The NXR Podcast - March 23, 2023


DAILY TRUTH - Jesus Is The Master Of “Church-Shrinking” Strategies


Episode Stats


Length

11 minutes

Words per minute

128.9749

Word count

1,475

Sentence count

83

Harmful content

Toxicity

1

sentences flagged

Hate speech

9

sentences flagged


Summary

Summaries generated with gmurro/bart-large-finetuned-filtered-spotify-podcast-summ .

In this episode, Pastor Ken teaches us about the power of parables and how they can be used in our daily lives to point us toward the truth of God's Word. God bless you as you listen to Daily Truth.

Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
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 All right, listen, guys, I get it.
00:00:01.900 Many of you are unable to financially support this ministry because you're spending your
00:00:05.900 cash and your lives on raising young children in the fear and admonition of the Lord.
00:00:10.740 Praise God for you and that endeavor.
00:00:13.860 However, algorithms are a thing.
00:00:16.380 Shadow banning, sadly, is a thing.
00:00:19.000 And one major way that you can help to expand the reach and effectiveness of this ministry
00:00:24.160 that doesn't cost you a dime is by spending just a few moments leaving us a five-star
00:00:29.980 review. Also, perhaps even more effective than that, you can share our podcast with a friend.
00:00:36.560 We hope you'll take the time to do so. Thank you so much. God bless.
00:00:42.320 Jesus said, man cannot live on bread alone, but from every word that proceeds from the mouth of
00:00:47.420 God. You're listening to Daily Truth. There's a time in Christ's earthly ministry where his own
00:00:56.680 disciples questioned him after one of his public teachings. They asked Jesus, why is it that you
00:01:03.320 always speak in parables? There are times that later you'll provide plain speech and interpretation
00:01:11.000 of the parables for us, your closest disciples, in private. But to the people in public, you
00:01:20.480 exclusively speak in parables.
00:01:25.160 And Jesus responds to their question by quoting Isaiah, the prophet, and says this is to fulfill
00:01:33.740 Isaiah's prophecy, that they would be ever hearing, but never listening, ever seeing,
00:01:43.000 but never perceiving, that their hearts would be darkened and never receive understanding.
00:01:50.480 In other words, although there are many today who say, you know, pastors should preach more like Jesus.
00:01:57.520 Jesus used parables, and parables are helpful illustrations that make things more sensical.
00:02:05.200 They take something that may be harder to understand and provide a story, an illustration, an example,
00:02:13.300 and make these things that are difficult to understand more palatable and easy to understand.
00:02:19.700 That's not Jesus' definition of a parable.
00:02:23.200 Jesus says, I speak in parables to make sure
00:02:25.740 that people are always confused.
00:02:29.660 I speak in parables to make sure
00:02:32.740 that the truth of the kingdom is something they miss.
00:02:38.800 I speak in parables so that Isaiah would be fulfilled,
00:02:42.780 that they would hear, but never listen,
00:02:45.380 to see but never really perceive
00:02:48.100 and that their hearts would remain
00:02:50.540 in a state of not understanding
00:02:53.720 because they're not mine.
00:02:59.600 They're not mine.
00:03:02.120 They're not my people. 0.96
00:03:04.140 They're not my flock.
00:03:06.860 They're not my sheep.
00:03:09.080 My sheep, even with the parable,
00:03:12.180 we understand parables as illustrations.
00:03:14.240 they're better to be understood as riddles.
00:03:17.960 Even with speaking in code and riddles and parables,
00:03:22.480 my sheep, they'll come regardless
00:03:25.140 because they recognize the shepherd's voice.
00:03:29.700 They can't help but come.
00:03:32.380 Just as a literal shepherd could be out with his flock
00:03:35.280 and he could be speaking English
00:03:38.180 or he could be speaking whatever, Mandarin.
00:03:44.240 and all of a sudden his sheep they recognize not so much the actual word and what it means
00:03:53.360 but they recognize the dialect the inflection the tone the style the voice of the shepherd
00:04:03.520 i have no idea what he's saying but that's our shepherd i hear him
00:04:10.040 and I'm going to come to him. 0.55
00:04:13.720 Notice that's even what the 12 do. 0.99
00:04:16.420 When Jesus in John chapter 6, 0.92
00:04:18.600 he had just fed the 5,000
00:04:20.580 in the previous chapter, John chapter 5,
00:04:22.920 and now they've come and found him again
00:04:25.580 on the other side of the sea.
00:04:28.640 And Jesus calls them out and says,
00:04:30.540 you're not here for my preaching.
00:04:33.620 You're here for another free lunch.
00:04:36.660 You ate the loaves and had your fill
00:04:38.520 and you want to be fed again.
00:04:40.040 and so then he preaches about that. Jesus has fantastic church shrinking strategies. If you
00:04:47.180 ever want to know how to shrink a church, Jesus is the master. He says, unless you eat my flesh
00:04:54.580 and drink my blood, you have no part in me. And you could almost hear the 12 in that picture 0.98
00:05:03.640 saying please give a disclaimer
00:05:07.120 please provide some nuance
00:05:11.180 if you could only be just a little more winsome
00:05:15.600 tell them that you're not being literal
00:05:18.820 Jesus you're okay you're not a cannibal are you
00:05:23.260 tell them that and Jesus just
00:05:27.620 kind of sits back and they all the text
00:05:31.800 says leave except for the 12. Now notice the difference is not that everyone leaves because
00:05:39.880 they don't understand that Jesus is being symbolic rather than literal but the 12 stay because they
00:05:45.080 understand. Now Jesus is preaching in Mandarin and none of them speak Mandarin including Peter 0.59
00:05:52.380 and the 12. So what's the difference? Why do the 12 stay? Because they understood what Jesus meant
00:05:59.680 and therefore are not offended?
00:06:02.060 No.
00:06:03.140 It's what a person does when they're offended.
00:06:06.620 It's not whether you're offended.
00:06:09.100 It's what you do when you're offended.
00:06:12.920 Particularly when you're offended by Jesus.
00:06:16.940 I have been offended by Jesus many times in my life
00:06:22.140 because I am a very great sinner.
00:06:25.320 the difference by his grace alone not to boast in myself but the difference is that when i've
00:06:33.840 been offended by jesus the words of jesus the teaching of jesus the person and work of jesus
00:06:40.420 like the 12 instead of departing from christ i lean in further to christ and i say with peter
00:06:52.460 where else can we go you have the words of life i don't know what you mean eat your flesh and
00:07:01.080 drink your blood i don't like it frankly i'm a little bit disgusted by that sermon jesus 0.69
00:07:07.260 but you're the only preacher there is where else are we going to go 0.63
00:07:12.860 we don't have any alternatives there's no alternate option
00:07:19.320 so offended or not we're sticking with jesus we're sticking with jesus why because we're his sheep
00:07:32.240 we're the sheep of his pasture we know his voice we don't always like what he says
00:07:40.780 But we know that voice.
00:07:45.120 It's the voice of life.
00:07:48.760 And he preaches the words of life, even when we don't like them.
00:07:55.740 And there is salvation nowhere else in heaven or on earth, but in the name of Jesus.
00:08:03.700 so at the end of this epistle the author encourages his listeners by saying that although many have
00:08:13.120 fallen away and you've watched their apostasy you've watched them come with you for a short
00:08:19.460 while but then turn back to judaism turn back to jerusalem turn back to the temple turn back 0.51
00:08:28.380 to the ceremonial rituals and codes,
00:08:31.600 hedging their bets,
00:08:33.800 putting partial trust in Jesus,
00:08:36.260 but not really hedging their bets.
00:08:40.660 You've seen many fall away.
00:08:44.860 And although there are serious warnings
00:08:47.040 that should be given,
00:08:48.320 and these warnings have been given
00:08:50.400 throughout the entirety of this epistle,
00:08:53.080 here at the end,
00:08:54.240 the apostle, the final nail,
00:08:58.080 is not one more warning about trampling
00:09:01.200 the blood of the covenant underfoot,
00:09:03.660 going apostate and having no opportunity to repent.
00:09:06.880 No, that's been said.
00:09:08.600 It needed to be said.
00:09:09.840 It has been said.
00:09:11.140 The final nail in his coffin is not another warning,
00:09:14.520 but it is an infallible and unbreakable consolation
00:09:20.040 that my sheep, they can't lose themselves
00:09:26.240 even if they tried.
00:09:28.080 if you belong to me you will always belong to me
00:09:34.520 because as deuteronomy says the people of god who've been saved truly saved by grace through
00:09:43.580 faith in christ alone they are his treasured possession can i be frank with you for just a
00:09:50.220 second right here at the end look some of you guys you're financially supporting this ministry
00:09:55.220 and from the bottom of my heart, I say thank you. I cannot thank you enough. However, some of you,
00:10:02.260 you just, you can't afford it. In fact, some of you, you shouldn't afford it. Let's be honest.
00:10:09.300 I mean, we're living in Joe Biden's ridiculous economy. Our nation and our totalitarian political 0.94
00:10:16.800 elites lost their minds over the last three years due to COVID. We have written checks that we
00:10:24.600 simply cannot cash. It doesn't matter if people change the definition of a recession. We are
00:10:30.840 living in a recession right now regardless. Some of you are struggling to afford a carton of eggs
00:10:38.100 at the grocery store. You cannot support financially this ministry at this time, nor should
00:10:44.620 you, but you could still help us tremendously. I am asking you, please, if you're willing to do so,
00:10:51.600 take one minute of your time. Leave us a five-star review on your favorite podcast platform,
00:10:58.620 iTunes, Spotify, whatever that might be. This is the way the system works. We want to be innocent
00:11:04.880 as doves but shrewd as vipers. We need to be strategic. You leave us a five-star review and
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00:11:19.540 practical ways to every realm of life gets out there. Help us get it out there. Thanks for tuning in.