Ep #04: Loving God Leads to Loving Your Neighbor

Episode Transcript

Austin: Welcome back to the Second Half Stewardship Podcast. We're glad that you guys are here with us today. We are going to talk about the idea that God owns relationships. We've talked about God owns it all. We looked at 1 Chronicles 29. We've looked at God owning money in our Luke 16 passage. We looked at God owning our time.
We looked at Ephesians 5. So we kind of unpacked a lot of those. But we want to continue this this foray into this idea that God owns it all. There's no square inch of the entirety of the human existence that God does not claim, that it's His. And so we want to think about that in terms of our relationships.
Before we get started, Spencer. Where do fish keep their money?

Spencer: Where do they?

Austin: In a river bank.

Spencer: Oh, wow. Okay.

Austin: Pretty good. Yeah, that was a pretty good one. Pretty good dad joke. I'll let you come back in the next episode so you can take the next.

Spencer: All right. All right. Fair enough.

Austin: All right. So where are we going today, Spencer?

Spencer: So this idea that God owns it all. Of course. He owns our relationships. And I think this is sometimes difficult for us to really grapple with if he owns every inch of our lives. How do we think about those relationships? And so we wanted to start this by couching it in terms of where we are and our cultural moment, because each one of us is being carried in some way, shape, or form in that cultural stream.
And so we have to say, okay, where do we find ourselves and how do we think about maybe positioning in light of the culture? So can you start to unpack that a little bit?

Austin: So there is this idea that individualism. It's a it's a broad swath of a topic. We can go in a lot of different ways with it. Sure. But according to some research that's been done, the United States is actually a highly individualistic culture, believe it or not. Wow. Could you have guessed it? But the the interesting piece of it is there's this idea of a vertical individualism versus a horizontal individualism.
So you think about horizontal individual cultures. You think of Scandinavia, Norway, Sweden, Finland. They all want to do their own thing, but they don't want to stand up outside of the crowd when we, Kayla and I, spent several years, several months in Sweden about oh, I don't know, ten, 12 years ago. And there's a phrase called “lagom”.
And it just means just enough, essentially. And so you do your own thing, but you don't want to stand up too high because then you stand out from the crowd. And so it's an egalitarian type of individualism, whereas in the U.S., our individualism is very vertical. We're very competitive. I want to show what I've done. I still get to be myself and I still learn and do and enjoy the things that I want to. You can't encroach upon me, but it's okay to rise above everybody else.

Spencer: So that would probably create some challenges to our relationships.

Austin: Oh, absolutely. There's a quote from a podcast that I heard recently from the Freakonomics podcast, and it's a guy named Joe Heinrich. He's a professor at Harvard. And he is talking about this idea of competitive individualism and how it actually affects our churches. And he says, “My favorite explanation for this, I think this has been put out most clearly by a sociologist named Rodney Stark-is that with freedom of religion, you get a competition among religious organizations. So the U.S. produces the sort of Wal-Mart equivalent of religion's big churches, giving the people what they want, high pageantry. Whereas if you have a state religion, it tends to get tired and old and boring. People get less interested.” So yeah, you think about it. It's like we look at our churches in a lot of ways. They look a lot, they look the same.
But there's this high competitive atmosphere even within the church that. So just based on what culture is American exceptional individual culture has taught us to do.

Spencer: And so there are some good elements of that. And it seems that people are engaged on some level, maybe more so than if it was old and boring and state, you know, based. But the trade off is, you know, that competition, it sounds like from the research, one of the ideas is that churches are competing against each other.
But if we're holding our guards up, you know, as individuals going and worshiping and trying to jockey for position, that's got to have some ramifications as well, I would presume. So again, as we kind of grapple with this idea of how we surrender our relationships to the Lord, what comes to mind and how we we think about that?

Austin: Yeah, absolutely. You know, I I think some of the hard questions that I need to consistently ask myself are, where am I? What am I doing to get ahead? What is what? Who am I trying to push aside so that I can do what I want to do and I think that's a really challenging perception, especially in America, where this idea of the American dream do anything you can to succeed.
But reality, the gospel calls me to serve my neighbor. Jesus often says, Lay down your life on behalf of your neighbor. It's not step on anybody to get ahead and make as much as you can. It's Where do I need to die to myself for the good of those around me.

Spencer: It's such a challenging question.

Austin: Because it's not an easy one or a fun one to ask all the time.

Spencer: No, no. Taking up our cross and following Jesus is one of those passages that's easy to put on a, you know, plate and say, okay, I ascribe to this much more difficult to really lay down our lives.

Austin: Absolutely.

Spencer: So what's our first passage that we're going to be diving into?

Austin: Yeah, we're going to start off today in Mark 12. We're going to be looking at versus 28-34. And we have talked about this passage in a different from a different context. It's where the Lord again says, Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, and mind comes originally from Deuteronomy 6, but Jesus says it a lot.
And so if Jesus says it a lot, it's probably pretty important. Yeah. Yeah. So yeah. Why don’t you run us through some context here Spencer?

Spencer: So Jesus has already entered Jerusalem in his final time before the crucifixion. He's just overturned the moneychangers in the temple. So a lot of intensity there. And he's been asked by the scribes and elders where his authority comes from. So it's a it's a confrontational moment leading up to this because they're trying to trip him up, essentially. And he shared the parable about the workers of the vineyard, killing the owner son, thinking that they will inherit the land in his place.
So, you know, again, the rulers are continually trying to trip Jesus up as they question him. So that's where we come to in this main passage. So we have one of the scribes coming up and and then asking the question that we dive into. You want to dive in there? Yeah.

Austin: Yeah. So I'll read the text here, it says. “And one of the scribes came up and heard them disputing with one another and seeing that he answered them well asked Jesus, ‘Which commandment is the most important of all?’ To which Jesus answered, ‘The most important is hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one. And you shall love the Lord Your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength. The second is this You shall love your neighbor as yourself. There is no other commandment greater than these.’ And the scribe said to him, ‘You are right, teacher. You have truly said that he is one and there is no other beside him. And to love him with all the heart and with all the understanding and with all the strength and to love one's neighbor as oneself is much more than all the whole burnt offerings and sacrifices.’ And when Jesus saw that He had answered wisely, he said to him, ‘You are not far from the Kingdom of God.’ And after that, no one dared to ask him any more questions.” Yeah. So what does that stir up in you, Spencer?

Spencer: Well, I mean, it's such a encapsulation of things. There's a number of different things that I, you know, see there. Even in this confrontational moment, though, we see Jesus affirming the scribe. And so, you know, questions can be raised. But when we see a love of God and a love of neighbor, regardless where they come from, we're on to something there.
And the nitty gritty of practicing it is so much more difficult. But it it's still that sense that when we look at this passage, we've got a love of God being first and foremost and right with it, a love of one's neighbor being secondary there. So. So what strikes you about it?

Austin: Yeah, I remember I, I read a book a long time ago that it reminded me, it said The Great Commission follows the great commandment. And I think we typically turn and flip that on its head where it's like, I need to go, I need to serve, I need to go, I need to serve. But the reality is, what's the most important commandment that Jesus gives is it's coming back to love God, love your neighbor.
And yeah, it's like you're saying that mental assent, I can always be reminded like, Oh yeah, I should love God with all my heart and soul of mind and strength. But when it comes down to actually doing it, well, let's just be honest. It's not always a success. I, I really love myself. I love being able to do what I want to do.
And I am a lot like the scribe in that Jesus would probably say to me, You're not far from the Kingdom of God. You answered these things correctly. But it moving that from my head to my heart to where it really is, transformative of who do I serve? What do I do? Am I loving God with all my being?
Or am I loving myself my loving my neighbor? Or am I just kind of serving them because it's easy? Or am I serving out of that affection for the Father?

Spencer: Well, and that's where, you know, Jesus drills in on this with his parables, you know, and we can't escape how we define neighbor when we think about the Good Samaritan. Yeah. You know, and so the teeth of it becomes, okay, are you loving those that are different than you? Are you loving those who would be outcasts in society?
Are you loving those to the point that you're willing to give substantially and sacrificially, you know, of your resources? And and that's a lot more challenging is certainly.

Austin: So the next passage we're going to take a look at, we want to hear Jesus words. We want to sit in and we want to wrestle with them. We also want to continue to move into what does it actually look like, that God owns our relationships. And so we want to continue to come back to Scripture and say, okay, if God owns our relationships, what does that actually mean for me?
I want to be someone that loves God and loves my neighbor. So, Paul, in 1 Corinthians 9, he's he's kind of unpacking this. What what does it look like to live into this? And where is our place in a relational world? We are able to both help people see Jesus, but it's also going to be God helping them move through discipleship.
So we want to be both people that invite people to see Jesus as part of our call. It's part of the commandment, but it's a journey. It's a journey towards Jesus. So since you want to read that off.

Spencer: Yeah. And so it is, you know, like you're saying, Austin, it's each moment trying to draw people a little bit closer to Jesus and that. And so, you know, Paul gives us a great example so often. And in his letters, Paul is saying, Follow me as I follow Christ, emulate me, because I am pursuing him. And so in 1 Corinthians 9:19-22, he says, “Though I am free and belong to no one, I have made myself a slave to everyone to win as many as possible. To the Jews. I became like a Jew to win the Jews. To those under the law, I became like one under the law (though I myself am not under the law), so as to win those under the law. To those not having the law I became like one not having the law (though I am not free from God's law, but am under Christ's law), so as to win those not having the law. To the weak. I became weak, to win the weak. I have become all things to all people so that by all means possible I might save some.” So again, there's this sense, as Paul’s speaking, that he doesn't see himself as having rights and he's not in competition, you know, with anyone. Instead, he's taking an entirely different posture, you know, in the way that he's approaching his relationship. So you want to unpack that a little bit?

Austin: Yeah. You know, even as you were saying that, I you know, it runs so countercultural to what I know of in that I don't need to be getting ahead and I want to be serving. And you know, as I think about my time on staff with CRU, I served a lot of different people and almost none of them look like me.
I got to serve Latino students in Colorado. I got to serve international students in Knoxville. And none of them looked similar. And I would say I learned so much more about God by learning from them. And it was when I was willing to say, okay, I, I need these people to speak into my life because believe it or not, they're all made in the image of God.
Whether I. Whether the news wants me to believe that someone from the Middle East is not made in the image of God. They are. And they're beautiful. And. And for me to learn what does it look like to show them Jesus, it was also an embrace of like they're showing me more of who Jesus is. So being willing to to say, I, I don't need to stand up out of the crowd.
I can actually submit myself to these people, serve these people. And I see Jesus and how He becomes the hands and feet of these people who have desperate needs for a savior, whether it's physical, tangible needs. A lot of international students show up with a suitcase, and some of them don't have a place to live. And so it was an a really beautiful way to serve them.
But some of them, it's it's high spiritual needs. They're looking for what is what is their meaning and purpose in life. And we can usher them into seeing that that love of Jesus.

Spencer: Absolutely. Well, it just strikes me that, you know what your opportunity was. There is each moment that you're with them to be able to try to bring just a bit of shalom, you know, a bit of the wholeness, the goodness, the love that God gives us as his children. And, you know, if we can look at that and see Paul's example and say, okay, in each thing, he wanted to be able to remove any of the hindrances that people might have.
In being able to experience that level of love from the Lord and God's, you know, overarching shalom, if that becomes the cry of our hearts and the actions of our hands, we can't be far. You know, it seems like there in this passage and of course, what Jesus was commanding us. So we'll pivot here on this last text and talk just a little bit more about that idea of serving in some particular way. So we unpack that third passage for us.

Austin: Yeah. So we're going to again jump into an oft quoted book. It is Leviticus 23. And, you know, it's we've come back to Leviticus a couple of times because I think God really in this text, he he establishes some framework of what does it look like to be the people of God in a foreign land. And that's a lot of what Leviticus is.
It's it's a reminder of who the people of God are meant to be around a people that don't believe in God. And while it's challenging to to see this and to see some of these laws and the like, what is this actually mean for me today? I think there's a lot that that if we dive into it and really look and see, what is God saying to his people about being a people in the midst of people that don't believe the same thing?
Right. And so Leviticus 23;22, God says, “And when you reap the harvest of your land, you shall not reap your field right up to its edge, nor shall you gather the gleaning after your harvest. You shall leave them for the poor and the sojourner: I am the Lord your God.” And I think this just runs so counter to what we think, what we are often told, and that you need to take everything for yourself.
In every harvest time, why wouldn't you gather all of your crops into the storehouse? Especially in a land where there's not Wal-Mart. There's not. I can't drive down to Publix and pick up more food. Right. They they relied on what was on the land. And so God is saying you're actually not going to harvest everything.
You're not going to use everything and you're just going to leave those gleanings on the side for anybody. He doesn't say your cousin Bartholomew needs it. So, go, go. Give it to him. He's saying there are poor there are immigrants that are coming and passing through your land. Leave it for them. And don't ask questions like there's no there's no other stipulations that God puts on this. It's pretty clear he just says leave them for the poor in the sojourner.

Spencer: And that's that's such a radical departure. Again, when we look at so many of our relationships, be it in business or otherwise, it's, you know, in business, for instance, you know, we look at a lease of a building and we're going to try to drive the hardest bargain, you know, and it's celebrated that you're going to, you know, drive it just as hard as you can and, you know, all other things equal.
Yes, it's good to get a good deal. But if that's our whole orientation to life and that's kind of the the energy, you know, behind the way that we operate, it's really difficult to make a switch then to say, oh, well, I want to, you know, give some space. You know, in some of these other areas, there's there's a tension there.
And we certainly need the Holy Spirit as we do it. But again, coming back to kind of the way that we set up this podcast, when we're super individualistic and we're really just pushing as hard as we can to get as much as we can. There's there's some things that the gospel and, you know, the entire biblical narrative would speak that is kind of a corrective to that or put some guardrails on how we look at that, because we're called to work hard and we're called to, you know, be diligent in the way that we cultivate the land, for instance, and in Leviticus. But at the same time we're called to be generous and open handed.

Austin: So yeah, so you know, as I think about this and how it plays out in my life every day. You know, we live in a neighborhood where we are in the higher socioeconomic status of our neighborhood. And I there are there are friends that come by our house either looking for work or just looking for a meal or.
And these are people that we've interacted with multiple times. We know them by name. They're really sweet souls. Right. And but when they come by, sometimes my tendency is to think why don't they just get a job and go go back to work? Like, if I'm going to give you the money that I am working hard for.
Right? Why don't you go do the same? And it just shows in me a hardness of me. And guide calls me to love the poor. And am I going to see that $20 again? Or am I going to, like, actually mourn the loss of $20? No, it it has very little bearing on my day to day life. But but I realize in those moments, it it's a tendency for me to get frustrated.
It's a tendency for me to get cold hearted towards the people that are actually hurting. And there's stories behind their lives that have brought them to this place that are far different than my story. But I have to wrestle with the Lord and I have to wrestle with myself that I have a real tendency to get hardhearted towards people that that I think are not doing what I would do in that same situation.

Spencer: It's something that I certainly can resonate with and relate to. I think one of the things that that again, is a challenge for me is that I get squeamish with oftentimes is just sharing about a personal experience with the Lord. You know, I can be in the midst of people. I can want to bless them in certain ways.
But when it comes right down to, you know, that moment of of talking about the goodness of God or the amazing wonders of what Jesus is up to, I believe in this world, sometimes it's harder for me to share and be open in that. And I'm not sure some of that may be that competitive, you know, element of there's a level of intimacy there that I'm not sure I want to let my guard down, you know, enough that you might think I'm a little too emotional or I'm too experiential or something like that.
And yet that's the for a functioning Christian believer that needs to be a core part of our daily experience, you know, walking with the Lord, experiencing him. So I think one of the things that has been helpful, though, on the flip side of that is if I can pray about that day to day and I can think about my day and I can have a list of people that I'm praying through, you know, daily and weekly and and such that it it just opened my eyes to how different moments might play out.
So if I'm praying for one of my kiddos and they are having some challenges in a certain way, or I'm desiring for them to grow. If I'm praying for that activity, I can see where the Lord is inviting me to step in to that and it can be with other people as well. But it just I think it primes the pump in some ways for me too, to be able to share a little bit more or just to be more open to a heart level conversation, you know, is as unnerving sometimes as that can be.
And, you know, so that's that's one of those areas of growth for me, too. So, Austin, what do what have we put together in terms of some thoughts on next steps here?

Austin: So, our next steps kind of look very similar to the ones we've looked at before for the last couple of weeks. We want to continue to memorize scripture. So one thought is continue to try to memorize 1 Corinthians 4:2, “Moreover, it is required of stewards that they be found faithful.” and said. Simple passage, but God am I being faithful.
Men memorize it and come back to him with that morning by morning. Moreover, it is required that steward stewards be found faithful. Am I being faithful to you Lord? Another one is just continuing to pray the prayer attributed to Saint Francis. One of my kids and I do this every night because we want to help him be a reminder that he is an instrument of peace.
“Lord, make me an instrument of peace where there's hatred. Let me so love where there's injury, pardon where there's doubt, faith, where there's despair, hope where there's darkness, light where there's sadness, joy Oh, divine master grant that I may not seek so much to be consoled as to console, to be understood, as to understand, to be loved as to love for it is in giving that we receive. It is in pardoning. We are pardoned and it is in dying that we are born to eternal life.”

Spencer: And if we just if we interject that at different points during the day, I mean, how powerful certainly at bedtime at waking can be powerful moments, but through the day, you know, we've talked about it before, but just, you know, the example of the monks taking seven different times to pray during the day and just knowing that they're going to come back to the Lord because they are the Lord's and that recentering so powerful. What's that last thing that we're thinking about here in terms of a next step?

Austin: So, you know, as we've thought about key relationships with the passage today or the the thesis today is God owns our relationships and he is the one that calls us to first love him and then love one another. So I think, you know, first off, just asking yourself, where am I falling short of loving God where? And I think oftentimes we want to look at introspectively and say falling short, but where am I doing well to you?
And celebrating where God has brought us from and to? Because there's not I have not always loved God well, but he has always loved me well. So how am I responding to his love? And then I think just asking that question that that the Pharisees often asked, who is my neighbor? And just being really open with the Lord and saying, God, who is my neighbor?
If you have called me to love you and to love my neighbor, who is my neighbor could be a spouse. It could be kids. It could be actual physical people that live next door to you. Believe it or not, sometimes God calls us to love the hard people. There's neighbors in our neighborhood that are hard to love. What does it look like to love our neighbor?

Spencer: And so, you know, asking the Lord and then journaling, you know, on that, because it gives us an opportunity to reflect, as you talked about, it also gives us an opportunity to make that a part of our daily rhythm as we pray. Because if we come back to that and we're crying out to the Lord for our neighbors, for our family, for those that we know that we're going to come in contact with, you know how powerful that can be if we act with that intention.

Austin: Yeah, absolutely. So as we finish off, what are some things that you got for us, Spencer?

Spencer: Well, I think big picture, of course, where we're headed from here, the next episode, our plan is to be talking about how God owns our gifts and experiences and how we lay those before the Lord there. One of the quotes that we like that really comes back to this thought in terms of God's owning. It all comes from Hudson Taylor, a famous missionary to China, but really an amazing man of faith.
Overall, he says, “Small things are small things, but faithfulness with a small thing is a big thing.” And I think that's a great encouragement to us because as we see that we're faithful just in one interaction with a spouse, with a family member, with a friend, we get a sense of God's purpose in our life and we even get a taste of his shalom, you know, in the midst of that.
And so I think, you know, focusing on those moments, focusing on listening to the Lord and what he's up to can give us an amazing opportunity just to walk alongside him through the day.

Austin: Yeah, absolutely. And as always, if you guys found any of this content helpful or you're struck by any of it, think about maybe who's a friend you can share it with. Who's one person that maybe you think would benefit from that? And then we'd love for you to talk about it with that friend. And if you have any questions, feel free to reach out in the comments or we'll put the email address where you can reach out to us in the show notes as well.
So we'd love to hear from you guys about what you found valuable and where maybe we can go next. We would love to hear what you want to hear about what you would love for us to explore in terms of Second Half Stewardship. And what does it mean to be faithful with the resources that God is giving us? So thank you again for for tuning in, and we'll we'll see you soon.