076 – Lies We Believe About Sin

Cody Johnston 1:36
Today we are talking I like how we introduced that was like so professional. Okay, today we’re talking about some of the common questions regarding sin. Last week we did questions we asked about God and lies that we tend to believe. This week we’re talking about questions we asked about sin and lies, we tend to believe we really liked the way last week’s episode with so we thought hey, let’s carry on with the theme. Right? So this is one of these topics just kind of bouncing in our head. It’s gonna be a quick kind of shot for shot episode where we just rattle off some, some questions or lies, we tend to believe about sin nature and how God views us. We give our thoughts maybe a little bit of Scripture on it. Bada bing, bada boom, here we go.

Elaine Johnston 2:19
And disclaimer, we don’t actually have all the answers. No. So if you’re looking for answers, I think this is the wrong place. But if you’re looking for discussion and open ended questions and, and finding truth for yourself and and to discover what you think about sin, then you have come to the right place. If you listen to last week’s episode, it’s the similar format, we just kind of spout off a couple questions and talk about what it actually means. Like Cody said, maybe some scripture that goes along with it, just what our initial feelings are, and also what we’ve been previously taught. And if that still aligns with what we currently believe now.

Cody Johnston 3:00
Yeah, and the interesting thing and just kind of a recap remembrance, if you’re new to the show, this is a common theme. But we’ll just go ahead and stated here, the Bible is a vast book, and it is based on a religion that was completely open to each person’s interpretation. We have made it much more rigid than that, but so much not saying all but so much of what is in the Bible is meant to be digested, you know, kind of like the whole of taking the word, eat the letter, digest the Word of God, right? It’s a weird thing that we talked about, but do we ever actually do it? It’s not as rigid as we’d like it to be, for some reason. So all of what we’re saying here, yes, we believe this to be truthful right now. But we want you to find what syncs with your spirit with your soul as we go through this. And before we get into that a couple of quick things. We have a Facebook community if you don’t know that already. Now you do. Facebook community, nomads a safe community for Christians to ask unsafe questions, it is growing conversation is booming and flourishing, we’re actually very, very pleased with this conversations are getting had. And we would love for you to be a part. We know you guys are out there we see the numbers, we would love to get to know you better. So head down to the show notes below. Click that link and ask to join. We would love to have you. Also, if you get something out of this show, we would greatly appreciate you hopping down there leaving an honest review. We would love to have just your feedback to help us know how to continue to better suit our audience out there everyone who’s listening and what we’re doing good. Heck, we might even screenshot it and share it on Facebook, since it’s anonymous anyway, right? So you want to shout out head down there and drop an honest review. And lastly, of course, if you get something out of this, we asked you to share it on with a friend. That is the best way to keep the conversation going. So let’s get right into today’s topic. On a common questions we have regarding sin and lies we believe about it. Here comes. So really what is sin?

Elaine Johnston 5:19
sin? Well,

Cody Johnston 5:21
it’s not on the questions for today. It’s just a nice way to intro

Elaine Johnston 5:26
to me, sin is deliberately putting yourself or others harm or risk or if your intentions and purpose of doing things is to be hurtful or against God against yourself, then that would be sin. So if you are going to obviously it’s sinful to murder somebody, you can just go kill everyone because they cut you off in traffic that’s sinful, even having post thoughts are sinful. Well,

Cody Johnston 6:06
but I mean, the Old Testament might argue with that. I mean, there was some weird crap that was on there. So his murders, there’s seems to be an exception there don’t people

Elaine Johnston 6:15
know. But also like, if you are just being hateful online, that’s a sin. Like if you’re deliberately trying to cast judgment or hatred or just ill will on other people. I feel like that’s sinful if you

Cody Johnston 6:30
just trolling people online as soon.

Elaine Johnston 6:33
It depends on what what’s the purpose of trolling

Cody Johnston 6:38
to enlighten people through rude sarcasm?

Elaine Johnston 6:40
Well, I was listening,

Unknown Speaker 6:43
at least for me, actually.

Elaine Johnston 6:46
Well, I was reading a book by Bernie brown earlier this year. And the root word of sarcasm, actually meant to cause harm and to destroy people. So so by that logic, trolling and sarcasm is sinful. But sometimes

Cody Johnston 7:05
you have to destroy something to give room for something greater.

Elaine Johnston 7:09
Yeah, I feel like that’s how a lot of people in church leadership get hurt. Or in church in general. Yeah, by destroying them and building something, quote, greater, but you’re actually just molding them to what you think they should be.

Cody Johnston 7:21
That’s fair. So it is so much fun.

Elaine Johnston 7:25
I think it just depends on the context. If you know your audience, if you know your friends and family and you know, you can joke around with them. I feel like that’s fine. But if your intention of trolling somebody is to really you know, hurt their feelings degrade them as a person then yeah, that’s that’s when it becomes sinful.

Cody Johnston 7:42
Yeah, I don’t think I’ve Okay, I’m not I’m not gonna say I’ve never done that. But I’m gonna say, not my own. But I do enjoy a good

Elaine Johnston 7:52
lesson to you what it what is a sin to you? What have you been taught about sin?

Cody Johnston 7:57
Sin to me? Is everything imaginable? Know, that’s pretty much that’s what I’ve been taught. Like, right?

Elaine Johnston 8:04
permissible. My my shirt says anything is possible. Yeah, there you go. Everything is

Cody Johnston 8:11
or everything is not depending on how you look at it, there you go. Sin is a lot of things. So just to kind of like get a little more serious sin, at least in the way I was brought up was taught more than probably grace, like, you know, it’s funny, we are a religion based on grace based on redemption based on the idea of almost like the Phoenix from the ashes, we’re no longer what we were yet we are handed out laws, the almost if not greater in equivalency to the Old Testament. Jews, right? So we live by a New Testament covenant, supposedly, where we are to be free, yet we are managed in given a list of rules. That is just like Leviticus for evangelical Christianity, right? Like it’s, it’s the equivalent. I don’t even know where to begin on saying what is sin? Because it’s never really told you what exact I mean, you’re told, like, if you lie, if you steal, if you kill if you if you think bad, if you think you know, sexual thoughts, you’re sinning, if you think about, you know, like, I mean, it just goes on and on and on. I understand like, Sure, it’s, it’s the whole reformation attitude of trying to be a new being, but it’s, it’s really be a new being, or else it’s not really, there isn’t like this level of grace or this magnitude of grace dished out, it is more a list of law walls, almost canonized at this point, to where it’s like if you do this, if you do that, if you do this, but at the same time, so many of these very same things are swept under the rug in leadership. So

Elaine Johnston 10:01
one of the verses that actually come up to me whenever we’re talking about sin is john 1010, where it says, The thief comes into kill, steal and destroy, but God has given us eternal life. But that’s the very first part of that scripture saying, you know, Satan comes to kill, steal and destroy, and I think that’s what sin is if you’re killing, whether just with your words, and even just like a physical act of killing, but if you’re killing somebody joy, killing their self worth, if you’re destroying their self worth, if you’re stealing their self worth, and their self esteem and all that I feel like that, to me is what sin is, is those three things, killing, stealing and destroying. That’s not necessarily just on a physical level, but on a mental emotional, even spiritual level. Sure,

Cody Johnston 10:47
yeah. Most everything comes down if you violate the two principles of loving God loving your neighbor is probably said, if it’s not done out of love. Yeah, you know, anything not done out of love, most likely constitutes sin, but actually, let’s clear the air here on something to, to me sin is not an action, you know, oh, I sinned. That is not really like, I understand like, not saying that it’s not actions because it is but to me, what helps me understand the idea of sin is more of like an energy, it’s more of a it’s more of a mindset, or maybe the towel it right. So to be in sin is like, you can sin and know you’re sinning, and be attempting to better yourself, but we’re all on a process of trying to be more like Christ. And so to me, that’s, it may be a sin, but it’s not sinful. Like I mean, I don’t know how to explain it’s kind of

Elaine Johnston 11:41
going back to the purpose and intention and what your heart behind it,

Cody Johnston 11:45
right, if you’re constantly trying to better yourself, we all have our moments of weakness and our downfalls. But that doesn’t mean that you’re living in a sin nature, just because you came there to sinful action, as long as you’re trying to trying to be the best version of yourself, which ultimately looks like Christ, right to kind of bridge. The whole, like, self help movement in Christianity, like, the best version of ourselves is, in fact, our divine creation Christ. So to bridge that gap would be to do that very thing. And as long as you’re attempting to do that, I think that, that that is, in essence, turning away from like this quote, unquote, sin nature, right? I think that there’s more grace there. There’s more love there, then we often like to give, and it’s not this Oh, you sinned? repent. I think repentance is a heartfelt motion of trying less than it is like, Oh, God, I just, okay, I’m going to change it for just saying that we’re gonna get into like, our actual questions. This isn’t even on our roster. So I have had numerous people in my life. Come to me, older people, younger people, this is a common question. I’ve struggled with, like how Wednesday show I’ve always kind of thought it was both. But so many people have this same question. And there’s nothing wrong with that. And not like throwing shade. Like this is a legitimate thing that we are kind of inadvertently taught. And it’s well, and it is just play a scenario here. What if I got in a car accident tomorrow, and I had just told a lie before I got in a car accident, am I going to go to hell, this is a legitimate fear people are struggling with why because we dish out fear on a platter instead of love. Because fear is easier to control. Fear is a better motivator. A lot of times that fight or flight is a better motivator to get crap done to build these mini kingdoms than grace and love because grace and love is like I said, big tangent, grace and love is more like taking time for yourself. It’s more it empowers people, right? grace and love and power, people fear and sin control people, the idea of that controls people. And so we have created this system of dishing out fear. And that’s one of those things. Why on earth should we ever have to worry about, oh, if I told a little white lie, and then I got in a car accident died, I’m going to burn in a lake of fire for eternity. That is just the most twisted ideology and that is the most opposite of God thing. Why do people think that? Because what we’re told,

Elaine Johnston 14:29
but why are we told that if we are supposed to operate out of grace and mercy, then why is our greatest, our greatest factors fear

Cody Johnston 14:38
because that is the ultimate manipulation of love. One of the church’s biggest sins to me is our tendency to give out fear to promote fear over love. That is like the ultimate thing to me that is being spread is given out so frequent. So for the rest of this episode, we’re going to have to try to look past that we’re gonna try to look past this whole know you’re not gonna go to hell, if you that’s a whole other topic on what even hell constitutes and what all that looks like we’re going to be getting into in time, but just for right now, let’s just look at it this way. Know, if you tell a little white light, like sin and grace are more of a covering, right? Yes, you can show love that is an action, you can commit sin that is an action. But ultimately, sin is a heart state, just as grace and love is a heart state. So if you’re living in God’s grace, God’s love, you’re living out of sin. Yes, we can still commit sins. But that doesn’t mean that we’re not already forgiven. Because Grace is more covering than our sin. And we’re going to get into that here in just a second. But we’re just going to start with this anyway, I’m just gonna let you take this one. I’m gonna let you run with it. I’m not even going to say a word to it. We’ve talked about this a little bit before. So it’s kind of just dipping our toe in the water. But you like am I dirty rag? No. Okay, but let me read this to you. Okay. In Isaiah 64. It says in verses I believe it’s five and six. Yeah, you come to those, you come to the help of those who gladly do right, who remember your ways, but when we continue to sin against them, you were angry? How then can we be saved? All of us have become like one who is unclean. All of our righteous acts are like filthy rags, we are shriveled up like a leaf, and like the wind, our sins, sweep us away. So what’s the context? Well, it’s in Isaiah, and the context is talking about Israel, and their constant. backsliding, if you want to call it that their constant abandonment of the covenant of God. It’s a mindset. It’s really the mindset of constantly walking away.

Elaine Johnston 16:53
So no, you’re not a dirty rag. It’s also

Cody Johnston 16:55
Old Testament.

Elaine Johnston 16:57
I think the reason why I feel like the whole dirty rag mindset is specific to certain denominations. Not every Christian thinks that’s a

Cody Johnston 17:07
charismatic thing.

Elaine Johnston 17:08
Yeah, not every Christian things. But I think the reason why that gets thrown around is because sometimes we focus on God’s perfection. And I think sometimes we think of, of the power that God has, and the perfection and divine creation that he created. And whenever it’s almost like a humbling aspect of like, oh, like compared to who God is, like, I must be unclean and dirty because of who God is. But like you said, that’s a mindset. And sure, like that can be a humbling realization of like, oh, like, compared to God’s like, wow, like, I couldn’t even fathom half of the things like I couldn’t even fathom his purpose, for creation, and on all of that stuff. However, you don’t have to stay in that mindset. It’s great to remember God’s power. But it’s not so great when you forget the power that is within you. Because if God is within you, if God is in your spirit, if you are saved, and you believe that Jesus is in your heart, that you are made in the image of God, then how could you be a dirty rag? Because if you are calling yourself a dirty rag, in the presence of God, then ultimately you’re calling God a dirty rag.

Cody Johnston 18:35
Yeah. And just to kind of add to that New Testament, right? It did away with all the Old Testament crap. Yes. Whenever we have the Holy Spirit, we literally have God in us at this point, we have a deeper level of connection with God, than anyone was able to have pre, you know, death, resurrection. So at this point, we are made new and we are not the same creation anymore. We’re not born into that same sin nature that once existed, we are we are completely revitalized. And just like you were saying, if you’re stacking yourself up calling yourself, oh, I’m a dirty rag, I’m a dirty, right? Well, then you’re kind of destroying the word God is doing in you. And to add to that, if you want to see an actual sin, start being in comparison, right? Start demeaning yourself, in comparison to something else, whenever Jesus came, that we can try to experience the life that he was giving. So now we have this ability. We have this newfound understanding of God. And yet we’re still trying to compare ourselves to the Creator Himself that’s living in a sin atmosphere, because we’re demeaning ourselves, we’re demeaning God’s creation. So that is sin. In essence, the comparison is more sin, then accepting who we are in Christ.

Elaine Johnston 19:58
So a follow up question that would be are we born into sin? Are we sinful by nature?

Cody Johnston 20:06
You know, this is a loaded question. Because a lot of people can go back and forth on this. I believe we are born into a world and the world as we know, a creation has a yin and a yang to give it you know, certain terms, it has a good and a bad. This can almost get into the whole thing of like, why did God create evil? And people are like God didn’t create evil, he just created the creation that created evil. But if God is omnipotent, then why did he create the creation that created evil? Oh, because God knew that he had to give man a choice, but he knew man was going to make the wrong choice. So why did God create a creation that he knew that we created evil for a created creation that would buy into the evil so he could redeem them from the evil to bring them back to creation? What like all of it is just so there is a good and a bad? Let’s get rid of erase all of that I just said, The followed because I don’t even know what I said. If you look at it as good, bad or sin, Grace, however, you want to kind of swing that. Yes, we are born into a sinful nature, quote, unquote. But we’re also born into a graceful nature, right? God came and abolished the sin nature of man. The second Adam, however you want to look at Jesus came and abolished the sin nature, he overrode gods and this is kind of gets into the whole, like, why did Jesus die? You know, this is a whole other topic in and of itself, but in essence to me, and this is really splitting hairs. But to me, whenever I view the cross, I don’t view the cross as God died to clean my spirit, I look as a cross his God died, to overwrite the pre existing laws that he had put in place, because in essence, like God died to himself, right? Because Jesus is God, there. If they are one, if the Trinity is a thing, if they are, indeed one creation, God was basically putting to death his old system to bear us into a new system. And then you have to ask yourself, How powerful is the cross, right? Like is God’s grace, big enough to cover and the biggest thing that I like to kind of go to on this is really like the last Bible verse I have. It’s kind of gonna lay the foundation for this. But Romans 323 is the Bible verse. It’s always thrown at us. Whenever we start talking about sin nature, it’s for all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God, right? Oh, we’re born into a sin nature, every one of us have sinned. But we don’t go to the next verse, verse 24, and all are justified freely by his grace, through the redemption that came by Christ, right. So all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God, we all had that sin nature, but then we were all justified freely by his grace. So we like to say we’re born into this sin nature, we’re born sinful. Yes, we’re born into a world that constitutes both sin and grace. But which power you choosing to live by, that’s really what it comes down to pick which one you prefer to live by. It doesn’t mean that we’re all just going back to dirty we’re not all just a bunch of old dirty rags, we get to pick which, which which Kingdom we live in, because they’re both presented to us all the time.

Elaine Johnston 23:26
So this kind of presents two questions in my head just talking about one are we born into sin? One is, a lot of people think that we are born into sin by birth, which we didn’t choose our birth, mind you, um, when we are birth? Would we are instantly born into a sinful world and therefore we are born into sinful nature. But one, when are you held accountable for your sins? Because obviously, babies have not sinned. They don’t even know how to do anything. They don’t even know like, how to think or you know, and kids and toddlers and all that stuff like how we’re kid our baby sinful, like, all they do is eat sleep and go to the bathroom. Like, right? Like how there’s nothing there’s no negative thought in their head of like, oh, when I grow up, like I’m going to be this horrible person like no. And kids don’t think that toddlers don’t think that their their mind isn’t open to that. And so one, I have a question of like, so if that is true, if babies are not born into sin, if we are not born to sinful nature one, so why do we baptize babies and sprinkle them? Is it out of fear? Because if they die, we want to make sure that they were saved.

Cody Johnston 24:45
Well, okay, so the whole Baptism of infancy is not a it’s not a Protestant thing. That’s more of a Catholic. Yeah. So are they like, making sure that like they’re held accountable or whatever, I’m not the person to ask asked about this. Because I’m not Catholic. I didn’t grow up Catholic, I could find out because I have plenty of Catholic friends and family. But for my very limited understanding, and anyone out there who wants to correct me on this, you are more than welcome to but I had a friend who was Catholic, and he was sprinkled as a child. And he grew up with the whole mentality of like, well, I don’t really have to, like accept Christ or anything now, because I was saved in my infancy. I guess maybe that is a securing their place. That’s right. It’s it’s, I guess I don’t I don’t know. But I will say this. We do something similar. It’s called baby dedications. You know, it’s our version of the Catholic Baptism of infants. And,

Elaine Johnston 25:38
like, I dedicate my baby to Jesus. Is that life already dedicated to Jesus? Did God not already create them?

Cody Johnston 25:46
Ryan? that’s just that’s kind of go to the whole thing of like, his humanity, not all Christ creation already.

Elaine Johnston 25:53
And then the other question is, so when are we held accountable for our sins? Because obviously, I know, in the Jewish culture, what, like what 13 has been, I know, like in Hispanic culture, it’s what 16. And specifically,

Unknown Speaker 26:07
women like going into womanhood and stuff and like when you’re 15, or 16. And then 18, like different cultures have different ages of, you’re going to start being held accountable for your sin and your actions. I think in my head, maybe high school age college age, because that’s whenever you’re like, Okay, I can think for myself, like, I know what I’m doing like, so when kids still a cookie from the cookie jar, and then their parents ask them like, Did you take a cookie? And they’re like, no, like, they know they’re lying. But is that considered sinful? like are they are six year olds held accountable for lying to the parents? Well, and I think that kind of goes back to you. And I have two things to say this one, what is lying? is lying sinful? Well, yeah, like you’re not supposed to bear false witness but at the same time, natural human instinct and I don’t necessarily want to say sin nature on this because I’m not thinking that is self preservation. Is is our it’s in our DNA. self preservation. We’re based out of two things we’re based out of fear and comfort, everything we do is fear and comfort, which kind of goes back to the whole idea of we we can dish out two different ways you can do sin nature, or you can do a grace, nature or freedom nature, which is you know, you have fear is more of the sin nature. If you’re operating out of fear, you’re most likely likely operating in a sin nature. And I keep I emphasis nature, not necessarily committing sin, it’s a sin nature. And then if you look at comfort would be the peace nature, you have the comfort of Christ. That’s kind of ultimately even the Bible is paralleling back to the ultimate two things that drive creation.

Elaine Johnston 27:38
So is it if lying is supposed to be sinful, sinful nature? Is that lying when kids tell their kids about Santa the Easter Bunny, is that sinful?

Cody Johnston 27:50
Well, by that logic, yes, by the traditional logic, yes, you’re sinning. And I can say personally, like, kids grow up. And sometimes that leads them to like questioning cuz I was like, well, heck, if that’s fake, then maybe all this is fake to you. I had that thought. And I’ve literally been told by a person in like a pastor will Cody, you’re just different. I’m like, thanks. I appreciate that. Like, I like being different. But I’m not alone in this, like, this is not. This is not a lonesome thing. And I want to go back real quick to what you were asking, or you’re kind of making the statement about if we’re born into sin, then do babies go to hell? Well, okay, like I said, constituting what is hell, let’s just, let’s just go with their traditional view of hell. If we believe we were born into a sin nature, and if we believe in hell, then why is there grace for children, if they’re born into sin and haven’t been redeemed if they haven’t been dedicated yet, or they haven’t been sprinkled yet or whatever? Well, I mean, by that logic, you just kind of shot yourself in the foot. That means like, your baby gets cancer in dies or your baby like stops breathing, its high. Well, they’re damned. Like so. is, what do you do? I mean, it’s, it’s silliness. And then like people will get up and on. So they’re not even capable of thinking it exactly. Why

Elaine Johnston 29:08
are they born into sin? Like how were they born into

Cody Johnston 29:11
that there was a point in their life when they have chose to sin and there is a point in their life where they will choose to operate in a state of sinful nature or a state of grace, and comfort and like, like the love grace nature, but a redemption nature, if you want to call it that. But to say they’re just born into this born into sin, into sin itself is really damning, really like screwy and can lead to a lot of strange things. Yes, they’re born into a world that constitutes both sin and grace. And we as spiritual and physical beings, we tap into all of these things all of the time. And being that we are created in the image of God, we have the ability to see both sides, right. But that doesn’t mean that we are sinful instantaneously, as much as it It means that we are born into a world full of sin. So next question, do we really sin every day? This is not a biblical question. This is more of like that old. It’s almost like a like a wives tale at this point. I don’t I don’t know what you would call it. It’s like, Oh, yeah, we are sending every single day.

Elaine Johnston 30:26
I don’t think that’s accurate. If like, one if you don’t believe that we’re born into a sinful nature, then how could you believe that you send every day? But that goes back to what a sin? Is it the intentions and, and purpose? Are you trying to destroy somebody destroy yourself or whatever. I don’t feel like I said every day, like, sometimes I can my emotions and get the best of me. I’m like, ooh, I really just like want to stick it to them because they pissed me off or whatever. Like sure that I feel like that could be considered sin. But if you like, accidentally did something that harm somebody, and you had no idea, you know, if it was out of your control, or you really thought it was out of love, but it but that person didn’t perceive it that way. Like I I just don’t think we sent every day. I don’t think I deliberately set out every single morning, okay, I’m not going to Sunday, I’m not going to send a day like because then you’re focusing on the wrong thing.

Cody Johnston 31:21
And I was about to get into that. One of the most screwy damning thoughts I’ve ever had in my life. And I use that very like seriously, one of the hardest things I’ve ever struggled with, ever, ever, ever and still have to fight is the idea of being afraid of my own thoughts, and being afraid and what I mean by that, it’s like being afraid of like, Did I do something wrong? Did I said Did I stumble? Is God mad at me, all of these thoughts, I have struggled and struggled and struggled. And I finally realized my overt focus on the sin is, because I’m adopting sin nature as my primary source of thinking, the moment I take on that mentality, even if it’s in the sense of, I’m not going to think about it, I’m not going to think about it, I’m not going to think about it, this goes back to we’ve mentioned this a few times, the psychology behind whatever you try to not thinking about.

Elaine Johnston 32:20
Maybe Johnston Press,

Cody Johnston 32:22
right? literally trying not to think about something is in fact thinking about it. And you are strengthening those neuron connections in your brain, even if you’re trying to get them out. And so to use this analogy that we’ve said here before, but it just it bears repeating how every had some use pod, remember every single day, your brain and your thoughts, your life, your nature, your human nature, is like a river, and your thoughts, your feelings, your emotions, all of this is flowing in and flowing out. As from our traditional views, church, whatever it is, however we’re taught, is we’re stuck. We’re told in order in maybe not in these words, but we’re basically taught in order to receive salvation, you must purge yourself of all of the garbage you think of a river, it has debris flowing down it right, it’s not clear water, maybe the water’s muddy from the storms up on the the high end of the river or whatever, however, you just want to picture that there’s leaves, there’s twigs, there’s mud, all of that’s flowing through the water, there’s good clean water in there. It’s just dirty, right? dirty water. Not a filthy rag. But it’s there’s good and bad mixed together, which is how all of our thoughts are, let’s be honest, because we live in a gang gang world. And the thing we’re taught is you need to start building up this dam to pull up the water. So you can start pulling out the filth, pulling out the filth, pulling out the filth. And ultimately, like, that’s what we’re kind of constituted you with focus on your sin. That’s how you make yourself more like Christ, focus on your sin. That’s how you become a more pure person. That’s how you, you get your redemptive nature, right. But it’s not by works, of course, like it’s not by works, we do this, but you got to work at it. And so there’s this this back and forth. It’s like, Well, which one is it? What what what principle are we operating and what we’re operating out of both, but we’re told it’s not both. And so we start focusing, oh, that was a sin. Oh, that was a sin, oh, I shouldn’t have had that thought, or I shouldn’t have done that. Or I shouldn’t have looked at that. Or I shouldn’t have said this. And we only focus on what we should not have done that ultimately, all we’re doing is piling up a bunch of stuff in front of us that we’re constantly picking through. And then it starts bringing on this judgmental nature on herself. We start, we start literally viewing ourselves as less because we start seeing out all the garbage we’re pulling out, we’re like, wow, we’re full of so much crap. Look at all this junk. And here’s Jesus, who was this perfect clip, crystal clear stream, constantly flowing. And here’s me with literally a dump truck load of just filth at this point that I’ve picked out of this river. And it just keeps coming and it just keeps coming. It’s like that stupid video for the Smash Mouth song where it just keeps repeating it don’t stop coming in and don’t stop. Like that’s literally how we feel when we start picking out. But if we just knocked the damn down, let the water flow. And we start looking at things of Wow, look at that. That’s a good thing. That’s Christ, look at that water. That’s, that’s Christ flowing through me.

Elaine Johnston 35:28
And if you’re constantly thinking about your, quote, sinful nature, your bad thoughts, your negative vibes, or whatever you want to call it, you’re ultimately sinning against yourself, because you’re not allowing God’s blessing to work through you.

Cody Johnston 35:39
Yeah, and so maybe it, maybe there are some things in your life, you have to like, quote unquote, work on I’m not saying don’t work on yourself. But instead of going, Wow, I am a compulsive liar. Or I have a really bad lust problem, or I really have noticed that I just have negative views of people around me. And so constantly focused, there was another one of those thoughts I shouldn’t have. There was another one of those thoughts. I shouldn’t have in like building this mound of damn of garbage, right? Allow it to come and go and say, Wow, wait, that was a, like, Don’t even focus on the negative, but focus on the positive. So it’s like, Hey, that was of God right there. Or, when you catch yourself, it’s almost like allowing that thought to come and go without giving, like allowing yourself to feel the like this judgment of it’s like, wow, I just have one of those thoughts. And just in noticing it, they start filtering out, you’re literally treating the water, instead of trying to pick stuff out, you’re treating the water, let it go, it’s in, it’s out, it’s already past, you can’t take it back. You can’t take back your thoughts. What you can do, is you can allow your thoughts to naturally filter through, and sooner or later, it’s no longer Hey, I just having those thoughts. Hey, I, I think that person’s doing some weird stuff. But you know what, God loves them? Or you know, what, how can I help them and you start, it’s almost like treating the water and you see the mud start to go away. And instead of it’s just it’s getting rid, it’s changing the focus is what it is change your focus. And that’s how you switch your nature.

Elaine Johnston 37:14
And if there is, quote, sin in your life, if there is something that you need to work on, and maybe it’s a it’s the sin of judgment, or hatred or whatever, instead of focusing on Oh, I need to quit hurting people, I need to quit hurting people, I need to quit judging people, maybe kind of switch your focus into, well, why am I having these thoughts? How does this make me feel? Why am I wanting to judge this person? Why do I have hate towards this person, and that is the best way of trying to, quote fix the problem, you know, it’s not of, Oh, I need to I just, I need to have this thing in me that I just need to fix this, I just need to get rid of all of this stuff. But again, that’s just suppressing the, the, quote, sinful nature back and that you’re just repeating it to yourself. But whenever you go through the flowing of your mind, and going through those flowing thoughts of, Hey, I had this thought that was kind of sketchy. Why do I feel this way towards this person or this thing, and that whenever you get to the sin isn’t the problem. It’s the intention and the purpose behind that. And whenever you can understand why you’re feeling the way you are, why you are thinking, the thoughts that you have, then you are able to allow God to work through the root of that,

Cody Johnston 38:41
right. And that’s kind of like the whole thing of, you know, just kind of staying with the analogy of the river. You’re sitting here and you’re like, wow, there’s all this oil in my water. I’ve got to keep scooping out the oil, scooping out the oil, get the sponge, soak it up, soak it up, soak it up, and you keep trying to do that over and over and over again. But maybe you should stop walk upstream. Find the factory dumping it all into your river, right? Like there’s a source and, and that’s, that’s really what repentance is right? A lot of times we look at repentance and we’re like, God, please take this from me. God please take this too. Oh, forgive me for this. Oh, forgive me for that. Really repentance is like, hey, God, I noticed this thing. And let’s let’s explore this. Let’s let’s figure this out.

Elaine Johnston 39:21
We are because it’s super unproductive when you’re just trying to scoop out the baggage and the and the bad stuff and the nasty stuff. When you don’t know the root of why that’s happening or how that’s happening. You can scoop out all the oil out of your water if you want to. But that’s unproductive, busy work. If you really want to rid yourself of that sin or what you are damaging nature. Yeah, daily nature of what you’re struggling with. Go find the source, find where that oil spill it just coming from and figure out how to actually fix Yeah, actually find the solution to that issue. Because if you’re just constantly digging it up and date up, and then pouring it out, it’s still happening, that that stuff is still going on. But whenever you find the root cause of it, that’s when you are able to allow God’s blessings to flow through that.

Cody Johnston 40:17
And the moment you stop trying to just scoop out the crap. And the moment you start on that journey of trying to understand yourself, understand, it’s almost like you and God going on a trek together, right? You in Jesus hand in hand literally walking through this. That’s the solution. That is literally the switch. It’s not even purging everything. You’re never going to purge everything. It’s impossible to purge everything. That’s not even what Jesus was asking. Even Jesus got mad and sure, he may have had righteousness to get mad. Even Jesus ran away from his parents, like it’s in the Bible. Like was it sinful? No. But he was in a world full of sin. And he operate in the same Prince. I’m not saying Jesus, and don’t send me hate mail. But what I’m saying is, we operate on both of those. And the process is literally, the redemption. The process literally is the confession to Christ. And so the next question I want to go into here, and this is also one that I had struggled with before is Does God punish me for my sins? So the idea behind this is I have sinned. I think we touched on a little bit of this last episode, but the idea is I have sinned. is God going to make me sick? Because I, I told her why.

Elaine Johnston 41:42
I know you’ve struggled with that. Yeah, that idea. Especially I remember like me being in the hospital last year, like that was just a thing that you constantly had to fight off. Whenever I

Cody Johnston 41:52
have I made some kind of mistake. What have I done, God has my as my fault as something like this, calls Elaine’s sickness, like what have I done, I’ve brought this upon her and really it kind of it goes to the whole story of Jim, we’re just gonna touch on this quickly because we just talked about this in an episode previously, but you know, it goes back to the story of Job of, you know, which was the whole idea of Satan busting up in God’s throne and like, he’s like, hey, let me take job in God’s like, kill all of them, kill his family, all that given boils, but just don’t take his life. And that’s crazy. But whatever. Job is literally down there. And, and he is like being told by his friends, they’re like, hey, like, you know, your repent, you need to repent of these sins, God’s punishing you for the sins and jobs like I haven’t committed a sin. I don’t think you’re understanding. Like, I haven’t done anything wrong. And that just goes to show that just because bad things are happening in someone’s life does not mean they are sinning, just because someone is sick. I’ve heard horror stories of people being told their children were sick because of a sin that they had committed or their marriage was falling apart because a sin. Yeah, there’s consequences. If you have an affair on your spouse, there’s a good chance you may end up in a split a divorce in something crazy wrong. Yeah, marriage, but there’s natural consequence to our action, whether good or bad consequence, and good or bad action leads to good or bad consequences. Sometimes there’s unfair consequences. But your sin is your sin. This isn’t our judgment here on Earth. We’re not being judged constantly here on Earth. That’s not how this operates. So, Elaine, what is the unpardonable sin? And have I committed it?

Elaine Johnston 43:36
Isn’t that like, where you’re denying Christ?

Cody Johnston 43:39
So the way I have always understood the unpardonable sin is speaking against the Holy Spirit,

Elaine Johnston 43:45
like denying or like denying blessings or just denying his existence?

Cody Johnston 43:50
Well, neither the way it’s always been presented to me was like, Oh, well, if you speak against the Holy Spirit and any kind of negative life you speak bad against God like that, never forgivable. Is there even such thing as that unpardonable sin?

Elaine Johnston 44:04
I mean, if God acts in grace and mercy, I would like to think that there’s not a sin that like, God died for a multitude of sins, God died for every sin. God died for everything. And that separates us from God’s grace and mercy and through His resurrection and through his dying to himself. I feel like that kind of covered everything, right. And something that really wrecked Cody and I, a couple of summers ago, was a movie silence with Andrew Garfield, your movie, and it. I’m going to say this. I feel like everyone should watch it. But I’m not going to recommend everyone watch it. It’s a very dry, long movie, very brutal movie. But it is such a fantastic movie for questioning your faith. Because the ultimate premise was these missionaries were out in China

Cody Johnston 45:02
boiler alert, by the way, you’re going to watch it stop. Fast forward about five minutes.

Elaine Johnston 45:06
It’s what 15th 16th century 16th.

Cody Johnston 45:10
It’s basically on whenever Cathal Catholic Church was sending missionaries into Japan. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. In Japan, whenever they were, like, kind of the Christian reformation or Japan type.

Elaine Johnston 45:23
Yeah. And all of the government, obviously was against this, and was killing all of these missionaries. And so the question kind of represented itself of like denying Christ, because you have these people were if they tell the people of Japan or China, whatever country it was, if these missionaries are telling these telling the citizens of this government about God, and they’re ultimately going to face death, and not just oh, I’m going to shoot you it was brutal. Yeah, towards that, that lot. Like your death lasted a week long, they will

Cody Johnston 45:56
slit your wrists how you upside down and bleed you out of

Elaine Johnston 45:59
it? Yeah. Like it was it like I said, I, I wouldn’t recommend everyone watch, especially if you have a weak stomach, or that just that stuff bothers you, like don’t watch this, but

Unknown Speaker 46:08
you over and watch. But this,

Elaine Johnston 46:11
but this movie, questions of like, well, if you proclaim Jesus, you will die and you won’t get to talk to the citizens about God. But if you publicly deny Christ, but privately you’re meeting with people and telling them about God, are you actually denying Christ? Is that actually sin?

Cody Johnston 46:33
Right? And that kind of goes to the whole unpardonable sin? A lot of times Yes, it is. In parallel, like, Oh, it’s it’s, you know, denying Christ. A lot of people take it to believe that it’s not accepting Christ as your Savior. There’s a lot of different views on that. My thought would be this because there’s a lot even there that kind of goes into the whole Well, what about reconcile, you know, eternal reconciliation, or even into when you die? Do you go to hell? Or do you cease to exist? If you’re Christian? Or what constitutes being a Christian? Or who did Christ die for? There’s a whole other slew of crush questions there that I don’t want to try to get into On this episode, specifically, but my thought would be this, can you lose your salvation, and can’t like what is the unpardonable sin? To me the unpardonable sin is simply choosing not to live in the mindset of grace, not at you know, not operating in that that change. But it can change. Yes. Like, I don’t think it’s a one often done. That’s a big misconception. That’s a big misconception. It’s not this one thing you do. And I’m pretty active on Reddit. And like, literally weekly, there’s someone on Reddit saying, I think I’ve committed the unpardonable sin. Am I going to hell? This is a huge fear, fear, fear, fear people have no, it’s not this one often done thing. Otherwise, Paul would be screwed, right? Like he denied Christ, though biggest way possible. He literally before him and mocked him, all of that. So if the unpardonable sin using air quotes here, was this one off and done thing, the then the most of the entire New Testament should go right in the garbage, just saying, because he’d be screwed. And can you lose your salvation? salvation isn’t something good. It’s freely given. It’s not. Oh, God’s not up there. Like it’s not like a band aid where he’s waiting to rip it off. Salvation when Jesus died, salvation, Grace was freely given, like I said, in verse 24, Romans 324, all are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus. So can you lose your salvation, all are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus,

Elaine Johnston 48:48
you can’t lose God. No, you can walk away from God. But you can walk right back to them, like it’s freely given, you can’t lose that, if you Christian in your childhood, because that’s what everyone told you to do. And then you grew up and then went off to college and did your own thing. And then you were like, Well, you know, I don’t really believe in God, I’m questioning or, like, I’m a hardcore atheist or agnostic, agnostic or something. And then something happens in your life. And you’re like, actually, I think, God, Israel, God’s like, Okay, I’m here, like, Come back to me. Like, you know, it’s that parable of the prodigal son, you know, God’s waiting there with open arms saying, like, welcome home, like, he’s not going to turn his back on you just because you turn your back on him like he is freely there whenever you want him.

Cody Johnston 49:36
Yeah. So just to sum all this up. Sin is a nature just as Grace is a nature. We’re born into a world that constitutes both. And it is our choice freely, to be able to accept whichever one we want to rule our lives. Sin isn’t this thing, you’re constantly having to pick apart, you’re not having to constantly focus on actually the more you focus on, the more you’re actually probably in sin nature, because that’s what you ruling your thoughts, even if you’re trying to, like, you know, get it out of your mind. Your constant focus of it is actually what’s ruling your thoughts. The bigger thing here is realizing that you have to let your thoughts flow on through, go find the source and allow the journey to unfold, and our, what salvation is what redemption is what acceptance of Christ is, and what repentance is, is literally allowing your daily walk, to try to follow in the footsteps of Christ follow along with Christ. And despite our stumbling despite our mess ups, our hiccups along the way, we’re still in effort to be the way God intended for us to be EBRBR pure creation that is, you know, like follow in line with the creation that is in us. And the more we focus on God, and turn our backs to focusing on sin, the more we will be like him.

Elaine Johnston 51:03
So I guess the question for this week would probably be what kingdom? Are you operating under fear? Or are you operating under grace and mercy and life?

Cody Johnston 51:14
That’s good. We want to hear from you guys reckless community already mentioned in the show notes below. We want you to be a part. And just a quick thing, if you enjoy bible history and some of these verses that we often talk about characters, places events throughout the Bible, but you enjoy hearing other perspectives. I’d like to invite you to listen to itinerant biblical history beyond the Bible. That is my new show. It is kind of setup like if you’re sitting around a campfire telling spooky stories, but these spooky stories just so happened to be from the Bible and other ancient texts, other beliefs. My last episode was actually about demons. It’s called we are legion and is talking about the origin of demons. Just a quick little thing to spark your interest. The word demon is actually not in Jewish culture at all. We just kind of added it in. So what are demons? Where do they come from? Are they fallen angels? Are they deceased spirits are they from our own minds. That’s something we talked about there. So I would love to have your part you can head over to itinerant podcast that’s it INERAMTI in her and itinerant podcast.com. You can also just go to the breakfast pursuit. In the top left corner, there’s a link because it’s all under the same website. We want to hear from you. drop us an email, head over to our website, grab into that Facebook group and share this on with a friend and we look forward to talking with you guys soon. And as always be brave, be bold and be reckless.

Elaine Johnston 52:50
We’ll talk soon