use that word right? Isn't always how what the word that's in here means correct. So, I mean this the NRSV that I'm looking at. I mean that came out in like, 1950 Yeah, correct. So, and we don't use the word boast, right? Like, what? What's a common word that we'd use instead of boast, brag, brag, oh, brag, proud, right? Tooting your own horn, egotistical, Yeah, cuz it's all about self. It is 100% but here boast is about not about self, but about God. That's correct, and it's interesting. Some some translations the I looked it up earlier, but I had, I got a note in the margin of my Bible that I made, have no idea one when Calco, Calco meta, and is the form of it that's in here. And a lot of translations render that as rejoice. Oh, interesting, because it can be in the in place of the word boast, yeah. Oh, because it could be. You know, we talked about this earlier. It's like the idea of a stiff, upright neck, as opposed to, like, hanging your head, you know, it's your head held high. So it's like, it's a certain amount of being proud, but not of self, of God, of assurance in God, and of boasting, but it's exalting or rejoicing. And that's, you know. So, I mean, like, Well, those are all very different words in English, but it's idea is about, I think about, like, glorying. I saw one place where it said it's about boasting in God. Is glory in God or giving glory to God? So it's not like a a self boast. Mm, hmm. Like when the word gets used today. It's all about giving the glory to God, rejoicing in the glory of God. Yeah, was not anything that we did, right? It's what God gave us, and we walk with pride in the fact that we are reconciled to God and can leave eternity with Him. Mm, hmm. Now that's something to walk in pride of. And this is a writing of Luther that also got misunderstood and kind of weaponized against him when he says sin boldly. That came from a letter he wrote to his barber, who was so concerned that he was doing things wrong and how he was praising God and studying the Bible that he was going to be condemned, because there was a lot of that at that time right. And so Luther and his quippines writes in this letter because he says, I'm, you know, such a sinner. He said, You are indeed, when he's like, a sinner of the I can't remember the exact wording, but like, Oh, you are definitely, like the supreme sinner. Yeah, right. Which is like, Oh, that's not sure. It's not reassuring, yeah, yeah. He said, But sin boldly and believe even more boldly in the grace of God revealed to you in Jesus Christ. Yeah, you know, be, be bold in your sin. You can, I know I'm a sinner, but you can still stand with your with your head held up upright, knowing that you've been given this gift from God. So you're, you know, you're okay. It's like a relief of shame. Yeah, you know, shame and fear of consequences. That's kind of what this reminds me of. But I think, in order, I mean, if I'm putting this, this formulaic equation together, it comes in verses one and two, I really think that in order to experience the space where we can boast, right in the glory of you know, our relationship with Jesus Christ, we have to have peace with God first, because peace doesn't allow us to boast beyond being humble, right, in our relationship with God. I think when I think of an earthly boasting and being proud and egotistical, right? You can always hear it when someone's really proud of what they do, and they tell you they're proud of what they do and how good they are at what they do and how they're the only person can do what they it always comes across yucky. Every time I hear it. I'm like, I'm like, do you hear yourself? Like, can you hear yourself speaking this? Because the rest of the people in the room hear you speaking of this way, and it's just like, man, like, I'm never the expert in the room. Like, let's just be honest. Like, there is always going to be more people. And the way I humble myself is like, I love the neighborhood, I love our campus, I love little neighbors, preschool. I love that we have rentals, and I love that we have a mission, kitchen, food trailer. Do you know what's been done before? All of that? We are not the first church to do any single thing that we have done here right now. Mind you, I think we have unique expression in it. I think it's great for us, right? But there are churches 50 years ago that were doing this kind of stuff, right? And so when I look at like, oh, the neighborhood is like, Humble thyself, because you were not the first. It just took you longer to get there because you tried to do it by yourself, you know, like, and so I look at this, and I'm like, man, we need peace with God in order to get to this boasting with God. Yes, I think we it's one thing to be happy about what we've achieved, and that's that's a good thing, but it's the the boasting, the glorifying, being sent to, you know, going to, God is the difference. So I'm gonna, I'm gonna take that statement for a second, because it's very interesting how you said it, and I'm just gonna unpack it for one second because I think there's a little nuance. You said. It's interesting about boasting and what we've achieved, right? And you have this achievement language, right? And I think that's, that's where I get stuck when I think about the word boast, is because it makes me think of achievements, right? And what we've done with God. And then I go back to this justified by faith, and I'm like, Oh, they remove the achievement right away. Like, it's like, you can't achieve without relationship with God. You can't achieve without being justified by God's faithfulness. That temptation away. It's like, right away it says, like, Hey, if you want peace, you're justified by faith. Like, if you want peace, you're not an achievement oriented person. And then it just leaves gratefulness, beautiful statement, beautiful statement, love. Gratefulness, right? Like, that's a huge identity of what we needed to do. And so let's, let's turn over into verse 11, and kind of take a look through this. So this is the same. Chapter five results of justification, and then verse 11 says this. But more than that, we even boast. Let's go back into that word, or rejoice, or rejoice in God, through our Lord, Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation. Now this reconciliation word I concentrated on a lot, and here's where I went into my point in the message I said, you cannot have peace with God without a relationship with God, right? You have to have relationship with God, and you can't have a relationship with God without reconciliation to God. AKA, we don't start in the space where we are this perfect creature that's perfectly aligned with God. No God reconciled God's self to us through Jesus Christ, sacrifice right and crucifixion and resurrection right with the promise of the kingdom, you have to have this relationship of reconciliation. And where I went is that if you want to find peace with people in your life, and you want to desire this and have that, you have to be reconciled to the people in your life, which, whoo. That's a tough statement, because I asked the church to raise their hand about how many people that need reconciliation? And I mean, you got 75% of people raise their hand, going, I need reconciliation with some people in my life, and some people are just stubborn and unwilling. Oh, yeah, reconcile. And I said, How many of you don't even have the opportunity to reconcile a relationship in your life? And like, 50% of those people hold up their hands, right? Like, I ain't never going back to that. Like you're not asking me to go back and talk to that relationship, which is, I think, true, right? I don't want to put anyone in harm's way. So how do you Here's a great question for our podcast host today. How do you reconcile a relationship that you don't have access to anymore? Well, I think you can be you can reconcile it without being in it. Okay, talk. Say more, because sometimes there is a benefit to healthy boundaries. Oh, you know, especially if there's a matter of physical danger, emotional abuse, you know, stuff like that. And it kind of gets goes back to forgiveness, where you can let go of anger with somebody, forgive them, but still maintain that protective barrier that says that I'm not going to allow myself to be harmed by this person again, right? And so that's part of our reconciling our relationship, because our purpose is to to love our neighbor. Yep, it doesn't necessarily mean getting in the cage of the lion. Yeah, you know, I can. I can love them, which you know, and choose to to not hate, which is tough to do, but that mean you have to like them, and that mean you have to spend a bunch of time with them. But so reconciling with them doesn't mean you have to. It's like reconciling an account once it's closed before you close it, yeah, closing out the books, you can reconcile that reaction, that relationship at a point where you can say, I forgive you, but for my own safety or my own mental health, I'm not ever going to talk to you again. Yeah, and that can be okay, as long as it's not motivated from hate, if, like, you know, you know, screw you, I'm not going to talk to you again. Yeah, that's not reconciled. Yeah, no, yeah. Say that you know, hey, I forgive you, but I cannot continue in this relationship. And you can, you can be reconciled. Yeah, right now, reconciling it and being in it. That case, both people have to be willing to record, yeah, true, true, which I think is even harder, yeah, how to do that? That's the trick. And luckily, God has inspired many wonderful personal counselors, therapists, stuff like that, to help people work through that. Because, man, that can be complicated. That's super complicated. And what about you? Roseanne, right, what do you think about can you reconcile with people if you don't have access to those people anymore, how would you reconcile to them? I think just as God forgave me through Jesus Christ, yeah, I can forgive them. Mm, hmm. And but again, like Tom said, I don't have to allow them to push my boundaries. Yeah, right. I just move on. Mm, hmm. I think there's a part of forgiveness and leaning that into God, and I think that's part of where we where I took this message. But I think the other part of this too is that it's not only the forgiveness, right? I think forgiveness is a paramount side of that relationship. I think there's another side that's also praying for them, right? Not only are we forgiving someone, but imagine the forgiveness aspect into then asking God to fill their life with the Spirit, for them to be spirit led for their life to, you know, inspire other people and for them to share a message of their experience with God like now, not only we're forgiving someone, we're saying, Hey, God, now use them in the story of the kingdom on earth to lead people to the kingdom of heaven. I think that transition is reconciliation, right? That that's reconciliation not to us, because that's not who we're trying to reconcile to. We're trying to reconcile people to God, right? And if we need to do that, we first need to reconcile ourselves to God, which is the prayer of forgiveness. It is the prayer of I'm going to pray over you and see that God works wonders in your ways, and then to see that reconciliation come through for them, also in another space. So I think there's a really neat space where we see this reconciliation as an identity of who we are as Christians and how to live that as a deeper relationship with our loved ones and ones we used to love. I mean, what's the best way to say that? Right friends that we don't have anymore? I think that profound partner is that we've received reconciliation. And if I think of that word, receive, that's where I think God is calling us to do with the people in our lives too. They need to receive reconciliation. They might not seek it, they might not want it, but they need to receive reconciliation. And that needs to happen from us. But man, a lot of people in relationships that are hard to reconcile, right? Do you guys experience that too? Do you have relationships in your life that are still hard to reconcile? I'm sure first marriage, yeah, that was hard. Yeah, I can't think of anything else, okay, well, look at you having great relationships. Congratulations. No boast, boast in the Lord. Just chemo. I don't know about that, but yeah. That was yeah, that was it, yeah, yeah. I think we all have probably more than we realize. I can't. I'm trying to think of a good example right now. But again, it goes to the back of us wanting to, you know, always paint ourselves in our own Yeah, in the best possible light. It's kind of like a self, self defense kind of thing. And sometimes we might not realize we need to reconcile ourselves to somebody because, you know, people want to be polite, and sometimes you make them mad they don't tell you until it hits like a boiling point. Yeah, you know. And I, I see that a lot, when people are completely shocked that they're getting arrested because of something they've done to somebody else, yeah? Then I'm like, You should not be surprised about this. Yeah, yeah. This is the moment that, yeah. Oh, and there's family members I don't see very often. There's friends that you know, people I was friends with in high school that have taken a different direction in life, where I'm like, I just need to stay away from that. And so I don't know if it needs reconciliation necessarily, but yeah, that's interesting to think about. Yeah, right? And I think that's where people landed on Sunday, right? And it's what my hope was, is that we would just think about the relationships that we've maybe dismissed reconciliation. It's just not been something we've ever sought out, or something that we equated reconciliation with presence, right? And we don't need to make that equation right, like reconciliation is before God, and if people receive reconciliation, that means that, yeah, we've reconciled ourselves to God and therefore to others, yeah, because it's not necessarily going back to the way it was before. That's right, that's right. And that was a big thing I said on Sundays that that's not how we see this, right? And I said, and if you want reconciliation, you can only have reconciliation through the hope and the promise of Jesus Christ. And what I was saying is that it's not about going back in the relationship. It's about living into the hope, living into the hope that there is a kingdom where we do desire that everyone would be there with their relationship with God, but we have to reconcile in order to do that. It's the same reason Jesus Christ came for us, for the sake of the world, right? And then God gave His Only Son so that we are reconciled to God, right? That there was this plan for the kingdom for all of us and and that's what we're leaning into in the next message. The next message is going to be salvation for all. And it's interesting, because as we were crafting the series, and salvation for all came up in seminary. You guys remember Rob Bell? You guys remember Rob Bell, Michigan pastor. Okay, so he was big in like, the 2000s right? We brought NUMA series, different things like this, everything else going on, and wrote a book called Love wins. And this book was about salvation for all that. In the end, love wins, right? And so my buddy in seminary was doing a book study on this book, and one of his final papers in seminary on this, love wins, right? This kind of theology of it's always ends with love, right? Type of deal. And so he got excited that Rob Bell was just published his book. And so he goes, Hey, would you come up to the first church service, you know, where, after he published his book, he's going to talk about his book being published, right? And I was like, Oh, that would be awesome, you know? I was like, Let's travel up. So we drove up to Michigan to go attend the service. Service is good. It's in the round, right? It's a great church, right? We walk in, things are going cool. It's going to be neat to listen to this and everything else like that, and and then. But I don't, I don't see pastor Rob, I don't, I don't see him in the church and everything. I was like, oh, maybe, maybe he's not, he like, maybe he's not here, and we missed it, and whatever else is happening, right? And then all of a sudden, the music guy's down. It's time for the message, and they do, like a book intro thing right on the screen. And then all of a sudden, here comes pastor Rob walking down the aisle with two bodyguards right for the center of the church, right? And the bodyguards were there. People can see the look on the podcast. Look you give me is exactly like I was like, what's happening, like, what's going on, and he had protection because of threats he'd received, because of the narrative that love wins, right? And that love and Jesus is love is for all. And so he preached with these two bodyguards down on the stage, right? And I expected it to be much more like traditional church presence, which was like, hey, you'll be on the lobby afterwards. You can talk with them different things like that, right? Nope. He got done with the message, and him and him and his bodyguards walked off the stage and never saw him again. Like, that was it. And I was like, I don't know if this is the best reality of talking about like, love wins. I was like, it was this whole takeaway. I was like, I here. We are fear one, yeah, yeah, it's crazy. So we're gonna be talking about this identity of Love wins. Tom, what's going on next in the Bible study group? So we're coming up on Wednesday. So I'm working, I'll be working on that today, yeah, building it out for next week. Wait, you said Wednesday. I mean, people just think it's the day of the week. What do you mean by Wednesday? Well, that's what it's and I don't remember which the because the Roman god is so much different in how we go from Roman to Norse, yeah, all through. So I don't remember what the Roman god is for this week. Okay, I'll be figuring that out, going back and re reviewing that chapter, yeah, after podcast today and start building it out. Great. That's awesome, yeah? So that's good. That part of got the, not the podcast, but the life groups continue for what? Six weeks. This is kind of how the studies draw. It's us. Well, there's the intro week, and then there's seven weeks for Monday, Monday through Sunday, great. And so it's total eight weeks. There's 10 weeks in the time period that we have the life groups running, because some while being every other some will be every week. And so if you're doing every week, you'll hit a couple weeks early at the end. So it's a total, total eight, eight Bible app. Okay? Trees will go out, including the, you know, the intro, and then Monday, Tuesday. So there's three in there right now. Yeah, great. And the fourth one will be building today, and we'll go live next Tuesday. Great. That's awesome. So that's a big plug for life groups here at the church, we're in the study on Romans. We're talking about salvation for all next week, and so we're going to continue this study on Romans And all God's people said, Amen. You.