0:00:00 - 0:00:19 I'd like to take a minute and discuss some thoughts about finding the difference between the sacred and the profane. This is a reference to a verse in Ezekiel that I uh elaborated on and shared some similar scriptures about in another video. But in this presentation, I just uh want I ne I need to draw 0:00:19 - 0:00:42 some pictures. I wanted to drill down more into this idea of finding the value in things by diving deeper into them. And uh as you learn more about them, separating the value from the things that take away from value and how that's a central purpose of our life. So uh to start off, I want to draw a distinction 0:00:41 - 0:01:03 between two types of teachers. Uh So in this slide, these are the kinds of teachers that are helpful. Uh They do two things on the first level. They try to draw people into the willingness to sacrifice all things. So that's an attitude, not an event. It's a process that never ends. But this is a level 0:01:03 - 0:01:24 of discipleship with God that few reach. Although uh that's, that's uh it's quite unfortunate because it's necessary uh for everything that comes after And so for all those who have not yet made this sacrifice, whatever benefit they've encountered in the gospel or that they think they've encountered 0:01:23 - 0:01:50 um is actually fleeting and temporary and it will be overcome as all things are revealed and some people encounter this sooner than others, but it's a sure fire outcome if you're in that boat. So the most important thing teachers can help people do is is to make this sacrifice. Um Now, there, there's 0:01:49 - 0:02:13 a whole variety of different details that you might uh pursue or frameworks you might pursue to help people do this. So for example, in moses' Day and for many years thereafter, the avenue for this was the law of Moses. Um Today, we have other options, but the fact remains that throughout all history 0:02:13 - 0:02:42 , um there has to be some framework. So, so to put this a different way, there has to be a set of rules in order to uh facilitate someone being able to say I'm doing everything. And uh yeah, I'll leave that as it is until the next slide. So once someone comes through that gate and they are have a full 0:02:42 - 0:03:02 willingness, then another process begins while, while that first process continues. And that is the shifting and growing of their understanding. And so the second level of being a teacher or, or maybe the second level of the people you're teaching a little bit of both is to impart the wisdom necessary 0:03:02 - 0:03:23 for them to continue to grow um in understanding. So uh that, that becomes the gateway of encountering greater value than anything you could encounter through a fixed list of rules. Um So a lot more could be say, said about that. We're just touching on this to sort of frame up the whole conversation 0:03:22 - 0:03:43 today. So the question though is what gospel teacher do, you know who actually does either of these two things, even just level one. So instead of this, what you have is people going around telling folks, oh, you can do whatever you want. It's some flavor of that message, right? So some people say, well 0:03:43 - 0:04:01 , you can do whatever you want except these couple of things. Um, but even then you just kind of do it when it's convenient and if you trip up and make a mistake or if it gets really hard, God understands and you just, you just do what you need to do and everything's great, you'll be saved, you'll be 0:04:01 - 0:04:19 happy. You have everything there is to have. Just do your quote unquote best. They don't actually mean your best but do what's convenient and everything will be fine. Well, that's not level one at all. That teaching if embraced will permanently keep anyone who believes it from achieving level one. And 0:04:19 - 0:00:00 remember that's something you enter into and continue in. They'll never ever go through that door. Level two instead of finding people, uh, teachers helping people to make this, this journey into continuously learning more and understanding more what you have is uh folks going around telling people, 0:00:00 - 0:04:56 well, there's really not that much to know. I can explain it to you in five seconds. Uh much smarter people than you have figured this out. And really all you have to do is trust me and let's just go with it and that's all there is to know. So I can convey to you in five seconds, all you need to know 0:04:56 - 0:05:14 and you're just gonna be on repeat with that for the rest of your life and you can rest confidently that you have everything. So both of these positions are positively insane for anyone that has eyes. It's, it's, it's abundantly evident that this is false and that there's more out there and that it doesn't 0:05:13 - 0:05:35 match anything you find in the scriptures. But for some reason, the majority of people are in this boat. So let's try to slay a sacred cow. Um This is a topic I've brought up before. You'll uh if you've read uh the Glory of God is intelligence, you've, you've heard this topic brought up, but hopefully 0:05:34 - 0:05:56 we'll address it in a slightly different facet here uh from a different angle. And hopefully people will start to get it because I'm not sure they do so good and evil are not fixed, they are not fixed. This is not an arbitrary point. It's extremely important and it matters because you cannot extract 0:05:56 - 0:06:17 all the value that God has pumped into mortal life. If you are in this idea that these things are fixed buckets and you just, uh when, whenever, whenever anyone talks about the difficulty of discerning between good and evil, all they mean is just figuring out what those buckets are. And once someone 0:06:17 - 0:06:38 hands that knowledge to you, you're good to go and congratulations, you've extracted everything there is to know about life. OK. Again, this is an absolutely absurd position. I don't think you could get someone to believe anything crazier if you tried to. Um why would you have thousands of pages of scripture 0:06:37 - 0:07:02 if it was as simple as that? Right? So, um sin, it's not a list of do and don't OK. It's, it's a list in the sense that at any time you should be able to divide that. You should have a model for determining what's right and wrong. But it's a growing evolving model. And uh if you're not changing what's 0:07:02 - 0:07:23 on your list, you can, you can uh hold for certain that you're unplugged from God. I'll give you an argument for that in a minute. But he says very plainly that everyone that follows him, it's, you have access to a, to living water, which means running water. It doesn't stop. And if you've stopped, you're 0:07:23 - 0:07:54 off the path. OK? It's a really big deal. So, uh the truth is that what is good? It yields the greatest net benefit. Every word in that phrase is important, the greatest net benefit. So there's a cost and there's a benefit in every choice. And you have to subtract the cost from the benefit to get the 0:07:54 - 0:08:17 net benefit. Many, many times the net benefit has costs in it. In fact, a lot of times the thing with the greatest net benefit also has the greatest absolute cost that doesn't make it a bad choice. It's independent if, if anything, like I said, is correlated with the greatest net benefit, what is very 0:08:17 - 0:08:42 expensive is not necessarily very good, but what is very good tends to be very expensive? Ok. So uh again, that should be really obvious for anyone. But for some reason as humans, we have the ability to walk around carrying uh extremely divergent ideas, they don't agree with each other. So you might 0:08:42 - 0:09:00 think it's totally normal for someone to buy a house. And that's a good idea even though it's extraordinarily expensive. But you think that uh some other choice like a religious choice would be a bad idea just because it has a high price tag. And so you dismiss it out of hand. So that's very silly, right 0:09:00 - 0:09:28 ? It's inconsistent. Um So what is bad? Well, that's everything else. This is a big deal. Bad does not mean has a cost bad does not mean is not good in the sense of um let me rephrase that that does not mean without any benefit. Does that make sense? So good does not mean something that has some benefit 0:09:27 - 0:09:56 . It means what yields the greatest net benefit and bad does not mean that which is without benefit. It means that which is less than the greatest net benefit. Bad is anything less than best because it's loss. If it's not what's best, there's loss there, right? So this is a huge paradigm shift for people 0:09:56 - 0:10:13 because they think, oh, here's a list of things that are always good and here's a list of things that are always bad and bad looks bad, bad, scary. It makes you feel bad. It's hard. It's this, it's, that and good is easy and it's nice and it feels good. That's all nonsense. It's not true at all. Right 0:10:12 - 0:10:33 . Uh, even little kid, we teach little kids this, but somewhere along the way we just go off into LA la land, the land of puppy dogs and rainbows and start thinking that for some reason, uh, spiritual things which are supposed to be the superset of all things. It's not some little thing that you do on 0:10:33 - 0:10:52 Sundays or is this closeted part of your life that you wouldn't bring up in public and has nothing to do with the decisions you make day to day or all day long. Um, that's just not the way it works. It's, it's the other way around and if religion is everything and everything else in life fits inside 0:10:52 - 0:11:13 of it then why on earth would you think it's so simple that um you know, it's ok to spend 22 years of your life in school learning temporal things. But you think you can figure out everything there is to know about religion in five seconds. How is that? And about God and about his character and about 0:11:13 - 0:11:41 what's good and what's evil? Nothing about anything should show you or suggest that this is, this is uh simple, it's not simple at all. There's a lot to know. So all of this, what's good? What's bad? It changes, it changes over time as your understanding changes, what yields the greatest net benefit 0:11:40 - 0:12:00 is not what yields the absolute greatest net benefit. It's your perception of what yields the greatest net benefit. So that makes people really uncomfortable too because if you have two people, they'll have a different understanding about something and this makes them feel very uncomfortable because 0:12:00 - 0:12:20 uh what it means is one of those understandings is more correct than the other. Now, Jesus said if there are two people gathered in my name, I am there in their midst. What did he mean? Uh This isn't some weird supernatural portal thing where magically anytime two or three people get together and start 0:12:19 - 0:12:39 thinking about Jesus magically, Jesus appears uh has that ever happened? Um Instead what it means is that one of these people has an understanding that's closer to God's than the other in anything. What I mean, by that is if you made a big old list of everything they thought about everything you could 0:12:39 - 0:12:59 go down the list. And in every single case where there's a difference, one of those perceptions will be closer to God than the other and it will flip flop across the list between the two people, which one's closer. It doesn't mean that one is radically closer than the other. Maybe they're so similar 0:12:58 - 0:13:18 that it, it doesn't matter all that much. But there will be a difference and there can be the case where one is radically closer than the other. So as your understanding changes, your understanding of good and evil will also change because your perspective on the full picture, you know, it broadens and 0:13:18 - 0:13:45 it deepens it increases in accuracy. And, um, this could be very disturbing if you've been led to believe that somehow, uh, righteousness is a light switch. You're either like God or you're not. But, um, again, this is another aspect of uh contradictory positions that are held by the same person at the 0:13:45 - 0:14:04 same time because, um, the, the kinds of people that have a problem with the fact that whatever it is you're practicing is probably pretty far from how God actually is and it's still good and that's exactly what you should be doing because it's the best you understand and the idea they would, they would 0:14:04 - 0:14:22 really bristle at the idea that a person can actually be like God. And the thing is, is like, if you're gonna hold both of those positions, you better pick one because you can't hold them both at the same time. So if, if you're ok with people, the idea that people are very far from how God is, then why 0:14:21 - 0:14:41 would you ever expect that we can somehow understand completely and totally and finally how he is because they go together, right? And if you're ok with progressing to that point, little by little, you should also be ok with the fact that the, the path to righteousness is doing the best, you know, right 0:14:41 - 0:15:02 now, all the time and expecting that understanding to grow over time. So what is good is just a simple question of, is it the best or isn't it the best? And that's all there is that is a light switch but the light switch that's specific to every single person um bad. On the other hand, that can be ranked 0:15:01 - 0:15:21 because uh something being bad doesn't mean it's the worst. It's everything less than the best and something that's just a little less than the best is way better than something that's worst. Does that make sense? So I didn't think that s live would take that long. Sheesh. We're in for it guys. I hope 0:15:21 - 0:15:40 you have a snack. Um OK, good and evil. They're not fixed. We're just continuing on this. So, uh in discussions about this, someone will throw out this this term, this phrase, the law like, oh, well, we just have to keep the commandments quote unquote. We just have to keep the law quote unquote. Well 0:15:39 - 0:15:58 , what is that? And, and we could go through the scriptures and present 100 different ideas about what that might possibly mean. So, because like everything else, this is a progressive successive understanding, you could rank all these things and it'll be like a pyramid, it leads to a point. And what 0:15:57 - 0:16:18 is that point? That point is love. So if God is love, then you probably can't go wrong. Like if, if that's the one word description for how he is, you probably can't go wrong, going in that direction. So on this point, I actually, I wanted to spend some time so that we can go through scriptures. See 0:16:17 - 0:16:34 every, every little thing we're gonna talk about here. We could spend a lot of time in the scriptures on, but we just don't have infinite amounts of time. So go and study these things for yourself. But I've selected a few scriptures that just highlight some aspects of this that I thought would be helpful 0:16:33 - 0:16:58 . So if we were to break down the law, quote unquote, um you probably can't go wrong with, with how Jesus defined it, which was love, the Lord with all your heart, all your soul and all your mind. He said that's number one and number two is love your neighbor as yourself. This is a beautiful, beautiful 0:16:57 - 0:00:00 passage. It would be very nice to spend a few hours just talking through this. Um But we have to move on so we'll just leave it at that. Love God, love your neighbor. OK. So how would you define that? How do you know what that looks like? Um And I think it's pretty evident that what this looks like. 0:00:00 - 0:17:45 It, it's a function of your understanding of what the following list is not exhaustive, but it at least includes your understanding of God of the world, meaning the way things work cause and effect of cost and benefit of what is possible. So, can you enumerate all options? And then the idea of who is 0:17:44 - 0:18:06 my neighbor, which is also a very rich idea, but we're just gonna cover it superficially for the sake of time and all of these things are gonna change as you increase in understanding. Unfortunately, they also change as you decrease in understanding because it's a bidirectional thing. So uh your understanding 0:18:05 - 0:18:32 of God is incomplete and it's probably incorrect in a lot of ways. And that's true for everyone. So until you are exactly like God is, and unless you are exactly like God is, your understanding of God will be incomplete or incorrect. So um in Isaiah 55 the Lord says, my thoughts are not your thoughts 0:18:31 - 0:18:49 , your ways are not my ways as the heavens are higher than the earth. So are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts higher than your thoughts. So that's a pretty big distance. So we should just assume, right? That if, if you believe this is stronger than assuming, if you believe that God said 0:18:49 - 0:19:10 that and unless you have some, some other interpretation for what that could possibly mean, we should conclude that what we think about God is probably very different than how he actually is. Jesus said to one of his disciples uh after a, a duration of his ministry where this person was with him uh every 0:19:10 - 0:19:34 day, he said, have I been so long time with you? And yet hast thou not known me? So if a person who was with Jesus pretty much every day for something like three years, if Jesus could say to Him, you have no idea who I am. What do you think he would say to you? And then finally, we read in another place 0:19:34 - 0:19:52 that the works of the Lord are great and marvelous. And that doesn't mean like, wow, they're so awesome. It means that they are so far from what we would expect and so much more than what we understand continues how unsearchable are the depths and the mysteries of Him. And it is impossible that man should 0:19:52 - 0:20:12 find out all his ways and no man knoweth of his ways, save it, be revealed unto him. Wherefore brethren despise not the revelations of God. So we know very little about God. Anything we do know is through revelation and anything we're going to know is through additional revelation. So this is a process 0:20:11 - 0:20:33 in the life of every individual to get to know God. It's a mysterious thing. So if we don't know God, how could we conclude that we absolutely know what he wants us to do or not to do in our lives at any moment? Of course, we don't. And then when it comes to reality in the world and the way things work 0:20:32 - 0:20:51 , there are a lot of good scriptures for that. But this one I thought was nice to share here. And this is where God's dressing down job at the end of his six month trial. And he questions job who is acting as if he knows so much about the way things work and what's just and what's not just and complaining 0:20:50 - 0:21:10 about his situation. Um God says to him, where were you when I laid the foundations of the earth? Tell me if you have understanding who determined its measurements, surely, you know, or who stretched the line upon it to what were its foundations fastened or who laid its cornerstone? When the morning 0:21:10 - 0:21:31 stars sang together and all the sons of God shouted for joy. So in other words, and this is a really powerful chapter if you read the whole thing, but God is and extends more than one chapter. God is helping job, see how little He understands about the, the way things work. And if this is true for job 0:21:30 - 0:21:54 that went through all of what he did and was a very righteous man, uh How much more true is it for others? And we continue here, what about cost and benefit? So um the, the way I'll try to illustrate this is if God has things to reveal to us about what is good and what isn't, doesn't that imply that 0:21:53 - 0:00:00 we do not know uh naturally what is or automatically what is good and what is not good. And so there, here's two scriptures and I guess keep this short, I'll just read the second one. But the, the ho by the power of the Holy Ghost, you may know the truth of all things that implies, it doesn't imply, 0:00:00 - 0:22:30 I mean, it shows that you do not, we do not know the truth of all things naturally. It's not an automatic thing. It's something we have to discover, we have to learn more about. OK. And, and now what about what is possible? Do you know what the set of options are? This is also something that we're in 0:22:30 - 0:22:54 the dark about by nature. Uh Jesus gives a parable, the mustard seed and he says, um nothing shall be impossible unto you. And then in another place, he says, uh with men is an imp. It is impossible but not with God for with God. All things are possible. So in the case of this little seed growing into 0:22:54 - 0:23:19 a great tree. And in the case of uh uh he was talking about the difficulty of rich people getting into heaven in both cases. Uh What seems impossible for men is not impossible for God. So the set of what is possible, what we imagine to be possible is not the same as what is actually possible. Um So that's 0:23:18 - 0:23:40 another place where our understanding can grow. And finally, this idea of who is my neighbor, which is a very broad topic. But basically, it comes down to understanding just what depths of love are possible, I guess, depth and breadth. Um And Paul talks about this in another place. I don't have that 0:23:40 - 0:24:05 scripture up here, but the, the, the uh height of God's love and just, just how much God loves us because that translates into an approach for how much we can love other people. And so, um someone trying to entrap Jesus asked him, uh what uh what he had to do to get eternal life. He was trying to set 0:24:05 - 0:24:28 him up so he could use the scripture and show that he didn't know what he was talking about. And Jesus spun around and uh I, I already read the Love God and love your neighbor part. Um But the guy didn't give up and he said, well, who's my neighbor? So he was trying to uh reduce the list of his responsibilities 0:24:27 - 0:24:48 toward his fellow men. And then uh Jesus replied, by teaching him the parable of the good Samaritan. In other words, uh your neighbor is anyone for whom you can do good. And this is interesting because here we are trying to figure out what's good and what's evil. So it's kind of a circular explanation 0:24:47 - 0:25:08 , but that's the point you, you, it's easy to say like, oh, who is my neighbor? My neighbor is anyone for whom I can do good? Well, what's good? And, and now we're back to the beginning. It's the greatest benefit. Um So what is truly the greatest benefit? Well, coming back to love, love God and love 0:25:08 - 0:25:30 your neighbors. This is a nice way to wrap it all up. Jesus said, greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends. And even in this people try to weasel out of it and justify themselves by saying, well, I guess I'm willing to die for people I love, but that's all backwards 0:25:29 - 0:25:55 . Uh I in at least two ways, one there is love. You can give that's greater than dying, right? So to lay down your life for your friends, it's easy, relatively speaking to die. It's a lot harder to keep living in a sanctified way, wholly dedicated to the benefit of other people. The other thing is uh 0:25:55 - 0:26:16 who's your neighbor, who's your friend, right? And there's, there's another depth here which is, can you feel this way? Can you sacrifice as much for all people, including folks you've never met before and including folks that absolutely hate you. Not to mention folks who could never pay you back. So 0:26:16 - 0:26:43 can you love them first? As Jesus loved all of us first, can you love them as Jesus loved? Right? So obviously, this is something that we can grow in our understanding and practice of. So OK, this is how the churches teach this. There's a box and there's a label in the box and it says things God cares 0:26:43 - 0:27:05 about. And in that box, there are two buckets, there's a bucket with a label that says good. And there's a bucket with a label that says evil. Now, every church has different things in each bucket. But all churches have buckets and all churches have lists in the buckets. Um I tried to pick some that 0:27:05 - 0:27:30 are generic here, shared by a lot of different faiths, but each different sect has a different list. The point is that uh in all cases, there is another list outside of the box, which it's not a list, it's unbounded and it's things God does not care about. So, churches teach that there are lists of things 0:27:30 - 0:27:53 that God cares about and then everything else we have a free pass on. So, um it turns out that a whole lot of things on the list that says God does not care about these things. There are a whole lot of things that actually he does care about. In fact, he cares about everything. There isn't anything in 0:27:53 - 0:28:16 life that doesn't matter and that flies in the face of what you will hear at pretty much every church. So the first step in fixing this and growing past the limits of this because, because living in this box is like having a potted plant. If you plant a full size fruit tree and a pot, it's never gonna 0:28:15 - 0:28:35 grow and it's never gonna grow fruit, right? I know there are many trees and whatever. Let's not overcomplicate it. If you put a regular fruit tree in a little pot, you're never ever gonna get fruit. So we gotta get rid of the pot. So you take away that box and you accept the or at least entertain the 0:28:35 - 0:29:00 possibility that God actually cares about everything. So once you delete the box, then you can go to work on these buckets and it turns out it is super duper easy to uh live according to any church's buckets. So any church you go to whatever their bucket is, you give me that bucket. I will make it happen 0:28:59 - 0:29:19 . It is not hard compared to what God actually asks of us. It is a piece of cake and that's how they get people to keep coming and to give them money. They say, oh, you feel guilty? Oh, your life's a mess. Well, how about this? You give me lots of money and I'll give you this list of things and all you 0:29:19 - 0:00:00 have to do is what's on the list. And all of a sudden, I mean, you'll feel guiltless, you'll feel totally free and I'll promise you that God will take care of you and make your life wonderful. And that even if your life continues to be a total disaster, everything will magically change when you die. 0:00:00 - 0:29:52 And even though you have absolutely no connection to God here now and none of the things that are in the scriptures that everyone who ever believed in God experienced. I promise you that when you die, all these things will magically come to you. Um Hopefully you don't buy cars from your pastors, priests 0:29:52 - 0:30:17 and prophets. Uh Otherwise you probably don't have a car that works and you're, you're probably broke anyway. The truth is um that uh doing what God actually says is a heck of a lot harder than what these other people, these false teachers tell you. So step one, you delete the box. Step two is you have 0:30:17 - 0:00:00 to zoom in and chop up the things in the buckets. So what do I mean by that? You need greater detail. You need to actually think about the value of these things and think about what they are. And you know, going back a bunch of slides, these things, you need to think about your understanding of God. 0:00:00 - 0:30:55 Like what would he do about this situation? You need to think about the world, how does the world really work because how else are you gonna assess benefit? You need to think about cost and benefit. Not just, hey, this thing feels good today, but what's the long term outcome? You need to think about 0:30:55 - 0:31:13 what's possible because you can't know what's best unless you've enumerated all the options and weighed out each one. Um And you need to think about who your neighbor is because how can you love someone if uh you don't feel responsible for them first or you don't know them or you don't care about them 0:31:13 - 0:31:38 . So, as you zoom in, let's just pick one and this is go to church, don't go to church, right? So in the bucket uh paradigm, people who go to church are, are quote unquote good and people who don't go to church are quote unquote bad, right? Obviously, that's way too simplistic. So let's zoom in and let's 0:31:37 - 0:31:55 chop it up because that's what priests do. They zoom in and they chop it up. So when we zoom in what we have to do is first, we have to enumerate what the options are. And second, we have to weigh out the cost benefit of each and then we know what the best thing is and then we can go with it. So in this 0:31:55 - 0:32:17 case, uh the options include that there are many different churches. So a church doesn't equal a church. All churches are not the same even within a specific sect, all churches are not the same. There, there might be, you know, let's look at the Catholics. There's gonna be one Catholic congregation that 0:32:17 - 0:32:37 has a priest that's on point and he's really doing what he should be doing and there's gonna be a lot of congregations that just don't have that kind of priest and it's gonna be a fundamentally different experience. Ok. And then there are obviously significant differences between the sects. Another option 0:32:36 - 0:32:54 is don't go to church but still be religious. And another option is don't go to church and don't be religious, right? And you could subdivide those options even further. So then you go down the line and you say here's some costs, here's some benefits. You might find that not going to church and still 0:32:54 - 0:33:15 being religious has a lot more net benefit than any other option. Um So you go with that and you increase in your understanding because you're in a better place. So step three is you just keep doing this forever. So in an ideal situation, your understanding of all things is just gonna continue to grow 0:33:15 - 0:33:37 . Jesus said that those that, that seek and find the water that he gives. He says I shall give sorry, the water that I shall give him shall be in him a well of water springing up into everlasting life in the spring. It just keeps giving water. It never stops. You keep drawing it out and it, it just replaces 0:33:36 - 0:33:59 itself inside this little river here. And life will provide you a never ending source of new thoughts and experiences and you should be continuously rehashing what you regard as good and evil uh through asking what the options are and what the cost benefit of each are. And that's how you go on and that's 0:33:59 - 0:34:23 how you secure or lay hold to every good thing and you just keep improving. So we're gonna go through two more examples to demonstrate this and to um illustrate uh a significant benefit of this approach to life. So here's a progression of thought through more and more sophisticated uh steps. So you might 0:34:23 - 0:34:45 start, it seems a lot of people believe this today by saying people are basically good. OK? You live according to that belief, I challenge you to do it. And if you live, according to that belief very soon, you will find at least one person who breaks the mold, one person who is most definitely bad and 0:34:45 - 0:35:05 that person is gonna cause you great harm. And then you get to decide what to do with your original belief that quote unquote people are good. Well, you'll have to evolve to uh if you're honest, you have to modify your belief to, there are at least a set of people who are bad. And then over time, if 0:35:05 - 0:35:26 you keep living according to that belief, you'll, you'll assemble enough evidence that you have to conclude that. In fact, most people are bad. So, uh from there, you can further chop this up because you will encounter people who are good and uh you'll still have plenty of evidence to believe that most 0:35:26 - 0:35:45 people are bad. But if you stop it, most people are bad, you're never going to see the good people because you won't believe it's possible. Right? We talked about possibilities and you won't be able to uh benefit from their goodness. But then there's, there's another step still, which is that even in 0:35:45 - 0:36:09 the bad people, most people have at least something good about them. And so if you, if your mission is, if you believe that humans are created in the image of God, then you have to believe that there's some aspect of God in all people. And if you do believe that and you love God, you're, you're going 0:36:08 - 0:36:27 to live your life in a way where you're trying to find that good and also trying to foster the development of that good because you'll believe that we all have this divine potential and you'll get much more out of life than if you just stop at the very first belief on this list of oh, people are good 0:36:27 - 0:36:45 . Ok. Well, if all people are good, then we don't really need to improve because we're already pretty much there. And um, there's, there's really nothing that anyone else has to offer you because you probably already have it for yourself and to end end. If you stop it, the next step, which is this person 0:36:45 - 0:37:05 is bad, you're never going to trust anyone and derive the unique value that you can encounter when you trust people that are worthy of your trust. Um If you just say, well, these people are bad and you stop there, so we can just keep going through this. But maybe you get the point and it's not necessary 0:37:05 - 0:37:32 . The point is if you stop on an earlier step of understanding, you will never find the benefit provided uh uniquely by a superior uh position of understanding. So the more understanding you get, the more good you get, the more good that's inside of you, the more good you can do for the world and the 0:37:32 - 0:37:53 more good you will encounter in the world. So here's another example and we don't have to spend as much time on it. But there are rather simplistic beliefs about the value of music for, for most people who are religious, for many people. I should say not most per se, it might be most, but I don't know 0:37:53 - 0:38:16 that. So we'll just leave it at many. I've met many people who have very simplistic ideas about. Oh, here's a rule that says whether music is good or not. Well, and that rule might be as simple as it's gospel music or not. I've heard more uh specific rules from people. But the point is that uh what is 0:38:16 - 0:38:39 good is not delineated by some easily definable line. And if it were that easy, then we could just stop with a list. Someone could give us a list and we could be told that's all there is to know. And that doesn't exist. I mean, even the law of Moses with all its specific rules, it's very plain that the 0:38:39 - 0:39:00 end of the law is Christ. Christ is not a list. He's a being, he's a being that has so much depth to him that John, the revelator who knew him best out of all of his mortal associates during his life said that you could, the all the books in the world couldn't fit what there is to know about Jesus. That's 0:39:00 - 0:39:24 how he ended his gospel. Think about that. The guy who knew him best ended his story of his life by saying, but frankly, you could never write enough about this person because there's so much to know about him that, that you could just never stop and it wouldn't be enough. So now uh I wanna go, I'll 0:39:23 - 0:39:42 say back to, I'm pretty sure this was in a video I did ages ago. I, I took these slides out of another slide show. I try to keep what I've presented separate from what I haven't, but sometimes some overlap happens. But whether or not I presented this, it's very relevant to the topic and I already spent 0:39:42 - 0:40:08 a lot of time doing these drawings. So we're gonna rehash this, this is just another uh perspective of what I've talked about here. So you've got your buckets of good and evil. And in this uh in this paradigm, in this framework, the box isn't what God cares about. It's your awareness. So you have a perspective 0:40:07 - 0:40:29 , a perception of the world. But um our perception of the world is not the world, it's just a slice of it. And that slice is like a box in the sense that there are boundaries to it. But this picture doesn't uh illustrate this, but there's also a depth question. And so um it's not just a question of how 0:40:29 - 0:40:50 much of the picture do you see? It's also how accurate is each aspect of that picture? Because it's, it's really blurry and it, it should increase in detail over time. But uh that only happen if you put the effort into it and you actually understand what you're doing. So, um let's say these dots are 0:40:50 - 0:41:09 different ideas. Um You, you, you can say their potential actions if that makes it easier to think about. But um we don't have to get too bogged down with that. So whatever your awareness is, you have all these ideas of things you could do or what's righteous, what's not righteous, what's, what's good 0:41:09 - 0:41:30 and what's evil. And basically what, what uh the religions are gonna tell you to do is pop all these dots into a box. Is it good or is it evil. So you do that. And uh that's great. Right? So if you only have a couple of dots and someone's already telling you where to put things, uh, what you're gonna 0:41:29 - 0:41:44 end up with is something like this where you have a few dots in good, a few dots in evil. And that's the thing your church tells you do this, don't do that. And you got a bunch of dots that are in your awareness, but your church isn't telling you what to do about them. They just say all these things 0:41:43 - 0:42:07 don't matter, eat whatever you want for breakfast. And um what happens is, is you go through life unless your heads in the sand or all you do is watch TV, all day. I guess the modern version of this is tiktok. Then um your awareness is gonna grow what uh uh as you walk through life, your, your idea of 0:42:07 - 0:00:00 what's out there is going to grow, it's gonna expand, you're gonna gain more details and what you're looking at and there will be more to look at. And so um breaking free of the church paradigm is understanding that you have to put all that stuff into evil or good. You have to decide which they are. 0:00:00 - 0:42:47 And then something interesting is gonna happen as you learn more about reality and that's like these dots get bigger. You have more detail about these ideas. What's gonna happen is they're actually going to change buckets so something you thought was good, it might end up being something that you now 0:42:46 - 0:43:06 think is evil and something that I don't show in this, which would be good to show is a lot of these things are gonna split and that's that I really should have shown that. But maybe I can just describe it. So as the dot gets bigger, it's gonna be like a cell that divides and uh some of the stuff is 0:43:06 - 0:43:24 gonna stay in the good and some of it's gonna go over to evil and some of it's gonna stay in the evil and some of it's gonna go over to good. And that actually happens way more often than one of these dots switching from good to evil, right? So just a random example of this is maybe you have this perspective 0:43:24 - 0:43:46 that uh being nice to people is always good. And then as you accumulate uh more understanding about reality and the effects of things you figure out that uh what the world calls being nice sometimes is the most harmful thing you can do to someone or flipped around. Uh Sometimes the nicest thing you can 0:43:46 - 0:44:09 do to someone is say something to them that most people will consider to be very mean. Um But there is great value in being the only person in someone's life who's gonna tell them the actual truth even if they're hated for doing. So, um So that's an example of how something can grow and split and change 0:44:09 - 0:44:26 , right? But if you're just in this world where in this worldview where things never change and then there's just a fixed list of good and a fixed list of evil. You can never ever be that person who's gonna tell someone what they need to hear and what no one else has the courage or love to tell them 0:44:26 - 0:44:46 . So there are many, many, many things like this and your awareness, your understanding of what's out there. It's gonna change over time. Even if you're not trying to change it just going through life, you're gonna get blasted with all these situations that you can learn from. Now, you'll get a lot more 0:44:46 - 0:45:02 of them and you'll get a lot more out of them if you actually put forth effort, but you're never gonna put forth effort. If you think that this short list that some pastor or priest or prophet gave you is all there is to know. There's way more to know unless you're already like God completely. And you 0:45:02 - 0:45:19 can say no, you could swap out me and God. There'd be no difference. And I don't know anyone who says that, who has said that. And I think if anyone said that a lot of people would have a lot of problems with that. So if you don't believe that you're that person, then surely there's tons more to know 0:45:18 - 0:45:40 . Uh anyway, what's this? You could call this pro I was talking about uh chopping things and, and uh making a difference between good and evil or sacred and profane. But uh there are other phrases used in the scriptures. One of them is searching in the light of Christ. That's a beautiful phrase. Um So 0:45:39 - 0:46:02 it, you have to expand your awareness, you have to increase the light and increasing the light is gonna increase what you see and the proper response to an increase in what you see is to treat those things differently. You have to sort and resort what you consider to be good and evil. So circling back 0:46:02 - 0:46:24 to the green box, conclusion on the two example slides of game, the point to drive home here is you absolutely won't get as much joy out of life. If you don't do this, you have to increase your knowledge of good and evil and, and there are a lot of things that, that uh prevent you a lot of beliefs that 0:46:24 - 0:46:41 will absolutely prevent you from even bothering to do that. And for missing all the opportunities of things that might teach you that. So to sum up, uh you can think of the good that God has distributed in this world like gold. There's some gold, that's just the nuggets sitting right there on the surface 0:00:00 - 0:00:19 I'd like to take a minute and discuss some thoughts about finding the difference between the sacred and the profane. This is a reference to a verse in Ezekiel that I uh elaborated on and shared some similar scriptures about in another video. But in this presentation, I just uh want I ne I need to draw 0:00:19 - 0:00:42 some pictures. I wanted to drill down more into this idea of finding the value in things by diving deeper into them. And uh as you learn more about them, separating the value from the things that take away from value and how that's a central purpose of our life. So uh to start off, I want to draw a distinction 0:00:41 - 0:01:03 between two types of teachers. Uh So in this slide, these are the kinds of teachers that are helpful. Uh They do two things on the first level. They try to draw people into the willingness to sacrifice all things. So that's an attitude, not an event. It's a process that never ends. But this is a level 0:01:03 - 0:01:24 of discipleship with God that few reach. Although uh that's, that's uh it's quite unfortunate because it's necessary uh for everything that comes after And so for all those who have not yet made this sacrifice, whatever benefit they've encountered in the gospel or that they think they've encountered 0:01:23 - 0:01:50 um is actually fleeting and temporary and it will be overcome as all things are revealed and some people encounter this sooner than others, but it's a sure fire outcome if you're in that boat. So the most important thing teachers can help people do is is to make this sacrifice. Um Now, there, there's 0:01:49 - 0:02:13 a whole variety of different details that you might uh pursue or frameworks you might pursue to help people do this. So for example, in moses' Day and for many years thereafter, the avenue for this was the law of Moses. Um Today, we have other options, but the fact remains that throughout all history 0:02:13 - 0:02:42 , um there has to be some framework. So, so to put this a different way, there has to be a set of rules in order to uh facilitate someone being able to say I'm doing everything. And uh yeah, I'll leave that as it is until the next slide. So once someone comes through that gate and they are have a full 0:02:42 - 0:03:02 willingness, then another process begins while, while that first process continues. And that is the shifting and growing of their understanding. And so the second level of being a teacher or, or maybe the second level of the people you're teaching a little bit of both is to impart the wisdom necessary 0:03:02 - 0:03:23 for them to continue to grow um in understanding. So uh that, that becomes the gateway of encountering greater value than anything you could encounter through a fixed list of rules. Um So a lot more could be say, said about that. We're just touching on this to sort of frame up the whole conversation 0:03:22 - 0:03:43 today. So the question though is what gospel teacher do, you know who actually does either of these two things, even just level one. So instead of this, what you have is people going around telling folks, oh, you can do whatever you want. It's some flavor of that message, right? So some people say, well 0:03:43 - 0:04:01 , you can do whatever you want, accept these couple of things. Um, but even then you just kind of do it when it's convenient and if you trip up and make a mistake or if it gets really hard, God understands and you just, you just do what you need to do and everything's great, you'll be saved, you'll be 0:04:01 - 0:04:19 happy. You have everything there is to have just do your quote unquote best. They don't actually mean your best but do what's convenient and everything will be fine. Well, that's not level one at all. That teaching if embraced will permanently keep anyone who believes it from achieving level one. And 0:04:19 - 0:00:00 remember that's something you enter into and continue in. They'll never ever go through that door. Level two instead of finding people, uh, teachers helping people to make this, this journey into continuously learning more and understanding more what you have is uh folks going around telling people, 0:00:00 - 0:04:56 well, there's really not that much to know. I can explain it to you in five seconds. Uh much smarter people than you have figured this out. And really all you have to do is trust me and let's just go with it and that's all there is to know. So I can convey to you in five seconds, all you need to know 0:04:56 - 0:05:14 and you're just gonna be on repeat with that for the rest of your life and you can rest confidently that you have everything. So both of these positions are positively insane for anyone that has eyes. It's, it's, it's abundantly evident that this is false and that there's more out there and that it doesn't 0:05:13 - 0:05:35 match anything you find in the scriptures. But for some reason, the majority of people are in this boat. So let's try to slay a sacred cow. Um This is a topic I've brought up before. You'll uh if you've read uh the Glory of God is intelligence, you've, you've heard this topic brought up, but hopefully 0:05:34 - 0:05:56 we'll address it in a slightly different facet here uh from a different angle. And hopefully people will start to get it because I'm not sure they do so good and evil are not fixed, they are not fixed. This is not an arbitrary point. It's extremely important and it matters because you cannot extract 0:05:56 - 0:06:17 all the value that God has pumped into mortal life. If you are in this idea that these things are fixed buckets and you just, uh when, whenever, whenever anyone talks about the difficulty of discerning between good and evil, all they mean is just figuring out what those buckets are. And once someone 0:06:17 - 0:06:38 hands that knowledge to you, you're good to go and congratulations, you've extracted everything there is to know about life. OK. Again, this is an absolutely absurd position. I don't think you could get someone to believe anything crazier if you tried to. Um why would you have thousands of pages of scripture 0:06:37 - 0:07:02 if it was as simple as that? Right? So, um sin, it's not a list of do and don't OK. It's, it's a list in the sense that at any time you should be able to divide that. You should have a model for determining what's right and wrong. But it's a growing evolving model. And uh if you're not changing what's 0:07:02 - 0:07:23 on your list, you can, you can uh hold for certain that you're unplugged from God. I'll give you an argument for that in a minute. But he says very plainly that everyone that follows him, it's, you have access to a, to living water, which means running water. It doesn't stop. And if you've stopped, you're 0:07:23 - 0:07:54 off the path. OK? It's a really big deal. So, uh the truth is that what is good? It yields the greatest net benefit. Every word in that phrase is important, the greatest net benefit. So there's a cost and there's a benefit in every choice. And you have to subtract the cost from the benefit to get the 0:07:54 - 0:08:17 net benefit. Many, many times the net benefit has costs in it. In fact, a lot of times the thing with the greatest net benefit also has the greatest absolute cost that doesn't make it a bad choice. It's independent if, if anything, like I said, is correlated with the greatest net benefit, what is very 0:08:17 - 0:08:42 expensive is not necessarily very good, but what is very good tends to be very expensive? Ok. So uh again, that should be really obvious for anyone. But for some reason as humans, we have the ability to walk around carrying uh extremely divergent ideas, they don't agree with each other. So you might 0:08:42 - 0:09:00 think it's totally normal for someone to buy a house. And that's a good idea even though it's extraordinarily expensive. But you think that uh some other choice like a religious choice would be a bad idea just because it has a high price tag. And so you dismiss it out of hand. So that's very silly, right 0:09:00 - 0:09:28 ? It's inconsistent. Um So what is bad? Well, that's everything else. This is a big deal. Bad does not mean has a cost bad does not mean is not good in the sense of um let me rephrase that that does not mean without any benefit. Does that make sense? So good does not mean something that has some benefit 0:09:27 - 0:09:56 . It means what yields the greatest net benefit and bad does not mean that which is without benefit. It means that which is less than the greatest net benefit. Bad is anything less than best because it's loss. If it's not what's best, there's loss there, right? So this is a huge paradigm shift for people 0:09:56 - 0:10:13 because they think, oh, here's a list of things that are always good and here's a list of things that are always bad and bad looks bad, bad, scary. It makes you feel bad. It's hard. It's this, it's, that and good is easy and it's nice and it feels good. That's all nonsense. It's not true at all. Right 0:10:12 - 0:10:33 . Uh, even little kid, we teach little kids this, but somewhere along the way we just go off into LA la land, the land of puppy dogs and rainbows and start thinking that for some reason, uh, spiritual things which are supposed to be the superset of all things. It's not some little thing that you do on 0:10:33 - 0:10:52 Sundays or is this closeted part of your life that you wouldn't bring up in public and has nothing to do with the decisions you make day to day or all day long. Um, that's just not the way it works. It's, it's the other way around and if religion is everything and everything else in life fits inside 0:10:52 - 0:11:13 of it then why on earth would you think it's so simple that um you know, it's ok to spend 22 years of your life in school learning temporal things. But you think you can figure out everything there is to know about religion in five seconds. How is that? And about God and about his character and about 0:11:13 - 0:11:41 what's good and what's evil? Nothing about anything should show you or suggest that this is, this is uh simple, it's not simple at all. There's a lot to know. So all of this, what's good? What's bad? It changes, it changes over time as your understanding changes, what yields the greatest net benefit 0:11:40 - 0:12:00 is not what yields the absolute greatest net benefit. It's your perception of what yields the greatest net benefit. So that makes people really uncomfortable too because if you have two people, they'll have a different understanding about something and this makes them feel very uncomfortable because 0:12:00 - 0:12:20 uh what it means is one of those understandings is more correct than the other. Now, Jesus said if there are two people gathered in my name, I am there in their midst. What did he mean? Uh This isn't some weird supernatural portal thing where magically anytime two or three people get together and start 0:12:19 - 0:12:39 thinking about Jesus magically, Jesus appears uh has that ever happened? Um Instead what it means is that one of these people has an understanding that's closer to God's than the other in anything. What I mean, by that is if you made a big old list of everything they thought about everything you could 0:12:39 - 0:12:59 go down the list. And in every single case where there's a difference, one of those perceptions will be closer to God than the other and it will flip flop across the list between the two people, which one's closer. It doesn't mean that one is radically closer than the other. Maybe they're so similar 0:12:58 - 0:13:18 that it, it doesn't matter all that much. But there will be a difference and there can be the case where one is radically closer than the other. So as your understanding changes, your understanding of good and evil will also change because your perspective on the full picture, you know, it broadens and 0:13:18 - 0:13:45 it deepens it increases in accuracy. And, um, this could be very disturbing if you've been led to believe that somehow, uh, righteousness is a light switch. You're either like God or you're not. But, um, again, this is another aspect of uh contradictory positions that are held by the same person at the 0:13:45 - 0:14:04 same time because, um, the, the kinds of people that have a problem with the fact that whatever it is you're practicing is probably pretty far from how God actually is and it's still good and that's exactly what you should be doing because it's the best you understand and the idea they would, they would 0:14:04 - 0:14:22 really bristle at the idea that a person can actually be like God. And the thing is, is like, if you're gonna hold both of those positions, you better pick one because you can't hold them both at the same time. So if, if you're ok with people, the idea that people are very far from how God is, then why 0:14:21 - 0:14:41 would you ever expect that we can somehow understand completely and totally and finally how he is because they go together, right? And if you're ok with progressing to that point, little by little, you should also be ok with the fact that the, the path to righteousness is doing the best, you know, right 0:14:41 - 0:15:02 now, all the time and expecting that understanding to grow over time. So what is good is just a simple question of, is it the best or isn't it the best? And that's all there is that is a light switch but the light switch that's specific to every single person um bad. On the other hand, that can be ranked 0:15:01 - 0:15:21 because uh something being bad doesn't mean it's the worst. It's everything less than the best and something that's just a little less than the best is way better than something that's worst. Does that make sense? So, I didn't think that s live would take that long. Sheesh. We're in for it guys. I hope 0:15:21 - 0:00:00 you have a snack. Um OK, good and evil. They're not fixed. We'll just continue on this. So, uh in discussions about this, someone will throw out this this term, this phrase, the law like, oh, well, we just have to keep the commandments quote unquote. We just have to keep the law quote unquote. Well, 0:00:00 - 0:15:58 what is that? And, and we could go through the scriptures and present 100 different ideas about what that might possibly mean. So, because like everything else, this is a progressive successive understanding, you could rank all these things and it'll be like a pyramid, it leads to a point. And what is 0:15:58 - 0:16:18 that point? That point is love. So if God is love, then you probably can't go wrong. Like if, if that's the one word description for how he is, you probably can't go wrong, going in that direction. So on this point, I actually, I wanted to spend some time so that we can go through scriptures. See every 0:16:18 - 0:16:34 , every little thing we're gonna talk about here. We could spend a lot of time in the scriptures on, but we just don't have infinite amounts of time. So go and study these things for yourself. But I've selected a few scriptures that just highlight some aspects of this that I thought would be helpful 0:16:33 - 0:16:58 . So if we were to break down the law, quote unquote, um you probably can't go wrong with, with how Jesus defined it, which was love, the Lord with all your heart, all your soul and all your mind. He said that's number one and number two is love your neighbor as yourself. This is a beautiful, beautiful 0:16:57 - 0:00:00 passage. It would be very nice to spend a few hours just talking through this. Um But we have to move on so we'll just leave it at that. Love God, love your neighbor. OK. So how would you define that? How do you know what that looks like? Um And I think it's pretty evident that what this looks like. 0:00:00 - 0:17:45 It, it's a function of your understanding of what the following list is not exhaustive, but it at least includes your understanding of God of the world, meaning the way things work cause and effect of cost and benefit of what is possible. So, can you enumerate all options? And then the idea of who is 0:17:44 - 0:18:06 my neighbor, which is also a very rich idea, but we're just gonna cover it superficially for the sake of time and all of these things are gonna change as you increase in understanding. Unfortunately, they also change as you decrease in understanding because it's a bidirectional thing. So uh your understanding 0:18:05 - 0:18:32 of God is incomplete and it's probably incorrect in a lot of ways. And that's true for everyone. So until you are exactly like God is, and unless you are exactly like God is, your understanding of God will be incomplete or incorrect. So um in Isaiah 55 the Lord says, my thoughts are not your thoughts 0:18:31 - 0:18:49 , your ways are not my ways as the heavens are higher than the earth. So are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts higher than your thoughts. So that's a pretty big distance. So we should just assume, right? That if, if you believe this is stronger than assuming, if you believe that God said 0:18:49 - 0:19:10 that and unless you have some, some other interpretation for what that could possibly mean, we should conclude that what we think about God is probably very different than how he actually is. Jesus said to one of his disciples uh after a, a duration of his ministry where this person was with him uh every 0:19:10 - 0:19:34 day, he said, have I been so long time with you? And yet hast thou not known me? So if a person who was with Jesus pretty much every day for something like three years, if Jesus could say to Him, you have no idea who I am. What do you think he would say to you? And then finally, we read in another place 0:19:34 - 0:19:52 that the works of the Lord are great and marvelous. And that doesn't mean like, wow, they're so awesome. It means that they are so far from what we would expect and so much more than what we understand continues how unsearchable are the depths and the mysteries of Him. And it is impossible that man should 0:19:52 - 0:20:12 find out all his ways and no man knoweth of his ways, save it, be revealed unto him. Wherefore brethren despise not the revelations of God. So we know very little about God. Anything we do know is through revelation and anything we're going to know is through additional revelation. So this is a process 0:20:11 - 0:20:33 in the life of every individual to get to know God. It's a mysterious thing. So if we don't know God, how could we conclude that we absolutely know what he wants us to do or not to do in our lives at any moment? Of course, we don't. And then when it comes to reality in the world and the way things work 0:20:32 - 0:20:51 , there are a lot of good scriptures for that. But this one I thought was nice to share here. And this is where God's dressing down job at the end of his six month trial. And he questions job who is acting as if he knows so much about the way things work and what's just and what's not just and complaining 0:20:50 - 0:21:10 about his situation. Um God says to him, where were you when I laid the foundations of the earth? Tell me if you have understanding who determined its measurements, surely, you know, or who stretched the line upon it to what were its foundations fastened or who laid its cornerstone? When the morning 0:21:10 - 0:21:31 stars sang together and all the sons of God shouted for joy. So in other words, and this is a really powerful chapter if you read the whole thing, but God is and extends more than one chapter. God is helping job, see how little He understands about the, the way things work. And if this is true for job 0:21:30 - 0:21:54 that went through all of what he did and was a very righteous man, uh How much more true is it for others? And we continue here, what about cost and benefit? So um the, the way I'll try to illustrate this is if God has things to reveal to us about what is good and what isn't, doesn't that imply that 0:21:53 - 0:00:00 we do not know uh naturally what is or automatically what is good and what is not good. And so there, here's two scriptures and I guess keep this short, I'll just read the second one. But the, the ho by the power of the Holy Ghost, you may know the truth of all things that implies, it doesn't imply, 0:00:00 - 0:22:30 I mean, it shows that you do not, we do not know the truth of all things naturally. It's not an automatic thing. It's something we have to discover, we have to learn more about. OK. And, and now what about what is possible? Do you know what the set of options are? This is also something that we're in 0:22:30 - 0:22:54 the dark about by nature. Uh Jesus gives a parable, the mustard seed and he says, um nothing shall be impossible unto you. And then in another place, he says, uh with men is an imp. It is impossible but not with God for with God. All things are possible. So in the case of this little seed growing into 0:22:54 - 0:23:19 a great tree. And in the case of uh uh he was talking about the difficulty of rich people getting into heaven in both cases. Uh What seems impossible for men is not impossible for God. So the set of what is possible, what we imagine to be possible is not the same as what is actually possible. Um So that's 0:23:18 - 0:23:40 another place where our understanding can grow. And finally, this idea of who is my neighbor, which is a very broad topic. But basically, it comes down to understanding just what depths of love are possible, I guess, depth and breadth. Um And Paul talks about this in another place. I don't have that 0:23:40 - 0:24:05 scripture up here, but the, the, the uh height of God's love and just, just how much God loves us because that translates into an approach for how much we can love other people. And so, um someone trying to entrap Jesus asked him, uh what uh what he had to do to get eternal life. He was trying to set 0:24:05 - 0:24:28 him up so he could use the scripture and show that he didn't know what he was talking about. And Jesus spun around and uh I, I already read the Love God and love your neighbor part. Um But the guy didn't give up and he said, well, who's my neighbor? So he was trying to uh reduce the list of his responsibilities 0:24:27 - 0:24:48 toward his fellow men. And then uh Jesus replied, by teaching him the parable of the good Samaritan. In other words, uh your neighbor is anyone for whom you can do good. And this is interesting because here we are trying to figure out what's good and what's evil. So it's kind of a circular explanation 0:24:47 - 0:25:08 , but that's the point you, you, it's easy to say like, oh, who is my neighbor? My neighbor is anyone for whom I can do good? Well, what's good? And, and now we're back to the beginning. It's the greatest benefit. Um So what is truly the greatest benefit? Well, coming back to love, love God and love 0:25:08 - 0:25:30 your neighbors. This is a nice way to wrap it all up. Jesus said, greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends. And even in this people try to weasel out of it and justify themselves by saying, well, I guess I'm willing to die for people I love, but that's all backwards 0:25:29 - 0:25:55 . Uh I in at least two ways, one there is love. You can give that's greater than dying, right? So to lay down your life for your friends, it's easy, relatively speaking to die. It's a lot harder to keep living in a sanctified way, wholly dedicated to the benefit of other people. The other thing is uh 0:25:55 - 0:26:16 who's your neighbor, who's your friend, right? And there's, there's another depth here which is, can you feel this way? Can you sacrifice as much for all people, including folks you've never met before and including folks that absolutely hate you. Not to mention folks who could never pay you back. So 0:26:16 - 0:26:43 can you love them first? As Jesus loved all of us first, can you love them as Jesus loved? Right? So obviously, this is something that we can grow in our understanding and practice of. So OK, this is how the churches teach this. There's a box and there's a label on the box and it says things God cares 0:26:43 - 0:27:05 about. And in that box, there are two buckets, there's a bucket with a label that says good. And there's a bucket with a label that says evil. Now, every church has different things in each bucket. But all churches have buckets and all churches have lists in the buckets. Um I tried to pick some that 0:27:05 - 0:27:30 are generic here, shared by a lot of different faiths, but each different sect has a different list. The point is that uh in all cases, there is another list outside of the box, which it's not a list, it's unbounded and it's things God does not care about. So, churches teach that there are lists of things 0:27:30 - 0:27:53 that God cares about and then everything else we have a free pass on. So, um it turns out that a whole lot of things on the list that says God does not care about these things. There are a whole lot of things that actually he does care about. In fact, he cares about everything. There isn't anything in 0:27:53 - 0:28:16 life that doesn't matter and that flies in the face of what you will hear at pretty much every church. So the first step in fixing this and growing past the limits of this because, because living in this box is like having a potted plant. If you plant a full size fruit tree and a pot, it's never gonna 0:28:15 - 0:28:35 grow and it's never gonna grow fruit, right? I know there are many trees and whatever. Let's not overcomplicate it. If you put a regular fruit tree in a little pot, you're never ever gonna get fruit. So we gotta get rid of the pot. So you take away that box and you accept the or at least entertain the 0:28:35 - 0:29:00 possibility that God actually cares about everything. So once you delete the box, then you can go to work on these buckets and it turns out it is super duper easy to uh live according to any church's buckets. So any church you go to whatever their bucket is, you give me that bucket. I will make it happen 0:28:59 - 0:29:19 . It is not hard compared to what God actually asks of us. It is a piece of cake and that's how they get people to keep coming and to give them money. They say, oh, you feel guilty? Oh, your life's a mess. Well, how about this? You give me lots of money and I'll give you this list of things and all you 0:29:19 - 0:00:00 have to do is what's on the list. And all of a sudden, I mean, you'll feel guiltless, you'll feel totally free and I'll promise you that God will take care of you and make your life wonderful. And that even if your life continues to be a total disaster, everything will magically change when you die. 0:00:00 - 0:29:52 And even though you have absolutely no connection to God here now and none of the things that are in the scriptures that everyone who ever believed in God experienced. I promise you that when you die, all these things will magically come to you. Um Hopefully you don't buy cars from your pastors, priests 0:29:52 - 0:30:17 and prophets. Uh Otherwise you probably don't have a car that works and you're, you're probably broke anyway. The truth is um that uh doing what God actually says is a heck of a lot harder than what these other people, these false teachers tell you. So step one, you delete the box. Step two is you have 0:30:17 - 0:00:00 to zoom in and chop up the things in the buckets. So what do I mean by that? You need greater detail. You need to actually think about the value of these things and think about what they are. And you know, going back a bunch of slides, these things, you need to think about your understanding of God. 0:00:00 - 0:30:55 Like what would he do about this situation? You need to think about the world, how does the world really work because how else are you gonna assess benefit? You need to think about cost and benefit. Not just, hey, this thing feels good today, but what's the long term outcome? You need to think about 0:30:55 - 0:31:13 what's possible because you can't know what's best unless you've enumerated all the options and weighed out each one. Um And you need to think about who your neighbor is because how can you love someone if uh you don't feel responsible for them first or you don't know them or you don't care about them 0:31:13 - 0:31:38 . So, as you zoom in, let's just pick one and this is go to church, don't go to church, right? So in the bucket uh paradigm, people who go to church are, are quote unquote good and people who don't go to church are quote unquote bad, right? Obviously, that's way too simplistic. So let's zoom in and let's 0:31:38 - 0:31:55 chop it up because that's what priests do. They zoom in and they chop it up. So when we zoom in what we have to do is first, we have to enumerate what the options are. And second, we have to weigh out the cost benefit of each and then we know what the best thing is and then we can go with it. So in this 0:31:55 - 0:32:17 case, uh the options include that there are many different churches. So a church doesn't equal a church. All churches are not the same even within a specific sect, all churches are not the same. There, there might be, you know, let's look at the Catholics. There's gonna be one Catholic congregation that 0:32:17 - 0:32:37 has a priest that's on point and he's really doing what he should be doing and there's gonna be a lot of congregations that just don't have that kind of priest and it's gonna be a fundamentally different experience. Ok. And then there are obviously significant differences between the sects. Another option 0:32:36 - 0:32:54 is don't go to church but still be religious. And another option is don't go to church and don't be religious, right? And you could subdivide those options even further. So then you go down the line and you say here's some costs, here's some benefits. You might find that not going to church and still 0:32:54 - 0:33:15 being religious has a lot more net benefit than any other option. Um So you go with that and you increase in your understanding because you're in a better place. So step three is you just keep doing this forever. So in an ideal situation, your understanding of all things is just gonna continue to grow 0:33:15 - 0:33:37 . Jesus said that those that, that seek and find the water that he gives. He says I shall give sorry, the water that I shall give him shall be in him a well of water springing up into everlasting life in the spring. It just keeps giving water. It never stops. You keep drawing it out and it, it just replaces 0:33:36 - 0:33:59 itself inside this little river here. And life will provide you a never ending source of new thoughts and experiences and you should be continuously rehashing what you regard as good and evil uh through asking what the options are and what the cost benefit of each are. And that's how you go on and that's 0:33:59 - 0:34:23 how you secure or lay hold to every good thing and you just keep improving. So we're gonna go through two more examples to demonstrate this and to um illustrate uh a significant benefit of this approach to life. So here's a progression of thought through more and more sophisticated uh steps. So you might 0:34:23 - 0:34:45 start, it seems a lot of people believe this today by saying people are basically good. OK? You live according to that belief, I challenge you to do it. And if you live, according to that belief very soon, you will find at least one person who breaks the mold, one person who is most definitely bad and 0:34:45 - 0:35:05 that person is gonna cause you great harm. And then you get to decide what to do with your original belief that quote unquote people are good. Well, you'll have to evolve to uh if you're honest, you have to modify your belief to, there are at least a set of people who are bad. And then over time, if 0:35:05 - 0:35:26 you keep living according to that belief, you'll, you'll assemble enough evidence that you have to conclude that. In fact, most people are bad. So, uh from there, you can further chop this up because you will encounter people who are good and uh you'll still have plenty of evidence to believe that most 0:35:26 - 0:35:45 people are bad. But if you stop it, most people are bad, you're never going to see the good people because you won't believe it's possible. Right? We talked about possibilities and you won't be able to uh benefit from their goodness. But then there's, there's another step still, which is that even in 0:35:45 - 0:36:09 the bad people, most people have at least something good about them. And so if you, if your mission is, if you believe that humans are created in the image of God, then you have to believe that there's some aspect of God in all people. And if you do believe that and you love God, you're, you're going 0:36:08 - 0:36:27 to live your life in a way where you're trying to find that good and also trying to foster the development of that good because you'll believe that we all have this divine potential and you'll get much more out of life than if you just stop at the very first belief on this list of oh, people are good 0:36:27 - 0:36:45 . Ok. Well, if all people are good, then we don't really need to improve because we're already pretty much there. And um, there's, there's really nothing that anyone else has to offer you because you probably already have it for yourself and to end end. If you stop it, the next step, which is this person 0:36:45 - 0:37:05 is bad, you're never going to trust anyone and derive the unique value that you can encounter when you trust people that are worthy of your trust. Um If you just say, well, these people are bad and you stop there, so we can just keep going through this. But maybe you get the point and it's not necessary 0:37:05 - 0:37:32 . The point is if you stop on an earlier step of understanding, you will never find the benefit provided uh uniquely by a superior uh position of understanding. So the more understanding you get, the more good you get, the more good that's inside of you, the more good you can do for the world and the 0:37:32 - 0:37:53 more good you will encounter in the world. So here's another example and we don't have to spend as much time on it. But there are rather simplistic beliefs about the value of music for, for most people who are religious, for many people. I should say not most per se, it might be most, but I don't know 0:37:53 - 0:38:16 that. So we'll just leave it at many. I've met many people who have very simplistic ideas about. Oh, here's a rule that says whether music's good or not. Well, and that rule might be as simple as it's gospel music or not. I've heard more uh specific rules from people. But the point is that uh what is 0:38:16 - 0:38:39 good is not delineated by some easily definable line. And if it were that easy, then we could just stop with a list, someone could give us a list and we could be told that's all there is to know. And that doesn't exist. I mean, even the law of Moses with all its specific rules, it's very plain that the 0:38:39 - 0:39:00 end of the law is Christ. Christ is not a list. He's a being, he's a being that has so much depth to him that John, the revelator who knew him best out of all of his mortal associates during his life said that you could, the all the books in the world couldn't fit what there is to know about Jesus. That's 0:39:00 - 0:39:24 how he ended his gospel. Think about that. The guy who knew him best ended his story of his life by saying, but frankly, you could never write enough about this person because there's so much to know about him that, that you could just never stop and it wouldn't be enough. So now uh I wanna go, I'll 0:39:23 - 0:39:42 say back to, I'm pretty sure this was in a video I did ages ago. I I took these slides out of another slide show. I try to keep what I've presented separate from what I haven't, but sometimes some overlap happens. But whether or not I presented this, it's very relevant to the topic and I already spent 0:39:42 - 0:40:08 a lot of time doing these drawings. So we're gonna rehash this this is just another uh perspective of what I've talked about here. So you've got your buckets of good and evil. And in this uh in this paradigm, in this framework, the box isn't what God cares about. It's your awareness. So you have a perspective 0:40:07 - 0:40:29 , a perception of the world. But um our perception of the world is not the world, it's just a slice of it. And that slice is like a box in the sense that there are boundaries to it. But this picture doesn't uh illustrate this, but there's also a depth question. And so, um it's not just a question of 0:40:29 - 0:40:50 how much of the picture do you see? It's also how accurate is each aspect of that picture? Because it's, it's really blurry and it, it should increase in detail over time. But uh that only happen if you put the effort into it and you actually understand what you're doing. So, um let's say these dots 0:40:50 - 0:41:09 are different ideas. Um You, you, you can say their potential actions if that makes it easier to think about. But um we don't have to get too bogged down with that. So whatever your awareness is, you have all these ideas of things you could do or what's righteous, what's not righteous, what's, what's 0:41:09 - 0:41:29 good and what's evil. And basically what, what uh the religions are gonna tell you to do is pop all these dots into a box. Is it good or is it evil? So you do that. And uh that's great. Right? So if you only have a couple of dots and someone's already telling you where to put things, uh, what you're 0:41:29 - 0:41:44 gonna end up with is something like this where you have a few dots in good, a few dots in evil. And that's the thing your church tells you do this, don't do that. And you got a bunch of dots that are in your awareness, but your church isn't telling you what to do about them. They just say all these things 0:41:43 - 0:42:07 don't matter, eat whatever you want for breakfast. And um what happens is, is you go through life unless your heads in the sand or all you do is watch TV all day. I guess the modern version of this is tiktok. Then um your awareness is gonna grow what uh uh as you walk through life, your, your idea of 0:42:07 - 0:00:00 what's out there is going to grow, it's gonna expand, you're gonna gain more details and what you're looking at and there will be more to look at. And so um breaking free of the church paradigm is understanding that you have to put all that stuff into evil or good. You have to decide which they are. 0:00:00 - 0:42:47 And then something interesting is gonna happen as you learn more about reality and that's like these dots get bigger. You have more detail about these ideas. What's gonna happen is they're actually going to change buckets. So something you thought was good. It might end up being something that you now 0:42:46 - 0:43:06 think is evil and something that I don't show in this, which would be good to show is a lot of these things are gonna split and that's that I really should have shown that, but maybe I can just describe it. So as the dot Gets bigger, it's gonna be like a cell that divides and uh some of the stuff is 0:43:06 - 0:43:24 gonna stay in the good and some of it's gonna go over to evil and some of it's gonna stay in the evil and some of it's gonna go over to good. And that actually happens way more often than one of these dots switching from good to evil, right? So just a random example of this is maybe you have this perspective 0:43:24 - 0:43:46 that uh being nice to people is always good. And then as you accumulate uh more understanding about reality and the effects of things you figure out that uh what the world calls being nice sometimes is the most harmful thing you can do to someone or flipped around. Uh sometimes the nicest thing you can 0:43:46 - 0:44:09 do to someone is say something to them that most people will consider to be very mean. Um But there is great value in being the only person in someone's life who's gonna tell them the actual truth even if they're hated for doing. So, um So that's an example of how something can grow and split and change 0:44:09 - 0:44:26 , right? But if you're just in this world where in this worldview where things never change and then there's just a fixed list of good and a fixed list of evil. You can never ever be that person who's gonna tell someone what they need to hear and what no one else has the courage or love to tell them 0:44:26 - 0:44:46 . So there are many, many, many things like this and your awareness, your understanding of what's out there, it's gonna change over time. Even if you're not trying to change it just going through life, you're gonna get blasted with all these situations that you can learn from. Now, you'll get a lot more 0:44:46 - 0:45:02 of them and you'll get a lot more out of them if you actually put forth effort, but you're never gonna put forth effort. If you think that this short list that some pastor or priest or prophet gave you is all there is to know. There's way more to know unless you're already like God completely. And you 0:45:02 - 0:45:19 can say no, you could swap out me and God. There'd be no difference. And I don't know anyone who says that who has said that. And I think if anyone said that a lot of people would have a lot of problems with that. So if you don't believe that you're that person, then surely there's tons more to know 0:45:18 - 0:45:39 . Uh, anyway, what's this? You could call this pro I was talking about uh chopping things and, and uh making a difference between good and evil or sacred and profane. But uh there are other phrases used in the scriptures. One of them is searching in the light of Christ. That's a beautiful phrase. Um 0:45:38 - 0:46:02 So it, you have to expand your awareness, you have to increase the light and increasing the light is gonna increase what you see and the proper response to an increase in what you see is to treat those things differently. You have to sort and resort what you consider to be good and evil. So circling 0:46:01 - 0:46:24 back to the green box, conclusion on the two example slides of game, the point to drive home here is you absolutely won't get as much joy out of life. If you don't do this, you have to increase your knowledge of good and evil. And, and there are a lot of things that, that uh prevent you, a lot of beliefs 0:46:23 - 0:46:41 that will absolutely prevent you from even bothering to do that. And for missing all the opportunities of things that might teach you that. So to sum up, uh you can think of the good that God has distributed in this world like gold. There's some gold, that's just the nuggets sitting right there on the 0:46:41 - 0:46:54 . But as a percentage, it's miniscule compared to what's under the ground. But you can only get the stuff underground by digging and by sorting and by refining. So I encourage you to do that.