Sermons

Is Eric done with Christmas Lights?  How can we deal with issues relating to the errancy of Scripture? How did the guys feel about the last two Sundays?

In this week's episode of the Calvary Life Podcast, Pastors Eric and Matt will go over all those questions and more. Don't forget to email your questions to

TIMESTAMPS: Eric giving up on Christmas lights? (7:04), This past Sunday (20:03), Dealing with errancy issues (28:58), Matt’s Website Fail (50:23)

If you'd like to keep up to date with this season of the Calvary Life Podcast, be sure to subscribe to us on your podcast player of choice. To listen to our archive of episodes, check out our website at calvarylife.org/podcast.

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Transcription

Introduction
From Calvary Church of Santa Ana, this is the Calvary Life Podcast, the show where we share stories, laugh together, and have discussions about faith, life, and God with people from Calvary Church. Here are your hosts, Eric and Matt.

Eric
Welcome to the Calvary Life Podcast. This is Eric Wakeling here with Matt Doan.
[zipper sounds]
Whoa, Matt doing that ...

Matt
Kind of sounds like a record scratch.

Eric
Yeah, that's like a DJ situation you have going on. But that was just his jacket zipper.

Matt
That's my jacket. I'm wearing a jacket indoors because it is freezing here at Calvary Church today. We're saving a little money, but we also are suffering for the Lord.
[both laughing]

Eric
We are. My office was so cold that I was wearing my full puffer jacket as well as I had a blanket on my lap today when I was writing my sermon this morning.

Matt
This is very uncharacteristic for SoCal, isn't it? We're all kind of suffering together.

Eric
This building though, how it's made of this stone or this split block, so this giant building of block. I think it's fine when it's hot. It's not as bad when it's hot, but it's terrible in here when it's hot too. People know it gets stuffy in here when it's hot, especially. But when it's cold, it just feels like it takes a long time to get it back warm again.

Matt
It's painful. I know. It really is.

Eric
We're suffering, you guys.

Matt
We are. So that's why I got my jacket. [zipper sounds and laughing]

Eric
I've been listening back to ... and I got to control my laughing a little bit more.

Matt
What do you mean?

Eric
I don't know. Just the wheeze, the Wakeling wheeze. That's what we're going to call it. Yeah, I just got to control my wheezing. My wheeze laughing.

Matt
That's the best part. That's the best part.

Eric
The wiggling wheeze has got to stop.

Matt
Here, let's do it. Try to make me laugh.

Eric
It's so hard now. [laughing]
Once someone ever says that, like, try to make me laugh or be funny, it's all of a sudden you can't be funny anymore.

Matt
I know. It's true. It's true.

Eric
Yeah, I don't know, man. I'm just trying to think what I would even do to make you laugh right now, but I feel like I could make you laugh.

Matt
If you did the Wakeling wheeze, that would make me laugh. [laughing]

Eric
There's the Doan laugh. That's a good one. Oh, boy.

Matt
So how are you doing? We haven't we haven't jumped on a pod in a couple of weeks.

Eric
That's right. We did not record last week. Basically, if it doesn't work out Monday, it just doesn't happen.

Matt
Yeah, we had last Monday off. President's Day weekend. So I didn't put it together the rest of the week.

Eric
Did you do anything fun on President's Day day off? We do take that as a holiday here at Calvary.

Matt
Let's see. That was seven days ago. Trying to think through.

Eric
Do you want me to say what I did while you think? So I did a long bike ride, which was nice. So that's all I remember.

Matt
Where'd you go?

Eric
I went down to the back bay. So from my house up in Tustin, rode down the trail that kind of heads ... you have to head up that trail that's like kind of by Target, I guess, over off Irvine Boulevard and Target. Yeah. And then it heads down to the beach from there. So yeah. So headed down to the back bay and back just around 30 miles or so. Which was nice. Yeah. I got a half Ironman coming up in a month, April 1st. So it's going to be good.

Matt
Anyone going with you? Are you doing this solo?

Eric
I am doing this race with two friends. One is named Greg Clark. [M: Elder] Who goes to Calvary, Ironman extraordinaire. And the other is also Calvary guy named Brian Hendricks. Yeah.

Matt
Oh! I didn't know either one of those guys has jumped in with you.

Eric
I know. So I kind of, I conned Brian into getting into this race recently as I was talking about something else. And then we started talking about triathlon stuff because he is an Ironman as well. He has done an Ironman. So.

Matt
So is your goal just to beat one of them, beat both of them? Or are you going to like pastorally serve them and let them win? Or is there even winning in Ironman triathlons?

Eric
There's definitely winning. There's faster time wins, you know. But it's just I feel like my heart here is a heart of service, of love and care for my brothers in the Lord. And I want to serve them well.

Matt
Yes. So let them blaze past you. [laughing]

Eric
I got a chance against Brian because he just started training like a month ago.

Matt
No, but he's got such mental ... Fortitude. It's crazy.

Eric
He does. He does. This is a this is a mental game.

Matt
Yeah. I know I've participated in a couple of marathons and one of the ones that I did. I felt like I was having a good run. I was like, I'm going to finish this thing. That's the goal. Finish. Right? And I looked around at everyone that was in my pack and they all looked about the age of seventy five.
So I was like, OK, this is my this is my age bracket. This is my speed. And if you're seventy five, hey, no shame.

Eric
Yeah, it's just not where like a 40 year old or whatever you were at the time. You were about 40. I also had lunch last week on Monday with my daughter, Grace, who goes to Biola. So I drove to Biola, took her out to lunch. We went to this nice Ramen place that's just off campus. [M: That's awesome.] So we had a good time together. It's fun. That's the one big bonus of your kid being pretty close. Which ah, you know, which? Your daughter's going to Biola to next year too Lord willing, right?

Matt
Yeah. She's still kind of searching, thinking, praying. But that's definitely a top choice. For me ...

Eric
It's a top choice! Yeah. There you go.

Matt
Hopefully that will be for her too!

Eric
OK, OK. I don't know why it was farther along than that. I apologize for speaking too soon.

Matt
No, it's OK. OK.

Eric
OK. Maybe I just actually know and you don't.

Matt
Yes. I was going to say ... [laughing] You may. You may have that information.

Eric
She talked to me ... Sometimes that's the case with kids. Some random knows more than you do - their parent. But yeah. So anyway. So nothing exciting to share about President's Day? You just laid around?

Matt
No ... one of my kids had a baseball game. Then a couple kids were home. Marie had to work, which was a bummer. [E: Oh, that is a bummer.] But I finally, I had a string of Christmas lights. This is embarrassing to confess. But on our eaves, it's kind of hard to get to. You have to get a ladder, jump on the roof. And I'd just been putting it off and putting it off. And then finally last Monday, I'm like, I got to get up there. It's President's Day weekend of February. Like the lights had been on longer than they actually are, you know, had been off longer than they had actually been used. And so I finally got that final C7 strand off the eaves.

Eric
You know, I still have my entire 'JOY'. Like my entire roof is still on, like it's still there. [M: Like you turn it on.] So I literally just it's I mean, it is February 27th as we are recording this. I just unplugged it from turning on every night, like three days ago, late February.

Matt
I'm going to just look up just curiousity, curious here. Tustin complaint center. [laughing]

Eric
No, man.

Matt
Like a blight home.

Eric
I know. I did just turn it off because I think that my kids are kind of like, "Dad, this is getting embarrassing." I mean, they already were embarrassed. They're embarrassed about the whole situation that it ever exists at all. But this could be I don't know if this is breaking news, but this could be the last year that I do lights on my roof. [M: Wait, why?] This could have been the last year. So I got to keep them going.

Matt
Why? What would cause you to stop?

Eric
Because we're getting solar and I'm getting a whole new roof. So I have to get a whole new roof because of solar. And so our roof is like not deemed good enough or whatever, you know? And our roof's pretty old, but yeah. So I've just been stapling into the roof to just like ...

Matt
Right. No, yeah. It's just no regard for the ...

Eric
Yeah. But I think if I get like this brand new roof, do I just actually just staple into it? Somebody was like, "Why not? Just staple into it! You've been stapling it all this time. Who cares?" I don't know if I should. Anyway ...

Matt
Wow. That's a dilemma.

Eric
It is a pretty big dilemma. So yeah.

Matt
Okay. Question. Do you think you would win 'Tustin award light show thing' if you didn't have the roof part of it?

Eric
The roof? The roof is the .. it is the ... the master class cherry on top. It's just the 'pièce de résistance'. [laughing]
It's amazing. So I don't know, man. It's, it's pretty, we'll see. Cause I mean, you can see my house from the airplanes. Like if you are in an airplane, you can see my house in that John Wayne flight path.

Matt
Wait. How do you know? You speak of that with such confidence.

Eric
Just, I know because I can see my house. I actually, I'm really sad because I've never been on a flight during Christmas season at night over my house.

Matt
You know what? So you should, you should just get a Southwest flight to like Phoenix and just see if you can see it.

Eric
Just turn them on. Like I have to go to Denver in may or something. I should just like turn it on in May, leave them up there. But hopefully my solar is done by then.

Matt
But to your credit, it has been raining every weekend.

Eric
That's part of the issue. Yeah. It's part of the issue. So that's why I've got all the other lights down, but I just haven't got that part down because it's just kind of scary to go up there. Plus I'm trying to do my training and all that.

Matt
Yeah. So weekends are hard. So rain, you like it. Is this, is this good for you last week and a half?

Eric
Yeah. As you hear this listener, you just think about like how you react to rain. Cause like I know some people like for real have like the seasonal affective disorder and just don't, you know, they get kind of depressed when it's like this. I, I have a love hate with it because I feel like it's so good for our, our earth. It's so good for like the fires I think. And it's so good for like water levels and flowers. And I love driving around through like central coast or even just like the local canyons and it's green and beautiful.

Matt
A picture like in a month and a half from now, it's going to be amazing.

Eric
Super bloom, the whole deal. It's going to be epic, but like I'm just so tired of it being cold and rainy outside. It's like the, we're not used to the actual part where you have to not just do whatever you want in the middle of January or February, you know, like it's actually winter.

Matt
Are you an umbrella person?

Eric
No, dude.

Matt
Neither am I!

Eric
Just jacket, you're fine. How often do you really have to go that far outside? Like if I, if I have to be outside for a long time, I'll use one. But no, it's just like, usually it's like car to building. Building to car.

Matt
Yup. Exactly. Yeah. There's people in my life that literally would not go outside if ... don't have an umbrella when it's raining.

Eric
Women's hair situations. There's a whole thing with women's hair situation. I think they like do a lot to poof it up and it will not, it will, it will go unpoofed. [laughing]

Matt
You worry about your hair in the, in the rain?

Eric
My hair always look good, brother. [laughing]
I've had these last couple of haircuts I've had have been some of the best haircuts in my life. Yeah. Take that, Jesse. Just kidding. Used to, used to go to lovely Jesse Brown. And, but she, she like retired from the business to go start Uniquely Knitted, her and Doug, but so I was very bitter. So now I'm just lashing out in my bitterness.

Matt
It's coming out on a random podcast.

Eric
But actually I ended up like, yeah, go to this cool guy, Andy, that goes to our church now too. So that's been fun.

Matt
Yeah. Andy's great. Love that guy. So, all right. So anyways ...

Eric
Let's get into the Sundays. All right. So we, we've missed two Sundays. We can talk a little bit about both of them if you'd like.

Matt
Just a smidge about two weeks ago. It's a long time ago.

Eric
Yeah. I don't even remember what it was. But yeah, the baptism story. Two weeks ago was the baptism story. Then this week's the genealogy and the baptism of Jesus, I should say. And it might be just be kind of cool to talk about them like just in the ways that they relate. We don't have to break down your sermon from two weeks ago. If you feel like, I don't even know if I could at this point. It's like you got to do it while it's fresh.

Matt
Well actually, can you see this piece of paper? [E: Oh no.] I actually took some notes from yesterday.

Eric
Oh boy. Here we go you guys.

Matt
I like, I actually jotted. I tried to in my mind, think, what did I talk about last week? I had to jot it down.

Eric
So some sort of heresy about something. No, I'm just kidding.

Matt
So we're in the gospel of Luke right now in chapter three and I'm loving it. I love chapter three.

Eric
Dude I did an Instagram post today. I don't know if you saw this. Cause you like to regularly check my Instagram stories [M: Blocked.], but I just took a picture of ... [laughing] I'm blocked on Matt's ... but I took a picture of like when I just opened my Bible and it's like pages, these two pages when it's just open are like part of Luke 2, some of Luke 3 and like a little bit of Luke 4. And it just represented - just those - represented eight sermons. There's just one like set of page like they're open. Eight sermons. We like dug so deep. It's really cool. [M: I love it.] Yeah. That's really cool.

Matt
But yeah, baptism in Jesus, the idea that, um, why the heck did he get baptized? Right. And so we were kind of wrestle with that a couple of weeks ago and kind of a couple of points that came out of that were like, he got baptized. He was walking the road that Israel, you know, was called to walk, but failed to walk. And so in a sense he was replicating their walk. It went down to Egypt as a little boy, just like the Israelites were held in captivity, the covenant people, God's chosen people. And then part of it too, was going out to the Jordan, going into the water, going into the river, just as the people did when they crossed the river with Joshua. And so there was some aspect of that. I'm kind of reading in the text though, because the text does not say that.

Eric
Does not say what?

Matt
Does not say that that's the reason Jesus got baptized in that moment. But in fact, Luke doesn't really say much about the baptism at all.

Eric
It's just allusions.

Matt
But it's allusions to it as you kind of look at the bigger story of, the gospel and of the Bible. But, anyways, and then the second thing was just that Jesus...

Eric
You're talking so fast.

Matt
I know, I get excited. I get excited.

Matt
But, in Matthew, John the Baptist is like, I can't baptize you, Jesus. Like, there's no way, like, you should baptize me. I'm not worthy. And then Jesus says it's to fulfill all righteousness. Like the idea that he was the perfect obedient son, that he walked the walk that Israel and we could not possibly walk because of our sin nature and our sin action. And so, so Jesus as the righteous unblemished lamb, went into the water in a sense on our behalf. Um, and so we talked about that. We talked about then how he identifies with us and we can identify with him. And yeah, it was, it, you know, you always as the teacher get more out of it than anybody, but I would just love, I was loving that those couple of verses. It's fun when God's word just comes alive, especially if it's a passage that you feel like you know. Right?

Eric
Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Like when you get something new out of like a very classic passage. Yes, exactly. I was thinking, cause I'm, it's crazy cause I'm like studying today. I was studying for the temptation of Christ story, when he's in the wilderness. And it's interesting because just cause as you were talking about all these allusions to the Exodus, that they come out, they come through the red sea and then into 40, 40 years in the wilderness and Jesus comes across the Jordan and then into 40 days of fasting. Isn't that crazy? It's so cool. Yeah. I'm going to talk about that a little bit like soon, but yeah, it's just that whole thing. It's hard to not see that illusion, even though it's not explicitly written, but I think that's what it's cool. Like how Luke and Jesus himself are just like, Hey, I'm, I'm walking this path to show you people of Israel, how I am the new Adam. I am, you know, all of that.

Matt
I think that the people of that generation, they're so tied into the stories of the people of God that they would just naturally, as Luke is describing it now, post resurrection. Like, Oh, right.

Eric
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Exactly. Exactly. Exactly. What was your favorite part again, just what you felt like was like hitting you most, I guess about the baptism story. I know you said some of that just now.

Matt
Yeah, I think it's, it's the idea that just Jesus went into a muddy river, in a sense, even just the metaphor of, he came into our muddy world and did that to take our place. And it's just, once again, just so amazing to me to think through that, that, wow, that's the God that we can relate to and know and worship, and have a day-to-day relationship and then have the hope of eternity with is this God that was willing to stoop down to, to dunk himself in a murky river. So yeah, that, that's hits me.

Eric
That's good. Yeah. That lower Jordan, you know, the Jordan that's farther South, it is like so muddy and gross. And I do think that's kind of like, we were talking about this a little bit, but I think you ended up kind of editing yourself. You didn't talk that much about ... I think you're thinking about talking more about where it was. Sometimes like you have all these contextual things you want to share, but it's just like three minutes you don't have. [M: It's not there.] I know. [laughing]
And so I know, but like, cause as we were talking about that, it just made me think like how, yeah, that part was so kind of like dirty and mucky, but, and up North though, it's crazy how different it is. Like even still between the Sea of Galilee, which is the Lake up in the North of Israel and then the Dead Sea, which is this like weird Lake in the bottom, like more Southern Israel there's that the parts of the Jordan are in between that. And the upper part of that is like really clear and pretty. And then above the Sea of Galilee, it's like almost like rushing rapids. It's kind of crazy. And so, yeah, it's like very different parts. So when you think about what somebody says, we do like to mess with people in Israel. I kind of like mess with people where I'm just like, Hey, this is all the Jordan river. Like Jesus was baptized in the Jordan, but like I kind of mess with them cause it's like, do you know where he's baptized? And they like super don't know. Cause they just, when you ask a question like that, everybody gets scared and overwhelmed.
But yeah, but it was more like probably JTB, our good buddy, John the Baptist was hanging out like farther South.

Matt
Yeah. He was probably living South of Jerusalem. And so as he wandered out to the Judean wilderness, that probably would have been South East of Jerusalem.

Eric
And even that part is the part that's in the wilderness. The Northern parts more lush and farming and stuff.

Matt
So even the description of it, people would have understood where that was.

Eric
Yeah, dude, totally. So, yeah.

Matt
So that was a couple of Sundays ago. And then even just the call that, Hey, if you haven't been baptized yet, what a cool opportunity we're going to have Easter of this year. Encourage people to think through that.

Eric
It was cool when you announced that in your sermon. [laughing]

Matt
I know, I totally forgot. But batting cleanup, Eric P. Wakely jumped in at the benediction, saved my bacon, saved my baptism. [laughing]

Eric
That was just funny. I just like that. Yeah. We never actually talked about that. It was fine. We all, dude, that's like ...

Matt
But I knew it was in the benediction. No, even though when you said I was like, Oh, thank you.

Eric
Yes, yes, yes. It's so hard. You guys, like when you have like certain little things that you're wanting to do or say in the sermon that also are sort of extra, like, I mean, it's like, yeah, when you're talking about Jesus baptism, it seems like a good application. Maybe it seems like a good application to say you could get baptized too. But it's still sometimes you're just so into the, like what you want people out of the text in that moment.

Matt
Well, and also practically, typically like at that little point, I was going to say that as I was closing the sermon. But then the worship team's kind of coming up and the clock is like kind of ticking and all of a sudden it's like, uh, let's pray.

Eric
We're already like five minutes long or whatever. Yeah. That's always gets me. It's just like, dude. So this, well, okay. We should get to this.

Matt
Let's jump into ... yeah the genealogy,

Eric
Yeah the genealogy. Cameron Willis crushed it. He did a great job reading the text.

Matt
I got a stat for you on that. Just how much he crushed it. So Cameron started reading that genealogy passage at 23 minutes and 40 seconds into the sermon and he ended [E: service] - service - and then ended at 27 minutes oh five. So it was three minutes and 25 seconds [E: to read all of that], to read out loud the genealogy.

Eric
That's actually pretty long if you think about it. Yeah.

Matt
It's pretty good. The average Navy seal can hold his breath for three minutes. [laughing]
He read the genealogy longer than a Navy seal can hold his breath. And then I was like, Ooh, how long could you plank for?

Eric
Uh, yeah.

Matt
I don't think, I don't know if I could do three minutes.

Eric
You could do.

Matt
Let's try it right now.

Eric
Okay. Ready?

Matt
You know what the world record is for the plank? It's set in 2021, nine, not minutes, nine hours holding a plank. If you don't know what a plank is, it's like basically doing a pushup on your elbows and your forearms. Yeah. And, and, and just holding your back straight for nine hours.

Eric
Keeping the form too for that long would be crazy.

Matt
I know. I don't know what the rules were. Maybe you get like five minute bathroom break every hour or something like that.

Eric
Oh yeah. Or just, you have to just like pee yourself. [laughing]
If you're going to do the record, I feel like there shouldn't be breaks.

Matt
But is it possible Cameron set a record for longest continual Bible reading at Calvary church?

Eric
No way.

Matt
Three minutes, 25 seconds.

Eric
Oh, there's no way we did like a, we've done like a super long Bible reading before. I think we did like a 20 minute. Didn't we do like once where we like read a whole like book or something?

Matt
Yeah, I think we did actually.

Eric
But yeah, but yeah, it was still amazing.

Matt
Cameron was a champ. Just crush those, the hard names and ...

Eric
Yeah. And yeah, it was just great. And it was like, I liked how he wasn't sort of overly dramatic, like about saying them in this crazy, like weird, perfect way. He just was saying them like very normally well.

Matt
And yeah. Why'd you? Is that why you picked him? Why'd you pick Cameron?

Eric
I actually pick Cameron because so Cameron has a master's degree in biblical languages, which is pretty cool if people don't know that. Like Cameron is a great person, if you have questions about the Bible, what words in Greek or Hebrew, and he can also do some like, I think Aramaic or Ugaritic or other weird stuff.

Matt
He's wicked smart.

Eric
Yeah. Wicked smart. And he has a beautiful Aussie accent. I feel he's a little bit hiding his accent though. I feel like he didn't [M: I couldn't hear it as much] Just let it flow. Let it flow Cameron! [laughing]
He listens to the pod, so it'll be funny to get his feedback on this,
But no, it was great. Yeah. So yeah, he was able to ... What I liked about someone with the knowledge ... I don't, I didn't necessarily care that every name was said perfectly, but I like wanted the person that was going to read to just feel comfortable. So it's a little scary to read that genealogy.

Matt
And I think the people aren't qualified to feel that way would probably be one of one.

Eric
Yeah, exactly. Maybe Lloyd. Yeah. Yeah.

Matt
Yeah. Lloyd Peckham probably could do it too.

Eric
Yeah. Just so good.

Matt
What's your ... I you said ... Zerubabel.

Eric
Zerubabel. Yeah.

Matt
Is that your favorite name in that?

Eric
Zerubabel. Oh yeah, dude. For sure. Zerubabel. It's the best name. Other ones are boring like Jorem.

Matt
No, Joda.

Eric
Joda was a cool one too.

Matt
Joda in verse 27 is amazing.

Eric
Joda.

Matt
Just obviously think of our Star Wars hero.

Eric
Well, you gotta, it's like, yeah. Do you say that with the, the yuh, the yod, like, or hoda. Hoda. Like, uh, like Juan. So Juan is with a J, but you don't say Juwan, you say Juan. So maybe Joda is actually Yoda.

Matt
Yeah.

Eric
Yaakov.

Matt
I've never thought about it like that.

Eric
Like Jacob in Hebrew even is actually Yaakov. Yaakov.

Matt
Yaakov. Yeah. Yaakov. Oh, so it is Yoda.

Eric
I'm going with it.

Matt
First. Luke chapter three, verse 27 is Yoda. Why didn't we think about that four days ago? I'm so sad.
I actually looked up, just kind of did a little search of like, where, where's Yoda now? Where's Jodas? What's his origin story or anything like that? And the only place he's mentioned is actually in the Apocrypha, the Catholic kind of [E: oh interesting] extra biblical books.
And he's mentioned in, is it 'Estrada'? I'm like actually the opposite of Cameron. I'm the worst at announcing names, but 'Estrada'. It's actually another form of Ezra, but it's the Greek, they call it the Greek Ezra because there's, there's a Old Testament book called Ezra, but it's almost like the second Ezra. It's in the Apocrypha. If you want to look it up, chapter five, book one of 'Estradas'.

Eric
I was just trying to be quiet and watch you. I actually have no idea what you're saying, but I think you're great.

Matt
Yeah. So Joda's mentioned there as one of the ...

Eric
Don't say Joda. Yoda.

Matt
Yoda is listed in there as one of the guys who was rebuilding the wall in Nehemiah's day as, as the exile covenant people are returning back. Yoda is one of those. Yoda.

Eric
I will confess I did not study all 77 names listed on there to do a deep dive.

Matt
Were expected to, needed to. Yeah.

Eric
Yeah. But there's a bunch of them though. Like most, almost like are, that's like the only place that word is used. Not most, many of them. That's the only place that word is used in the entire Bible. [M: So fascinating.] Which is super wild.

Matt
So one more fun fact on Yoda. So as he was rebuilding the wall, the Greek Ezra, the Apocrypha says that he actually said, "Try, there is no try. There's only ... " [laughing]

Eric
Oh my goodness. I love this. Do you know what, what planet or system Yoda is from?

Matt
Easy.

Eric
What?

Matt
Tatooine.

Eric
No wrong. First of all, it's Tatooine. Second of all, it's the Dagobah system. Yeah. That's nerd alert right there. That's like low level nerddom though. It's not even like medium level nerd. [M: That's just like basics] So that just shows how cool you are. Yeah. You're, you're too cool to be that nerdy.
Alright. What else is on your little note page over there?

Matt
Oh yeah, let's take a look at this. Well ...

Eric
On our genealogy Sunday.

Matt
That was a great sermon.

Eric
It was fine.

Matt
What?

Eric
I don't know. I was a little down on it.

Matt
Why?

Eric
I don't know. This is like a inside look into like the preacher's mindset. I think sometimes I don't, I think I was not as clear when I was explaining some of the differences of the Mark and Luke is, or I mean the Matthew and Luke, there you go. The Matthew and Luke differences of those genealogies as I wanted to be. In my head, I had it dialed and I felt like I just kept talking. I feel like I was just like saying, just kept going. And I also felt like at my conclusion, like with the response, I just kept talking and I'm like, I got off stage and I was like, I went like five minutes just at the end just talking. What am I doing? Be quiet, get off stage. So I don't know. I just couldn't stop myself. Like, shut up, shut up. [laughing]

Matt
Okay. A couple of thoughts just to encourage you.

Eric
Yeah. So no, that's, but okay. Yes. Okay.

Matt
This is not pity. This is truth. One thing even in the context of Calvary, as you're preaching something that you're not aware of, I think always when you're preaching or whoever's preaching is how the slides can be a compliment to you. I mean, you obviously make the slides to compliment what you're saying, but how that's even just kind of helps clear up if there's something that's fuzzy and what you're saying, the slides can clear it up. I thought the diagram that you showed was great as far as all the names. And we had the Matthew and the Luke kind of portions there. So maybe people were just staring at that. That's all they needed.

Eric
True. But I just meant like the reasons of why they're different. So like where one is the one is like the one that's of Mary and one's the one of Joseph. That is a very common one. I mentioned the Jeconiah curse situation. I just didn't really explain it very thoroughly. But again, it's just like too much, like too much headiness. And there's this whole other one that I still barely can understand what I was saying about like how one is like the heirs at any given time or something is what the person said instead of like the way ... And then the other is like the way it flows from Joseph specifically. But I don't know, whatever that ... I think even when my own, that whole like a, what is it? The like mist, misty, the pulpit fog, fog in the pews.

Matt
I love that quote because I own it.

Eric
Yes. Mist in the pulpit, fog in the pews. But yeah, a little bit of that, but it's just like where that one rationale I was giving you, I don't totally even understand the rationale, but I just wanted to like share how there are a few different rationales for why they're different.

Matt
Well, yeah, it's, I think what you're trying to say is it's intentional, right? It's not like, Oh, whoops, we made a mistake. The two genealogies are, are in contradiction to each other. And that proves the Bible is flimsy and not, you know, authority authoritative, but it's like, no, no, there was a plan here.

Eric
Yeah. And that's why to me, that whole thing of the, the canonical council, whatever the council, I forget which one it was that, that like determined whether these are scriptural books, or not.

Matt
Like Yoda. The Greek Ezra, the Apocrypha.

Eric
Yeah. Like why Yoda's books not in it. But yeah, but they, they knew that these were different names and they weren't phased. They, they were just like, these were like very important books too, obviously these four gospels. And so they weren't phased by it. And so I think it's really important for us to kind of get our heads into, okay, we should almost be thinking more, why were they not phased by it versus why are the names different? It's almost like a greater point to have to prove that that would equal there being something wrong.

Matt
Yeah. And it also, I think speaks to the idea of the, the inerrancy, untouchedness, if I could say it like that, of the scriptures that if they did want to make it more congruent to like, okay, we need to make it more trustworthy. Let's just like sponge these names up, expunge these names a little bit to make them more synced to them. But it's like, no, the, the authors, like you said, understood the reasons for the differences, were confident in those reasons and then let things stay. I think you can say that about so many different places in the scriptures where it's like, huh, and you first look at it, but you're like, oh!

Eric
Yeah.

Matt
Yeah, actually it proves that this was trustworthy. If it just all synced and matched, then maybe that's when the red flags would pop up.

Eric
Right, exactly. Because yeah, there's another one coming up this next week where the Matthew account and the Luke account are kind of different of the temptation. The only difference is it's the same three temptations that the devil brings to Jesus, but the second and third ones in the order are flipped in the order that they're written. And I think part of that is like, again, what was the Bible trying to do? It wasn't trying to tell you this like story of here's how these three temptations came in or the order they came in. I think it's kind of like, what is that important or not? But I do think that is like a hangup for people just why the word, because sometimes like the word inerrancy, you know, the every jot and titlle kind of thing, you know, people get like, oh, okay, well, if you're like hanging your, like everything you believe, but these two temptations come in a slightly different order, you know, like, does that crush your entire belief system? Well, I certainly hope not because like to, it shows how like the, it's the inspired work of the Holy Spirit in conjunction with a human author. And they're like, oh, I, you know, like, oh, it's like, I've always known that story to be this way. Or like ... and some people think it's a post thing where the textual, like, so this is called textual criticism, whatever is in the way that the text was maintained. And sometimes there can be something that a scribe, you know, flip the order at some point or something. And so a lot of times we'll say it's inerrant in its original autographs. So when it was originally written versus like, yeah, there can be some slight little errors, but we're so astounded by how the same it, the scriptures are actually like, that's what the whole beautiful thing of the Dead Sea Scrolls was, is that you had a thousand year gap where you had these same texts that were from like a thousand years ago that were, could never have had scribes touch them with the ones now that the scribes have touched for a thousand years. And then they were like, they were like almost just a couple of little tiny little points, exactly the same.

Matt
More grammar stuff then factual stuff.

Eric
Yeah. Yeah. Just like grammar stuff. Yeah. So that's, what's cool about that, but still you gotta reckon with these hard things.

Matt
Well, remember the Kimbell book too, it's like, is the Bible written to us or for us? Actually I always flip it, what is it?

Eric
I know.

Matt
I think the point...

Eric
For you, not to you.

Matt
Yes. So even just to understand, okay, this is a Middle Eastern, Eastern mindset. And so potentially with the temptations, one author could be, I'm going to list them by importance in my mind, what's important, or I'm going to list it in a way because I'm going to make a point about each one metaphorically next. Where another author could be like, no, I'm going to list them in how I heard they actually appeared to Jesus. So both could be right. I'm going to list one of importance or I'm going to list one because of how the timeline went. In our Western thinking though, it's always linear. It's always timeline oriented. Everything's connected to time. So I think that's even something to kind of be aware of as we read a lot of the narratives of both the Old and the New Testament. It's such a different mindset. Yet the beautiful thing too, is a eight year old or an eighty year old can still understand it in our modern era too.

Eric
Yeah, yeah, exactly. Exactly. So I forget where we were. Oh yeah, we were on the ...

Matt
So the genealogy

Eric
In the genealogy .. with the two different, with the two different genealogies.

Matt
Yeah. And we were talking about how you're like ...

Eric
Oh yeah, a little down on myself. Oh yeah. So I was just like, I felt like I was kind of like going on and on and I felt like I could have just had a much more succinct and more clear way of explaining that. I liked the things I said, but I just felt like I wasn't as clear. And so I don't know, I beat myself up over clarity and, and going on and on. So those are a couple of, anyway, so I just was kind of feeling like, eh,

Matt
That's bummer. Sorry about that.

Eric
But I do, I do like that one thing though, whoops, within that, that I said about how the reader or the writer knows what the reader already knows. The first century reader, let's say, or the Old Testament reader, whoever it might be. So the writer is writing this stuff to a certain like group of people. And it's especially, it's easier to understand, especially with like the epistles, like it's written to a certain church in a certain place, or at least like these seven churches or whatever.

Matt
Context, context, context. Yeah.

Eric
Yeah. There's just so much context that the person, let's say Paul is writing it and he knows what they already know. And that's part of like, even why we have so much struggle today over like, I mean, one of these hot debated issues these days is like women in leadership and ministry kind of stuff. And it's because like, we're all trying to understand what did the reader already know, right? Or what was going on in that town or what was going on in those people.

Matt
Like for example, if I told you right now, Oh, guess what? I saw Simpson today. You would know what I meant by that.

Eric
Yeah I know that Josh Simpson came back from sabbatical and it was his first day back in the office. Yes.

Matt
Right. But if I just wrote that down and someone, you know, six months from now read that that has no context of Calvary Church.

Eric
Let alone 2000 years. Yeah.

Matt
Right. I saw Simpson today. What does that mean? Homer Simpson? That I saw ...

Eric
Right. Right. Yeah. Was there a Simpson auto store or something?

Matt
But we also don't want to get so far that you have to have some special lenses glasses in order to understand or read the Bible.

Eric
Sure. But some parts you do. I mean, I like to make the Bible accessible to everyone. I agree with that. But some parts you really need to be able to like have a, you have to have a little more understanding to get it.

Matt
Well, there, I mean, there's been cults that have been started on a lack of context, proper reading of what genre the Bible is. Things like that. So yeah, that's a good point. But I think what I'm saying is that don't get so stuck up or stuck ups not the right word. Don't get stuck in, Oh, I, I need an expert to explain this to me. Because the Bible is, is an open book that's meant to be digested and read. And even like how I came across the baptism story, read that a hundred times I've taught on it, but then still had like fresh excitement, fresh bread in a sense that was delivered to me that reading and that study last that week. So the same as with us, right? Look through the genealogy or like, I don't get it. Like you're saying like we can skip it and then maybe you find Yoda.

Eric
Right. Right.

Matt
Whoa. It's amazing.

Eric
That's what's cool because there's like both. There's like a plain reading understanding that is like helpful and beautiful, but then there's also another level of like richer understanding, like the whole thing about the 30 years, like the 30 year old thing. [M: Yes.Isn't that good?] You can just read that and think if you just read it at the surface, you're like, Oh, cool. He's 30. That's great. Like, okay, interesting. I think my mind can even like, I think I can just even as a fact, understand, Oh wow. That's, you know, we last heard from him when he was 12 and now he's 30 and then we don't see his dad anymore. You can kind of, you can pick that up probably just like on your own, but to remember all the way back from like Leviticus or whatever of what the age of priesthood is. Like I don't know if I would have been able to remember that if I was just reading straight through. And so it's helpful to have some experts that remind you of some things.

Matt
So intentional.

Eric
And the beautiful thing about the world we live in is like, it's a lot easier to get access to that information, even just, even like just The Bible Project alone. If people do some of The Bible Project stuff alone, you're getting so much richness and context. So, yeah.

Matt
It's difficult because in our Google world, you can be overwhelmed with information. You're like kind of wondering like, okay, where do I go? What's reliable? But at the flip side of it, you just said so true. It's like never before in the history of like we used to have Encyclopedia Britannica's in our bookshelf. And it was like, if you wanted to look up like facts about a tiger,

Eric
Yes, Yes.

Matt
Go to the bookshelf, pull up in the Ts, encyclopedias and like, hope you have a page on it.

Eric
Did you like that though? I love that. Like I love, we had a, we were a World Book family. That was like the other brand.

Matt
Right. That was the off brand. Or maybe that was the high end brand.

Eric
I don't know. I don't know. But we were always like, we like World Book better. And then I'd be like, we like Encyclopedia Britannica better. That's like a real nerdy conversation.

Matt
Wait. I was going to say, there was actually people having that debate? [laughing]

Eric
I actually did have that kind of debate with people, which is frightening. Probably just because I was the guy with the weird version. It was kind of like, it was like having an Apple computer, but like 30 years ago when it was not that many people had one, you know, and you were like, I have an Apple. I'm cool. And they were like, you're just dumb. So I used to love, I was kind of, maybe I'm a nerdy kid, but I love like pulling off a book and just kind of reading about some random little thing. And I thought that was kind of fun. But yeah, it's like, but you're right. Like that stuff was so hard and you had to have huge libraries. You had even just to read them, you had to have education to help you read them. Cause a lot of these commentaries would have like, like big sections of them are only written in Greek and you gotta be able to read the Greek to read the commentary. And it's, that's challenging. So, so yeah, like that's, it's just a lot easier now. And so one of the things I was even just talking to someone about this of how knowledge now is it's not just what you know, but it's knowing how to find what you don't know and in the right places. And so I do think we like, we have some experience and that's why we would make some recommendations that are safe to you even of that aren't going to be kooky and just super out there of, of good study sources. And so that's why it's sometimes it's easy to recommend like something like The Bible Project cause it's like accessible on your phone or on your computer and it's easy. But even if you guys like want help, if you ever want to like dig into a commentary or something and you want recommendations, we can both help with that. Good sources for that. So anyway, yeah, we get it on little tangents on things.

Matt
So the genealogies, kind of the three main points you were making, was that, you know, genealogy show that our faith's rooted in history, genealogies show that our God's sovereign and then those are both excellent, truthful points. But it was the third point that was really kind of grabbing my heart and it was that genealogies shows that God cares about family and welcomes us into His family. That again, such a great reminder to me. And then even to like a little side note of if you're adopted and maybe you've always kind of felt like that's, I don't know how you exactly worded it. Like the second ...

Eric
Negative or less or whatever.

Matt
Yeah. But that was God's plan, actually adoption was his plan with each of us. I thought that was just a really powerful point and a good reminder too, of that is our God. He is a God of adoption and we're all ... have that privilege and right to be adopted by him.

Eric
Yeah. Ephesians 1.5 is so good too. Yeah. So good about something like what it says in the end, like, and it pleased him to do it. Right. Got my own papers. I had it on the screen, so I didn't have it written down here, but just that, yeah, we are adopted by God. He planned in advance to adopt us into his family and it pleased him to do it. Like, it's so cool. And I love how that connected to the baptism story of where Jesus or the Father says to Jesus like, you are my son whom I love and with whom I am well pleased. And then it pleases me to do this for you - to us - as well. You are also my kids. Yeah. That's powerful. That was striking me a lot. So yeah, it was fun to talk about that. I want to talk to some people, like if you're somebody that's either you're adopted or you're an adoptive parent, like I'd love to hear how that hit you. Even just if there's anything, any landmines I hit in there that were negative. I try to be really sensitive in the way it was said, but just like if that, hopefully that could be some cool, like reassuring for you or for your kids or whoever, you know? So yeah, but we're all, it's a beautiful thing that that's what God does is he adopts all of us. Yeah. So I love that.

Matt
Totally. So that was, that was a 30 minute sermon on the genealogies. I love it. I love it.

Eric
Yeah, dude. It's crazy. Yeah. Genealogy.

Matt
All God's word. Useful.

Eric
That's right. That's right. That's right. I know I had somebody be like, I don't skip it. Like they were all kind of like, you need to relax, bro. [laughing]
Cause I like, yeah, so he was like the whole, whole scripture, man. I'm like, I did say that. Yes. The whole script..., like all of scripture is useful and all that, but like it also has its certain place.

Matt
For sure. Totally. Well, there's a reason why there's not necessarily worship songs written about genealogies, right?

Eric
That'd be awesome. That's what we should have Wathen do is just write a ...

Matt
Oh. That's the next challenge.

Eric
The next challenge. [laughing]

Matt
To the tune of 'Shipwrecked'. If he could do that, that'd be perfect.

Eric
And it had, that was a fun moment at the beginning too, when we were talking to Austin, the ASL interpreter during that part. But ...

Matt
Didn't he tell you something later about it?

Eric
Yeah. Cause, cause, okay. So typically if people don't know in sign language, like when it's names, they're typically spelling the name. That's how they do a name.

Matt
Oh, interesting. Yeah.

Eric
Cause that's, you know,

Matt
You mean just going through the alphabet?

Eric
Yeah. Just spell letters.

Matt
Spell Zerubabel. Z U R ...

Eric
Yeah. But it's just being read like, you know, Zerubabel son of Shealtiel. And then you're trying to just hear what those words are as an interpreter. Cause he knew, they know the texts that we're doing. They don't have like all our notes in front of them or anything, but they know the text. So he could have just had the text open, but usually they're just going like off what you say. And I think he started, he said he started to spell them and then he just kept saying, "and this guy's son and this guy's son and this guy's son".

Matt
But that's the point, right? It was like, boom, generation. Generation. Generation.

Eric
And then it's just like, I think it was a little bit like, by the way, turn to Luke 3 and your Bibles and just read it yourself. This is like the easiest part for, you know, the rest of ... the easiest part, just to read as a person that can't hear it.

Matt
So I have a side note too. I have so much respect for translators, both whether it's ASL or it's like Spanish to English or whatever the case is, but like just even watching, I'm so in awe of it.

Eric
Especially that, like, um, I always call it like the UN style where they have the headphones on and then they're just saying it at the same time because you're having to hear it and then just be talking while you're hearing it. So cause they're, you know, the whole, I can't stand quite honestly for myself as a communicator or a listener, the say a phrase in English and then a guy says a phrase in Spanish, say a phrase in English and the guy says a phrase in Spanish. It's just so hard to get a flow as a communicator.

Matt
Yeah. Remember when we were in Germany several years ago, we went to a German church and there was a guy sitting right behind us, like six inches from our ears and just whispering the whole time in English like, "Hey, this is what he's saying right now?"

Eric
Oh yeah, that's right. That's right. That's right.

Matt
And he was just real time. He was just on it.

Eric
Yeah. Just real time whispering to us. That was crazy. So crazy. Um, but yeah, so that, that whole deal is hard, but, um, yeah, I don't recommend the phrase to phrase interpretation, but we do it sometimes. Did it, we did it in the fall in our Mandarin service.

Matt
Yeah, that's right. So yeah. Good Sunday, everybody. Uh, the response and worship was really fun too. And I feel like God's doing some really great things in this get, get ready sermon series.

Eric
The blessing thing at the end was so cool. So when we faced...

Matt
We've done that once before.

Eric
We did it once before during a, it was like a year ago during one of our prayer focused services. Maybe a little, yeah, about a year ago, a little over a year ago. The first one we ever did, we did that because it was all about blessing prayer. And yeah, we just decided like, Hey, this might be a cool thing to do every once in a while. I had somebody like we should on Sunday, somebody was like, that was so good. We should do that like once a month, man. I was like, I don't, you know, that was, I agree. It was awesome. We should probably do it a little more regularly, but probably not once a month. But, um, but it was so, it's so powerful. Like people were crying, dude. Just singing these words to one another as I think it's Ephesians 5 says to do. Um, yeah. So it's, it's an interesting concept. Cause I've always read that in the scriptures when it says to like, sing ...

Matt
I've never really practiced it.

Eric
Psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs to one another. Yeah. It's a hard thing to practice.

Matt
I know. So yeah, another good Sunday. God's been really gracious to us in 2023. I feel like He's doing some really, really cool things here at Calvary.

Eric
Do we need to ... should we have a little, um, little, little Calvary advertisement section here for Reach week coming up?
How much will you pay the podcast to advertise the reach week?

Matt
Ooo yeah. This is like an advertising space. Like, all right, we'll be back in just a minute. Hey, do you use car wax? [laughing]
Yeah. Reach week's coming up in a couple of weeks. So great. March 11th through the 19th, a couple of Sundays mixed in there. Have about 30 of our Calvary missionaries that are going to be in town and hanging out with us at Calvary, which is just, it's like my, it's like my Christmas as far as like, it's just so fun seeing all these just amazing people that are just around Calvary for those few weeks and just interacting with us as a church family. And they're a part of our church family. So it's really great. So it's coming up.

Eric
Yeah. Especially those two Sundays when you're here, the 12th and 19th, just be looking for people with those name tags on and ask them questions like strike ... That's the thing. Like they want to talk, like they're really, they're walking around hoping people will talk with them. [M: Yeah, for sure.] So it's kind of awkward when people don't talk to you when you want people to talk to you. And then it's like, yeah, there's like a dinner on the 11th. There's a like sort of musical production thing on the 12th at night. There's a family fun night on the Wednesday.

Matt
Yeah. Seeking Refuge on the Thursday night.

Eric
Yeah. And then like men's and women's sort of breakfast, brunch things.

Matt
Yeah, we're doing a breakfast and just kind of gather together on that Saturday, the 18th will be super great.

Eric
Yeah. That's going to be cool.

Matt
So check our website out, calvary.org slash reach.

Eric
Did you say calvary.org?

Matt
calvarylife.org.

Eric
Come on. Calvarylife.org.

Matt
Calvarychapel.org. [laughing]

Matt
Speaking of that.

Eric
I wonder who has calvary.org.

Matt
Speaking of Calvary Chapel.

Eric
Yeah. Oh, what?

Matt
Are you going to see the Jesus revolution?

Eric
Oh, yes. I actually do want to see this. It's just the only movie I've seen in the theater like in the last year was Top Gun.

Matt
I did too. That's my last one I saw.

Eric
So I need to, I don't know if I, you know what I mean? Like I just, it's going to take me a little while. Like no offense to anybody that made that.

Matt
It is a little strange seeing Kelsey Grammer as Chuck Smith. I just picture him being Fraser.

Eric
Yeah. The other weird thing is like the guy that plays Jesus in The Chosen is the guy, Lonnie Frisbee in who is kind of a key character in this story. And so that's just like, I'm having a hard time getting my head around him not being Jesus. It's like how Jim Caviezel wasn't in movies.

Matt
Yeah, The Passion. He had a really hard time breaking out of that role.

Eric
Exactly. Dude, calvary.org, by the way, is Calvary Lutheran Church of Golden Valley.

Matt
Oh, in California.

Eric
Is that? Yeah. I don't know.

Matt
They must have snagged that like in 1993. They were on it.

Eric
I know, they were on it. We have to take them down. [laughing]

Matt
So I had a website back in the day, a little blog called Orange County Pastor.com.

Eric
Oh yeah. You still own the URL?

Matt
I don't. But someone told me that you could sell that thing. So many Orange County pastors that would want it.

Eric
Nobody wants that.

Matt
No one wanted it.

Eric
No, everybody just wants their own name.

Matt
Still out there. If you want it, you can have it.

Eric
Yes. Yes. Although I couldn't get EricWakeling.com.

Matt
Why?

Eric
Because somebody has it. Yeah. I don't know who.

Matt
I don't know what you're talking about.

Eric
Oh, you bought it. You want me to buy it off you? So I have like EricWakeling.me for when I did my book and stuff, stupid stuff like that. But like, yeah, EricWakeling.me is my website if you want to read some great blog articles that I haven't updated in a couple months. But yeah, like there's a guy named Eric Wakeling ... that was a fake uh-huh. That little uh-huh you just did was fake.

Matt
What are you talking about?

Eric
I was like, there's a guy named Eric Wakeling and you go, uh-huh. And you gave me this look. It was, no, it was, it was fake.

Matt
No, it's like a what? A yes? Next? Keep going?

Eric
I didn't like it. [laughing]

Matt
You guys, this is what I deal with.

Eric
It is. No, no, but he was a World War II demolition guy. Have I told this before?

Matt
No, he deserves that website. [E: I know.] Give him the name.

Eric
So he did like, I think it was like even underwater demolition or something in World War II, like an early sort of British SEAL, like whatever those like British underwater demolition.

Matt
I wonder if he could hold his breath as long as Cameron could read scripture.

Eric
Probably. My guess is yes. All right.

Matt
So, Jesus Revolution.

Eric
Oh, yeah. Jesus Revolution.

Matt
You want to see it?

Eric
Yeah, you want to see it. Sorry, I forgot what we're talking about.

Matt
You know what's kind of weird? My dad is just, is strangely connected in some just strange ways, but he was buddies with Lonnie Frisbee. He and my mom.

Eric
Oh, no way.

Matt
Yeah they actually had him over for dinner one time.

Eric
They've got like a hippie vibe to them, your parents.

Matt
Yeah, they had a total hippie vibe back then. That's their era. [E: I love it.] But yeah, Lonnie Frisbee has kind of a sad story though. [E: That's what I thought.] Yeah. I don't know all the details of it, but I think the movie touches on a little bit.

Eric
Okay. So you haven't seen it yet?

Matt
I have not seen it.

Eric
When are you going to see it? You got tickets?

Matt
I actually Googled this weekend, when is it going to be streamed?

Eric
I know. That's my thing too.

Matt
It said it's coming out on the Peacock Network or Peacock, but it didn't give a date.

Eric
Didn't give a date. Yeah. I always feel guilty because everyone's like, are you seeing it so you can support you know whatever the... The more people that see it the opening weekend, the more blah, blah, blah. So I just ... ah

Matt
Jonathan Ruby actually tweeted because I follow him. He wrote, guys, keep seeing this movie. We got to outsell Cocaine Bear. I think it's the name of another movie that came out. Like some just dumb horror movie. And so he's like, come on guys, we're close.

Eric
I was so shocked of how much I'm seeing ads for this Cocaine Bear movie. And it's just one of these movies that's intentionally ridiculous.

Matt
Like Sharknado or something?

Eric
It's a Sharknado. Yeah. Like this bear eats a bunch... Some cartel plane accidentally drops a bunch of cocaine in the woods. And then some bear just eats it all and then goes insane and starts killing everyone. But it's just so absurd.

Matt
I'm laughing about bear killing people.

Eric
No, it's ... I think it's supposed to be so far that it's funny. But yeah, it's so weird that a movie like that does well. It's just crazy. And that's why it's so frustrating. [M: People just bored.] You're battling against Cocaine Bear. It's a story of one of the great movements of faith in the last hundred years. Anyway, but yeah, we got to see it. That'll be cool. All right. Cool, Matthew. Anything else you want to discuss? Any nonsense?

Matt
We love all of you listeners. Thanks for giving us some of your time, some joy to know you, connect with you.

Eric
We did get an email from Cameron Willis.

Matt
Whoa, speaking of.

Eric
Yeah, speaking of the famous Cameron Willis. This was last week before he'd done his reading. He was bringing up... He said, when you mentioned the Thursday meeting, my mind went immediately to Asbury. He was thinking about the Asbury revival kind of stuff. And he recommends an article that I didn't read yet. [laughing]
Then he says, the reason why putting our body forward matters, because we were talking about what's the deal with going forward? Why do we care if people come to the front to kneel? And why do we care about that stuff? And if God's presence is everywhere, what's the deal with...

Matt
Right, because it's just been showing other people or what you do.

Eric
Yeah, yeah, yeah. He said, the reason why putting our body forward matters is because of what you were discussing earlier. Our body is God's temple. We're not disembodied souls. God gave us a body to worship him with it. And he said, there's some gospel connections that are pretty awesome as well. But then he said he was super sad he stayed home with a sick kid last Sunday.

Matt
Speaking of body, yeah.

Eric
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Your body will keep you from it. [M: Betray you.] Yeah, yeah. And that's even, I think, why you being physically present matters. We care about you being physically present. If there's reasons why you can't be, we understand, right? And we're not doing this to try and boost our numbers or something, but we feel like our actual embodied selves being in the same room together does something cool. There's something cool that's happening when we all gather together, and it's an encouragement to one another. And we all are bringing even more of that manifest presence of God into the room.

Matt
Well, like an example of that is, of course, football, but went to like the Rams Raiders game in December. And totally remember all these details about that game because I was physically there.

Eric
Yeah. If you just watched it.

Matt
But if I had watched it, I would have forgotten about it in a couple hours, a day or two.

Eric
Because you lived it.

Matt
I lived it. We don't need to go there. We've already lived it.

Eric
That's the end of Pee Wee Herman's Big Adventure.

Matt
Yes, that's totally what I'm thinking about.

Eric
I love that part. I don't need to watch it, daddy. I lived it. [laughing]
Sorry. Yeah.

Matt
So, yeah. Cameron, thank you for emailing us. Yes. The lone. Yes. The lone email.

Eric
The lone emailer after the chastising emails we got for not meeting people at the flag pole.

Matt
Oh, yeah, oh, I actually did have a follow-up with that. So, yeah. So, there's been multiple sightings now of people that were waiting for us that day. What? Multiple people. I know.

Eric
Oh, my goodness. We still got to pick a new day for this, but I feel like we need to keep building the.

Matt
You don't want to announce it yet?

Eric
No, no, I'm too scared. Remember, we got to plan it outside of this room and then bring a plan in here that we tell people.

Matt
We can't just say it.

Eric
No, we do it spontaneously. We'll fail people again. Right, right. We'll be like, let's do it the first weekend of Reach Week and then you're like the busiest you've ever been in your life. Yeah.

Matt
All right. Okay, it's coming.

Eric
Okay, this was great. Thank you, Matt. Appreciate you and your weird zipper DJ songs. And thank you for listening to the Calvary Life podcast.

End Credits
Thanks again for listening to the Calvary Life podcast. If you'd like to share any of your thoughts, please reach out to us at You can find out more about the show on Instagram @calvarylife, or on our website at calvarylife.org/podcast.

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