Episode Transcript
[00:00:01] Speaker A: Hey, guys, this is naive. And you've reached the Mosaic Church Podcast. So excited that you're part of our listening community, and I'd love for you to be even more connected.
[00:00:10] Speaker B: So check out our website.
[00:00:11] Speaker A: There's more content there, and there's more opportunities for you to get connected in our ministries and events as well. Also, love for you to share this content if this has blessed you. I know that God wants to use you to bless other people with it, so share this podcast.
Lastly, would you consider supporting this ministry? This is made possible by other people's generosity, and I'd love for you to pay it forward.
Join us to reclaim the message and the movement of Jesus together. So would you consider giving to this ministry? I know that God is able to do immeasurably more through us when we come together. Thank you so much. God bless you and enjoy.
[00:01:02] Speaker B: Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. I have all the feelings right now. I'm so many emotions. I'm very excited.
It's very emotional. I was like, I got this second service, and then they played that video backstage, and I was like, oh, no, here we go again.
This is one of those things that I felt like God put on my heart to do years ago.
And then there were years where I was like, hello. Like, do you want me to do this? Because you're not making it happen. You're not opening the doors. And so it's very. Just a dream fulfilled and come true to be here and to be able to do this series where we're talking about. We're not gonna, like, read the book for three weeks. Okay. But talking about the concepts that are in it. And I wanted to make sure that I started it with you guys first, not only because you have been so supportive and so encouraging, which I really appreciate, but also because this is the place where all of, like, everything that I put in the book happened. This is the place that was at Mosaic where I learned how to let go of religion and be reintroduced to God. This is the place where I made mistakes and said things that I should not have said even while standing right here.
And I've been given grace and other chances and forgiveness and just really been able to experience Christianity in a new way. And let me tell you, that also saying I've been a Christian my whole entire life, okay? I basically was, like, born into a pew with, like, a hymnal in my hand. All right?
So I just want you to know that if that's you and your. And we're talking about faith and belief and all of the things that really, this is gonna apply to you no matter what stage of faith that you're in.
And so I just pray that what I have in the book and what I've experienced here is something that is going to help your friends and your families, but also you to be able to see God in a different way and to see yourself through God's eyes in a different way, and maybe even to come away with a different understanding of Christianity altogether.
But before we do that, I want to start actually with this book.
Anybody remember these Magic Eye books where the premise or the promise of this is that, like, if you look at the chaos long enough, something would reveal itself?
And I know some of you still can't see the picture in this.
You can't focus. It's because of my pants. You're like, all I can see is your pants right now.
I get it. It's okay. Look harder. Okay, but this is the chaos. This is messy. This is like, okay, well, if something is there, it's clear. Don't you see it? And you're like, no, I don't see it. How many of you can see these?
You get your eyes to, like, I don't know, like, relax a certain way or something. How many of you, no matter how many times other people have tried to help you, you can't see it.
Okay, yeah, I'm with you. I'm with you on that.
I wonder, though, if you've ever had this moment, this experience with your faith, where you're looking at it and all of a sudden you're going, uh, I must not be looking at it the right way, because what's been promised to me, I'm not seeing it.
You might be looking for something, asking questions that don't have answers. And what you've been told to do isn't helping to reveal what supposedly is very clear.
And I think for a lot of us, that happens for different reasons. Maybe you had an experience that was hard or that was painful, and so you started to doubt God's goodness.
Because all of a sudden you're like, well, everything happens for a reason. Or God has his reasons is no longer comforting. Right. The way that it once did.
Or maybe you were in a conversation with someone who has a different faith experience, and their interpretation of a particular scripture is very, very different than yours.
And so now you're kind of wrestling with, well, how can we both be so certain that we're right?
How can we both be so certain that we know what this means? And so maybe for you scripture doesn't feel as easy or as clear as it used to.
Or if you're being honest, I will tell you that this is me.
Maybe you look around at American Christianity sometimes, and you're like, you know what?
And you just kind of find yourself getting real critical or even cynical and starting to wonder, do I even want to call myself a Christian?
Because that label doesn't mean what it used to, and it doesn't seem to feel safe or like it fits your identity anymore.
And so possibly even as you've wrestled through these things and you've tried to get help and tried to find the answers, trying to make sense of the mess, you might have even heard responses like, well, just pray harder or just have more faith.
Which is like looking at this book and being like, just look at it.
You don't just see it now.
No, it doesn't always work that way. It doesn't always bring clarity.
And so what we're going to talk about for the next couple weeks is what I like to call religious certainty.
Religious certainty is this idea that there is an answer for everything, and that when we know and adhere to those right answers, that's how we know whether or not we are good Christians.
Did anybody grow up in a religion and a faith like that? Okay, this is what we're talking about with religious certainty. And the problem is it leads us to build our faith on things that are very visible and tangible, because we like criteria for knowing whether or not we're doing a good job.
We want to know, what is the checklist of the things that I need to do and that I need to say so that I can go to bed at the end of the night, patting myself on the back or at least knowing that I did a better job than the person next to me.
We like tangible things. We like having answers. The problem with certainty is that the more we build on it, actually, the less it holds.
And so some people call this deconstruction or disenchantment or untangling your beliefs. You can call it whatever you want to call it, but the cracks begin to show when you realize that the foundation that you built your faith on maybe wasn't actually God, but a version of God that looks like him, but was a lot easier to explain or contain.
And so we have this moment where we realize that that version of our faith, while good while it lasted, maybe can't actually hold the weight of life's real tensions, that maybe there isn't actually an answer for everything, and that that's not what our faith is about. And so we come to this moment, this pivotal moment, where then we have to ask ourselves, am I willing to build or rebuild my faith on a foundation that is more firm?
Or am I going to look away and pretend that I don't see that it's falling apart?
Or even at risk for falling apart?
And I want you to know too, this series is not just for people who are deconstructing or reevaluating their faith. I think this is something that God has for all of us. Because all of us need to go through and ask ourselves different questions about our beliefs. So even if you're not wrestling, you're like, I love God, I believe in Jesus, I wanna follow him. That's great, keep doing that.
But don't we all have room to grow?
Don't we all need to continue moving forward and becoming more and more like Jesus? And so if that's you, I want you to ask yourselves different questions. Instead of asking what you believe. Cause you feel pretty solid in that. I want you to ask why?
Why do you believe that? Because someone told you to believe it?
Or because you've experienced God? Or because you've studied and you've learned? And then when you know why, how does that actually change your life? How does that change the way that you show up in the world as a follower of God?
So I think more often than not, God actually brings us to these moments, which can be hard to reconcile because it's not always an easy place to be in.
But I think he brings us to these moments because he wants to show us something that we've never been ready or willing to see before.
Anybody familiar with Paul in the Bible, in the New Testament? Okay. Well, for a long time, Paul, for much of his life was actually called Saul. Say Saul.
Saul. If I accidentally say Paul, I mean, Saul, kinda doesn't matter. Cause it's the same guy. Okay.
But we're gonna get more into the story next week where his name actually gets changed. But Saul was a Pharisee. And so he was part of this like ultra really conservative religious group of Jewish leaders that were certain that they knew all the laws, all the customs, all the traditions.
And not only did they know them the best, they knew what God wanted. And the way that they upheld them, or the reason, I guess, that they upheld them was to prove that their devotion to God, it was their way of showing God. Like, look how much we love you.
Look how much we really want to do what's right and do what you're saying, and then it kind of became legalism, which is basically the idea that following the rules is what matters most.
And so then it can kind of become, well, I'm not only doing this to show God my devotion, but I'm also doing it to prove my self righteousness to the people that are around me.
And so Saul the Pharisee, because they were believed to be the most holy and the most knowledgeable, they were also responsible for ensuring that everyone else also upheld the customs and the laws of their time, the religion that they had spent their lives following.
And so when Jesus enters the scene with his new way of doing things, he starts reinterpreting their holy scriptures and he starts expanding who's actually allowed to be in, to listen and to come and be in the church with him. He changes the way different spiritual practices actually are carried out.
And so Saul and the other Pharisees did not like that very much.
They did not like it. Saul was actually so certain that his way was right, not Jesus way, that he justified his certainty. He justified going and capturing and torturing and even killing people who were trying to follow Jesus because it threatened his religion that he had spent his whole life memorizing and perfecting and performing.
And so one day Saul is on the road and he is on his way to go find some more of these Jesus following people. And God brings Saul to his eye opening moment in Acts 9.
So Saul was uttering threats with every breath and was eager to help me out.
There it is.
Kill the Lord's followers. So we're like, he's on a mission, okay? As he was approaching Damascus on his mission, a light from heaven suddenly shone down around him. He fell to the ground and heard a voice saying to him, saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me? Which when I read this, I read it like my guy, what are you doing?
Why are you persecuting me? Why are you behaving like this? It's just my translation.
Keep going. In verse eight, it says, saul picked himself up off the ground, but when he opened his eyes, he was blind.
His eyes were open.
When he opened his eyes, they were not closed open. He was blind.
So his companions led him by the hand of Damascus. He remained there blind for three days and did not eat or drink. Okay, so while this is happening, meanwhile, God is also talking to a guy named Ananias who's already in Damascus. And Ananias was also a really well respected Jewish leader, but he had started following Jesus.
And so God was like, hey, Ananias, Saul's coming here, and you're gonna go lay hands on him, and you're gonna pray for him so that his vision comes back.
And Ananias is like, are you so for real right now?
Do you know why he's coming here? Get it together, God. Like, he's coming to kill people. Exactly. Just like me. Ananias is like, I don't want to do it.
Anybody ever argue with God and actually win?
Yeah. No. No hands in the first service either. Okay, so we keep going. But the Lord said, go for Saul is my chosen instrument to take my message to the Gentiles and to Kings as well as to the people of Israel. And I will show him how much he must suffer for my name's sake.
We're going to pause right here for just a second. I looked up the word suffer because this is one of the things that I had to kind of unlearn in my own journey of trying to understand God and understand scripture more. Because I always believed God to be a disciplinarian. Like, when I was a kid, even though I was a goody two shoes, and I genuinely like to did the right thing as much as possible, I pictured God in heaven, like, peeking over a cloud just to, like, watch me so he could catch me messing up. Cause I just thought God, like, really liked to dole out punishment. Like, that's pretty much why he existed, just to catch us not being good enough so we could have a consequence.
So I assumed that's what was happening here.
So I looked up that word suffering and the Greek words. You're gonna help me say this? The. The Greek word is pascho. Actually, it's kind of.
Can you guys do that? Pascho. Pascho. If I have to do it, you have to do it. Pascho.
Okay, it's gross. I'm just gonna say pascho, but that's really what it is. If I was Greek, right? Okay, so this word pascho means to feel and to be affected.
To feel and to be affected. So God is saying that Paul is going to experience such intense emotion that something's going to happen to him.
Do you know another word for, like, an intense emotion that causes you to do things?
Passion.
Guess what root word leads to passion?
Pasco.
Pasco is the same for suffering and passion. These are derivatives of the same root word.
Just like the passion of Christ led him to the cross and compelled him to act on our behalf. God is indicating here that Paul would also be compelled to act by what God not only showed him, but by how it made him feel by how it made him feel.
And so we keep going in verse 17.
So Ananias went and found Saul. He laid his hands on him and said, brother Saul, the Lord Jesus, that's who appeared to you on the road, by the way, he has sent me so that you might regain your sight and be filled with the Holy Spirit.
Instantly. Instantly. Help me read this next verse.
I'll read it to you. Instantly.
Something like scales fell from Saul's eyes and he regained his sight. Picture that his eyes were already open, but he was blinded. Something like scales fell from his eyes and he regained his sight.
We will talk more about the Saul Paul story next week and what happens to him. But I want you to understand that he didn't just regain his vision. God sent the Holy Spirit to open his eyes by removing what had previously been in the way.
Something had to come down.
And for some of you, you might have that kind of experience. You might have like a. BC And AD Life where you have, like, before meeting Jesus and then after meeting Jesus, and that you had such an emotional experience that you had a radical change. And there's like a dividing line.
I mean, for others of us, the tension of following Jesus is actually how to follow Jesus in a new way. In our old lives where we still have the same family and the same job and the same community and the same routines and. And we're doing all of these things where we technically still even have the same faith, but we're like, now what?
And so I think for a lot of us, what happens is we don't change who we are, or it doesn't necessarily change what we do, but it's how we understand differently. The things that we were convinced we already had figured out.
That's the challenge here. That's the question.
If you don't feel like your identity is changing or your behavior is changing, it's not changing your life all of a sudden in a radical way.
How does God want you to understand something that you are convinced you already know?
Religious certainty tries to convince us that Christianity is easy, right? The Bible is clear.
Do what God says.
Because of that, there's never a need to think about why you believe what you believe, or even to change your mind about your faith. But in reality, the belief that changing your mind is a sin could actually be the thing that's keeping you from seeing what God wants you to see.
That could be the thing that is blocking your vision.
God is trying to bring you to a moment. He wants you to see something.
It could be who he is and the wonder of who he is.
God might want to open your eyes so that you can see how you were created in his goodness.
Maybe he wants you to see that he's working in and through other people in this world, even people that you've been told God couldn't or maybe even wouldn't be around.
But if God has shown you something and you can't shake the feeling that something needs to change, what do you need to let go of what needs to fall off so that you can see clearly what God is trying to show you?
See, Jesus himself actually models taking what you used to believe and being like, but what if there's more?
6 times in the Sermon on the Mount, if you're not familiar with the Sermon on the Mount, it's one of Jesus most famous, like, State of the Union addresses, okay? He's out there with all the people, telling them what they need to know.
And six times in that sermon, he says a phrase, you've heard it said. But I say, and he does this for a lot of the big sins and the big things that they would have always talked about, known about, like the laws that they had followed. And then Jesus comes in. And so, for example, one of them is, he's like, you've heard it said, don't murder.
But I say if you call someone an idiot, you are subject to the same punishment that the murderer is because you've already done it in your heart. Because it's all about motivation.
Luckily, Jesus can't hear us when we're driving.
I'm still here, guys. So I.
Okay. Religious people like Saul did not like this. They did not like Jesus coming in and reframing their laws and reframing their holy text.
Because Jesus expanding the law this way was all of a sudden pulling in a lot more people to the sinner category, not just the ones that were really easy to point out because you did this and you did this and I did not. All of a sudden, that category got real wide.
And the point was not for Jesus to stand there and lecture them about all being sinners, but he wanted them to unlearn their old religious ways so that he could bring them to that pivotal moment where they now had a choice.
Were they going to stick with or maybe even double down in the religion and the law that they'd always known, or were they going to listen to Jesus teachings that would bring them to know and understand and to see God in a new way?
Let me explain it to you like this. How many of you wear Glasses or contacts?
Okay. When you go and you get a prescription, do you take your lenses, your new ones, and put them in on top of the old ones?
No, of course not. That'd be ridiculous, right? You have to take out the old ones first so that you can put the new lenses in so that you can start to look through that lens. It's not because your old lens was bad, but it was not helping you to see as clearly as the new lens that's available to you. We have to let go of the old or maybe original lens that we have been looking through if we want to start seeing the world and God and ourselves through the lens of Jesus.
It's not always that easy though, is it?
It's not always that simple.
Have you ever seen something that you wish you could unsee?
It's usually something that we wish we hadn't seen to begin with.
This happened to me when I was little. I saw something very, very terrifying.
It was the green faced witch from the wizard of Oz.
And once I saw her, I could not unsee her.
I could not stop seeing her.
I saw her in my room, I saw her at my grandma's house, I saw her at school.
And she was always there. I saw her. She saw me waiting to get me. Always.
For years, okay, no matter how many times my mom tried to convince me that I was not seeing her, I was.
I could not unsee her. And this is how the past can haunt us sometimes, okay?
This is how it can stick with us. Because it is very personal when we take something that we have had maybe for years and years and we have it in such a personal way that we believe with everything in us that it is real.
No one can convince us otherwise.
No one can tell us that that's not actually it.
Until were willing to see things in a new way, with a new perspective.
Decades after seeing the green faced witch in the wizard of Oz, I saw Wicked on Broadway. Any Wicked fans in the house?
I saw Wicked on Broadway and I was introduced to that same green faced witch as Elphaba.
A little girl who was overlooked and not quite right and just wanted to be good and just wanted good for the world. And she wanted to make everything good for the people around her.
And it wasn't until I could finally see her that I was able to unlearn the version of her that I could not stop seeing.
It wasn't until I knew her story and her background and got some context that all of a sudden I was like, oh, that's not what I Thought it was.
And yes, God will speak to you through fictional characters in movies. Okay. Elphaba is so impactful to me. Look in the acknowledgments in the back of my book.
She's in there right next to Elsa from Frozen 2.
This woman changed my life. I'm not kidding. I wish I was okay now. Were my parents trying to scare me by showing me the wizard of Oz? Of course not.
Trust me, they would have saved themselves years of stress if they had not shown me that movie.
But often we interpret things through our own lived experiences. And so unlearning a previous version of your faith doesn't mean that your parents or. Or your teachers or your pastors or whoever were misguiding you on purpose.
It also doesn't necessarily mean that your old beliefs or version of faith was wrong.
But maybe it was incomplete.
Maybe there's more that God actually wants to show you.
If we're willing to look at things in a new perspective, with new context, it could completely change.
It could change everything.
Now it's gonna look different for every single one of us. Cause like I said, this is a very personal thing. When God brings you to a pivotal moment or when he wants to show you something, it's something that he wants you uniquely to see. So there's a couple things that it might lead you to do. I'm gonna give you three of them. And I want you to remember that no matter where you are, this will still apply. Okay? If you're not wrestling with your faith, maybe you're in a place that it just kind of feels stagnant. And you're like, I believe what I believe.
Just kind of going through the motions.
Or maybe you're good. Maybe you're like, I'm good. I feel solid. But you do want to still just continue growing and knowing God more. These will apply for all of us. The first thing that you might need to do is like, search. Start studying the Scriptures.
If whatever that thing is that you're questioning or that isn't sitting quite right, go on a journey. Pull out your Bible, learn context. And let me say it again, pull out your Bible.
Not scroll, reels and tiktoks about it. Okay?
And I know I make those reels and tiktoks about it.
Also, long form content.
Okay? Read books, listen to trusted voices. Do all of that, but also get in the scripture yourself.
Learn context. See what was going on. Start asking yourself questions about things you'd never considered before, like, who was this written to?
What was the purpose of this writing, what actually was uniquely happening in the culture at that time that this could be addressing.
I'm not promising you that you're going to find a definitive answer to what you're looking for.
I'm sorry to tell you that nowhere in this series am I going to take away your answer and give you a new one.
That's not the point.
It's not the point, but the more that you spend time with the words of Jesus, the deeper understanding you'll have of who he is, what he cared about, and what it looks like for us to try to replicate his life in the world.
The second thing that some of you might need to do is just listen. You might need to talk to people that understand faith differently than you do, either because they disagree with you, or they just have a different lived faith, faith experience.
Because what happens is these people can offer a perspective. Even if you don't agree with them, they can offer a perspective that you've never had to consider before.
And for people like me who grew up in white evangelical Christianity with my right looking family, I never had to consider anyone else's perspective before.
It was a privilege that I had because Jesus worked for me and Christianity worked for me as it was being presented. But when I started to listen to the experiences of other people, I realized, oh, this is kind of limited.
If it doesn't apply to everyone, it's not the gospel.
We need to start listening to other people.
Ask, ask how are you wrestling through this? And how has God met you here? The third thing I want you to do is really just pay attention.
I want you to notice what is happening inside of you as you start to loosen your grip on things. What is it that you're tempted to cling back onto?
What are you afraid of losing? I want you to name it.
Is it your belonging? Is it your identity?
Is it your community?
Your sense of control?
Approval?
The label of being good because you did and said all of the right things?
I want you to name what it is that you're afraid of losing if a certain aspect of your belief turns out to not be as true or as clear cut as you thought that it was.
See, fear is the strongest argument to get you to keep believing something that's not fully true. But it's also a signal for you to pay attention to that thing and to ask why.
Why are you afraid of changing your mind? What are you afraid of losing?
Is it your salvation?
Is it your hope?
Is it your faith? Is it your sense of self?
I need you to understand that as much as you want to hold onto Jesus, he is holding onto you all the more.
You will not lose him in this process.
And if you're like, well, I never had Jesus before because I've never held onto him before. He's holding you anyway.
You can't lose him.
Jesus was asked once why he spoke in parables, which are those, like, made up stories, you know, that he would use to make a point when he was teaching. And he answers this question in Matthew 13.
He says, this is why I use these parables for they look, but they don't really see.
They hear, but they don't really listen or understand.
And this fulfills the prophecy of Isaiah that says, when you hear what I say, you will not understand.
When you see what I do, you will not comprehend. For the hearts of these people are hardened and their ears cannot hear. And they have closed their eyes. So their eyes cannot see and their ears cannot hear and their hearts cannot understand. And they cannot turn to me and let me heal them.
But blessed are your eyes because they see, and your ears because they hear. I tell you the truth. Many prophets and righteous people long to see what you see, but they didn't see it. And they long to hear what you hear, but they didn't hear it.
So many people are missing it.
So many people are missing what God wants them to see. So many people are missing what Jesus is trying to tell us.
They want to see miracles. They want to hear from God, either in direction or prophecy or answers, but they don't. For one reason.
They are choosing to look at something else.
They are choosing to look away and choosing something other than God. And there's a lot of grace here because I think sometimes we don't even realize it.
That was me for years. And please hear me, I'm not an expert. I am in this as much as anybody else.
But I did not realize that my legalism, that my need to do all of the right things and to follow all the rules had become more important than turning to God so that he could heal me and so that God could do what only God can do in my life.
That's how we get transformed.
And friends, do you know what transformation requires?
Change.
We cannot be spiritually transformed if we are unwilling to change the way we think, the way we see things, the way we believe, the way we understand, the way we act.
See, Saul's vision was restored, but he was compelled to act because he allowed himself to feel the intense emotion when his eyes were opened. He leaned into that suffering that God brought him to.
And I know for some of you, you're like, yeah, that's how it feels right now.
And if not for you, I can pretty much guarantee probably someone that you love or know is experiencing this to some level.
And it's hard.
It can be hard to think about why you believe what you believe for the first time if you haven't done it before. If you had just been handed your beliefs and you were like, believe this. And you were like, okay, cool, I got it. Good. Done.
To then question that and to lean in to understand why. It can be confusing, it can be isolating, it can be really hard. And to be honest, sometimes it does feel like suffering.
But if I can ask one thing of you today, one thing of you don't look away.
Don't convince yourself that because it's uncomfortable, it's not God.
Don't convince yourself that it's not God because it doesn't feel like it used to feel or it doesn't feel like you expect it to feel.
Don't look away.
Going back to religious certainty is definitely easier when you don't have to think and you just kind of do what you're told and go with the flow because you know what to expect.
Staying where you are in your faith is also easier.
Not growing and being like, I got all, I believe all the things, and so I am good.
That is easier because you know what to expect. And then people know what to expect of you.
But Jesus said, blessed are your eyes because they see.
Blessed are your ears because they hear.
God is trying to show you something.
What is it that he wants you to see? And what do you need to unlearn so. So that you can see it?
What needs to fall so that you can see more clearly what it is that God is trying to show you.
Friends, this is an invitation. It's an invitation to wander and to wonder, to embrace curiosity. Not as something to be afraid of, but as a vital part of following Jesus.
See, the catch is, though, only people who are courageous enough to face the unknown will be able to see what's out there beyond the boundaries.
Only the people who are brave enough to say yes, to experience a new place or a new faith.
It's only the people who are willing to say yes and then follow Jesus into it.
Let's be those people who keep our eyes and our ears open.
Amen.
Let me pray for us, God. I thank you, God, for this moment, for this message, God, that you've given not just to me, but to all of us.
God, I pray that you would show us the places where maybe we're just looking through the wrong lens.
God, whether it's for the people around us, ourselves, God, the way that we see or understand you, God. And I pray right now for the person that feels good, guilt or shame.
God, I pray that you would just absolutely, in the name of Jesus, let that be the first thing that falls off of them.
Because, God, you did not create us to walk around in shame and in guilt. God, you do not use guilt and shame to manipulate us into changing our behavior.
God, you invite us in with wonder and awe, God, with mystery and with love.
So, Lord, I pray that those would be the things, the lenses, God, that all of the things of Jesus that we would be able to start seeing through.
God, would you show us the places where we are certain that we know what you want or who we're supposed to be, God. And. And we just thank you in advance for the way that you're going to graciously help us to unlearn so that we can relearn more of who you are and what it means to follow you in this world.
In Jesus name, amen.
Thanks for listening to this message from Mosaic church in Charlotte, North Carolina. For more audio and video content, visit us at MosaicChurch TV.
