Transcript
WEBVTT
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And welcome back to Pastor Plek's podcast.
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I'm your host, Pastor Plek, and joining me in studio is none other than lead pastor of Eastside Community Church.
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That would be Holland Gregg.
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Hey, Chris man, I'm so glad you're here, Holland.
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Anything to update us from Eastside?
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You know we had a great Sunday this past Sunday Trent, our associate pastor, preached when I preached here at Wells Branch.
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Did a great job, nice, and I got to follow it up last Sunday.
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We're going through Hebrews right now, so life is good, ministry is going well.
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That's how you know God likes coffee.
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All right, so Cody, glad to have you back on the show.
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How Alright, so Cody, glad to have you back on the show.
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How's the Cody Sparks band?
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You had a big event for the Cody Sparks band this past weekend, which probably didn't go very well because of Texas' performance.
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No it didn't.
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That's it To the game.
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Well, both Bad game.
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Bad game, but how did that affect you playing?
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I didn't want to, and I don't think't think any other people there wanted to play either everybody's like let's just go home.
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Yeah, we're over it was not good it was just bad, like that whole.
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It was bad.
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It wasn't like an exciting game where everyone played great and you're like, wow, you know we lost.
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No, we fought hard.
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It was like who was that out on the field?
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yeah, it was, it was and I like, and we really looked like we got exposed on the offensive line especially.
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Well, I was ready.
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I was calling for Arch Manning.
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Yeah, but you call him in like 10 seconds I did.
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Yeah, I'd have no patience for Quinn Ewers.
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Zero, none, zero.
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I don't understand why, but now you should.
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I have partiality toward Arch Manning, and that's what we're talking about today is partiality, and why we shouldn't do that.
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It becomes our functional savior.
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And maybe, holland, you can speak to this Not that you have this issue, but you know, you might know people do, whether you're rich or poor.
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Some people are actually not.
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Some a lot of people view wealth as their functional savior.
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They might profess Jesus, but their actual trust comes in the money.
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What do you think?
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Yeah, when um Bible talks about God as our protector, our provider, our defender, our refuge, our strong tower, there's all these um, all this language about God giving us security.
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Um, we don't always feel that uh security unless we have, you know the um.
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When we have wealth, though, we we feel more secure when we have, um uh, whether it's you know job, whether it's the right house, whether it's you know some form of material possessions and wealth.
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Those are the things that actually make us feel secure, and so sometimes we can chase those things.
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Um, I look to those things, whether we have them or not.
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Um, you can be poor and still idolize wealth and look to it as a functional savior.
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You can be rich and idolize what you have, see it as a functional savior instead of seeing God as your ultimate security.
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So would you think that in America, where we know, like you and I have been around the globe a couple of times and we have seen what real poverty is and most people in America would not think of themselves as rich Right, but we kind of are Right, like if you own, like your own car, doesn't that put you like in the at least the top half right it?
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depends on who you compare yourself to.
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Yeah, like, yeah, I think that's the problem.
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Like, if you compare yourself to other americans, you feel like you're behind.
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If you compare yourself to tanzanian uh uh tribes, that tribesmen that live in you know the plains, then you probably feel like you're doing pretty good.
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Yeah, you can have a car and a house but also have payments on those cars and houses that you can't actually keep up with because your income, you know, is struggling and so you can have things and still be poor.
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Yeah, so there is a reality that people face this reality, struggle and James says my brother, show no partialities, you hold the faith in our Lord Jesus Christ.
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And I made the comment on Sunday that when you show partiality, you're not holding the faith of the Lord Jesus, you're holding it in your functional savior, which then he goes right into a comparison of your wealth functional savior of like how you pay attention to the guy wearing the gold ring and fine clothing and then you ignore the guy with the shabby clothing who also comes in At Eastside.
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Do you have this issue?
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Specifically like showing partiality based on clothing or appearance.
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I think it's there in all of our hearts to think that way.
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I wouldn't say it's a major issue in our church, but do you have homeless guys coming in?
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Yeah, so is there any sort of like something you have to overcome to say, like I'm not going to go put that guy over in the corner so he doesn't disrupt other people that actually want to come back?
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We have, I would say this we have folks who are more poor and more rich on either end of the spectrum, and being disruptive to a service isn't necessarily tied to one of those, so that's fair.
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Okay, that's a good point, Cause sometimes someone's wealth isn't why you get uncomfortable, it's because of their actions.
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Yeah, well, and a lot of times, you know, when you're like, oh, hey, there's someone here, um, you know, with nice clothes, uh, you know, they have expensive jewelry or whatever.
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You're thinking it could be a couple of different things.
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One oh, I want to be associated with them because they're popular, they're respected, they're cool, whatever, and so I want them upfront and connected to me.
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So I feel better about myself because I care about the approval of people.
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It could be there, so like, hey, maybe they could fund this ministry.
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Maybe this person you know has, uh, but you know Austin's very different than a city like Dallas or Houston in that you know wealthy people in Austin wear board shorts and flip-flops a lot of the time.
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That's very true, Right.
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In fact, when I see somebody that's really dressed up, I think they didn't get the memo on what to wear.
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I don't think in terms of that person has money.
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I think in terms of I need to make sure they feel comfortable about being here.
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Yeah, we have a pretty diverse church in terms uh, we have, we have pretty diverse church in terms of, um, rich, poor, how people dress stuff like that and it's it's honestly.
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I think we formed a church culture where that's not a that's not really a big deal.
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Yeah, I think we never judge a book by its cover.
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Yeah.
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Yeah, cause you don't know what's underneath.
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Something like that what's inside?
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Is that a song?
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I don't think so.
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I mean, anything could be a song if you want?
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No, never judge a book by its cover.
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You never know what's inside.
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You never know what's inside.
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Yeah, I think we can go there.
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That's good, all right, no-transcript that poor people um have an inheritance that is from the Lord and um, I'm I personally am a benefit of an inheritance.
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I don't know if you knew that my grandfather so I had a my grandpa, my biological grandfather, my dad's I died when my dad was like two and then my grandmother remarried.
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She married my step grandfather two years before I was born, and then my dad passed away 11 years ago, and so then my grandfather passed away, like five years ago.
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Well, I got written into the will as like, not a blood relative, but as a um non-blood relatives, and so we were able to to pay off our house because of what my grandfather left to us in his will.
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Isn't that wild?
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It's awesome.
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And so what I talked about when it comes to um, when it comes to our faith, god has chosen those who are poor in the world to be rich in faith, and so what that means is just like I actually got a physical inheritance, and so every time I walk into my house, I think, wow, man, thank God for my grandfather who left me the money to have full equity in this house.
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This is wild.
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I want people to think that God has sent his son, jesus, to die on the cross to give you full equity into the house of God, and so that mindset it was his benefit or sorry, people to kind of wrap their head around is that's what we have to look forward to, cause there was this period of time where my grandfather had died.
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I knew what was in the will.
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In fact, it was like two years from his death until the time that a check came in the mail, uh, and I think, if we're, if we can wrap our head around that that's what it's like to live with the promise of the inheritance coming, um, and so I, and I think what happens is we don't understand, uh, the idea of inheritance.
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Maybe, maybe no one's, not very many people have experienced inheritance like that, so they don't understand what it's like to wait for the inheritance, uh, but that is exactly what um James is writing about for those who are poor in this world to be rich in faith because they know the inheritance is to come.
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Yeah, and then, second, he uses the phrase which he has promised to those who love him Do you remember in James, chapter one, the crown of life was would be given to those who love him, which I thought was sort of interesting.
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Yep, and nobody's excited about a crown of life in general, because they don't know what a crown of life it's not like if I gave you a grammy, you're like wow, I got a grammy and we had awards presentation and there's holland greg.
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Like you know, I don't even know what I did to deserve this grammy, but thank you, and you get the speech.
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Like everyone.
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Be like wow, he, wow, he got a Grammy.
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Whereas the Crown of Life, since it doesn't have much notoriety, there hasn't been a lot of shows about it.
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People don't know what a Crown of Life is, and so it's hard for, I think, people to get excited about waiting for the Crown of Life.
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Have you experienced anything like that?
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So can you define Crown of Life?
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How have you explained it in the sermon series Is?
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It something we receive now or when Jesus comes back when Jesus comes back.
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Obviously, you don't get it on this side of heaven.
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It's the post-life experience, where you get the crown of life, and it's a promise to those who love him.
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It's a promise and it's something we should value, but because we don't have a reference for it, we don't get excited about it.
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How big is your?
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mansion right, I mean it's.
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It's like if you told your three-year-old uh, you have an inheritance and you know.
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It's like your three-year-old's like I want a popsicle you know, I want to.
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You know they can't fathom the goodness and value of an inheritance at that age, I think, think in a lot of ways.
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Um, for you know people in this time, um, living in in the world and trying to get by day to day, you know, as a crown of life, like, what value does that have?
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What does that give me?
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Now, you know what?
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So it is hard to see the value or worth in it.
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Something, some, some future reward.
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It's just a word.
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Yeah, um, but then, to be be fair, my inheritance was just words on a legal document until the day came when the check came and and I didn't know, and it was always waiting.
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It was like is today the day?
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And two years went by of waiting, of expectation, of like maybe it's, this is the day, and so at some point I had to live my life like I believed I was gonna, you know, get that and there's a excitement about that, but at the same time, I think that's the part that people struggle with.
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Right, yeah, which is good.
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So Aaron's dad passed away and he's a farmer and Aaron's my wife, you didn't know.
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And one day we were talking, you know he has.
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He has just a lot of land, lots and lots of acres.
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He has.
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He has just a lot of land right, lots and lots of acres.
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And we were talking about how passing that down to layton, her brother and her, and then conway is going to be the one that right now he's the only grandchild on that side and would benefit from all the above.
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But it's interesting to see where a where aaron talks about yes, this is going to be ours, but it's not right now.
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It's promised to us but it's not and at any given second that could be taken away or something could happen or with you know, with things that you're like, promised, like that, but here it's not, it's there, it's it's, it's, it's yours, it's done deal it's finished so I think that, and that's kind of what I was telling her.
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I was like, well, I mean, it's yours and it was interesting to compare the two.
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Like I go home now and be like, hey, think about this, because we always talk about works and the finished cross, and well, you still need to be a good person or you still need to follow the, the 10 commandments and you've got to be on point with then.
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This is, you know, with Aaron or when we talk about her.
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Um, but I think it's interesting to go back home and be like, hey, this is what this looks like with your inheritance.
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It's it's already there, right, it's yours.
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Yeah, you want to be good again, you want to honor your father and the legacy that he left, but like he gave you an inheritance, um, and now you sort of like you take that grace and then you live right light of that incredible grace and love and blessing yeah, I think about it.
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You know what james is saying.
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You know he's saying, hey, the poor, the people who are experiencing poverty now and who have shabby clothing and who have, you know the way he describes it in there.
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It's like they're, they're inheriting the same, um, same thing as those who have the gold ring and the you know, the nice clothing and all that.
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Like how, how stupid and superficial is it to judge people who are your co-heirs, you know, and who have the same future, the same inheritance, who have been chosen the same as you?
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And, if anything, you should give special honor to those people who are experiencing greater trials and greater suffering, um, and yet are persevering and remaining faithful.
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So it's like it's such a backwards way of thinking.
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Yeah, in fact, I love it.
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The thing like this, like it thinking like this, like, um, uh, when you know, when I was in the army, uh, all the officers, we rode first class to war, which is really weird to think that you ride in a commercial airplane to go to kuwait and then it's so like, imagine getting on an airplane, everybody's armed, it's.
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It's instead of like you know you, you take off your metal, you make you go through the whole thing.
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There's like weapons, weapons, weapons anyway.
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And we get in and so all the officers are up front and all the soldiers are in the back, and it's just the way that it is.
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Uh, you know, we could probably say that there's reasons for that, but anyway, it was like we're all going the same spot and you all, everyone sort of like, felt like hey, thanks to private snuffy for sitting in the back row next to the jump seat, uh, and where you had to listen to the latrine flush a million times.
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Like that's sort of what it's like we're all going the same spot, we're all going to combat, we're all going to the area, or you don't have to go there, like usually.
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That was probably one of the few times I've ridden first class, but most of the time when I'm in a coach.
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I went to my cousin's funeral and Jet and I rode coach and we got to sit next to each other.
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It was sweet, but you walk by first class.
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They got first class for a short period of time.
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It was a two-and-a-half-hour flight to Chicago and then, once we got there, that first class experience was over, because we all got to experience the joy of walking around freely in O'Hare Airport.
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Yeah, and I think that's kind of it.
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Great airport, nice toilets.
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There they have the ones that it like.
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It cleans the seat off for you.
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It does.
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It's so great, I'll never forget it.
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It's so good Best airport experience.
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Yeah, yeah, so anyway, so, yeah, so we, we get it.
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And I think it's important to kind of like don't give partiality to the rich person.
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They're in first class for a short period of time, because in on the other side of eternity, you don't know what kind of rewards lie in heaven.
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And this goes you know, I don't know.
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You don't want to like you're not trying to up yourself up your heaven game with the people you know, but the reality is you are trying to please your heavenly father and he rewards those who seek him by faith uh, yep.
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Or if my mom always says, well, you need to work on your mansion.
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Building your mansion, yeah, you need to do and you're like I know that sounds ridiculous, but I think there's a lot of truth in that that, like when you work for heavenly rewards, it's a faith-filled action.
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Yeah, and because you're not working to get there right, but you're working I love that work to build up the mansion and I know that sounds so like, well, you're in it for what's in it for you, sort of.
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But you're doing it by faith.
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And so this is where, whenever Jesus compares, he's like, you know, the kingdom of heaven is like a king who is, you know, waging war and the other side seems they can't defeat him.
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Send terms for peace, and it's like who are you in that story?
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You're the guy that's about to lose and you need to send terms for peace because you're looking out for your own self-preservation.
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So it's not like your own, like the selfish motive in faith in Christ that he's the king, he's the winner.
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I need to live through that Now.
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Ultimately, we want him not see him just as the conquering king who's going to destroy us all, but rather like a good father who loves us.
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And.
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But there is a part where, like, I think there's a spiritual joy that comes in serving our heavenly father, knowing that he wants to get good gifts to his children.
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Yeah, and also remember that in when Jesus comes back and sin is forever, you know, rid from creation, the more we we won't be, we won't have selfish ambition, we won't be materialistic Everything that we have we will be pleased to leverage for the good of others.
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And so to build up, you know, treasure in heaven, as Jesus commands us to do.
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Um is more for us to be shared, more for us to be able to share with others, to bless others in eternity.
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If you have a mansion in heaven, you got more space to host and be hospitable.
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Power for people who are not sinful is just a greater ability to bless people.
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So absolutely build up as much treasure in heaven as you can so that you can be even more of a blessing to people in the life to come.
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I'm going to take a left turn on this conversation because I feel like a question just came up from all our listeners.
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Out there they go.
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If God is going to make that heaven in the future, why doesn't he do it just right now?
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If God is going to, if.
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God's going to make a future heaven right After there's where the earth is destroyed and everything's perfect.
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Why did he have to go through the process of all the sin and darkness in the first place?
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What are the thoughts?
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I do have some thoughts on this.
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Do you?
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Yeah?
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Okay, here's what my thought on it is for it.
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You couldn't know Right, because you would be a robot that has no ability to sin, and there is no pleasure in that.
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You know like if, when the computer program doesn't do what it's supposed to do, then you get angry at the computer program and you reprogram, or there's a flaw, there's something in there, but when there is something that can reject you, then that's ultimately what God gave to humans with free will.
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And then in our fall, we've all experienced universally the fall of humanity and how awful and dark and wicked sin is, so that when we enter into the presence of God, we see what we were and then, ultimately, what God has saved us to be.
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And it is a short period of time where we have to suffer on this earth and you know if you can call living in America in the 21st century suffering but like we have to suffer in this body with a death plagued body, a wounded soul, so that we can enter into eternity knowing that he's taking care of our sin and the darkness therein and we can live in freedom with him.
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And you couldn't do that without the freedom to reject him, which is what Adam and Eve, as our proxies, were given.
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That's my thought on that.
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Yeah, that's my thought on that.
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Yeah, I mean, I think, in general, the idea that we are um, that it increases our love for god and god's glory, doing it this way so that the way he wanted to, to do things I think of, like the, the sinful woman, that um jesus.
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He said to her um, the one who has been forgiven much loves much.
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And there's some aspect to um, you know, the world being plunged into sin and darkness and then being redeemed.
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Yep, that is a greater display of the power and the glory and the love and the mercy of God.
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That, um, how, how is, if God is merciful, if that's a characteristic of God, an attribute of God, how is that displayed, unless there's a fallen world where his mercy can be put to work, you know?
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And so there's attributes of God, um, that portray his beauty and and draw out greater worship from us that I think can be seen because of a fall and resurrection that wouldn't have been able to be seen in just um eternal perfection from the beginning.
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I agree, and I think that's why I do think people um get I don't know if angry at God is the right word, but they get frustrated that things are not like the, the when I hear.
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I guess what really struck this is.
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I saw a meme of one of my friends I did ministry back with ways, now completely apostate and he had a meme of Jesus drinking coffee.
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It says I don't care on the coffee and all around him is like war, death, sexual, sexual, you know, trafficking and just awful things.
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And that he went back to the classic argument If God's all powerful, awful things.
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And that he went back to the classic argument If God's all powerful, then he's not all good.
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And if he's all good, he's not all powerful.
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And I'm like no, no, there's, there's a different category there that he's wanting to reveal himself as the ultimate thing and wants to genuinely give people an opportunity to love and reject him, cause that's real love that you make yourself vulnerable and and vulnerable to rejection, which which Jesus does, or God does ultimately, when he creates Adam and Eve, and he does on the cross.
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Cause this wasn't his like initial plan for us original plan, I mean, I thought that so this goes back into.
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You know, before God created all things, he knew what would happen Correct Sure.
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God created all things.
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He knew what would happen Correct Sure.
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And he did it anyway.
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And I think that's the beauty of it is I think it is a better thing to really have a real relationship, because we're not robots.
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I think that's probably the problem AI will always have is it doesn't have a soul and so it doesn't have ability to go outside of its programming.
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It's always going to just do the next, you know, computated binary thing.
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Yeah, I mean, you can think about it Like if you've read a good book or seen a good movie.
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Um, it's not, it wasn't just like, all right, the book started and everyone was doing well and they, they just got better and it got better, and then it ended and I was like, I'm glad, everyone was great.
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Like, you know, we're not, we're not moved by, right, those kind of stories.
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There's something about, uh, underdog narrative arc where something, you know it starts in paradise but then conflict comes and things spiral out of control and some and it's through that journey of things you know, essentially dying and being resurrected, that we, uh, you know come to learn and being resurrected, that we, uh, you know, come to learn things about ourselves that we never knew, that were moved, that we grow in wisdom and understanding.
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And so I think the reason we're moved by those kinds of stories and movies and books and things like that is because, um, it's the story of our life and the story of the world.
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It's a way that God reveals things about who he is that we would not see without conflict.
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And so, you know, god allowed for his beautiful creation to be plunged into darkness so that we might come to understand his mercy and grace more powerfully and profoundly.
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It's good, it's funny how, like the best, when you think about like movies and things, everybody, there's always a villain, there's always a hero, there's a good guy and a bad guy, and so, like we were talking about, the story is of our creation, is that or or this, up and down, fallen, broken world, and that's the same way with a movie like the best movie, superhero.
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Everybody wants their superhero, you know, and we have that.
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Yeah, I mean, the greatest villains are the ones who took their pain and said I'm going to inflict this pain on everybody else.
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The greatest villains are the ones who took their pain and said I'm going to inflict this pain on everybody else.
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The greatest heroes they have pain and they're going to say I'm going to make sure no one else feels that way.
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That's, ultimately, the story arc, for both hero and villain is sort of the same, just one chooses to take the pain and take a different direction.
