Pastor Brian Martin: Hey everyone, and welcome to the Calvary Callback, a podcast where we take a deeper dive into the weekly sermon at Calvary Evangelical Free Church here in the lovely Rochester, Minnesota. I’m your host, Brian Martin, and I’m here again today with Kyle Bushre, who preached a sermon titled God’s Expectations looking at Luke 19: 11-27 in our ongoing series, Salvation Has Come. You know what else has come?

Pastor Kyle Bushre: What has come?

Pastor Brian Martin: Fall. It’s fall in Minnesota, my friend.

Pastor Kyle Bushre: Well it’s here, it’s nice.

Pastor Brian Martin: It’s coming. We were doing some driving through the countryside a little bit, uh, last couple of days, and it’s like there’s some leaves changing.

Pastor Kyle Bushre: Yeah, I love leaves, apples, pumpkins, all that stuff. Fall is my favorite season.  I have noticed though, Fall in Minnesota tends to be a bit shorter than I’m used to. I’m used to a little longer runway usually up to winter. Maybe we get to hang out in Fall for a little bit this year. That’d be nice.

Pastor Brian Martin: There’s a comedian I used to listen to back in the day that I’m not going to say, because it’s not a particularly redeemed version, but back in college, and his contention he’s like, I don’t know why people like Fall. It’s like the leaves are pretty. Oh, the leaves are pretty for two days. And then it’s a bunch of sticks for the rest of the year.

Pastor Kyle Bushre: It’s dead, yep. It’s gone. I’ve talked to people who don’t like Fall because they know what’s coming, and they just can’t separate in their mind the moment that’s coming next. They just know that the snow is going to be here soon. And they just can’t take it. And I think, ah this is great. I love it when it’s a little cool. I love it when the leaves are falling. I like it when school kicks back up again. I’m weird like that.

Pastor Brian Martin: I know structure.

Pastor Kyle Bushre: I mean, I liked going to school. So I, there’s all that kind of thing to me. I just love football. I know we’re both football fans.

Pastor Brian Martin: Sweater weather.

Pastor Kyle Bushre: Sweater weather. Weather that you can sit out on your porch still. And it’s nice, but you can like put on a sweater and you’re fine. You don’t have to run back inside. I love it.

Pastor Brian Martin: Yeah. I love it too. Well, before we get into this week’s topic, I had multiple requests. I don’t know if you did too. I want to go back to last week for a second.

Pastor Kyle Bushre: Oh, okay, no.

Pastor Brian Martin: I was told by multiple people, you got to write a verse for the Zacchaeus song. That’s what I was told. So I did it. I did it for our audience. I did. Okay. And I don’t know the song well enough to sing it, so I’m just gonna read it.

Pastor Kyle Bushre: Okay.

Pastor Brian Martin: Here’s. Okay. But in honor of your suggestion.

Pastor Kyle Bushre: So, so so my understanding is before you read this, my understanding is this is to complete the story.

Pastor Brian Martin: More or less.

Pastor Kyle Bushre: Because I’m going to your house today is where it stops.

Right.

Okay. Hey, you know what? This is fantastic.

Pastor Brian Martin: This is bringing theological enrichment.

Pastor Kyle Bushre: Absolutely.

Pastor Brian Martin: All right. Here’s what I came up with. And no, this is not AI. This is Brian’s brain.

Pastor Kyle Bushre: Brian’s brain.

Pastor Brian Martin: Okay. Trying to follow the pattern of the other one. Anyway, that wasn’t the easiest thing. Here we go. Zacchaeus was a changed little man and a changed little man was he. He gave up half of what he owned for the Lord’s way he had seen. He gave his money to the poor, and what he stole he then restored. And Jesus said, Zacchaeus, come with me. Salvation has come to your house today.

Pastor Brian Martin: Salvation has come to your house today.

Pastor Kyle Bushre: Oh, yeah.

Pastor Brian Martin: There we go.

Pastor Kyle Bushre: I Love it. All right.

Pastor Brian Martin: I mean, I got cornered by a couple people.

Pastor Kyle Bushre: That’s fantastic.

Pastor Brian Martin: I think it could be a legit verse two.

Pastor Kyle Bushre: Get it down to Jamie. Get it down to his office. Let’s get him writing this thing.

Pastor Brian Martin: I mean, you want to see this in Sunday morning worship? I don’t know. I mean, second verse helps its legitimacy.

Pastor Kyle Bushre: Now I do. I didn’t before, but now I don’t know. That’s fantastic.

Pastor Brian Martin: There you go.

Pastor Kyle Bushre: Yeah.

Pastor Brian Martin: Changed little man. I mean, I think it could be there.

Pastor Kyle Bushre: I absolutely have no idea who’s coming to sue you if you try to publish that. I mean who owns the rights to Zacchaeus was a wee little man.

Pastor Brian Martin: Or is it public domain?

Pastor Kyle Bushre: It could be, I don’t know.

Pastor Brian Martin: How long has this song been around? It’s 100 years to public domain isn’t it?

Pastor Kyle Bushre: Yeah, it’s something like that. It’s definitely not that old. Yeah. I tried to look up the roots. Although it is 2026.

Pastor Brian Martin: The year of our Lord 2026.

Pastor Kyle Bushre: So maybe.

Pastor Brian Martin: Maybe.

Pastor Kyle Bushre: I know that people were singing it along. I tried to look up the roots of it. And they’re obscure, like no one knows. I mean, maybe if nobody knows, nobody owns it.

Pastor Brian Martin: What came first, the Zacchaeus song or the model T, you know? I mean, we’re right in that zone there, you know?

Pastor Kyle Bushre: Yeah, yeah. I don’t know. Hey, put it out there. See if you can publish it. That’s what that’s what you ought to. That’d be something fantastic.

Pastor Brian Martin: That’d be something else. Okay. Well, you know, I wanted to do that by popular request, but also, you know, add a little brevity because today’s subject’s a little I meaty. We got some things to talk about.  So God’s judgment, big theme, right? And that can feel, intense or distancing maybe between us and God. But God’s judgment is an important part of his character. And so why is understanding God as a judge an important part of our understanding of God’s character and how we relate to him?

Pastor Kyle Bushre: Well, the truth is, you can’t understand forgiveness and grace without understanding judgment. They don’t make any sense. You can’t be forgiven something that doesn’t require forgiveness. And then you immediately have to ask the question, why must I be forgiven? Because of my sin. And so as soon as we start to talk about sin, we’re in the the arena of the courtroom. We are in the violation of laws, right? We have to be there in order to understand sin. It doesn’t make any sense otherwise. And as soon as you are in that arena of the courtroom and you’re understanding that sin is an affront to God, it is a violation of his laws, it is an attack on his character, as soon as you do that, then you have to say, well, what is good judgment in this case? A just and fair and good judge is what you’d expect in any courtroom when you were seeking justice across our land. Well, God is the righteous judge par excellence, right? He is the one who judges rightly and fairly in every way.

Pastor Kyle Bushre: But if you read what we’ve done in our sin and what the consequences of our sin is, the wages of sin is death, then the only judgment he could give would be punishment. Eternal punishment. And so, um, and people wrestle with that because they go, oh, that just seems so out of proportion to my sin that, that my sin would count. But understand that your sin is not just this little thing. I know it’s a little thing to you or to us, to me. I think of it as small and insignificant. Who’s it going to hurt? That kind of thing? We don’t see it as cosmic treason. We don’t see it as violating the creator and rebellion against him. We don’t see our sin properly, and if we did, we wouldn’t wrestle with God’s judgment, uh, as much as we do. So for all those reasons, it’s hard for us to just focus in on judgment and hell as a standalone doctrine, but understand it does not stand alone. It is part of the whole of a good creator God who does not take sin lightly.

Pastor Brian Martin: Mhm. Well, and I think too, God is judge. I think we somewhat rightly so, go to God as judge and I’m the defendant. And I think you do have to think of it that way. But I would argue there’s also God as judge and I’m the plaintiff.

Pastor Kyle Bushre: Yeah.

Pastor Brian Martin: Right. Because obviously there can be judges who are corrupt or unethical or dishonest. Okay. But setting that aside, because of course, God is a good judge. What role do judges play in that sense? Well, they’re also protectors of our society. If we if we’re going to, you know, tease out the metaphor. A good judge ultimately is trying to bind evil.  And so when we’ve been wronged, we certainly want a fair and honest judge to assess it and say, that isn’t right. Let’s punish the person who should be punished. And maybe the metaphor falls apart a little bit there. And yet that is still part of being a judge, is making a judgment of what is good and right and when evil needs to be bound. And I think that’s an important part of understanding this, too.

Pastor Kyle Bushre: It is much easier to see from God’s perspective if you’ve been sinned against, and especially if you’ve been sinned against and not received judgment for it. I’m sorry, not received justice for it.  And that’s all of us, by the way, and some people to a much greater degree than I’ve ever experienced have endured the injustice. People who are under great distress, governments that are, that are fascist and putting pressure on them or people who have been violated in some way by others. And there’s been no justice. And, you know, in some cases, they even still know the person. And that person goes on and you go, well, what do you want God to do about that?  Do you want God to just kind of go, well, you know, there was no human justice, but, you know, no big deal. It’s not really that big a deal. No, you know the weight of how big a deal that is. You feel it. And to know that all wrongs will be righted, all sins will be paid for. Because that’s what the Bible talks about. It’ll either be paid for by Jesus on the cross, or it’ll be paid for by that person who will stand someday before God and have to give account for what they’ve done. That frees us, right? Vengeance is mine, says the Lord. That’s the reason we can leave it over to him. And looking at sin from that perspective actually helps us to understand God as a good judge. We just don’t usually look at it from that, from that angle.

Pastor Brian Martin: But it’s important. Definitely important. So you introduced, uh, maybe you explained the these three ideas within the passage that there are rejectors, investors and wasters, you know, in God’s eyes. So just to remind us, summarize what these three categories are. And then how would someone know if he or she is in one of those categories?

Pastor Kyle Bushre: Yeah, that’s a good question. I think it’s actually harder with the second two than it is with the first one. People in this passage that we’re introduced to in this parable that we’re introduced to are the citizens of this nobleman’s kingdom who send out a contingent after him and say, hey, look, don’t come back. There is some question as to whether there in the phrasing of it, whether they’re sent from the noblemen’s current location or whether they’re sent from the kingdom he’s going out to receive.  I tend to think that the based on the way it’s written, I think it’s these people are coming after him as he goes to that kingdom. Um, it really doesn’t matter too much in the parable, but there’s this group of people and they’re going to come out and they go, look, we don’t want you to reign over us. We don’t want you here. We don’t want your rules. We don’t want to have to listen to what you tell us to do. We don’t want to be servants here. We don’t identify as servants. We’re not in your household. We just happen to be in your land. And that’s what a citizen is. And they say, don’t come back. There are lots of people in our world that are that that way. They hear the gospel. They hear what Christians believe, and they go, I don’t want that. I don’t have any interest in that at all. And so these are just, this is just a parabolic way of saying people who don’t believe in Jesus, who don’t want him to reign in any sense of their lives. So non-believers. The other two are a little more difficult to parse out.

Pastor Brian Martin: Actually. Can I interject for a moment?

Pastor Kyle Bushre: Yeah.

Pastor Brian Martin: Are wasters non-believers or not necessarily?

Pastor Kyle Bushre: Well, that’s what I’m about to get.

Pastor Brian Martin: Okay.

Pastor Kyle Bushre: Because this is difficult.

Pastor Brian Martin: Okay.

Pastor Kyle Bushre: This is where it’s a little harder to parse out because, you know, Jesus leads to these three people, these 3, well 10 servants but he addresses there are three servants when he comes back, in the parable, who go to the nobleman. Uh, one has an incredible, uh, you know, puts the investment out there, the Mina out there in the world and receives back tenfold what he worked on. Um, the, uh, the other, you know, has the same amount, but gets fivefold back still pretty good. And they’re both received as good servants. These are people who recognize that the stuff they have been given is first of all, not their stuff and secondly, their responsibility. They’ve been told, you got to do something with this. Okay. In the parable, it’s invest do business with the money that you’ve been given. And I expect a return when I return, I expect a return on my money. And they get that and they go, okay, this is not my stuff, but it is my responsibility and I’m going to do the work. That’s an investor. A waster is a person who receives the same thing, has an understanding of who the master is, recognizes that the stuff that he’s been given does come from the master, but then doesn’t really understand who the master is, doesn’t really understand this nobleman at all, and has no real relationship as you can see from the passage. And then therefore does not do anything with the with the mina, the stuff, and simply wastes away the time that was given to do business with it, and then comes up with the excuse at the end, hey, you know what? You would have taken this from me anyway. You would have taken all this stuff. It wouldn’t have been for me. You would have, if I had lost this, you would have taken it out on me. Clearly has no idea who the master is and wastes what’s been given.

Pastor Brian Martin: Yeah.

Pastor Kyle Bushre: And to your question, the key is who are these people? Well, they’re in and around. They identify as servants. They’re in and around the church.

Pastor Brian Martin: Yep.

Pastor Kyle Bushre: Uh, you know, to pull us now out of the parable, they are alongside of those who follow and serve Jesus, but they don’t follow and serve Jesus. And there’s a whole host of reasons why somebody might be in and around the church and not actually have a relationship with Jesus.

Pastor Brian Martin: Yeah. Christian in name only or however you want to talk about it.

Pastor Kyle Bushre: Yeah. Identifying, maybe enjoying the blessings of being around people. They like the morality of the church. They like. Well, actually, with the increase of Christian nationalism in our country, some like the politics of the church, right? Or the power that comes from it. Or maybe they just like that old fashioned religion they grew up with. And it just feels good to be part of the church or to be on the side of right in some way. Um, but no actual love for the Lord and, um, to your earlier question, which I think hits the nail on the head. It is hard to know. Um, and I wouldn’t say it’s hard to know investors when you see them because they’re so full of joy, but then some are not really full of joy. Some people are just kind of around the church. They don’t have an overt passion for the Lord. And, and yet they identify as Christians. And you go, why am I seeing this disconnect between your life and your passion and the way you speak and the hope you have, you know, and the way you handle suffering and the way you handle, you know, why am I seeing a disconnect between that and your confession of faith? And it’s a gray area because maybe someone’s just struggling. Maybe it’s a genuine Christian who’s just struggling. Maybe it’s a non-Christian, though, and that’s where you get to ask a lot more questions.

Pastor Brian Martin: Yeah. Yeah.

Pastor Kyle Bushre: That’s what we do as pastors, right? That’s why I try to help people. We try to guide people. We ask them good questions. Um, that’s why I put challenges forward every Sunday, try to put them every forward every Sunday to help us wrestle with who are we really spiritually. Because really the only person that can answer that question is that person. All we can see outside is fruit, the fruit of the Holy Spirit at work in that person. And if you don’t see the fruit, then you start to question the root and the tree. Uh, have you been regenerated by the infilling of the Holy Spirit?

Pastor Brian Martin: Yep. So of course, the parable is primarily about money. And you pointed out well, that it’s, you know, in the sermon that it’s not just money. It’s also time. Time as a resource is a really interesting concept. So reflecting a little bit more, diving a little deeper into the time as a resource, what practices can we do or have in our own life that helps us to remember that time is a resource and that it needs to be invested well?

Pastor Kyle Bushre: This is an increasingly difficult one for our culture because so many things are becoming automated for us.

Pastor Brian Martin: Oh yeah. Good point.

Pastor Kyle Bushre: It’s very easy for us to accomplish a lot more with less effort, um, and then waste a lot of the other time. Honestly I think I’d love your thoughts on this too. I really, honestly think the only way to do this is to be very very considerate of our own time. You know, we talk about being considerate of other people’s time and not wasting other people’s time. I think we need to think about that from a perspective of our own time. How much time are you putting into your phone, your apps, your streaming, you know, these sorts of things. That’s just the entertainment side of it. How much of your time are you spending thinking about, uh, the Lord? Um, and I’m not just talking about having you know, a Bible time each day or something like that. That’s an important practice in your life. But we should actually, I would recommend anybody track their time usage in a week and be honest with themselves. Like how much time I’m actually putting into things that are, uh, where I’m investing in the growth of the kingdom of God. And if it’s a very small amount, I would just challenge you to increase that slowly but surely, you know, bump it up and move toward more of your time being spent investing in people, investing in ministry, uh, helping in the church, growing in your faith, personally, reading hard books. I know people don’t like to read anymore. I just read it a terrible statistic about how many books the average American reads in a year. I think it’s something like two. Um, so which is not great.

Pastor Brian Martin: And one of those is a Harry Potter book for sure.

Pastor Kyle Bushre: Absolute certainty. For absolutely certain.

Pastor Brian Martin: Yeah. Perfectly entertaining, but.

Pastor Kyle Bushre: I’m not sure if we put graphic novels in there either. But um, but yeah, I think we just have to start to assess how much of our time is actually being used in things that I could reasonably say, are investments in my own soul and the souls of my family, in the spiritual growth of my church, in the care for people in the community, in doing hard work at work for God’s glory. Uh, you know, that all counts, too. You know, am I spending my time wisely? And if and if you’re not, if you’re finding there’s this outsized amount of time is being spent doing things that do not matter at all. Um. Adjust that. How would you how do you approach it?

Pastor Brian Martin: Well, just to say an additional piece to what you just said too. I mean, I think especially if you have God given responsibilities because of roles in your life, you should take that seriously as well. In the same line of thinking, you were just saying like, we’re both husbands and fathers. We have God given responsibilities in those places. And I think if you’re doing good, hard work there, you’re doing the Lord’s work. You’re advancing the kingdom in those places. So I don’t want to minimize that at all. To me, I think one of the best ways is, and I think it’s similar to what you said, it’s serving other people. If you are walking through your life as a follower of Christ and you are not sacrificing, is the word I’m going to use, your time and energy for someone else you’re not doing it right. And that can look so many different ways. I even think about like, this is a simple one and a small one. My grandmother is 96 and still with us. It’s wonderful. And my mom sees her almost every single day and it’s clear across town and that’s holy work. It just really is. Um, you know, investing in life, even in just one life. And I think sometimes we get caught up in utilitarianism where we, we think it always has to be for a large group of people or how many people could I bless or serve or whatever. And there’s a time and a place to talk about that too. But serving deeply, serving well, one person, two people, especially someone who maybe is lonely or struggling or, um, you know, my family serves a lot with families with disability. And that’s never going to be efficient. That’s just not what it is.

Pastor Kyle Bushre: Yeah, because people work as hard and people don’t, you know, you can’t, uh, get people just to do what you want them to do.  When you help people, when you’re going to jump in and serve and help another person, you’re in it for the hard stuff. Walking alongside people is difficult. Um, discipleship is messy. People grow at different rates and it’s up and down sometimes. And if you’re just going to walk through life trying to help somebody else to make great choices and to honor the Lord and to follow Jesus carefully, it’s just going to take some time to do that. You’re absolutely right.

Pastor Brian Martin: Um, and sometimes, sometimes the thing you don’t want to do is maybe the thing you should do. I mean, not necessarily. There’s times when you should serve in your passion areas and then you’re advancing the kingdom and you’re bringing value. And I think that’s great too. But, you know, there frankly aren’t all that many people who think to themselves, you know, what I’m really gifted and called to is working with four year olds, you know? And it’s like, well, yeah, maybe because you don’t feel that is maybe why you should. I mean, I could name for you people in this church who, you know, told me basically, I got my arm twisted to work with kids and I didn’t want to do it. And then I did it and it completely changed it. It completely changed my perspective about the gospel. It completely changed my perspective about ministry. And I’m not saying that that’s the, you know, silver bullet or whatever. I’m just saying, don’t let your fear stop you from doing the thing you know you should be doing in the Lord.

Pastor Kyle Bushre: Every membership class I have people raise their hands. I say to the class, how many of you, uh, have ever had a situation where you were asked to do a ministry in the church and you didn’t want to do it, but you chose to do it anyway, and then you got in and you found out you loved it. And every single membership class, I have 5 to 10 hands go up.

Pastor Brian Martin: Fascinating. Yeah.

Pastor Kyle Bushre: And people, if you’re just willing, you know, you don’t need to go take a spiritual gifts test inventory, check off a list. I mean, you can if you want to. That’s very helpful. It can be, but it’s not.

Pastor Brian Martin: It’s not the point.

Pastor Kyle Bushre: What are you passionate about? Where are the opportunities? What are you willing to do? Will you have the the attitude of a helper going in? Those are the things that you got to ask yourself.  And just see what the Lord would do and discover your gifts along the way, is I think a great way to understand gifting.

Pastor Brian Martin: And I personally, you know, I basically recruit for a living. That’s more or less what I do. Yeah. And what I would just say is sometimes I’ve had people who I recruit and they say no, or they’ve been on my team and they’re stepping away and they feel bad about it. And I just oftentimes I have to say something like this, look, this is not your problem. I’m going to keep asking other people, you’ve been serving faithfully for whatever whoever five years. You are not the problem in our church. Like you have been serving faithfully or you know, oh, you’re telling me you’re leaving an area that I oversee and that I’m stewarding for somebody else’s area in the church?

Pastor Kyle Bushre: That’s fine.

Pastor Brian Martin: I’m not going to be mad about that. You’re not my problem. You know, if you’re contributing, if you are, you know, it honors your church and it honors the Lord. And I think that’s anyway, that’s really helpful. And if somebody’s like, well, I just can’t, you know, you have some problem with Calvary, then go serve somewhere else. But serve, you know, I mean, I just that’s more important to me.

Pastor Kyle Bushre: You have a finite amount of time God has resourced to you to invest. You gotta invest it. Don’t sit around waiting. Don’t hide in the shadows. Use the investment. Absolutely. Yeah.

Pastor Brian Martin: So, okay, I want to hold in tension a few biblical truths here with you.

Pastor Kyle Bushre: All right.

Pastor Brian Martin: So one of the things you said that just struck me really simple comment in your sermon. But servants are doers, and I think that’s certainly true. Um, and the point was that they, they were doing things as stewards on behalf of the ruler, the boss, however we want to say it. But I do think sometimes, um, especially certain personality types, there are people who could feel overwhelmed or even sort of crushed by this expectation of, I have to do something. Right. But, but I don’t think it’s meant to be that way. I think this is a clear instruction of we should be doing things, but it’s not meant to be overwhelming or crushing. So if we hold these three truths sort of in tension, how do we sort this out? Right? One truth being that God wants his servants to invest in the kingdom. That’s clear in this passage, and others. Two, being that we can’t earn our salvation or earn God’s love. Right? So that’s not the reason we’re doing it. And three, that, you know, to bring Ecclesiastes into it, there’s a season for everything. There’s going to be times when we are more doers and givers and times when we’re more receivers.

Pastor Kyle Bushre: Sure.

Pastor Brian Martin: So, how do we deal with the tension of those three truths?

Pastor Kyle Bushre: Yeah. Well, I mean, the first two are vitally important for understanding the gospel itself, right? That the gospel is not a way of earning God’s favor. It’s not a way of earning salvation. It’s not a, it’s not a path for us to invest well enough that God would go, wow, you deserve a spot in the kingdom of God. Nope. Uh, we have to remember that the way this was framed is that these are servants of the nobleman already. Okay? So in, you know, coming outside the parable, these are people who are already saved. These are people who already are part of the kingdom. Okay. So this is in that sense, this is more of an intramural discussion about what it means to be an investor as part of God’s kingdom. There is a citizen, as we talked about earlier, who is outside of the kingdom and doesn’t want the kingdom, doesn’t want the rain. That person needs salvation. But the servants we’re talking about don’t. And they actually serve out of an obligation because they’re they’re owned by, they’re in the household, of the nobleman. And so when we, as brothers and sisters in Christ, work together in the family of God, we’re not working to get into the family of God. That doesn’t even make sense. That’s illogical. What we’re talking about is how do we, as brothers and sisters in Christ contribute to this household, because of the adoption we’ve received to come into this household.

Pastor Brian Martin: And I think that household concept is a little hard sometimes for us modern readers, because for us, a household is usually one generation of a family or, you know, or parents and children only. But the household order in, you know, the time that we’re reading was expansive. Beyond that, it was the servants and their families.

Pastor Kyle Bushre: Yeah. Yeah. And in this, um, it’s I mean, we can bring the family language in, but here it’s a kingdom. So if you think of a full, uh, nation of people all under one reign of Jesus. And, um, and that’s really what the church is. We’re all serving the Lord within this one big nation that we are together. And so if you understand that, then you won’t have tension between the first two that you mentioned there. There is no tension unless, the only way you might feel that tension is if you misunderstand the gospel. And I will even say there are times when a person who’s completely trusting in Jesus as their Savior and Lord can feel like they need to perform because there is a natural, sinful inclination in our hearts that’s being sanctified, that needs to rid itself of the old way of thinking that God requires me to perform for him so that I can be accepted. That is a sinful and wrong and broken way of understanding God. And yet that’s part of the cleansing that needs to be done in my mind and heart. And so there are times, I think, in the church when people who genuinely are saved and genuinely love the Lord and really want to serve well, struggle with whether they’ve done enough.

Pastor Brian Martin: Yeah.

Pastor Kyle Bushre: And they sort of conflate this idea of serving out of a love for the Lord with the idea of serving in order to impress God so that he’ll accept me. And, um, and that’s the part that needs to get changed. So yeah, so there can be tension between those two. Um, that third category is the season question. And, and I find that to be a fascinating question too. Like what about, I know I want to serve, but I’m in a season where it’s really, really difficult.

Pastor Brian Martin: Yeah.

Pastor Kyle Bushre: Right. So it’s probably easiest if we take a really extreme example here, Let’s say you get really sick. And you end up in the hospital and your service is very, very limited at this point. It’s limited to laying there and receiving people who come in.

Pastor Brian Martin: Mhm.

Pastor Kyle Bushre: I don’t think that that person is unable to serve still. I think that the season that they’re in, though, has greatly limited what they can do. And here’s what I would say that person can do. Okay. I think that person can suffer. Well, that’s the first thing laying there in that bed. And a friend comes in and says, how are you doing? Um, you might be in a place of despair, but you can suffer well and be an example to the other, right? And you may just need to receive, you might be in a mental space where it’s really, really difficult to think that way. And what you really need to do is just receive, and in a sense, you are serving the Lord uh, by allowing brothers and sisters in Christ to come and to, to minister to you. And together you’re bearing one another’s burdens. You’re still, you’re in the sense, the burden in that case. Now take that concept that that really limited service and take that to every season of life. Okay. My kids are young and their schedules are full and it’s very, very difficult to find time. Or maybe we’re going through a crisis in our family. You know, it is really, really difficult to serve right now because all of my headspace, all of my ideas are taken up by this massive issue that’s going on in our family. Understood.  I’m with you. There are definitely times when you’re going to be limited in what you’re able to accomplish because of the circumstances that God has placed you in, but you are still a servant in those circumstances. And I would also like to say to the season question that a lot of times and you know me, I don’t mind stepping on toes. It’s kind of my job. Um.

Pastor Brian Martin: Not wrong.

Pastor Kyle Bushre: Spiritual gift of of making people feel upset. Um, so. But I’ll just come right out and say it. I’ll just say it. There’s a lot of you folks. There’s a lot of church people that use the season of life phrase as a way of doing far less than you could actually do. We’re in a tough season of life right now. We really can’t be involved in a small group or we’re in a really tough season of life right now. We’re not going to be able to attend church. We’re not going to be able to, fill in the blank. Whatever it is that you’ve pulled away, that you’ve decided that you’re going to just focus on other things and really not care so much about what’s going on with the ministry, the mission of the church, the kingdom of God, the thing you’ve been called into. And the fact is, you are a steward of God’s resources no matter what season of life you’re in. And so the question needs to be, how do I use these resources given the season that I’m in for the most fruitfulness to produce what God expects of me in this time. And I can’t answer that question in abstract. It’s very, very difficult to answer without a concrete example. But just the principle of it is this, no matter what season of life you are in, no matter where you’re put, that is the place you are called to do ministry for the glory of God. And all I have to do is point to the Apostle Paul sitting in prison right into the Philippians to tell you that that man went, okay, it’s time to minister to my jailers. It is time to write letters to my churches. This is not a time for me to sulk. If anybody had the, um, excuse had the season of life that they could have said, you know what, maybe I just sit back and do nothing for a little bit of time here, you know, it would have been the apostle Paul. And he didn’t. And so that’s how I would challenge.

Pastor Brian Martin: Yeah, yeah. And I would say right along with that, you know, the question shouldn’t be how are my life circumstances meaning that I can or can’t serve? The question really should be where I’m at in my life, how can I serve?

Pastor Kyle Bushre: That’s right.

Pastor Brian Martin: You know, those are very different ways of looking at it, even though they sound similar. And, um, and I think if we’re genuinely seeking to serve, you know, the church to serve, you know, because it’s, it’s the bride of Christ, if we’re generally seeking to serve the Lord, that’s the head space we need to be in.

Pastor Kyle Bushre: That’s right.

Pastor Brian Martin: And we’re all going to have different answers to that question. And praise God we do. You know, I’ve said this before, you know, working with like young adults, it’s like, guys, you can reach people I can’t reach.

Pastor Kyle Bushre: That’s right.

Pastor Brian Martin: In ways that I can’t, in places that I can’t, you know, problem with my job. I don’t work with any non-Christians, you know, like…

Pastor Kyle Bushre: You don’t want to witness to your coworkers?

Pastor Brian Martin: Yeah, I mean I would, but…

Pastor Kyle Bushre: Right.

Pastor Brian Martin: You know, so things like that, you know, we’re all placed in those unique circumstances, and that when we serve God well it brings him honor and glory. And that’s what we’re called to do. And that’s what it means to invest and use our minas, whether that’s time, treasure, talent, whatever it is. Um, that we’re using that well. So, uh, I could probably do another hour on this, but I feel like, you know, we covered a lot of ground today. So, um, yeah, hopefully we invested this time well.

Pastor Kyle Bushre: I hope we will. I think the time that you spent listener listening to this podcast today, well spent, well invested. Nice job. Way to go.

Pastor Brian Martin: I love it. Well, with that, thanks for joining us on the Calvary Callback. We hope this time was an encouragement to you. And whether you’re a part of our Calvary family, or if you’re listening from somewhere else in the world, we invite you to join us in our mission to pursue passion for Christ and compassion for people, for Kyle Bushre. I’m Brian Martin, we’ll catch you next time on the Callback.