Flashback Episode — Year 4 Finale: Part 2


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Last week, we began our annual two-part finale by looking at insights we discovered in the first half of this past year of moving through the gospels. In part 2, we’ll pick back up where we left off and focus in on insights we learned during the second half of this year moving through the gospels.

But before diving into the insights, I want to share briefly what’s planned for our next year in the gospel adventure podcast. We have just finished moving through four years of chronologically jumping through the gospels, and we have now finished this crazy idea I had several years ago when we began. While it would be easy to simply start over, I thought it might be fun to do a couple of years focusing on certain topics.

One topic that has been fresh on my mind, perhaps because all four gospels dedicate significant space to it, is the week leading up to Jesus’ crucifixion. For this next year of episodes, this is where I’m thinking of taking us. However, for future years, be sure to email me and share your ideas. We may come back to doing chronological years in the future, but before that happens, let’s focus in on some topics.

However, while I’m excited to get started, we still have the second half of this past year to focus on in this episode. So let’s dive in, starting at what we learned in Episode 26.

In episode 26, we focused on Mary and Martha’s first encounter with Jesus, and how each of them interacted with Jesus. From this episode, we learned that “It is more important for us to focus on learning from Jesus than trying to please or impress Him through our actions.” We also learned that “God is never going to distract us away from spending time with Jesus.

Moving into episode 27, we looked at a passage Jesus shares about faith, and how faith must be visible. In this episode, we saw that “Those who publicly side with Jesus will be acknowledged by God throughout the universe.” We also learned that “secret faith is worthless; faith that is valuable is one that stands for God when challenges come; and that the more we reject the Holy Spirit in our lives, the less connected to Jesus we will be.

Jumping to episode 29, we focused on a passage where Jesus describes how some people will ultimately miss out on salvation even though they believed themselves to be ready. In this passage and episode, we learned that “there will be a time when salvation’s door is closed. After this point, those who knock on the door are not allowed to enter. This is because the homeowner does not know them. This tells us that it is very important that God knows us, and this is accomplished by regularly spending time with Him.” This passage also taught us that “people who do evil are excluded. This passage strongly suggests that doing evil will forfeit your salvation.” Overall, what matters most is what we choose to do in the present, and not on what we have done in the past. Our present choices are more important than our past failures.

Jumping forward a couple of episodes to episode 31, we spent some time talking about the rich man and Lazarus illustration Jesus shared. Regardless of what you believe about this illustrations regarding it’s teaching on the state of the dead, we concluded that one of the biggest themes it tells us is that “after someone has died, they cannot change their decisions from this life. This makes our decisions today especially important.” We also can all agree that “the next conscious thought someone has following their death will be one of regret when realizing they didn’t choose correctly.”

In episode 32, we looked at Jesus healing 12 lepers. We learned that “there is never a wrong time to stop and be grateful towards God for what He has done in our lives.” Also in this passage, we see the big truth that “sometimes we must obey before we are able to see God’s hand working in our lives.

Episode 33 might have been the most controversial episode this year because it focused in on Jesus’ teaching on the topic of marriage and divorce. While our current generation has wrestled with this, we discover from this passage in Matthew’s gospel, that every generation since sin entered the world has been challenged by God’s ideal for marriage. Jesus tells us that while not everyone can or will marry, those who do will be held to the truth He teaches us about marriage.

Jumping up to episode 35, we discovered in the parable of the ten servants that “the important man who left returned as king. In spite of his enemies’ wishes, this man becomes king. This teaches us that Jesus will one day return as King. Jesus had enemies while here on earth because He wasn’t impressed by ambitious spiritual ladder-climbers. Now is the best time to ally with Jesus because we don’t know when He will actually return.” Also, looking at this parable we discover that “it is important to be fruitful with what God has blessed us with. The worst thing we can do is nothing.

In episode 36, we discovered a short passage where Jesus cried when approaching Jerusalem. Among the things we discovered in this passage, we concluded that “as followers of Jesus, we should spend 5-10x more time praying than we do seeking influence among other people. Seeking influence shouldn’t even be a measurable goal for a follower of Jesus.” Also tucked in Jesus’ message for Jerusalem is the truth that “the only place where peace can be found is by seeking God through Jesus, learning to depend on Him for everything, and praying like crazy for His will to be done in the world today.

Episode 38 challenged us again when we read Jesus’ parable about a man being kicked out of a wedding banquet. We discovered in this episode that accepting the invitation is a great first step, but also equally important is accepting the free gift of wedding clothes that the king would have offered when the last minute guests arrived. We accept the gift of clothing when we put our sinful lives in the past and let God replace our sinful characters with Jesus’ sinless character.

The next episode, number 39, found us looking a little closer at Jesus stumping the Pharisees with a question of His own. Ultimately, we concluded that “the Bible gives us plenty of evidence we can use to base our faith on, and we can use what the Bible says to know everything we need to know to be saved.

Jumping ahead to episode 41, we looked at the parable of the three servants, which shares several characteristics with episode 35’s parable of the ten servants. In the parable of the three servants, we learned that God, “the master, gave everyone something, and He is watching to see what we will do with what He has blessed us with. When Jesus returns, those who have done something will be rewarded, while those who were fearful of making a mistake will lose out on everything.

Moving forward to episode 43, we discovered three levels of faith in what Jesus shared with the eleven disciples as they were headed to the garden on the night He was betrayed and arrested. In Jesus’ conversation with the disciples, we learn that “God has called us to three distinct levels of faith: We should have faith in who Jesus is as God’s Son and a member of the Godhead; we should have faith in what Jesus has done for us, especially focusing in on what He accomplished on the cross; and we should have faith in Jesus’ working in our lives in both our present and our future.

Episodes 44 and 45, which also focused on the night Jesus was betrayed and arrested, focused us onto the truths that “History is ‘His Story’, specifically Jesus’ story, and it is a story of redemption. While sinners killed Jesus, Jesus chose to die for those who God desires to save.

Moving forward, while being led to the cross in episode 47, Jesus shared a challenge to some women who were following the procession. We learned in this episode that “we shouldn’t feel sad that Jesus faced the cross, we should be glad – we should be grateful for what Jesus’ death accomplished for each of us!

Just a few short weeks ago, we looked at episode 48, and discovered that “In Peter’s experience on the morning Jesus was raised to life, we have a model for what we may experience. Peter found enough evidence to support a belief in the resurrection, but not so much evidence that would eliminate the need and role of faith. God has called us to have faith in Jesus, and to trust His promises. It is unlikely He will remove every reason for doubt, but He is more than willing to give us enough evidence for us to base our faith on.

As we wrap up this episode, and this year of podcasting chronologically through Jesus’ life, I want to leave you with the main insight and challenge we wrapped up episode 50 with:

If those in the first century lived so close with God that they had the Holy Spirit show up in their lives in visible, miraculous ways, and these early church leaders didn’t believe themselves to be special or exclusively picked to receive the Holy Spirit, we can conclude that each of us living 2,000+ years later is capable of living lives like Jesus’ first followers and receive the Holy Spirit like they did. Knowing this, let’s intentionally live our lives so focused on growing closer to God that the Holy Spirit cannot help but show up in miraculous ways.

Flashback Episode: Year 4 – Finale: In the second part of our annual two-part finale, discover some of the biggest insights we discovered during the last half of this past year chronologically moving through the gospels.

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