Relatable with Allie Beth Stuckey - November 04, 2026


Ep 1417 ｜ It's Time to Get to Work ｜ Jonny Ardavanis

Ep 1416 ｜ Is 'Hate the Sin, Love the Sinner' Biblical？ My Argument

Episode Stats


Length

57 minutes

Words per minute

194.27

Word count

11,242

Sentence count

390

Harmful content

Misogyny

3

sentences flagged

Toxicity

5

sentences flagged

Hate speech

23

sentences flagged


Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
Misogyny classifications generated with MilaNLProc/bert-base-uncased-ear-misogyny .
Toxicity classifications generated with s-nlp/roberta_toxicity_classifier .
Hate speech classifications generated with facebook/roberta-hate-speech-dynabench-r4-target .
00:00:00.000 You know I saw something that Elon said the other day about the future. He said that in 30 years or
00:00:04.880 maybe 10 years work is going to be optional. There should be hardwired revulsion to that type of an
00:00:12.300 idea because when Jesus shows up in the incarnation one writer says he doesn't show up as this
00:00:17.740 flowering romantic. He doesn't come as a sage. He comes as a tecton and he does what we do. His hands
00:00:24.860 are calloused. He is splinters. I want to be like Ephesians 5.1, be an imitator of God.
00:00:30.340 And I can imitate God by doing medial mundane things with excellence for his glory and to love
00:00:35.780 my neighbor. And when you don't do that, I don't know how practically you begin to love your
00:00:39.120 neighbor either. Introducing Anna Kate. With Anna Kate, you'll track what's true. What's true about
00:00:47.080 your body, your period, your fertility, or your pregnancy and your baby. And what's true about
00:00:51.700 your soul, your value, your purpose, and your calling, all determined by the God who made you.
00:00:57.120 From period and pregnancy tracking to educational resources, a growing directory of Christian
00:01:01.980 pro-life health professionals, and an interactive prayer board, Anna Kate is the place for Christian
00:01:07.580 women to get insight into their bodies and to connect to the God who created them.
00:01:11.440 Anna Kate, for women, for life. Download Anna Kate today.
00:01:21.700 Johnny, welcome back to Relatable.
00:01:27.860 It's been two years, I think, this month since you were on.
00:01:30.860 Two years.
00:01:31.360 Yeah, thanks so much for having me on.
00:01:32.480 Grateful to be here.
00:01:33.160 Yeah.
00:01:33.700 Okay, a lot has happened in those two years.
00:01:35.500 Obviously, we had the election right after you were on,
00:01:38.460 which is why we had you on.
00:01:39.460 You were talking about that in one of your sermons.
00:01:42.020 Two babies since then?
00:01:43.540 Two babies since then, yeah. 0.93
00:01:44.920 For you and your wife.
00:01:45.660 And two books.
00:01:47.040 Now we're on book number two.
00:01:48.420 Yeah.
00:01:48.700 And this is a book about work, which I think is interesting in the backdrop of so many books about rest and stilling the hurry and stopping the rat race.
00:02:00.880 So why are you in the midst of that, writing a book about working hard?
00:02:05.280 Well, it's kind of like what you're saying.
00:02:06.360 Like over the last number of years, before I was a pastor here, I worked at a camp where there was a lot of college counselors, young adults.
00:02:14.560 And then I went from there to a Christian university.
00:02:17.700 And over the last number of years, even in pastoral ministry, I've had, I don't know,
00:02:21.540 hundreds of people that have come up to me and asked me if I've read the most recent
00:02:24.140 book on Sabbath and Shalom and rest and eliminating hurry.
00:02:27.880 But I've never had a single person come up to me and grab me by the literal or proverbial
00:02:32.240 collar and say, Johnny, have you read the most recent book on work?
00:02:35.080 It's a way that I mirror and mimic the God that made me and it's dignified and it's noble.
00:02:39.660 And I watched, there was a clip I saw of another pastor and he was talking about young adults
00:02:43.940 today are just I think you know our you know I'm a millennial and we're one of the first generations
00:02:48.300 in American history that doesn't cite work ethic as one of their principal claims to distinctiveness
00:02:53.040 and I saw this pastor saying the next generation is afraid of burning out but they've never even
00:02:59.280 burned and obviously I think that there can be some polarity you know some people do spend their
00:03:04.580 life grinding going from shift to shift and trying to make sale after sale and then on the other
00:03:10.740 spectrum of that. I think there are people that are kind of overly mindful maybe of this rest and
00:03:15.900 Sabbath. And biblically speaking, we need to harmonize those realities. God did rest, but I
00:03:21.560 think there are a lot of people today that work really hard until they read a book about rest
00:03:25.320 and then rest really hard until they read a book about work. And it leaves them with this
00:03:30.020 disjointing. And so I think just as we look to God's word and the Bible, we need to kind of
00:03:34.920 harmonize those realities because what you do, and when I say work, when I say what you do,
00:03:40.400 I'm referring to a CEO, a mom, a plumber, a teacher.
00:03:45.640 That is the majority of your waking hours, 80 to 100,000 hours of your life.
00:03:49.460 And so to not think of those hours through a biblical perspective means that inevitably,
00:03:54.700 Kent Hughes says this, we will suffer spiritual injury because it's what we spend our life doing.
00:03:59.800 And so I thought there was a need.
00:04:01.440 And obviously, I'm grateful for the opportunity to study.
00:04:04.820 And I wanted to know how to think through these things biblically.
00:04:07.340 Yeah, I think it's such an important distinction.
00:04:10.400 that work is not a product of the fall that work actually existed pre-fall so what did work look
00:04:16.880 like pre-fall and then how did it change yeah now i think that's a great question a great way to
00:04:21.840 ground it and it's the way that i begin the book i think a lot of the truth in the bible is
00:04:26.320 implicational not applicational meaning that when you look to god's word it's not like hey five ways
00:04:31.440 to do this over and over again the bible is fundamentally a story about god and so the bible
00:04:36.080 begins, the first sentence and the first two chapters are basically a log of God's delight
00:04:41.540 in working. Francis Schaeffer, the Christian philosopher, said that the first sentence of
00:04:46.240 the Bible is the most pregnant sentence in human history. And it describes God's commitment to work.
00:04:50.080 He says, in the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. And then as you make your way
00:04:55.060 through Genesis 1, I mean, it's every story that we love, every trilogy that we love is a plagiarism 0.70
00:05:00.780 of the Bible, it says that the world was formless, which it was tohu wavohu. It was empty. It was 0.60
00:05:06.420 hosek in Hebrew. It's all dark. And then into this dark galactic wasteland, God says, let there be 0.99
00:05:12.280 light. And then there's this verse that I love. I think the wording in the scripture is so awesome.
00:05:18.300 In Genesis 1-6, it says in the NKJV translation that God establishes the firmament to separate
00:05:24.600 the sky. That's the same word used in Job to describe a blacksmith in his shop. And so the
00:05:32.380 opening scene of scripture is God creating and forming and building. He's an architect. He's a
00:05:37.840 designer. He's a blacksmith. And this is important because by the time you get to Genesis 126,
00:05:43.980 let us make man in our own image. At that point, what do you know about God? He's an invisible God.
00:05:50.440 he's spirit at that point you know that god is a worker he is a builder and so then god says let
00:05:56.800 us make man in our own image and then we get our first job description as his image bears and it is
00:06:02.900 let us make man in our own image and let them rule and so i like to back it up to a pre-fall
00:06:08.980 understanding because sometimes even people think man maybe i have delusions of grandeur
00:06:13.440 i feel like i was born to be a part of something epic and we are god says let them rule and it's
00:06:19.600 the hebrew word redah it's dripping with this element of regality and you have to ask the
00:06:25.840 question why um why did god make adam and eve this way why did he put them in this
00:06:30.920 garden wilderness and it wasn't like this perfectly manicured garden it was like and
00:06:35.780 he said tame it subdue it which means that it didn't look like mr darcy's house it looked like
00:06:41.300 this tame wilderness or untamed wilderness and he said conquer it it's literally that word for
00:06:45.720 subdue is kibosh. Put the kibosh in this. And why did he do this? Well, I think about it this 0.98
00:06:52.620 way. Like, why do I have my daughter, Lily, mow the lawn with me? Why do I have her go gather
00:06:58.780 sticks, you know, when we're building a fire? And it's because as a father, I'd love to involve my
00:07:03.240 children in what I'm doing. And so the opening two chapters, and I don't want to filibuster here.
00:07:09.500 I want you to jump in. Describe a God who loves to work. He has a sheer joy in it. And when he
00:07:15.040 makes us in his image that word for image is the hebrew word salem which also translates idol it's
00:07:20.580 a representative when he makes his representatives you have to think i am here to do what god does
00:07:27.200 to work to build to make beautiful things because that's who our god is okay is it significant that
00:07:35.380 god places adam and eve in a garden and not in a jungle because you say it's untamed but he does
00:07:41.000 call it a garden and garden kind of denotes some kind of cultivation or orderliness is that just
00:07:47.000 god expressing his intent or like his desire for it to be cultivated because he doesn't call it
00:07:54.020 a wilderness he calls it something that is going to have rose and purpose and so i'm just interested
00:08:00.260 in the significance of that well when he puts adam into the garden he says to cultivate it
00:08:05.060 that's also the word from which we get culture and so it's not just that he's supposed to you
00:08:10.020 know trim the hedges he's supposed to do what god does and establish you know society and when god
00:08:15.160 tells adam and eve to be fruitful and multiply one pastor says it's not just that he wants more
00:08:19.860 of the human species he wants a society you know structure and god is a god and i go into this in
00:08:25.780 the book of truth beauty and goodness and so to establish all of those things and to imitate him
00:08:32.540 in that way is so significant and even in genesis 2 the you know it describes god's activity it
00:08:39.200 says by the seventh day God had completed all his work which he had done and he rested on the
00:08:43.480 seventh day from all of his work which he had done then God blessed the seventh day and sanctified
00:08:47.480 it because he had rested from all of his work but then there's this problem in Genesis 2 is kind of
00:08:51.800 going back and giving us a different perspective of God's creation and says there was no really
00:08:57.300 there was no man in the garden there was no one to work it there was no one to cultivate it and so
00:09:01.160 it's more than just kind of keeping it clean it's it's doing what God does as a creator God creates
00:09:08.220 ex nihilo, out of nothing. God bara in Hebrew, he creates out of nothing. But humans, we asa,
00:09:13.980 we make with the raw materials that God has given to us. And you see this over and over again
00:09:19.240 throughout those opening chapters in Genesis. All right. I know my audience. And because I
00:09:29.360 know my audience, I know you guys are looking for matching sets for your Christmas pajamas.
00:09:35.600 I just know that.
00:09:36.740 You at least are trying to get your kids to match, if not also you and your husband matching
00:09:42.200 your children.
00:09:43.120 And the best place to get those matching Christmas pajamas is from Holy Pals.
00:09:47.820 Why is this superior?
00:09:49.380 Because you are literally wrapping yourself and wrapping your kids in the word of God.
00:09:53.820 They depict these Bible passages and these stories from scripture on all of their pajamas
00:10:00.740 all year round.
00:10:01.700 But I also love it at Christmas because they have these away in a manger designs for the
00:10:08.980 blankets and also for the pajamas that we've gotten that are really, really cute.
00:10:14.540 They also have like gingerbread Jesus, which they're like Christmas cookie shapes that
00:10:19.520 tell the nativity story.
00:10:21.220 Just really sweet.
00:10:22.320 They always have the corresponding Bible verse stitched on the sleeve of the pajamas too.
00:10:28.080 So it's a great way to wrap your kids in the word of God, to tell them the truth about
00:10:33.140 why we celebrate this season.
00:10:35.200 It's a constant reminder of what this season is about.
00:10:38.940 And it's a great way to support a family-owned, Christ-centered company.
00:10:42.840 And they're really soft, too.
00:10:44.100 I wouldn't be telling you about them if we didn't personally love them ourselves.
00:10:47.580 Go to holypals.com slash Allie.
00:10:50.200 Use code Allie26 for 15% off your order.
00:10:53.060 That's holypals.com slash Allie.
00:10:58.080 so after the fall it's not that god says okay now you have to work you can't just lay back
00:11:05.600 and enjoy everything i've given you he already had a job and so it's that the job became what
00:11:11.620 after sin entered the world yeah well in genesis 3 there are three primary effects of the fall
00:11:17.420 man's relationship with god is estranged they're driven east of eden right so that's the first and
00:11:23.740 primary way that the fall affected man then you have man's relationship with man is affected
00:11:28.980 they are now going to have tension with one another and the third primary way that there is
00:11:33.920 a third product of the fall is that man's relationship with his work is affected and
00:11:38.860 this is why one pastor says that the curse goes for the jugular because the three primary
00:11:42.620 relationships in our life are all affected your relationship with god your relationship with man
00:11:46.840 and your relationship with work and it says now we are going to work in an environment of
00:11:51.580 difficulty and dishonesty, thorns and thistles. And so it's important. And I always want to stress
00:11:57.100 this. It's important to realize that the Bible is utterly realistic. All of the instruction about
00:12:02.100 work that is given after Genesis three is in light of the fall. And so, yeah, to your point,
00:12:07.180 yeah, he gives us all this instruction. And even after the flood in Genesis eight, when Noah gets
00:12:11.420 off the ark, God gives him the same command, be fruitful and multiply. It is a renewed version
00:12:16.940 of eden let's try this again and so yeah now in in that fallen world you do see that hey the
00:12:24.180 workplace can be difficult it can be a platform for idolatry even in genesis 11 you kind of see
00:12:29.460 the progression of what work what happens to a work gen initially work was supposed to be a way
00:12:34.820 that we made a name we proclaimed who god was but in genesis 11 they're trying to build something
00:12:40.120 to the heavens why it says we want to make a name for ourselves and so it could be in you know a
00:12:45.380 lack of justice. It could be idolatry. It could be monotonous. It could be menial. But yeah, even
00:12:51.500 jump in here. But all of the instruction we're going to see regarding working in a fallen world
00:12:56.480 is in light of those realities because the Bible is not make-believe. It's the truest, realist story
00:13:03.300 about the human condition and how we work in a broken world.
00:13:08.400 What is the parallel? And I'm really putting you on the spot. Some of these things you didn't talk
00:13:12.220 about in your book but as you're talking just has my wheels turning like what is the parallel between
00:13:16.680 multiplying pain and childbirth yeah and cursing toil well i think that you see that
00:13:24.320 i think most basically it's that this is one of the things the highest and noblest noblest calling
00:13:30.640 of a woman is to bear children obviously those are in a fallen world those are gifts from god
00:13:36.760 not everyone can bear children but this is one of them going to be one of the products of the curse 0.79
00:13:40.740 to be fruitful and multiply Adam was to subdue the earth he's the one naming the animals he's
00:13:45.660 given the prerogative over the garden and Eve is going to be the mother of all mankind and so the
00:13:51.160 two primary things that I think they're doing in creating and multiplying are now difficult like
00:13:57.380 there's no there's no hall pass on the difficulty of working in God's world and I think you just see
00:14:03.940 those two extremes but it's everything in between just like when God created the heavens and the
00:14:08.160 earth he created everything in between just like he made day to night he established everything in
00:14:12.260 between from the garden to the birth everything in between is now difficult and so it uses those
00:14:17.940 things as primary analogies to say the effects of the fall are far-reaching and even when we talk
00:14:23.420 about the curse the curse is not a voodoo spell it is just speaking to the pervasive effects
00:14:29.100 of the fact that now we live in a world of sin and death and everything even the most precious
00:14:35.320 important things are affected. So post-fall, you write about that there are kind of like
00:14:41.780 two extremes that we can swing to when it comes to work. One, you're a workaholic. It's all you
00:14:46.940 focus on. It's all you do. Two, you're lazy. And maybe you call yourself just resting, but you're
00:14:52.860 really just not being productive. So describe those two extremes and how we avoid them.
00:14:58.040 Yeah, I think one, you can become a workaholic. I think this was maybe like more of a primary
00:15:02.640 identifier in previous generations honestly like I don't I don't think that is as much of a
00:15:08.080 an accusation in today's world like even if you look at different stats from an economic
00:15:12.920 perspective there are now more men of prime working age that are not working than in any
00:15:16.900 other generation in human history it's as I mentioned one of the things that we don't even
00:15:21.540 claim to be one of our our distinctives and so but there are people that work all day and you
00:15:27.240 know they grind maybe to for unbiblical reasons to establish their identity to get ahead to keep
00:15:32.380 you know, keeping score. Then there's this other swing where you can become lazy. And in the book
00:15:37.440 of Proverbs, the word sluggard is used, I think, 14 times. And there's nothing good said about the
00:15:43.240 sluggard. Now, you think about laziness as maybe a productivity issue. But when you understand the 0.97
00:15:48.160 character of God, and again, the Bible is a book about God. It's not a book about us primarily.
00:15:52.700 Laziness is a sin, not just because it's a lack of productivity, but because it's a failure
00:15:57.580 easier to imitate who our God is. And I think even going back to, and I know we've kind of
00:16:03.220 talked about this a little bit beforehand, you know, I think in recent, in recent months and
00:16:08.580 years, people have used that terminology made known by Dallas Willard. And, you know, if he
00:16:14.620 had to describe God in one word, he would use the word relaxed and to describe the life and
00:16:19.940 ministry of Jesus. If I had to describe the life and ministry in one word, it would be the word
00:16:24.600 relaxed and i think to be fair what he is referring to is the unhurried nature of jesus
00:16:32.260 his trust in the father's plan and so i think to interpret it you know fairly you have to
00:16:37.660 acknowledge those things but i like what tozer says he says it takes nothing less than a whole
00:16:42.160 bible to make a whole christian and then secondly what comes into your mind when you think about god
00:16:46.440 is the most important thing about you so if your instinctive thought when you think about the
00:16:50.820 character of God is that God is relaxed and you are made to be an imitator of that God,
00:16:56.880 then you're going to think I'm godly when I'm relaxed. And I think there's probably,
00:17:02.040 you know, some elements in between to be fair, but to go back to the character of God,
00:17:07.340 and then we'll answer the laziness question. When Jesus appears on the scene,
00:17:13.000 I love Mark's gospel. There is a word used in Mark's gospel 41 times. It's over and over again,
00:17:19.440 and he's using this word.
00:17:20.420 And you've written books and I like to write.
00:17:22.840 I have an editor, and if I was using the same word
00:17:25.020 on every single page, 10 times in a single chapter,
00:17:28.220 he'd be like, bro, I know you love the word stupendous,
00:17:31.480 but like, come on, let's provide some variety.
00:17:34.660 But in Mark's gospel, there's a word used 41 times
00:17:37.180 and then 10 other times in the rest of the gospels.
00:17:39.440 That word is euthes, and it means immediately,
00:17:42.680 straight away, or at once.
00:17:45.160 And in Mark one, it uses that word 11 times
00:17:47.460 to describe the life and activity of Jesus.
00:17:49.340 immediately he did this immediately he healed a man then he cast out a demon then he's teaching
00:17:53.900 in the temple immediately immediately immediately immediately over and over again because jesus says
00:17:59.940 in john 5 and in john 9 i must work the works of him who sent me while it is day night is coming
00:18:06.840 when no man can work us so there is this trust there is this element where jesus was going into
00:18:12.120 the quiet place and while it was crazy he would withdraw to pray but mark's gospel shows you a man
00:18:17.640 on a mission. There's a level of, yeah, we call it divine urgency. And he was a carpenter for 30
00:18:25.280 years before he was a teacher. And so this is a tekton. Sometimes we think he was a carpenter
00:18:29.280 and we think he's like making custom cabinetry. This is a guy that was a bridge builder. He was
00:18:34.020 a stonemason. And it would probably be more accurate to refer to Jesus as a construction 0.63
00:18:37.940 worker. And so you think about Jesus fundamentally as a worker. God worked in creation. He works in
00:18:45.800 sustaining the universe every moment of every single day. Hebrews 1.3 says that he upholds
00:18:52.420 the universe by the word of his power. He works in providence. He is directing the king's heart
00:18:56.940 like channels of water. And Jesus says of God, he is working until now. So now to answer that
00:19:03.560 question about laziness, laziness is not just a productivity issue. It is a character issue.
00:19:10.240 And because it is a character issue, it is a spiritual issue. And most importantly,
00:19:14.320 it is a failure to imitate the God in whose image were made.
00:19:18.120 And so you have to, you can't just take a sin or a topic and then extract and isolate it.
00:19:23.380 You always have to tether it to the character of God.
00:19:26.000 I've been made in the image of a working God.
00:19:28.460 And I do go into rest in the book and so important to think about that from a biblical perspective.
00:19:34.080 But I've been given one life to live.
00:19:36.920 My work is a principal way I model who God is.
00:19:40.260 It's the platform of my witness to the watching world, how I work.
00:19:43.800 And so laziness, I mean, when you don't work hard, bottom line, you make the gospel look
00:19:50.900 bad because we're called to imitate Jesus in this manner.
00:19:54.400 And so there's a lot of things in Proverbs that Solomon talks about regarding laziness
00:19:58.520 that are worth studying, specifically Proverbs 26 or Proverbs 6.
00:20:03.000 But you always have to tie those things, I think, together in scripture.
00:20:05.960 you guys know i love we heart nutrition i'm talking about them all the time because i take
00:20:15.860 their products every day like i rely on them if i well first of all we had to just make sure i am
00:20:21.420 never out of any of my supplement products which i love so much but if i ever feel like i'm close
00:20:27.460 to being out of anything i'm like i'm so worried i'm in a panic because i rely on their iron
00:20:33.360 supplements, for example, or their prenatal vitamins to ensure that I am giving my body
00:20:38.640 what it needs to be as healthy and strong and energetic as possible so that I can be
00:20:44.100 the most energetic and healthy mom for my kids.
00:20:47.440 I can be as present as possible and still have the energy to come here and talk about
00:20:50.860 the things that we do.
00:20:52.440 And I really credit We Heart Nutrition with helping me give my body what it needs to thrive.
00:20:58.640 All of their ingredients come in the most bioavailable form.
00:21:01.460 So that means you're not just taking iron, but you're actually absorbing it, especially
00:21:04.980 if you're pregnant, like I am, as I'm recording this, you need that folate.
00:21:09.260 You don't need just the fake synthetic folic acid.
00:21:11.600 You need the folate for your body to absorb it for your baby to get the nutrients that
00:21:16.360 he or she needs.
00:21:17.400 I also love that WeHeart Nutrition donates 10% of every sale to pro-life pregnancy centers
00:21:21.880 across the country.
00:21:23.200 They've donated more than $2 million to these pregnancy centers.
00:21:27.060 They want to save babies.
00:21:28.120 They want to serve moms and dads.
00:21:29.920 Go to WeHeartNutrition.com. Use code Allie for 20% off your order. WeHeartNutrition.com. Code Allie.
00:21:41.160 You mentioned earlier kind of the instinct that a lot of people have that, okay, I want to be a
00:21:45.700 part of something epic. I want to be a part of something big. And there are a lot of people who
00:21:49.580 might have a specific dream or a specific goal that they want to run after. They have some kind
00:21:54.800 of burning desire for that. But there are a lot of people who don't. They don't have a specific dream.
00:21:59.180 they feel like okay i could do this i could do that but i'm not necessarily driven toward one
00:22:04.140 thing that i'm working toward and i think our generation emphasizes that a lot that you have
00:22:09.220 to feel this calling in order to work hard toward something but that's not necessarily true like what
00:22:15.020 do you say to that person who just doesn't really know what their calling is yeah i think a couple
00:22:22.140 things and there are different spectrums first of all i've grown up in an era where people say
00:22:27.100 to the next generation enjoy what you do and you'll never work a day in your life yeah i have
00:22:32.920 i take issue with that because first of all you could i enjoy what i do i i'm a pastor i love
00:22:38.780 being a pastor but there are days where my job is work right you enjoy what you do you still work
00:22:44.780 really hard so you have that every job has its difficulty in its thorns but then secondarily
00:22:50.480 when you say enjoy what you do and you'll never work a day in your life whenever you say that to
00:22:54.880 the next generation you are framing work as a bad thing and you'll never have to work as if work is
00:23:00.460 something to be avoided but work is not to be avoided work is a good thing work is a god thing
00:23:05.060 if you say and you'll never have to work a day in your life before the fall before the fall god put
00:23:09.680 adam in the garden genesis 2 15 to work it and that word for work is the hebrew word abad it can
00:23:15.480 be translated work service or worship so when adam is tilling the garden that is an act of worship
00:23:21.100 unto the lord and so i think we've done a disservice to the next generation by saying like
00:23:27.140 you have to find that thing where work doesn't feel like work secondly we are probably one of
00:23:33.180 the first generations where even that is a possibility carl truman talks about this in
00:23:36.980 the rise and fall of the modern self for like a hundred years ago i'm a farmer because my dad's
00:23:41.820 a farmer and my grandpa is a farmer and my great grandpa is a farmer so you didn't have like that
00:23:46.000 that difficulty of kind of thinking through it um and then i would i think probably just in thinking
00:23:51.740 through finding a lot of people wait to implement biblical principles regarding work until they feel
00:23:59.800 like they've found their forever job but the story of scripture and the teaching of of the
00:24:05.060 new testament is it doesn't have to be your forever job to honor the lord with your work ethic in the
00:24:09.180 here and now that's why paul says in colossians 3 23 whatever you do meaning whatever it is you do
00:24:15.120 If you're a busboy, if you're a nanny, if you're a mom with four kids, if you're a teacher,
00:24:20.940 whatever it is you do, do it with all of your might.
00:24:23.860 Do it with some gusto.
00:24:25.380 Give it your absolute best, like give it your best shot.
00:24:29.020 And when Paul is giving that instruction, Ecclesiastes 9.10, whatever your right hand
00:24:33.120 finds to do, do it with all your might, whatever being an important word, whatever it is in
00:24:36.900 Colossians 3.23, you do.
00:24:39.400 He's not writing to CEOs and corner offices.
00:24:42.720 You know who he's writing to? 1.00
00:24:44.100 Slaves.
00:24:45.120 slaves in ephesians 6 when he gives all of the instruction for how to work he is writing to
00:24:50.240 slaves and he's saying do good work from the heart rendering goodwill towards them like even if you
00:24:56.560 have a bad boss yeah you are to bless them and and make them know that the god like you were to work
00:25:03.600 in such a way where even if you're in a spot that people people know you don't like they are
00:25:08.160 prompted to ask you the question what god do you serve and so i've i've been always so thankful
00:25:13.760 you know i grew up in a family i have a great dad i remember getting a job when i was 16 he woke me
00:25:20.280 up on my 16th birthday and six in the morning get your best suit on get your nicest outfit on
00:25:25.900 and he dropped me off 10 miles away basically and he gave me a cliff bar and a gatorade and said
00:25:32.500 men work go find a job don't come home till you have one and i didn't feel like at that point i
00:25:37.040 was lazy i just he just was trying to ingrain something in me he's not a militaristic guy he's
00:25:41.420 he's the best but when i was there you know i ended up getting a job at a restaurant and he
00:25:46.180 said johnny don't ever let anybody outwork you and i was thankful for that because it did open
00:25:52.460 up doors for me to talk about the hope that is within me and the god that i serve and so i think
00:25:57.260 there are these spectrums pining away for something i have this dream that's not realized until then
00:26:02.580 you're not um you're not you know permitted to kind of evade the clear instruction in the bible
00:26:10.900 and yeah I hope that makes sense. Yeah so that's kind of the laziness into the spectrum and I was
00:26:18.080 thinking about this as I was preparing for this interview about something I learned from you
00:26:22.120 recently that Timothy and I have just been talking about ever since in one of your sermons and it was
00:26:26.380 about the background of Pontius Pilate that I had never really heard about as many times as I sat in
00:26:31.520 church and have heard about the crucifixion and have learned about the words of Pilate. I didn't
00:26:37.080 really know about his upbringing like you talk about how he kind of came from nothing he worked
00:26:41.000 really hard he is now at this very successful station and when the mob threatens him basically
00:26:47.120 with his job saying you're going to not be a friend of caesar if you don't do what we want you
00:26:51.020 to do that was kind of like the death blow to his ego i don't want to put words in your mouth but
00:26:56.000 that's what i'm remembering i was like gosh i never knew about all that context and then i was
00:27:00.500 thinking about that in the context of your book and you write about like it's okay to be ambitious
00:27:04.900 in a certain way it's okay to want to go to the next thing it's okay to want to be the best and
00:27:09.540 to reach a certain position but we also see i mean so graphically in the story of pilot how that
00:27:15.620 selfish ambition can lead you into really dangerous places and obviously there's so much there with
00:27:20.740 like the will of god and jesus offering himself up but i don't know i just thought about that i'm
00:27:25.540 like wow that is one aspect of selfish ambition and where it can actually lead you where idolatry
00:27:30.500 of success and status can lead you so talk about that a little bit especially as christians how do
00:27:35.380 we avoid that while also saying okay i do want to be the very best at what i do yeah i think
00:27:40.960 what you're saying about pontius pilot you know this historical perspective on him is that he
00:27:46.220 kind of grew up in nothing joined the roman legionnaires married the granddaughter of the
00:27:50.480 emperor and spent his entire life kind of climbing to the top and he's arrived at this point where he
00:27:56.820 is the governor of judea and he knows jesus is innocent before him he's testified to his innocence
00:28:03.200 three times he says i find no guilt in the man i find no guilt in the man he's making radical
00:28:07.660 attempts to release jesus and then the jews kind of play this card if you do this you're no friend 0.63
00:28:14.400 of caesar like your job's on thin ice and at that point pontius pilate cauterizes his conscience 0.57
00:28:20.680 because nothing is more important to him than his job and you know historically i didn't say this
00:28:26.720 in my sermon but five years later he kills himself like just I mean you would have to wonder it was
00:28:31.620 just this profound guilt that he had I'm not sure but work can be a very corrupting basis for your
00:28:39.960 identity and you know Madonna wrote about this one time in a Vanity Fair article that I included in
00:28:45.000 the book she says I have an iron will because every single time basically that I reach the top
00:28:50.040 I remember that if I don't stay at the top then I'll be nothing and no one and so I move on I
00:28:55.560 move on and I kind of break through one wall to break through another wall and that is the story
00:29:00.300 of working outside of a biblical perspective and so in the book one of the things that I talk about
00:29:05.980 is our work as a believer is through the eyes of a biblical and I say a new perspective because
00:29:12.260 Paul says in 2 Corinthians 5 17 if anyone is in Christ he is a new creation our fundamental
00:29:17.560 identity is who we are in the Lord and it is fair to say like sometimes I'll go up to people and 0.92
00:29:21.560 say like hey nice to meet you what do you do and they're like why does that matter and it's like
00:29:23.820 well half of the characters in the bible are identified by what they do it helps me to know
00:29:27.880 how you spend the majority of your life but then there's this other element where people can if
00:29:32.080 they don't see themselves primarily as as a believer then they can then work is basically
00:29:39.020 just a way for them to keep their social scorecard up and elevated like i am what i do i am what
00:29:43.920 people perceive me to be not who jesus says i am and that's a really dangerous thing because it
00:29:48.200 puts you on this relentless hamster wheel of trying to prove your value and that's why i think
00:29:52.400 insecurity is so rampant today as it relates to work, because people are looking at work
00:29:57.700 through the world's perspective rather than from God's. You talk about this idea of kind
00:30:02.740 of like sacred work, like people think of what you do as sacred work. And of course it is,
00:30:07.420 but you also say, okay, well, all work is sacred work. And you've talked about that a little bit
00:30:11.880 already, but like, how does someone shift their perspective to see accounting or being a cashier
00:30:18.840 or whatever it is that seems so mundane as truly sacred and glorifying god yeah a couple things
00:30:25.480 first of all i think being rooted in that perspective like the story is told of
00:30:28.680 of three basically brick layers in the middle ages and a visitor goes up to them and they're
00:30:32.920 building a building a cathedral and the first is a visitor says what are you doing he says i'm
00:30:38.040 i'm stacking bricks and then he goes up to the second guy and says what are you doing he says
00:30:41.800 i'm making a living and then he goes up to the third guy and he says what are you doing he says
00:30:46.520 I'm building a cathedral for the glory of God
00:30:48.680 and for the good of his people.
00:30:49.880 They're all doing the same thing,
00:30:50.940 but their perspective is different.
00:30:52.720 I think you have to see, hey, listen,
00:30:55.020 it could be menial, it could be mundane.
00:30:56.840 Hey, Moses is the greatest guy in the Old Testament.
00:30:59.280 He spent 80 years of his life in the desert.
00:31:02.940 And so you're like, hey, this guy has his PhD
00:31:06.060 in the menial and the mundane and honored the Lord in it.
00:31:09.480 I think when you look at also
00:31:10.580 what is the greatest commandment,
00:31:11.680 it's to love the Lord your God
00:31:12.600 with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength.
00:31:13.960 And this is a big part of it.
00:31:14.760 And then to love your neighbor as yourself. Okay. So let's say you're a builder of homes.
00:31:20.140 What is that? I like to think about this when I'm just reading the scripture in, you know,
00:31:24.060 I'm preaching. What does it even mean to love your neighbor as yourself? If you're a builder,
00:31:28.960 well, pretty basic build awesome homes, right? So that's sacred. That's a part of the mission
00:31:34.440 of God. What does it mean to love your neighbor as yourself as a CPA to do an excellent job,
00:31:38.740 balancing budgets, preparing taxes. That is a practical way you love your neighbor.
00:31:42.940 and sometimes i think we use biblical language but we keep it in the realm of the theoretical
00:31:47.480 rather than the practical like i think it was one pastor who says how does a pilot love his
00:31:52.680 neighbor landing the plane and so that's one way work is sacred and then i think martin luther was
00:31:59.020 commenting on psalm 147 where it says that god strengthens the bars of the city gates and then
00:32:06.220 he asked the question well how does god strengthen the bars of the city gates he does so through the
00:32:12.320 blacksmith making the pens. He does it through good city ordinance. He does it through the
00:32:16.440 accountant. How does God feed? It says in Psalm 104 that God feeds every living thing. How does
00:32:21.520 God feed every living thing when I walk into Trader Joe's? Well, he does it through the
00:32:25.260 marketing person that makes the orange chicken, you know, packages. He does it through the delivery
00:32:29.880 person. He does it through the truck person. He does it through the person actually at the
00:32:33.060 chicken factory. This is a way that God, we're involved in what God is doing. And so God does
00:32:38.660 provide for all of our needs, but God ordains the means as well as the end. And so when I'm working,
00:32:45.380 whether you are a person sweeping streets, you're a part of the mission of God, of loving your
00:32:51.060 neighbor, providing cleanliness. And so you have to elevate your perspective in order to, I think,
00:32:57.280 see work as worship. And then it's worship. I think it's worship also if our attitude while we
00:33:05.960 do it is honoring the Lord. And so that's why I think working with excellence, enthusiasm,
00:33:11.440 a verse that we have kids memorize as Philippians 2, you know, like do all things without grumbling
00:33:17.360 or complaining. But, and then it says, so that you might shine as stars in the midst of a perverse
00:33:25.620 and crooked generation. And so work is worship because you live in a world that is proficient
00:33:32.420 at grumbling and complaining it's the water cooler talk of the workplace complaining about
00:33:37.260 bosses complaining about what we have to do complaining about this and paul says just do
00:33:42.120 that without grumbling and complaining and i've already said it but people are going to be
00:33:45.880 compelled to ask what's going on on the inside what god do you serve first this line is 5 17
00:33:52.080 rejoice always in everything give thanks and so that's a way we worship and it's not just when we
00:33:58.360 give the money, you know, from what we, you know, our tithe or whatever it may be. It's the work
00:34:02.540 itself is the way we mimic God, love our neighbor. And then it creates the platform of our silent
00:34:09.320 witness to the world around us. You know, this is the time of year where you might be thinking,
00:34:19.120 how can I donate? Like what cause, what organization can I give to that is really
00:34:23.760 going to make a difference with my hard-earned money. I recommend looking at Alliance Defending
00:34:29.000 Freedom. You've probably heard a lot of their guests on my podcast over the years. One of their
00:34:33.800 clients, Jessica Bates, was our Share the Arrows award winner. She pushed back against the state 0.98
00:34:41.620 of Oregon who refused to allow her to foster and adopt unless she assented to LGBTQ ideology.
00:34:48.420 She's a faithful Christian woman, and she said, no, she wants to take care of the orphan,
00:34:52.160 but she can't compromise her beliefs. Well, ADF has represented her and now beautifully,
00:34:57.820 she is able to resume the adoption and fostering process. Those are the kinds of people that they
00:35:03.320 fight for. Those are the kinds of freedoms that they are fighting for, not only here in America,
00:35:06.980 but all around the world. And I'm telling you, they are making a huge difference for our
00:35:11.520 constitutional freedoms, both for us, for our children, also for our grandchildren.
00:35:16.520 Go to joinadf.com slash Allie. Make your donation today. Your gift will be matched by a special
00:35:21.100 grant while funds last. Join ADF.com slash Allie. I've thought about how with AI and the like the
00:35:34.980 over-dependence upon AI when it comes to lots of things. I mean, you've probably heard sermon
00:35:39.120 writing people using AI to not only prep for, but completely write sermons, papers, all different
00:35:45.900 kinds of things and i've talked about how that is outsourcing a part of the image of god in you
00:35:52.860 which is to think and to be able to reason but as you're talking i'm like well it's also
00:35:58.620 can be outsourcing another part of the image of god in you which is to work because if we're
00:36:04.700 outsourcing not only thinking but diligence and discipline and all the effort that goes into
00:36:11.020 researching and writing and all of that, then we are willingly giving up what makes us human to a
00:36:17.180 robot. And so I'm wondering how you're thinking of AI and a generation that already like kind of
00:36:23.000 wants to avoid work anyway. Are you worried about that? You know, I saw something that Elon said
00:36:28.160 the other day about the future. He said that in 30 years or maybe 10 years, work is going to be
00:36:32.920 optional. And, you know, I'm thinking about this book and about, you know, my study in the word of
00:36:39.660 god i i just think that's going to be a horrible horrible existence yeah because even the unbeliever 1.00
00:36:46.120 who doesn't know god understands that there's nothing more satisfying we say it than a job 0.97
00:36:51.020 well what done like you mow the lawn you see the stripes in your lawn and you put your hands on
00:36:56.600 your hips and you go there's something edenic about this because deep down god is hardwired
00:37:00.920 eden into our souls and we're pining away to get back there that's what ecclesiastes 3 11 says
00:37:05.960 he's hardwired that into us and so when you see stripes in a lawn or when you kind of oh my it's
00:37:12.100 dialed us yeah there's something that god has made us to be satisfied by that when a robot starts
00:37:17.740 mowing your lawn you know you're going to start to be stripped and starved of the opportunities
00:37:22.620 to reflect god in that way and i think it is going to be soul crushing i think i think furthermore
00:37:27.860 as far as like engaging your intellect what does it mean to be made in the image of god well it
00:37:32.940 means we have a mind. It means that we are to engage that mind. Almost all of the instruction
00:37:39.280 in the New Testament regarding the Christian life is what we do with our mind. We're to love the
00:37:43.880 Lord our God with all of our heart, soul, mind, and strength. Romans 12.2 says, do you not be
00:37:48.120 conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. 1 Peter 1.13, prepare
00:37:52.840 your minds for action. Ephesians 4.23, be renewed in the spirit of your mind. Your mind is God's
00:37:58.740 gift to you to employ it i think even going along with what you're saying i saw tom cruise uh he's
00:38:05.940 an actor um and he said uh they were asking about the future of the film industry and tom cruise is
00:38:12.540 not a christian he's a christian scientist he's christian science not a scientist yeah not a
00:38:18.280 scientist scientologist scientologist i was like i know i'm off there uh he said we have to be
00:38:24.200 careful and the line is and I saw it online he says there's nothing like human and I kind of I
00:38:31.680 resonate with that and Tom Cruise resonates with that he's saying there's nothing like human even
00:38:37.260 though Tom Cruise doesn't know the God of the Bible the God of the Bible has hardwired something
00:38:41.220 in the Tom Cruise's heart we are to mirror and mimic God when we do so it gives us joy and it
00:38:49.400 gives us a level of purpose and meaning and so I'm looking into a world where people are excited
00:38:54.660 about the absence of work the three-day work week and you know it's my whole life you know it's like
00:38:58.780 Tim Ferriss you know the four-hour work week it's like less and less and less and less work
00:39:04.280 and biblically speaking I think that that's hard to reconcile with the fact that we've been given
00:39:10.480 a mission by God and it says in Ephesians 5 we're to redeem the time make the most of the time and
00:39:17.460 And so it makes me wonder what else are people going to do with their time if they're not working.
00:39:21.100 And so in the book, I do have a chapter on even what that means to redeem the time.
00:39:25.180 Because Christians don't kill time.
00:39:27.580 They buy it back. 0.87
00:39:28.680 And when Paul says that in Ephesians, redeem the time, it's exorgerizomenoi.
00:39:33.620 It means it's the language of the marketplace, like buy it all back.
00:39:37.440 And people think that what is awesome is that now I'm going to have more time for anything I want.
00:39:43.840 you know statistically people spend seven and a half hours a day looking at a screen
00:39:48.480 non-work hours looking at a screen phone social media streaming i think that's going to go up and
00:39:55.120 i don't think people realize what that does to them at the soul level because god made
00:39:58.320 them to be productive obviously not watching a show isn't sinful unless the show itself is sinful
00:40:04.080 but we're to redeem the time we've been given one life to live moses and the only psalm he
00:40:09.280 ever writes in Psalm 90 verse 12 says, I want to number my days. And I think the absence of work
00:40:16.020 and the facilitation of ease, everything in life is going to be easy, is going to do a couple
00:40:22.640 things. First of all, we're going to stop pining away for heaven because this life should be
00:40:27.000 difficult. Everything good in this life is on the other side of heart. And then secondly, I think
00:40:31.500 we're going to start, yeah, we're going to start living as if this life is home. But Hebrews says,
00:40:37.380 and now we're just we're pilgrims and so it makes me just one you know mindful of how you know how
00:40:42.460 how the church is to to think through these things and obviously i'm so grateful ali that
00:40:46.900 there's nothing new solomon says under the sun so if jesus was going to come to 2026
00:40:54.580 ai culture he would just say open up your bibles and so i'm not like scratching my head i just hey
00:41:02.480 We have the truth, so grateful for that.
00:41:05.780 And yeah, I hope that it helps.
00:41:07.660 Yeah, Arthur Brooks talks about like this addiction
00:41:10.260 to a frictionless life, and AI certainly takes away
00:41:13.600 a lot of friction from a lot of things that we do,
00:41:16.720 and so does convenience.
00:41:17.800 And I don't think trying to remove or mitigate friction
00:41:20.160 in every single area is always wrong,
00:41:22.540 because you want things to be more efficient,
00:41:24.060 sometimes more convenient.
00:41:24.900 We have an automatic vacuum.
00:41:26.080 Yeah, yeah, but at the same time,
00:41:29.540 seeking that at all costs is going to take away something of what it means to be human i think
00:41:34.100 he's catholic i don't know entirely his world view but i think jonathan height has even talked about
00:41:39.060 this who i also don't believe is a christian and so there is some sense at least in older
00:41:44.340 generations that maybe they don't know why maybe it's not in their minds because we're made in the
00:41:49.460 image of god but that friction is actually necessary for what it means to be human like
00:41:53.940 doing something hard and so i do wonder like what happens not just to the human spirit as it atrophies
00:42:00.980 but also to society as a whole like if we decide we're just going to delegate this part of the
00:42:06.100 image of god in us to something else like what what does that what does that spell out for the future
00:42:13.620 well i think at least for the believer in almost every instance god encounters an anxious person
00:42:20.660 in the bible he gives them something to do and so i think it's sometimes interesting even if give me
00:42:26.900 an example so elijah first kings 18 he has the most epic moment of his life he takes on 850 false
00:42:35.460 prophets there are 851 false prophets on mount carmel 850 of the 851 are false prophets of baal
00:42:42.660 and he builds two altars and he says all right you guys call down fire from heaven i'll call
00:42:47.460 call down fire from heaven,
00:42:48.540 whichever God comes down and consumes the altar with fire.
00:42:52.080 He's the one true God.
00:42:53.100 And the prophets of Baal are doing their thing. 0.89
00:42:55.560 And Elijah's just kind of like mocking them. 0.89
00:42:57.380 Like maybe your God's sleeping. 0.60
00:42:58.380 Maybe he's on vacation.
00:42:59.280 Maybe he's going to the bathroom.
00:43:00.260 Literally it says that in the Bible.
00:43:01.820 And then the fire comes down, consumes them. 0.99
00:43:04.320 Elijah says, slaughter them. 0.99
00:43:06.260 And they go and take out all the false prophets. 1.00
00:43:08.100 It's the highest point of his life.
00:43:09.480 He runs from there.
00:43:11.760 And then he finds out after he just dominates 0.98
00:43:15.540 all these prophets that jezebel is trying to seek his life to kill him and he's depressed and he 0.91
00:43:21.240 begs god to kill him this is probably the godliest man in the old testament and he begs god to take
00:43:29.280 his life he's so depressed he's so fearful and god comes and does a couple things first of all 0.98
00:43:34.360 he gives him a nap and he gives him a snack and then he says elijah go back and do like you get
00:43:41.120 back to work stop contemplating your navel and like go back and do do work even when jesus is
00:43:48.260 addressing the anxious of matthew 6 he tells them to engage their mind consider the lilies consider
00:43:52.580 the birds right and then he says seek first the kingdom of god go do something with the kingdom
00:43:57.680 of god with peter who is just i would say paralyzed by guilt in john 21 after he's denied
00:44:05.240 jesus three times he's guilty he's anxious he's fearful jesus says get back to work feed my lambs
00:44:11.920 feed my sheep with moses it's the same thing moses says i can't talk good you know like send someone
00:44:17.740 else i'm a stutter and god says who made man's mouth so he reminds him of the character of god
00:44:22.420 and then he says now go and so i think this element of this ease is um is actually gonna
00:44:31.980 to make it people more anxious because God made us to engage. And I think sometimes, you know,
00:44:37.960 people say that, well, well, my job is what brings me anxiety. And there may be truth in
00:44:41.640 that as far as like the workplace environment you live in. A recent Damish study revealed
00:44:50.880 something heartbreaking. Just one year after an abortion, women are 50% more likely to need
00:44:56.380 psychiatric treatment and 87% more likely to experience personality or behavioral disorders. 1.00
00:45:02.420 That's not women's healthcare. That's what the abortion lobby wants you to believe, 1.00
00:45:06.720 but it's trauma. At pre-born women find the real kind of care, a real kind of care that is not
00:45:14.600 only ministering to her soul, but is also helping her make the choice that is best for her body and
00:45:21.240 best for her mind. And that is choosing life for her baby. When a woman walks into one of
00:45:26.600 pre-born networks clinics, she is welcomed with open arms. She's introduced to her baby through
00:45:30.880 an ultrasound. She is offered hope and resources like maternity clothes, diapers, counseling,
00:45:36.420 so much more. Be a part of this, be a part of her story, her baby story. Go to pre-born.com
00:45:42.220 slash Allie, make your donation today. Whatever you can give helps pre-born.com slash Allie.
00:45:51.240 going back to jonathan height when we talk about the anxious generation when you remove something
00:45:57.960 productive from from people's life it's just going to give them more time to fuel their anxiety what
00:46:04.200 gives them anxiety is not doing something productive and profitable typically it's
00:46:09.100 everything else like you are your mind proverbs 23 7 as a man thinks within himself so he is
00:46:13.580 so whatever you're feeding your mind is going to foster and facilitate you know additional anxiety
00:46:18.960 and worry. And so it does make me kind of mindful about the world that we're moving into. And I
00:46:24.680 think that's why it's so important that people understand like when Elon says work is going to
00:46:29.220 be optional, there should be hardwired revulsion to that type of an idea. Because when Jesus shows
00:46:39.280 up in the incarnation, one writer says he doesn't show up as this flowering romantic. He doesn't
00:46:44.200 come as a sage he comes as a tecton and he does what we do his hands are calloused he has splinters
00:46:51.180 and when they identify him they say is this not the son of the carpenter like this guy and so
00:46:57.000 I want to be like Ephesians 5 1 be an imitator of God and I can imitate God by doing menial
00:47:03.320 mundane things with excellence for his glory and to love my neighbor and when you don't do that I
00:47:09.000 don't know how practically you begin to love your neighbor either yeah there is rest i mean that
00:47:15.320 does exist as something as we are imitating god we see that he rested not because he needed to
00:47:21.040 but we are to model that we touched on this just briefly and i only have a couple more questions i
00:47:26.320 could ask like a hundred more because it's so interesting to me but what is the difference
00:47:30.920 between rest and consumption yeah like in in the book i delineate between rest and relaxation
00:47:38.020 i think there is kevin de young talks about a mushy middle where people are working while
00:47:44.000 they're resting and resting while they're working so like they watch a show but they're studying i
00:47:48.600 know i i was it's i think it's in his book crazy busy but i think there is a danger there rest from
00:47:55.280 a biblical perspective is not just the refraining of work it was a weekly father's day to celebrate
00:48:00.400 who god is and i think there is everything goes back to our understanding of the character of god
00:48:04.420 You have to see God.
00:48:05.880 If you view him only as a king,
00:48:07.240 you're gonna see him just as an authority figure.
00:48:08.980 If you view him only as a father,
00:48:10.540 you might take him for granted.
00:48:11.780 You have to view him as a father king.
00:48:13.840 And so rest was designed before the law,
00:48:18.920 even before Moses writes it down
00:48:20.100 as one of the 10 commandments,
00:48:20.980 the fourth and longest of which is,
00:48:22.360 remember the Sabbath. 0.99
00:48:23.880 It was a weekly Father's Day
00:48:25.520 to celebrate who God is.
00:48:27.780 Our souls can, our bodies can outpace our souls.
00:48:31.360 and we need this time to remember and reflect on who God is.
00:48:35.120 That is the central command in all of scripture.
00:48:37.420 Remember, remember who God is.
00:48:39.840 And so I think even in remembering God,
00:48:43.160 delighting on his provision,
00:48:44.320 even if you go back and we're jumping forward a little bit
00:48:46.180 to the instruction for God's people
00:48:48.140 following the exodus from Egypt,
00:48:49.960 they were to gather twice what they were to gather
00:48:51.600 on the sixth day so that on the seventh day,
00:48:53.420 they could take a deliberate break.
00:48:54.800 And that word deliberate is important
00:48:56.100 because going along with what you're saying
00:48:58.080 with consumption and rest,
00:48:59.500 rest was it's not just doing whatever else you would be doing it's not just watching shows or
00:49:04.920 whatever it may be and watching a show again is not wrong people do that watching movies not wrong
00:49:09.160 but there is this element where our our souls need to be tuned we're not made out of steel
00:49:14.740 it says in Psalm 103 he is mindful of our frame he knows that we are dust and so even for men
00:49:21.480 I think sometimes there is this fabricated presentation of masculinity where, you know, they have to pretend to be, you know, machines or whatever it may be.
00:49:34.380 The strongest of men is as weak as water without the power of God in their life.
00:49:39.060 And so the Sabbath is intended for us to enjoy fellowship with our maker.
00:49:42.700 and not only that even as we talk through rest and I kind of maybe splice the chapter in half
00:49:50.280 in the book God has given us life not just to endure he has given us life to enjoy and so
00:49:57.160 really the whole book of Ecclesiastes Solomon's talking about like life feels cyclical I'm on
00:50:02.000 like this hamster wheel but then he says that basically at the end go cast your bread upon
00:50:06.360 the waters like it says in first Timothy God has given us everything to enjoy and I like to think
00:50:12.420 about that as we think about rest because when your mom gives you a sweater on your birthday
00:50:18.960 she doesn't just want you to hold it up she wants you to what try it on and god has made a world
00:50:26.320 for his children to enjoy and i think even thinking about who god is as a father so
00:50:32.240 important in psalm 104 it says that he makes the hills and then he sends the rain so the grass grow
00:50:37.040 on the hills so that the cattle's eat the grass so that the cattle get fat and then it gives us
00:50:42.080 the reason because god knows that men and women love steak so he's given us all these things to
00:50:47.720 enjoy and i think that's a really important thing i mean and so for me practically resting is okay
00:50:52.260 i need my heart and my soul to be tuned i'm a pastor i study but i need to spend time with god
00:50:57.360 in a non-preparatory way and then furthermore what it means is okay god has given me i want to
00:51:02.720 hold the scripture with the scripture always interpreting the scripture with the scripture
00:51:05.860 and never having a lopsided interpretation i want to redeem the time and number my days and then
00:51:09.960 also, I think it's good and right and biblical for me to take my kids to Norway, hike the John
00:51:15.340 Muir Trail, throw a block party, have a dog, learn a language, take piano lessons in my mid-30s.
00:51:22.180 Why? Because God made this world. I want to subdue it. But that's not just this grind to
00:51:28.340 get through life. It's, I'm a child of a heavenly father. And I've said this multiple times,
00:51:34.600 the bible is written in a way where you should be thrilled by the god you serve and not just feel
00:51:41.740 the burden of responsibility and you have to have both of those things in conjunction i am responsible
00:51:47.340 before god but i'm a child uh hand in hand and so rest affords us the opportunity to enjoy and
00:51:54.420 and i think it's derrick kidner one of the commentators that says kind of similar things
00:51:58.000 to what i said about grumbling the watching world should watch the believer not just work
00:52:04.240 but enjoy life, the zest they extract from life
00:52:08.040 and think, you're really maximizing this.
00:52:13.160 Like John 10, 10, I've come to give you life to the fullest.
00:52:16.360 That's not just salvifically,
00:52:17.660 it's that we look at every single gift
00:52:19.680 as an extension of a good giver,
00:52:22.960 which gives us the capacity to enjoy
00:52:24.700 even what other people are enjoying,
00:52:26.760 but with a different perspective
00:52:28.040 that all of these things, a waterfall, Hawaii,
00:52:31.200 whatever it may be, are a gift from a God that loves me.
00:52:34.240 And I think that's so important to hold in conjunction with a desire to work hard as
00:52:38.780 unto the Lord.
00:52:44.240 I know from experience that it is so hard to make sure that you are getting enough protein
00:52:48.800 in your diet if you are just relying on food.
00:52:52.500 You just don't have enough time in the day.
00:52:54.380 Maybe you don't have enough time to prep, or maybe you're like me, like I was during
00:52:58.720 pregnancy.
00:52:59.280 Like the thought of just eating like a bunch of beef or a bunch of chicken was not appealing.
00:53:04.240 but I'll tell you what was appealing. What still is appealing is a really good protein shake. And
00:53:09.400 I love the grass fed whey protein from Puri, 21 grams of protein, just five ingredients with an
00:53:15.920 incredible flavor. Sometimes these very natural and holistic proteins, they don't taste good.
00:53:21.560 That's not true with Puri. They have a real bourbon vanilla from Madagascar that they use to
00:53:27.700 flavor one flavor of their protein. It's really good. It's just the right amount of sweetness,
00:53:32.880 not too sweet, but just sweet enough to make your protein shake. Amazing. It also is totally pure
00:53:39.200 as its name tells you it has been, uh, it's been awarded the clean with the clean label project
00:53:45.960 transparency award. Every single batch is third-party tested against 200 plus contaminants.
00:53:51.940 The results are published and you can even see that using the QR code. It really is so pure
00:53:57.920 tastes so good and helps you reach your protein goals. Puree is the only supplement brand that
00:54:03.920 can say all of those things, especially winning the Clean Label Project. Go to P-U-O-R-I.com
00:54:12.100 slash Allie for 32% off, very specific, P-U-O-R-I.com slash Allie.
00:54:19.360 after jesus comes back and all is made right are we still going to work
00:54:31.060 yes we're going to have responsibility you know i think that's why so you know the story of
00:54:37.420 scripture again is amazing i can't imagine studying the bible all the time if it wasn't
00:54:42.300 compelling story the bible begins in a garden jesus is betrayed crucified and resurrected in
00:54:50.040 a garden and then the book of revelation concludes with a garden kingdom and we're going to be given
00:54:57.300 isaiah you see this that there will be builders and there will be people attending vines and
00:55:01.400 we're going to be given responsibility even to those who live faithfully jesus says well done
00:55:05.580 you know good and faithful servant you've been faithful with little i'm going to make you
00:55:09.140 oversee much you're going to see jesus says oversee 10 cities and so i don't know if that's
00:55:14.240 literal that they'll oversee 10 cities and sometimes you know i growing up in the church
00:55:18.300 people said like oh you know you're going to get extra jewels on your crown or you know whatever
00:55:24.200 that may be and uh macarthur used to say that those those rewards what are the rewards and
00:55:30.160 macarthur used to say that those rewards are additional responsibility in the service of the
00:55:35.180 king and and in heaven obviously there's no envy because there's no sin but there is this element
00:55:40.200 where like i i do want to live in a way where i receive the reward what's the reward i don't think
00:55:45.240 it's going to be an actual jewel i think in scripture the argument can be made that he's
00:55:49.420 going to give you more responsibility to serve him and so yeah work is is a pre-fall institution
00:55:55.540 and and when god remakes the world that's how the story of scripture ends we'll have responsibility
00:56:01.960 and it says in revelation we're given the same assignment that we were given at the beginning
00:56:07.740 genesis 126 let us make man in our own image and let them rule and it says that they are washed
00:56:12.580 in revelation by the blood of the lamb and they will rule with him and that's why this the bible
00:56:18.080 is epic and that's why paul calls us a co-heir what do heirs get an inheritance and what is the
00:56:26.700 inheritance that jesus gets well in revelation no one here is is we're you know can is able to
00:56:32.980 open the scroll what's the scroll in revelation 4 it's the title deed to the new heavens and the
00:56:38.020 new earth and so there's a scene they're weeping no one can open this and jesus says i have overcome
00:56:43.780 and then he says to all of the redeemed share in the spoils of victory with me and rule with me
00:56:52.880 And I find that exciting, you know,
00:56:55.520 because we're not going to be disembodied
00:56:56.820 wispies floating on clouds.
00:56:58.340 We're going to be resurrected bodies
00:57:00.000 with real responsibility.
00:57:02.620 And I can't wait for that day.
00:57:04.100 Yeah. Amen.
00:57:05.160 Okay. Where can people get your book?
00:57:06.920 I think wherever books are sold,
00:57:08.340 Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Target.
00:57:10.480 Yeah.
00:57:10.740 And it's out November 3rd.
00:57:12.160 November 3rd.
00:57:13.080 Awesome. Johnny, thank you so much.
00:57:14.680 Thank you so much for having me on, Allie.
00:57:22.120 Thank you.