Beyond Sunday
Beyond Sunday
Favorite Verse: Mitch Bollig
Matthew 11:28-30 changed Mitch Bollig's life when he realized how important and freeing Jesus' invitation to come to Him was. We deep dive into this passage to further understand Jesus' loving compassion and offer to share our burdens.
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Hey there, king and Kings family, welcome into another episode of Beyond Sunday Sermons. This is the podcast where we get an opportunity to kind of unpack a Sunday sermon a little bit further and kind of talk about some stuff that maybe got left out or, in the case of this series, kind of look at some different perspectives on staff, because we had a series a little bit ago called Favorite Verse and we had our preachers got a chance to kind of detail their favorite verses, their favorite passages and talk about why they were impactful to them. And we took a look at this podcast. We were like, hey, let's talk to some more staff about this. So I'm really excited about this one today because this guy to my right is super cool. Can't wait to introduce you to him.
Speaker 2:Which one? Oh that directly to my right. As far to my right, that's whatever that's executive director Mike White, that's a promotion I think he just gave me director of ministry. I can be an executive director.
Speaker 1:I just gave you Julie's job. You did.
Speaker 2:Sorry Julie, I just want you to know this way.
Speaker 1:Sorry Julie director of ministry, mike White, and to my direct right is our worship director, mitch Bollig. Also little known fact about him. I mean maybe a little known for out there. But what would you say? 80, 85% of your wardrobe is from Timu, I would say a good hmm, 84.72% is definitely Timu.
Speaker 2:And you've developed a really rough skin condition since you've been buying off Timu, right Not?
Speaker 3:true, not true. My skin's gotten much better, actually glowing. So if you use my code, which we will make sure to provide for you, then you too can have such link down in the description.
Speaker 1:All right, I suppose we should actually talk about the Bible at some point, as biblical as Timu is. So we asked you, mitch, what's your favorite verse, favorite passage you said Matthew 11, 28 to 30. So I'm going to read that. This is the NIV version. Come to me all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart and you'll find rest for your souls, for my yoke is easy and my burden is light. So obviously you know that's a pretty popular verse. That's a very impactful and meaningful verse to many people. What is it about that passage that really sticks out to you?
Speaker 3:Yeah, I think for me, the reason why it's so special and so meaningful is that really played a big role in in my salvation and in my early days, when I just became a Christian, that particular verse was so significant. It was like my whole life I felt like I was always searching for something, searching and there was like this hole inside of my heart and when I came to Christ it was like that hole was finally satisfied, like finally I found purpose and meaning for life. And so, yeah, I think that just that verse in general, because of that meaning, it really played a big role for me in just the idea of Jesus saying come to me all you who are weary, the invitation for all people, all people everywhere, that the answer is found in Jesus and we just need to go to him. Go to him.
Speaker 1:What did that feel like for you, mitch? I don't know if you grew up in a Christian householder or not you can give us a little bit of your background if you want but like to recognize that you have this hole in your life and there's you feel like there's something significant that needs to go there and you just can't figure out what. And then, when you come upon it and maybe you came upon this verse, maybe it was something else that sparked that in you, but when you realize, yeah, jesus is what fills that hole, what I mean? What was that realization like for you?
Speaker 3:It's just like peace, you know having total peace, because when you come to the conclusion of the thing that I've always been searching for and what I've been seeking for the reason why I'm so restless like now I can find my rest in Christ. It's just like solid. You're solid now because your life is now built upon the solid rock of Christ.
Speaker 2:What about? Was there a restlessness in you? Or I mean, you talked about finally coming to receive. There's a hole in me where you try. I guess part of my journey is trying to find other stuff to fill that. Was that part of your story too, or not so much.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I think for all of us, like we're always trying to fill, like try to find meaning or purpose in life, whether that's through like success, or through our work or through our career, like we're always trying to find that purpose, and then when you realize that it's in Christ, it's like you have that, that complete satisfaction in him.
Speaker 2:And then for you, was it a slower process of coming to faith, was there? I don't know what would describe what that was like. I mean, I grew up in the church.
Speaker 3:So I always had like a Christian background, parents in ministry, but for me, like early on, I really tried rebelling against the church because I didn't want anything to do with, like my parents' faith, you know, and so I was very like rebellious. So it was kind of a long process, but at the same time, at the same time, I received God's grace when I was pretty young, at 14. So at the same time it was also like it happened to be pretty early on too, that's cool.
Speaker 1:What I love about the verse that you picked?
Speaker 1:and what you just said Mitch was like and you kind of touched on this too, Mike is like when you feel that there's that hole, there's something missing, and you're trying to fill it with other things, that's a burden. That goes right to when Christ says come to me all you who are weary and burdened. That's tiring. It's a burden to try and figure out what is this. I mean it's just constantly on your mind like I know I'm here for something more, there's something that I'm missing out on. What is it? I mean, that's something that gets lodged in your brain. You can't get it out, and then to have that realization that actually there's no job, there's no success, there's no significant other, there's nothing that I can do that is going to fill that hole. But it's Christ who takes that, he literally takes that burden off your shoulders. It's just such a beautiful metaphor, I think.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think that grace is such a foreign concept I know early in my faith life I don't think I lived out of grace. I think it was predicated on my performance and that's not a good way to get us out the way of Jesus. And so it became this guilt inducing way of life where I would fall short, I wasn't good enough and I'd feel guilt and shame. Then I'd try harder again, but like learning to receive grace then that's what Jesus is all about. But that's hard. Did you experience that too?
Speaker 3:Right for me? Yeah, totally, for like, the first few years after becoming a Christian like almost became a Pharisee, like right away, and it was very much workspace, and not just workspace, but almost out of like fear-based fear of God, and not like the good fear of God but the bad fear of God For sure. Yeah, and there's a great quote I'm not sure who originally said it, but they said that there's two types of Christians in the kingdom there's workers and there's lovers. But lovers will always get more work done than workers. And when we experience God's grace, like we actually really have to abide in that grace, like we can't rely on our own strength, our own ability, because we know that even our righteousness is like filthy rags before and all. Holy God. So I'm thankful for the grace of Christ because he's done it for us.
Speaker 2:Yeah, there's that freedom when you receive it. I don't. There might be a one-time salvation moment, but I think in my journey there's an over and over going back to the grace of God, because I think it's so easy to slip into performance, either to elevate myself to a self-righteous position or a shame position, if that makes sense.
Speaker 1:So so, mike, you're kind of the context king. I know you're really good.
Speaker 2:Also, I wanna make sure we discover that Mitch is a lover on the podcast. Today is what we discovered.
Speaker 3:That's right right.
Speaker 1:Anyway uh context scheme. Yeah yeah, you're just very good at looking at the verses around a passage and kind of figuring out, okay, what's going on here, what? Time and place you know if. Jesus speaking. Who's he speaking to?
Speaker 2:So we've got Jesus speaking here.
Speaker 1:What's the context around this passage?
Speaker 2:Let me throw my phrase out. You've heard it before, I don't know if you have. I stole it from someone years ago.
Speaker 2:A text without a context is a pretext for a proof text. Yeah, think about that one a few times. But it's just saying that we can take one word or one verse out of scripture and then apply it to whatever we want. So a classic one is, uh, john 11, I think 35, where it says Jesus wept.
Speaker 2:So if you just looked at those words you would say, well, is he an emotional wreck? Did he hurt himself? Did he watch romantic comedy, like what is going on? Right, but then exactly what Dan's saying in the quote, you got to back up and read the verses before that, the chapter before that, the book, the whole book. And so I mean we can go back to the being of Matthew and see context.
Speaker 2:You see the Christmas story, you see Jesus birth, we see him entering into ministry, baptism, calling disciples, sermon on the mount, and then, even if you look at chapter eight before that, so that ends the sermon on the mount, says he's preaching like no one's ever seen before, and then he goes and does a series of miracles in chapter eight. And if you notice, at the end of some of those there starts to be conflict with the religious leaders because he was different. And so you see the healing of the paralytic and it says the Pharisees, teachers of the law, said this guy's blaspheming Go over to the end of nine, the Pharisees saying it's demons who drive this out. And then there's this beautiful picture at the end of Matthew nine. Jesus is preaching and it shows him like on a hillside looking out over the crowds and he says it was the word Zach used a few weeks ago splognitzel, my, he has compassion, he's seeing the people.
Speaker 1:Good.
Speaker 2:Down his gut right, and he's seeing the people and they're helpless. They're like sheep without a shepherd. So then it says the harvest is plentiful, the workers are few. Then he sends his disciples out, he instructs them, and then that's when we enter into chapter 11. And then what's fascinating, 11 is we see John the Baptist right here, who was the precursor of the forerunner to Jesus, pointed all the way to him and then he was actually imprisoned. And then what you see here is his disciples sent by John, who's in prison. They come to Jesus and they're like what's going on here? Like we don't think our guys should be in prison Are you the one or is there someone else? Because they had expectations that Jesus would perform a certain way, the Messiah, and they thought it'd be total freedom, right.
Speaker 2:Then Jesus quotes Isaiah 61, but leaves out the freedom for the prisoners. And he keeps going on and he almost has this confrontation moment with the crowd. And he says John came and he was what's the word he used, saying a dirge like he's at morning. And the Son of man came with freedom and eating. Like neither one of us were good enough for you, like we can't make you win. And all throughout this he's pointing to the religious leaders who are imposing. This is where the word yoke could come in. It's one translation of yoke rules. They were putting rules on the followers of God at that point and they were hypocritical. And so even in Matthew 23, he points that out and says you're overloading the people with all these rules and yet you can't keep them. So he's seeing the people, he has compassion on them, and they put a yoke of teaching on the people. That's unbearable. And then he says take my yoke upon you, learn from me, I will give you rest.
Speaker 2:You're being burdened by the religious leaders. There's freedom, like you were saying. In taking my yoke upon you, there's a couple of ways you can look at yoke. Anyway, that's probably too much, but no, that was great.
Speaker 1:No, context is great. I mean, I'd love to get both your thoughts on this, mike. You brought it up a couple of times, the word yoke is used multiple times in this verse and of course we're not talking about egg yolk or anything. We're talking about the rest, not restraints, but the things that were placed on oxen shoulders so oxen could pull large machinery carts, whatever it might be, yep. So when you look at the word yoke as Jesus uses it a couple of times, you said there could be a couple of meanings.
Speaker 2:What do you?
Speaker 1:guys see there.
Speaker 2:Right. So so I'll share now Whatever you got on this too. I think one way you could do it is rabbis. Back then Jesus was the exception, so typically a student would go and apply to be a rabbis disciple follower and be taught. You'd have to be smart enough and recite the Old Testament and know the traditions and things like that so you would actually apply. But Jesus is the other way and he actually chooses and says you come with me, right, which is totally backwards.
Speaker 2:But then rabbis had different interpretations of the law, the oral tradition, stuff like that, and so it was seen as taking on a rabbis yoke so you would learn from them and you would learn their religious tradition, their practices, stuff like that. So that's one way of seeing a yoke was like you were taking on this rabbis theology essentially in practice. Or the other way, which you alluded to, was the animal, and so you would. You would use an ox or a yoke for two ox oxen typically and you would put them together and they would work together in plowing the field, and one was traditionally an older, wiser ox, and so they would pair the younger ox with the older, wiser one so they could learn from them and as an ox. You would see, maybe that is a burden where you're restrained, but like when we're actually united with Christ. With that yoke it's like total freedom, yeah, if that makes sense, which is kind of an oxym paradox kind of stuff, I don't know. Thoughts.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I've always have Understood it as the illustration of like the instrument used for the oxen. So that was cool hearing the other other side that you've had to. I think what Jesus was trying to get out by like Jesus always talked in parables and was always giving illustrations Was that this was like the burden of the Pharisees.
Speaker 2:Mm-hmm.
Speaker 3:That was yep. That was placed upon the people's shoulders.
Speaker 2:I'm here.
Speaker 3:He's saying my yoke is easy, so we have this, this freedom now in Jesus and that's what's wild grace that you said you a yoke is sort of restricting.
Speaker 2:So like you're, like that doesn't make sense and I think we we rebel against restriction, but actually when there's clarity and rules and boundaries and guidance for life, it's actually freeing because you know how to live in that system.
Speaker 3:in some ways, right, and I don't know if you guys have ever driven overseas in a country where they don't have a lot of laws. Yes, pretty wild. Like we Wasn't in the Philippines back in February and I always thought that Omaha drivers were bad.
Speaker 2:I was like oh no over there.
Speaker 3:I don't know how people do it, but I mean they live somehow. I mean people no one died, but it was just wild with how people drive everyone's honking their horn. People are just going when they want to, but it's good for us to have laws in place, to have red light, green light, those kind of things in place. I think that's the same illustration to talk about. You know this Like discipline, that the Lord gives us instructions, like God has a way for us to live our lives and it's actually Though maybe to the natural mind it seems restrictive right, it's actually freedom. Yeah, and that's how God actually made us to live, yeah, yeah, I think you're totally right.
Speaker 2:Gonna be all you were weary and burdened, and so that's what they were weighed down by the rules and laws of the religious leaders, and it's a self-righteousness. They couldn't do it, and so he's given the exact opposite.
Speaker 1:There's this grace I'm offering to you to give freedom, and I think, and you guys can- correct me if I'm Misinterpreting this, but I think part of it too is just we all carry a yoke through life and it's kind of like yeah, we, one oxen, can use a yoke and can pull it, but it's not gonna be very effective. You're doing all the work yourself. It's bulky because you got half of it dragging on the ground now and Jesus is saying no, let me come alongside you. That's good. I'm gonna partner with you. I can make this. I'm bigger than you, I'm stronger than you. I can make this so much easier for you. Just come to me and I want to give you rest like I have this gift for you just receive it, yeah right and I think that's what our Western culture Puts on us too.
Speaker 2:It's all about you and your performance and pick yourself up by your bootstraps and just work harder and try harder and the kingdom's like Upside down and it kind of flips that and that's the challenges.
Speaker 3:That's the challenges. Like here's Jesus saying come to me all you who are weary. But how often are like for some people, we don't want to come to Jesus. Like we want to do it ourselves. We would rather just hey, I'm gonna try my best. Or I don't want to humble myself to say I am broken, I am weary, I'm at the end of myself right now, but that's what it takes.
Speaker 2:What's the root of that? You kind of said it, but what's the root of that inside of each one of us? What do you think or do you? Can you resonate with that at all?
Speaker 3:I Don't know if it's in our I don't want to say it's in our nature, but maybe it's just part of our culture, I know. For me personally, I can say that, like when it comes to receiving gifts, yeah, I'm not very good at it, I love to give gifts. Especially like this time of year, I love giving people gifts.
Speaker 2:No more office. Man Drop them off, yeah, okay.
Speaker 3:Well, maybe some text here Teemo. Texas gear coming up. But yeah, like giving gifts is easy for me, but when it comes to like receiving a gift, that's a whole, whole another story, because I rather be the one helping someone else. You know what I mean, yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I would say, for me it's pride.
Speaker 3:It's a pride thing.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think it's hard to admit weakness. It's right to accept help. It's hard, I sure a message a long time ago, but I once experienced foot washing and having your feet washed by someone is gross. It's real gross first of all, but it's very humbling. It's very vulnerable. You're giving a gross part of yourself to someone and it's like huh. But in some ways that's what you're doing here is giving all of yourself to Jesus and there's no way into the kingdom except humbling yourself and emitting your brokenness and need right. You know right. It's hard for us in our culture in our pre-show meeting.
Speaker 1:Mitch, you said, the first three words in this passage were just Really really impactful when it came to your salvation. Come to me. What is it about those three words?
Speaker 3:When I hear that I I picture Jesus knocking at the door, my heart, and.
Speaker 3:That just the whole thing of that. Jesus is always there, that he's always inviting us, no matter how far you've gone, no matter what sins you've done, like there's no sin that you could commit. That's, that's greater than God. And Jesus is constantly saying come to me. Like even as a Christian, when we fall down into sin, god's still there, saying come to me, come back to me, my child. And so I think that's that's the huge part that really ministers to me the most.
Speaker 2:I Think it was so radical During that time period too, because you see the religious leaders get angry with Jesus and his disciples. They're like he's eating with tax collectors in the sinners, like what are you doing, bro? But that's the all portion and that that's who came to him is those are marginalized and pushed out in the fringes of society, and that's, that's the all that's everybody. He said he came for the sick sick, gotta admit You're sick, and hey, we're all sick is whether you know it or not, right? Yeah, it's good.
Speaker 1:And what's what I really like about the language that Jesus uses is he says come to me. It requires action on our part. He's not saying I'm coming to you, although he does, and he, he, he holds his arms out and embrace for us, but it's us that has to take. He's never gonna force it on us. It's us that has to take that step and and come to him. And it brings to mind Mike you just preached on revelation a couple weeks ago and you were talking about. In Revelation 3, jesus says here I am, I stand at the door and knock.
Speaker 3:He's there, he's there, he's letting it know, he's knocking.
Speaker 1:He's letting it known that his presence is there, but he's never going to. Yeah, barge that door in, he's never even yeah, he's never gonna open the door himself. He's gonna wait patiently For us to open the, and it might take years before that happens, but he wants us to come to him, to come to that door twisted.
Speaker 2:Now open it and say come on in, man, I want to see what you've got for me. It's good, I'm gonna open End of that section. I'm curious what you guys think on this. Gentle and humble and heart, you will find a rest for your souls. Why do you think he points specifically to souls?
Speaker 3:Hmm, we're talking about shoes like our foot, s O L E or a different. Oh, okay, yeah, yeah, we're talking about different Okay okay cool.
Speaker 3:Um, I think and this is kind of what I see out of that is, um, like in this life I mean, jesus even tells us this that we're gonna still have trouble yeah, we're still gonna Experience. And I hope, like when people hear, like, my testimony of what I've shared, like just because we're Christians now Doesn't mean that we don't face difficulties, doesn't mean that we don't experience Pain and in this life or in this world, but but we do have rest for our souls and so deep within us we we have that eternal, like Eternal satisfaction in Christ, like we know that our, our life is secure, that our life is held in God's hands, no matter what we face, even during difficult times. Yeah, we still are gonna face those.
Speaker 1:I Don't know about you guys, but I know, especially during Chaotic, hectic seasons, when it feels like things are spiraling out of control a little bit, that's when it's hardest to get into the word and to pray. But I know that when I, when I just Block off some time and maybe it's only a couple minutes, but if I just sit there and I'm intentional and I open up my Bible and I just say Jesus, I'm here, man, if you want to say something to me, awesome.
Speaker 3:I want to I want to listen.
Speaker 1:Those are the times when I, just I feel this Peace that cannot be explained by any human emotion. No human interaction, not even with my wife, gives me that sense, but it's just like. Okay, yeah whatever's happening right now, I've got the all powerful God, the creator of the universe, on my side. I've got the Holy Spirit living inside me. Yeah, whatever's happening outside. It might not look great, but it's okay.
Speaker 1:I can handle it right, that's and that when I see rest for my soul, that's what I right think about those moments were just like. Everything's not okay, but it's okay.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, I think Jesus is pointing to our greatest need as well. I think we we confuse things and we see physical needs as the ultimate. And I heard someone years ago I don't know the exact quote, but he said we, we live like we're bodies with a soul, but we're actually souls with the body, and so it's saying that the core of who we are is like our spirit, our soul. Yeah, and so he's actually giving rest at the deepest core level of who you are and all the physical stuff is good, but he's going deeper into the core. Like you said, say, identity question. We're seeking approval, seeking success and satisfaction through different things, and he's finding identity Rest in the greatest part of who we are, kind of thing.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I wanted to get you guys's opinions On this because, mike, you've had over a decade ministry. Mitch, you've worked at several churches. Your whole career, almost, has been in ministry. I'm still pretty new to this, but I've experienced it as well. It can sometimes feel kind of difficult to separate those two things, to separate your faith life and your job, because all of a sudden your job involves your faith life and involves researching the Bible and reading the Bible and talking about God and sometimes it feels like those private moments that you like to spend with God you're just like well, I do that at work. Those two things aren't separate anymore. Do you guys kind of feel that push-pull as church workers? Oh, totally.
Speaker 3:It goes back to, as we're going through Revelation right now, to not lose your first love. And when we work especially if you're working in ministry, you're working in church like it can be really easy to lose your first love because, like what you're saying, you begin to maybe stop spending time alone with God and you're only concentrating on work, and that goes all the way back to what we said at the beginning about there's lovers and workers, but the lovers always get more work done than the workers.
Speaker 3:I think the key to not facing burnout because, ultimately, if you keep going down that path, that's what happens is you just burn out. It's eventually. You're no longer living and serving in ministry, you're no longer going from the overflow of what God's pouring inside of you, but now you're just. You're empty at this point, and you're trying to, you're trying to pour out, but there's nothing in it, because you're not spending time with the Lord. But I think the secret, though, is in.
Speaker 1:Oh, you have the secret. Wow, here we go.
Speaker 2:You've been waiting for it. The secret's coming out today.
Speaker 3:The secret everybody right now. Share right now. This is the secret. Gotta share this. It's in Isaiah, the secret's in God's word. Believe it or not, could you imagine that, like my goodness, god's just given us everything else? It's in Isaiah 40. And first, starting, verse 29,. He gives power to the weak and to those who have no might. He increases strength. Even the youths shall faint and be weary, and the young men shall utterly fall. But those who wait on the Lord shall renew their strength. They shall mount up with wings like eagles. They shall run and not be weary. They shall walk and not faint. That's the key is just waiting on the Lord. And that brings up the whole question of what does waiting look like? What is waiting on the Lord? What does that mean? What does that look like? But I think that's the real secret is whether that's through prayer, like how you mentioned, dan, just sitting before God in prayer, maybe just opening the word of God and spending time reading his word. That's where our strength really comes from.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think we see waiting as a passive activity, as the opposite of that. You're not in a waiting room waiting for something or whatever else to come get you. It's waiting is a very active activity. And to your question, I think I probably take it for granted how easy it is to come and do these things or talk through scripture or pray with somebody, because it's so proximate at a church context. But just what you said, if you're not feeling yourself in some ways, you're going to go dry and you're going to see the results on the outside. You're going to see the fruit at home with your wife and kids or whatever it is, and with the coworkers. It's going to come out. So you've got to feed yourself first.
Speaker 3:When I was a worship leader, my pastor, former pastor Steve Sweat if you're watching shout out Go. Steve Manu fell ship. He told me one time he read this passage to me and he was like Mitch, because I was a worship leader and he was like, if I would be, he basically I'm going to kind of paraphrase how he said it, but he basically said I'm not going to be a successful pastor if you're doing all of this work as a worship leader but then by the end of your life you don't follow Christ. You're doing all this work, but are you waiting on the Lord? It's good, are you actually spending time with Jesus? And so for him he always made that like a priority for me to go. This needs to be first in my life. And so I really appreciate, like those words he gave me yeah, it's cool.
Speaker 1:As we wind down here, I wanna rewind a little bit to something you said, and it was way at the beginning, probably about half an hour ago, mitch, but you mentioned when you first became a Christian. You kind of acted like a Pharisee and we talked in our pre-show meeting about Pharisee Christians. What does that term mean and how can we avoid falling into that trap?
Speaker 3:Yeah, I think that would.
Speaker 3:If I were to define a Pharisee Christian which is so ironic like you wouldn't think that you could be as a Christian, you wouldn't think you could be a Pharisee.
Speaker 3:But I think what the trap is is that we say with our mouth that we follow Christ or that we're Christians, but our heart and our action looks very different, and so that for me personally, it was like a very much my salvation felt more like a workspace salvation, Like I didn't really understand that God's grace was enough for me, but I felt like I had to do works, whether that be evangelizing, and also just like not showing love towards people, like being very rude and cynical and prideful early on.
Speaker 3:And yeah, and that's not a good. If you have those ingredients, that's really not good because you might think that you're following Christ. But then when you realize like who the Pharisees were in the Bible they were Jewish religious leaders that were waiting for the Messiah you would think that they were, they should be waiting and expecting the Messiah, but when the Messiah came, they crucified him. And so we definitely don't wanna do that as Christians is when we're supposed to be following in Christ's footsteps but then we actually end up fighting against Christ by how we're living and how we're treating other people Like. That's not good.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I don't know about you, dan. I know I had a self-righteous phase college, was it? So my faith came alive and I think I began trusting in my own religious actions and not in Jesus' work. And so there should be no such thing as an arrogant Christian, because the root of our faith is you're actually trusting in someone else's actions that you've done nothing with, so you're trusting in Jesus' work on the cross. So it's nothing of myself, so no one can boast, as what Ephesians says. So there's no room for arrogance, no room for pride. I'm not better than anyone else because I'm having a real life, fully on Jesus.
Speaker 2:And if you look at the religious leaders, you can look in Matthew 6, where he talks about giving, praying, fasting, and he says they do it all to be seen by people. You go to Matthew 23,. It's the seven. Woes, woe to you who do this right. This is they tie up heavy loads, put them on men's shoulders, but they themselves are not willing to lift a finger to move them. That's what he's speaking against these burdens that they're putting on people. They're showing you how great I am and not helping you do things.
Speaker 3:It's fasting, praying in the streets.
Speaker 2:Praying in the streets. All visibility, all about me, and that's the thing. There's no arrogance if you. It's all about Jesus.
Speaker 3:And you hear a lot of people criticize Christians and say Christians are all judgmental. Of course that's kind of based off misinformation. All Christians are that way and if we're truly following Christ like, we're not gonna be like that. But I think that when people identify a Christian as being someone, that's judgmental. That's where you tend to see like the Pharisee, the Pharisee DNA.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I agree, makes a lot of sense. I think we've unpacked these verses really well. We've had some really good discussion here. Any closing thoughts? You guys might have anything that you wanna leave people who are listening or watching this as we close on the podcast today.
Speaker 3:I think we'll circle it right back to that verse where Jesus says come to me all you who are weary. So if you're weary today, then our prayer is that you would come to Jesus, that you would humble yourself today, and all you have to do is just invite him, Invite him, say Lord Jesus, I'm coming to you right now, and you'll find that he's already there.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think there's a unique work rest dynamic in our culture today. We're used to working and working, and working, but we don't rest well. So you gotta rest for salvation and that's the humility portion you're saying, coming to him frequently, so that's where that rest for our souls is. So I think I just wonder what we're working for for identity, for success, adoration, whatever it might be, but rest in Jesus. Be encouragement from this verse. Good stuff, Mitch.
Speaker 1:Beautifully said guys. All right, we'll close the podcast there. King and King's Family, let's keep living our lives beyond Sunday MUSIC.
