When Hearing Is Not Enough

Well, good morning, and welcome. We are continuing to talk about erosion and what

that looks like in our lives and how easy it is for us to allow little things to

invade and get us off track and wear away at our resolve. And by the way,

Happy Palm Sunday, as we think about the opening of Passion Week and coming

now to the end of this Linton season and getting ready for the Easter

celebration, and I pray that this week, as you enter into this Holy Week,

you'll take some time to reflect and think about what the week's all about,

what it means, this sacrifice of Christ to cover all of our sins and mistakes,

and the celebration that goes with that, the journey this week from the triumphant

entry today, we celebrate. Down through Holy Week, Monday, Thursday,

Good Friday, the silence of Saturday, and then the celebration of Resurrection

Sunday. So pray that it's a powerful week for you. And we're thinking today about

what it means when hearing isn't enough. And so listen to what James says.

Again, we're taking this from the book of James. James, a leader of the New

Testament Church in Jerusalem, the primary leader of the Jerusalem Council,

and the half-brother of Jesus, historically regarded as the half-brother of Jesus.

And so here is what he writes, mid-chapter in the first chapter here, verse 19.

My dear brothers and sisters, take note of this. Everyone should be quick to

listen, slow to speak, and slow to become angry because human anger does not

produce the righteousness that God desires. Therefore, get rid of all moral filth

and evil that's so prevalent and humbly accept the word planted in you which can

save you. Do not near merely listen to the word and so deceive yourselves, do what

it says. Anyone who listens to the word and does not do what it says is like someone

who looks at his face in a mirror and after looking at himself goes away and

immediately forgets what he looks like. But whoever looks intently into the

perfect law that gives freedom and continues in it not forgetting what they've

heard, but doing it, they'll be blessed in what they do. Those who consider

themselves religious and yet do not keep a tight reign on their tongues, deceive

themselves and their religion is worthless. Religion that God, our Father,

accepts as pure and faultless is this, to look after orphans and widows in their

distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world.

So that's a lot. That's a lot to say. It's a lot to read. It's a lot to think

about a few years ago. I was invited to read James Clear's book,

Atomic Habits. Maybe you've read it. And basically it's a simple concept.

It says to pay attention to the tiny atomic details of your life and of your

habits. And you'll find that your goals can be reached that the little

things we do every day make a huge difference over time. Clear also hosts a

website that's dedicated to the same ideas of atomic habits. Recently on his

website, he posted an article entitled Vince Lombardi on the Hidden Power

of Mastering the Fundamentals. Here's what he writes.

July of 1961, 38 members of the Green Bay Packers gathered for the first day

of training camp. Just a few months earlier, they had lost the NFL

championship to the Philadelphia Eagles. They had led for three quarters

and the fourth quarter, they let the game get away from them and lost in the

fourth quarter. And so Lombardi came to training camp in July of 1961

with a different idea. David Marinus wrote a best selling book called

Win Pride Still Matters, a life of Vince Lombardi. And he tells what happened.

Lombardi decided to take nothing for granted. He tore apart the playbook.

He fashioned training camp around fundamentals. And when the players

arrived, 38 players who had been minutes from achieving the highest

to goal and professional football, he held a football in front of them.

And famously said, gentlemen, this is a football. And that sort of set

off what defined that season. And really the rest of his coaching career.

He went back to the basics. He taught them how to tackle. He taught them

out of block. He started on page one of the playbook at one point.

The all pro wide receiver Max McGee said to the coach, hey,

coach, could you slow down kind of one of the antidotes from the time at the

end of the season, the final game, the Green Bay Packers beat the New York

Giants 37, nothing to win the NFL championship. Lombardi would not lose

again in the playoffs in his career. And in his time, his teams would win

five NFL champion shows. And so people took notice. They took notice

of what it looked like for a professional team with people who have been

around the sport their whole life to go back to the fundamentals.

John Wooden was a master of the fundamentals obsessed with those

things. And it showed in the quality of the programs and the players

they produced. And so when you think about all of that, what does

it look like for you and I to focus on the fundamentals? And really

James is writing to us the secret to getting into the very basics.

So to give some thought, we talked about this the last week a little bit,

but think about this. The early church was not encumbered the way the

modern church is. They were new to the process. They operated on heart.

There wasn't really a book to follow. They stuck to the basics.

In Acts, Luke tells the story of how the early church function with no

buildings, none of that. This is what he writes in Acts 241.

Those who accepted this message were baptized about 3000 were added

to their number. They devoted themselves to the Apostle's teaching and

fellowship to the breaking of bread and a prayer. Everyone was filled

with awe at the many wonders and signs performed by the Apostles.

All the believers were together had everything in common. They sold property

and possessions to give to anyone who had need. Every day they continued

to meet together in the temple courts. They broke bread in their homes.

They ate together with glad and sincere hearts, praising God, and

enjoying the favor of all the people. The Lord added to their number daily

those who are being saved. And so Luke is telling us in the book of

Acts that they learned. They listened. They experienced miracles and

transformation and the power of God present. They were spontaneously

generous. They were deeply compassionate to one another. They saw and

participated in true transformation. They were committed and

celebrated. The people around them loved and cared about them.

They were joyful. They were loving. They were social.

They were thriving. And it seems like everyone wanted to be around

and daily more and more people were joining them. That's a pretty good beginning.

And so living out these basics led to countless people having their lives

transformed. So all of that idea makes the book of James even more

interesting. Here's the early leader of the church in Jerusalem offering

some instructions about what it means to be a part of the kingdom of God and

a part of the early church. And so what does he say? What is the nature of

the letter that he writes? Well, and it's very simplest form.

It's basically a sermon talking about the basics about what it means.

And if you dig into the forensics, we touched on this a little bit last week.

You start to find out that, you know, this letter is probably one of the

very simplest things that could have happened in the early church,

simplest teaching, most fundamental, most basic, getting back to the start

organic, all those words you want to throw of it.

And so here's what he writes. Here's the secret of the early church.

Do the basic things, the atomic things well. Get back to the basic.

And so here's a list. Try to think about each one.

Don't throw them away too quickly. They're all vital.

They can make a big difference in our spiritual lives, but in our

relational lives and in the spiritual life of the church and the spiritual

and relational health of our families. So here's a few to think about.

I've broken them down in a few minutes into seven habits,

but there could be 10 because one has three in a subset.

But listen to them carefully. Dear brothers and sisters, take note of this.

Everyone should be quick to listen. Slow to speak.

Slow to become angry.

Because human anger does not produce the righteousness that God desires.

Get rid of all moral filth and the evil that's so prevalent,

humbly accept the word, planet in you which can save you.

Don't merely listen to the word, and so deceive yourself. Do what it says.

Anyone who listens to the word, but does not do what it says,

is like someone who looks at his face in a mirror,

and after looking at himself goes away, and immediately forgets what he looks like.

But whoever looks intently into the perfect law that gives freedom

and continues in it, not forgetting what they have heard,

but doing it, they'll be blessed in what they do.

Those who consider themselves religious and yet do not keep a tight rain

on their tongues, deceive themselves, and their religion is worthless.

Religion that God, our Father, accepts as pure and faultless as this

to look after orphans and widows in their distress

and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world.

Those are formative words.

They're words that give us information,

but that information forms us as we practice those atomic habits into something.

They don't just believe we belong to something.

We're becoming something.

That's the ethic of the kingdom of God.

It's not just about something we do for a prize someday.

It's about how we are shaped into healthy, whole, contributing human beings

to our families, to our own mental and spiritual emotional health

and to the people around us.

And so some things then there are to think about.

Well, we're formative to the church,

informative for ancient people, are still formative for us today.

And so when we come back from the break,

we're going to dive in and think about some atomic habits

that might be transformational for each of us.

We'll be right back after this.

Welcome back. You're listening to Healing Conversations on K-A-B-C-790 and Dave Roberts.

We're talking about when hearing isn't enough.

We hear a lot of things.

We've talked about this on this show several times.

Value is giving intellectual a sense of something.

Virtue is putting it into practice.

And there's a lot of things we value.

We think it's right, but we don't necessarily put it into practice.

And James is very adamant.

He doesn't do you much good to hear if it doesn't bring some changes.

So he lists out some things.

Some atomic habits that you and I could think about.

Here's the first one. Listen.

Everyone should be quick to listen.

We of all people on earth are invited to listen.

We're supposed to be listeners.

We're supposed to listen to our culture.

We're supposed to listen to our friends.

We're supposed to listen to those who are struggling.

We're supposed to listen to people who are different than us.

We're supposed to listen to our children.

We're supposed to listen to our spouses.

We're not pretending to listen.

We are actually listening.

In fact, James says here's a formative practice.

Be quick to listen.

Listening has lost art.

There's very little of it going on in our world.

It's part of what leads to the misunderstandings that we have as a culture.

As people who are espousing causes.

We have so many people who are so vividly angry.

But haven't really listened.

Don't really understand the depths of the two sides of the arguments

or the five sides of the argument or the ten sides of the argument.

The world is complex.

Issues are complex.

And if we're going to make progress, we need to be quick to listen.

How are you as a listener?

There is no greater gift we can give to people around us than to

listen.

Listen carefully.

Listen intently.

Listen thoughtfully.

It matters.

And then he says atomic habit number two, you should talk less.

Should be quick to listen and slow to speak.

Well, part of being quick to listen by imperative is being slow to speak.

When we are slow to speak, we're slow because we don't believe that

our words are golden, that our words are the smartest words,

or the best words that we just can't wait until the other person stops

talking so we can get going slow because we realize that pontificating is a

detriment to community and to growth and to relationship and connection.

We're slow to speak because the one speaking is taking authority at the

most fundamental level of human relationships.

And so we are followers, not instructors in our own right,

we're learners and growers, slow because our formative practice is to

point others to Christ, not to call attention to ourselves.

And so are you quick to listen, slow to speak?

Let me think about it.

Let me contemplate it.

Let me sit back and not be so quick.

So atomic habit number one, listen, atomic habit number two,

don't talk so much.

Atomic habit number three, be slow to anger.

Slow to anger because anger indicates judgment.

It indicates that we're angry because we know what's right and other people

aren't doing it.

And if they would just listen to us and how often are we angry when we don't

even know all the story, we don't even know all the facts.

We haven't taken time to gather up information.

Our culture more and more is divided over personalities rather than principles.

So pretty much you can kind of argue that what goes on in our culture and in our world

is that if it's a Democrat idea, it's going to be hated by about half the population,

no matter what it's merit.

If it's a Republican idea, it's going to be hated by about half.

And certainly if that's not true of the rank and file and individuals

down here at the grassroots level, it's true about our politicians.

By nature, they're disloyal to their party.

If they agree with someone from the other party, quick to anger.

Anger is judgment.

I know what's right and I know what's wrong.

Jesus was angry.

People always point that out to me.

You know, when you say you should be angry, Jesus was angry.

He turned over the tables in the temple.

Well, just a reminder, you know, the story is that Jesus was the son of God.

So he, in fact, did understand the right and the wrong.

At levels that you and I never will.

And so being slow to anger doesn't mean we never get anger.

It just means that we understand that mostly what makes us angry

and what is affecting us negatively may not be the right perspective for us.

We may need to know more.

And then he makes this statement that's really powerful because anger

does not produce the kind of righteousness that God desires,

which is a biblical spiritual way of saying righteousness, getting it right.

Anger doesn't produce the ability to get it right to do the right thing,

to think the right way, to have the right wisdom, to tell the truth,

to do right by people and right by others and right by relationship.

So the atomic habit, slow to anger.

Listen, talk less, be slow to anger.

And then he says, the fourth one, seek righteousness.

So get rid of all moral filth and the evil that's so prevalent

and humblets up the word planet in you.

And so this is the one I broke down into three others.

Practice morality.

Practice a deep sense of fairness.

Loving consideration of others. Practice self-disciplined.

You know, morality is not an obstacle course that God has created

to see if we can measure up.

Morality is the guardrails that keep us safe.

Keep our relationships safe.

Keep our own behavior safe.

And when passions and indulgences rule our lives,

whether they're sexual or whether they're in our attitude,

or whether it's about greed or laziness,

it destroys our ability to be effective as individuals

and good in relationships and good in families.

And so morality is there so that our passions don't rule.

But our passions are ruled by discipline and care and a greater good.

So practice morality, he says, and then avoid evil.

We're supposed to stay away from evil.

That would include indifference, apathy, selfishness,

he throws it in here to be sure that we understand

that in the communal kingdom, we're supposed to practice goodness.

We're not just against things.

It's not just about preaching against evils of morality

and all of those things, but it's, we're for some things.

We're for goodness.

We're not content to just not mess up in the world.

We want to have some sort of meaningful contribution to make.

And so in this idea of righteousness,

prax morality, avoid evil, and then be humble.

Nothing draws people closer into relationship than humility,

than having ourselves humbly living,

not always complaining, not always focused on ourselves,

but humble, working through our negativity,

becoming a person that's speaking life and not death, it matters.

And so the fourth overall idea is that we seek righteousness.

We seek the right stuff.

Number five, obey God's word.

Don't only listen to the word, and so deceive yourself,

but do what it says.

We don't just listen to the word, we form practices.

We read it, we contemplate it, and we do it because we believe it's wisdom.

You don't have to believe that.

But the Bible represents ideas and concepts that reflect justice, compassion, care.

In fact, Paul says, in Galatians, the fruit of the Spirit is love and joy and peace

and patience and kindness and faithfulness and gentleness and self-control.

Seems like those things would resonate anywhere in any culture at any time

and would reflect as wisdom.

And so we don't just hear, there were supposed to treat people well.

Just hear, there were supposed to be forgiving and loving.

We actually put it into practice every day, and we go back to the basics.

We listen, we talk less, we're not quick to be angry.

We seek the right things, and we don't just hear, we obey.

And then number six, we speak life.

Those who consider themselves religious, but do not keep a tight reign on their tongue,

deceive themselves, their religion is worthless.

That's pretty harsh stuff.

And yet, how true is it?

Who cares how religious you are?

If when you open your mouth, you're speaking things that tear people up and tear people down

and tear people apart, that's not life.

That's not how it works.

We speak life and not death.

And we keep a tight reign on our tongue.

Content matters, tone matters.

Are we building up our tearing down?

Life experience, personal practice, all those things matter.

If we're speaking words about others, they need to be life words, not death words.

We're scaring our children.

The way we talk, the way we talk about people and leadership,

we are either speaking, and this, you know, here's the thing about the words we speak,

that's the emotional soup we swim in in our homes and in our families and in our relationships.

So hypocrisy speaks words of death.

We need to live out what we say, integrity speaks words of life.

So we speak words of life.

And then finally practice compassion, atomic habit number seven.

Here's the religion that God accepts to look after the orphans and the widows on their distress.

We're supposed to care.

We're supposed to love people.

We're supposed to be moved by the condition of the world and the people in it

and find effective ways to intervene and to spend some of our time, our energy, our resources

and pushing back the darkness in the world.

That's complicated.

It's not easy.

There's toxic charity and toxic compassion, but we got to find ways.

We got to try.

We've got to be engaged.

We should be able to say these are the things that I'm working on and the people I'm working with

to make a difference in the lives of others because I can't just be all about myself

and all about my family and all about my world.

I've got to branch out and do things for others.

So there they are.

The seven atomic habits of what it looks like.

Listen, talk less, be slow to anger, seek righteousness, obey God's word, speak life,

and practice compassion.

And so we're going to break.

We'll talk about this right after this break.

Welcome back here, listening to Healing Conversations on K-A-B-C-790.

I'm Dave Roberts and I'm welcoming into the studio this morning, Eric McLean.

And welcome, Eric.

Good morning, Dave.

How you doing?

Good.

Palm Sunday.

Oh, good.

Yeah.

Hosanna.

Hosanna, yeah.

So big celebration.

Palm Sunday, waving palm branches.

We do that.

We pass out palm branches at all the services.

And we get the kids up there for the offering song.

Yeah.

Kids get up there and sing a song.

It's good times.

It's good.

It's a good celebration.

Yep, yep.

It's just fun, you know, getting beat over the head by James again this week.

Yeah.

A lot of conviction.

Yeah.

A lot of things to think about.

Yeah.

And, you know, they're hard to misunderstand.

Yeah.

You know, it can nuance them a little bit.

And I think the idea of atomic habits is an interesting one and the fundamentals.

And, you know, what it means to think about how do my daily practices, how do these small things translate into a better life, a better relationship, a better family dynamic, a better work dynamic, a better school dynamic.

How do you feel about that?

You being an athlete, you grind and grew up in that environment.

I did and I wish I was better at it.

I tried to read the atomic cabbage book.

Yeah.

I didn't have good enough habits to finish the book.

It didn't work fast enough.

Yeah.

Yeah.

There is something though about that Lombardi story of this is a football.

Right.

Don't you just kind of wish like Jesus would come back one more time.

Yeah.

He would go gentlemen.

I am the son of God.

Let's start there.

Yeah.

I'm going to slowly define everything for you.

Yeah.

Because I don't feel like that's how the Bible works and that's really how faith works.

Yeah.

But I kind of wish it did work that way a little bit.

Yeah.

But that said, it does seem to me that the concept of right and wrong, good and evil exists in every culture around the world and seems to be inherent in human beings.

Yeah.

And it's largely the same.

Generally speaking, you got to honor the structural systems.

You know, you got to be faithful to the community.

Now, some of the community standards are different certainly.

But you kind of figure almost everybody says don't kill people.

Don't steal things.

Don't take things and don't belong to you.

So I think it's interesting when you say that because it seems that we inherently are working with a basic understanding of what the bottom line is.

Yeah.

You said earlier and I wrote it down and then I just realized I wrote it down incorrectly.

It has to be correct.

But you said we don't just believe we belong to something.

Yeah.

What was that whole thing that you said?

Well, I think the idea is that we're not just a bunch of people who write down ideas and then, you know, we live our beliefs in the context of community.

Yeah.

Which makes it less of dogma and more about a belief system that has some flexibility with our relational care for each other.

It's not a rigid, just a system of legalism.

It's a relational system.

Right.

And I mean, that feels true to when this was all written down.

But that maybe that has ebbed and flowed over the years of Christianity and faith system.

I think so.

I mean, and I don't know what was true there when it was written down.

I mean, ultimately got Jesus killed was that he said to the legalism of the Jewish hierarchy, you're missing the point.

You tie the 10th of your herbs, which would represent tithing to the tiniest legalistic level, but you destroy people.

Yeah.

So I think it was a problem, you know, and I think Jesus is trying to say these principles are supposed to result in love, compassion, care, connection, redemption, building up a redemption of society, culture, the world, not.

I have an exclusive right to the truth.

And if you don't, you know, come and pay the temple tax and see the high priest and do all the things you're supposed to do and pay the money you're supposed to pay, then you can never have the righteousness.

So I think that's what the belonging is.

It's not just a rigid set of lessons.

It's a set of lessons of principles, but the principles are there not for people to get crushed by.

Yeah.

But to in live and real care and love and relationships and functionality.

Yeah.

Yeah, that's good.

That's good.

I think to listen, this feels like maybe something the church has a hole is not the best at all the time.

I think that's true.

And I feel like to me, maybe there's more categories than this, but I feel like there's two categories.

One category is kind of represented by, you know, the guys at big sporting events or whatever that stand out with a big poster and a megaphone.

They're not looking for a conversation.

They're looking to impart their views into the public.

Yeah, audibly, loudly.

That's like one version of not listening.

Right.

And the church kind of does that.

Not necessarily we go out and stand in front of sporting events.

No, but all we do.

But they have their own conversation and their own language.

Yeah.

Outside, it does make sense necessarily.

Yeah.

And I think, you know, you and I've talked about this, but I think philosophically as a church, it's one of our core principles is we need to be authentic.

You know, we need to talk about what's real.

I think it's Henry now and it says if the preacher can't talk about the visible absence of God in the world, then he's the only one that doesn't see it.

And then how will anyone believe him and he talks about the invisible presence of God?

Right.

So I think you do have to talk about the visible absence of God in the world authentically having conversations that mean something.

Doesn't matter if it's the first time a person's ever walked into a church or if they're, you know, listening to a radio show like this, which we, we kind of rework content from weekends.

Right.

I think, you know, it matters.

Yeah, but I don't think the church has been good at that.

Yeah.

And you and I are people that talking to a lot of microphones.

Yeah.

And if that's all we did, then it wouldn't be worth anything if we off all we did was kept talking.

And then the other one is just just not a willingness to listen.

Yeah.

And specifically to specific stories and specific people outside of the walls of the church who have a story, right, who have something to say.

Yeah.

And it's just an unwillingness to listen.

Yeah.

Well, there's a fear, you know, I think many people of faith, whether it's Christian or Muslim or Hindu or whatever they are, you know, they've been taught that the way you corrupt your faith is by listening to people outside of the faith.

And they'll deceive you and take you down a track.

It doesn't seem all that difficult to say, you know, we can be committed to the word of God and still be asking questions about how does this fit into this person's story and life.

I'm not going to rewrite the word of God, but I'm also going to try to learn the language and understand the circumstances and situations and even the questions that are being asked because I can make it completely irrelevant.

And I think that's reflected, you know, I think it's reflected by who feels safe in church, you know, if you're only speaking to one demographic, you know, the church is interesting because it kind of divides around different demographics.

So you'll get a young church or an old church or a black church or a white church or a Hispanic church, you know, as opposed to, and we do have some that transcend all of that and attract all kinds of demographics.

And I think that is ultimately the goal because it means we are listening better, we are speaking in ways that are addressing the language of all of the cultural group and all the demographic and that's really important.

Yeah, we can also dominate the conversation by talking too much.

Yeah, I feel like it's really natural for me when I'm having a conversation with somebody to know when they've been talking too much.

Yeah, and it's harder for me to recognize when I'm doing it. Yeah.

How do you know when you've been talking too much?

Well, I don't know if I know. I think I carry it as a fear and I think maybe that's important that you're always thinking, I'm always thinking about that.

Am I dominating this? Have I talked too many times?

Sometimes I'm in peer-to-peer learning groups, unmoderated learning groups where people are just going to have a conversation.

I often will leave those groups and I'll turn to somebody that's a friend and say, hey, did I talk too much during that?

I think I talked three times. I don't know. Did it feel like this was too much?

Because it's a fear. Because you feel it when other people are doing it and you're like, I don't want to do that.

I don't feel that I know the answer. Am I really contributing here or am I distracting?

I think you could ask that question in every situation. Am I dominating in my home and my family?

I think one of the most fascinating things to me is my grandkids who don't talk about necessarily deep stuff, at least they don't start there.

But how often am I just letting them talk about themselves and talk about what they're thinking about and what they're doing and what their questions are?

Every minute is not a teaching moment. I think it's a good thing to ask in a lot of different contexts because talking too much is an ongoing problem.

I want to talk about anger. We're coming up on a break. But when we get back, I think it's really funny that people say Jesus got mad.

We should talk about that.

And they use it as an excuse for their own anger, which is also very, very funny in many ways.

All right. We're headed to break and we'll jump right on that anger issue right after this.

Welcome back. You're listening to healing conversations with Eric McClennahan and Dave Roberts on K-A-B-C-790.

We left off at break. Eric, we're going to talk about anger. You said you thought it was funny. Tell me the details.

Yeah. People will say, well, yeah, I'm angry, but Jesus got angry. He turned over the tables. So if Jesus got angry, then I can get angry.

Yeah. And it's such an easy comeback. You're not Jesus. You're just not Jesus. And so if Jesus got angry, you know, there's a passage in Philippians that Paul writes.

And he says, in your relationships with one another, your attitudes to be the same as Christ Jesus, who, being in very nature, God, did not think equality with God, something to be grasped, but emptying himself and became a servant.

Yeah.

So the one person that was qualified to judge others and to be harsh decided to be a servant instead of harsh and judgmental.

So anybody that makes the argument, well, just got angry. So I should too might want to read that verse. It's just not where we are.

But anger is such a huge problem in our culture. And I don't know. I don't know. I don't think I'm a big conspiracy theorist.

But I certainly am fascinated by these public protests where somebody says, do you know about this? Do you know about this? Do you know about this?

And the people that are so angry don't know about the basic issues they're angry about.

Yeah.

And so then you've got to ask, well, why are you out there? Who's driving this? Who's inviting people instead of educating?

I mean, the old process was let's educate people. And if there's a reason to get upset, then let's be upset.

But now it's let's be upset so that we can, I don't know, win.

Yeah. And this is also, we've talked about this a bunch on this show because it's such a hot topic thing.

But this also extends to social media.

Yes.

And two points, number one, an argument has never in the history of social media been solved over social media.

Your righteous anger on social media does not change anyone's opinion ever.

Nope.

It doesn't matter how you word it, it doesn't, it will never change that person's opinion. So just stop.

And number two, they, the social media companies want you to be angry because when you are angry, you talk more.

You respond to things, you click on things more when you're angry than when you're happy.

Yeah. So every time that somebody posts something that is ridiculous and makes you angry and you know that they are so wrong,

the odds of them posting that for that purpose, they know they're wrong, they are rage baiting you.

Yes. They want you to comment. When you comment, you are not imposing some kind of righteous anger.

You are doing, you are doing exactly what they hope you're doing because they are making money off of you commenting.

And I think, you know, how to stop.

And it needs to be broadcast over and over, you know, social media is not about information and education, it's about engagement.

Yes.

And they're going to do whatever they can. They don't care what you believe or what you think.

They just want you to keep clicking and they want you to stay there.

I have to get this one out because I just saw it recently and it struck me as being so much in this vein of thinking,

but A celebrity that I'll at least not mention their name.

Though some of you probably saw the post, you know, and of course in this AI world, you don't even know if his person actually said this.

Yeah.

But here it is, a big, big post on social media.

And it says, how do we get rid of this mini-exual batives president?

And here was my meanily thought, well, we vote for another person.

I mean, we have a whole system designed to get rid of leaders that we don't want and to put in leaders that we do want.

And you can go down the rabbit hole if we should have better choices and yada yada yada.

The very fact that this outrageous, how do we get rid of?

Well, you know, don't you know how?

I mean, if you just took the question, don't you really know how?

There'll be an election and you get to vote and there'll be a campaign and you get to promote.

I mean, we have a system that actually built opposite of you four years ago said the same thing.

Yeah.

And so they went and voted.

Yes.

So is this the irony of, because if you just took the question and face value, don't you want to look at that celebrity and go,

you mean you don't know?

Okay.

Well, here's how it works.

Yeah.

Every four years, you registered a vote and then every four years, we have no works.

This gentleman is a football.

Yeah.

I mean, it just struck me as being so funny because it wasn't about the question.

It was about the rage that it creates and the endorsement and the disapproval.

And 99% of the time they go, while I have you here in your love for me or hatred,

I have a new movie coming out this Friday.

Yes.

Seek righteousness.

Righteousness to me is one of those words that kind of loses its meaning over time in the church,

because we just throw it out.

Yeah.

I like fellowship and like all these buzzwords that we throw out there.

What is righteousness?

How do you define righteousness?

Get the earth out of it.

It's a rightness.

And we all have an inherent sense of that.

We don't want guilty people to go free.

We don't want innocent people to be mistreated.

We don't want poor people to be ground up in the system.

We don't want people to be unable to afford housing.

We don't want people to be hungry.

We don't want cruelty.

We don't want bullying.

We have a deep sense of rightness.

We may not all agree on how it all works.

But I think we all agree.

We don't want young people suffering.

We don't want kids growing up in environments that are unhealthy or unsafe.

We don't want them growing up with bigotry and judgmentalism.

I think we all agree on that.

We want them to be discerning and have good judgment.

So I think there is an inherent sense of rightness.

I think the church sometimes says it has to be all of these other things.

And I think the growing sense, I think the biblical idea of righteousness extends beyond

just those basic inherent things.

It gets into the nuances of how do we treat others?

Love God.

Don't live like you're the top of the food chain.

Live like you're accountable for your choices and behaviors.

There's something above you.

And love your neighbor as yourself.

Be as good to your neighbor as you are to yourself.

And so I think the biblical idea pushes into the weeds.

It gets down into the details of life in many ways.

Yeah.

But I think that's what righteousness is.

And I think we all long for it.

That's what anger is about.

Because it's not going right.

It's not the right thing.

It's not the right way.

One of your points in secret.

Justness is avoid evil.

And I wanted to ask you about this because there's been some younger kids in our church

that are kind of dealing with this in our junior high group.

Of this idea of the devil is trying to trick you behind every turn.

So be diligent.

Yeah.

What is a healthy way to look at avoid evil?

Because even when I remember growing up, you'd see videos and it'd be like,

don't drink monster energy drinks because it's evil because they put 666 in the logo.

And you know, if you drink it, it's a well, I grew up in the seventh.

You know, we were playing rate records backwards because you know, they were putting secret

messages in them, you know, and this is all the craziness.

I just think again, you know, the biblical story is not irrational.

There might come a point where our rational minds step off into, you know,

the ancients talked about it in terms of the physical and the metaphysical.

Some things that exceed the physical world.

And that's where we kind of step into faith and spirituality and the divine.

But we do a lot of living in the physical, in the rational world.

And God is never irrational.

It might be extra rational.

It might exceed rational understanding.

There might be less limits at that level than our physical level.

But this idea that evil is going to sneak up on you and grab you.

You know, we have to be a willing participant in that stuff.

And so I put less credence in that.

I think that there are message of those that are not good for human beings.

And I think there's a lot of video games and a lot of movies that promote things

that are disturbing to our overall mental health.

But I don't think that's a specifically spiritual.

It can become that. It can become deeply ingrained in a person's psyche.

And we've seen that.

And why it works that way for one person and not another?

I don't know. I don't think we explain.

That's like alcohol.

You learn to practice a very specific kind of temperance

because some personalities are more addictive than others.

And I think it's the same with violence and sexual input

and how early kids are exposed to that stuff.

I think the studies are out there that talk to us about the common sense things.

Less about the demonic and the boogeyman and all of those things.

Those things, I believe, have validity and are real.

They're certainly biblically talked about.

But they seem to involve a willingness to engage it and seek it

as opposed to something that you just find it snuck up on you.

Best practices, atomic practices, you know,

atomic habits really are, they kind of preclude all that.

Yeah.

It's Palm Sunday next week is Easter.

Yeah.

If you're looking for a place to go for Easter.

Yeah.

Montrose Church dot org.

You can find all our times.

We have an extra service for Easter.

We have an 8 a.m.

Yep.

So 8 a.m.

10 a.m.

1130.

10 a.m.

On Facebook.

Montrose Church dot org.

If you need a place for Easter next week.

Yeah.

And 9 a.m. at our Pasadena campus.

All I'm at our offices is in a campus.

But I won't be there.

So I'll only be at the Montrose Gallery.

I'll be at both.

So hey, thanks for listening.

I pray grace over you in this coming holy week.

I pray God would be present.

I pray there would be guidance.

And I pray somewhere in there that the atomic habits

would contribute to your sense of well-being

and to the well-being of your life and your family.

God bless.

Thanks for listening.

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