[00:00:01] Pastor Brian Martin: Hey everyone, and welcome to the Calvary Callback, a podcast where we take a deeper dive into the weekly sermon here at Calvary Evangelical Free Church in Rochester, Minnesota. I’m your host, Brian Martin, and I’m here again today with Kyle Bushre, who preached a sermon titled The King’s Arrival looking at Luke 19: 28-40. Returning to our, well not returning to, continuing in our ongoing series, Salvation Has Come.

[00:00:26] Pastor Kyle Bushre: That’s right, the ever continuing series.

[00:00:29] Pastor Brian Martin: But a change.

[00:00:31] Pastor Kyle Bushre: Yes.

[00:00:31] Pastor Brian Martin: We’re in teal now.

[00:00:32] Pastor Kyle Bushre: We’re in teal now.

[00:00:33] Pastor Brian Martin: How does that feel?

[00:00:33] Pastor Kyle Bushre: Teal feels good. Teal feels good. I had somebody this week tell me that they’ve been looking forward to teal all, like for years. The whole series literally it’s been three years of orange or something like that. So they’ve been waiting for teal because it’s been teased up there the entire time. I’m sure people figured out that eventually this thing’s going teal. And if you have no idea what we’re talking about listeners, um, that’s because you either weren’t there on Sunday or, uh, you know, you haven’t watched the sermon yet or whatever, but, uh, please do, uh, because you get a new color.

[00:01:05] Pastor Brian Martin: It’s a new color because it’s a, a new, what we call it era of Jesus’s ministry and life or something….season.

[00:01:13] Pastor Kyle Bushre: Sort of, yeah. I mean, I guess it’s a, you call it a new section or a broad section of the gospel of Luke. Um, and you can break it down into these big sections. And, you know, I’m sure there’s different ways of breaking it down. I’ve looked at different scholars who draw the line in a little bit different places as to when we transition from, you know, from Jesus ministry to his time in Jerusalem. Uh, some wouldn’t put it until, um, until he gets into until chapter 20 or the end of chapter 19, when he goes in to cleanse the temple. That’s technically when he enters the city of Jerusalem.

[00:01:46] Pastor Brian Martin: Oh, interesting. Okay.

[00:01:47] Pastor Kyle Bushre: Yeah. And so a lot of really fantastic scholars draw the line there. Um, I tend to think that, uh, the triumphal entry is sort of, or the moment that he enters Jerusalem, I think is included in that section. So yeah.

[00:02:03] Pastor Brian Martin: So this is you’re saying when he cleanses the temple where you like, flips the tables?

[00:02:07] Pastor Kyle Bushre: Oh, yeah. Yeah. That’s coming up this week.

[00:02:09] Pastor Brian Martin: Okay. So can I tell you as a little precursor, maybe the greatest recruitment marketing I’ve ever done in my life? So back when we, you know, a few years ago when we still had, um, everything on Wednesday night for family ministry, right?

[00:02:22] Pastor Kyle Bushre: Yeah.

[00:02:23] Pastor Brian Martin: Kids and youth. So we would serve the meal and then we had to flip the room so that it could be used for Awana. And so I literally went on a campaign one of the years and called up some people and said, would you like to be like, Jesus? I need you to flip some tables.

[00:02:38] Pastor Kyle Bushre: Oh that’s fantastic.

[00:02:39] Pastor Brian Martin: Thank you. Yes, actually, I think at least one guy was like, I’m saying yes because you asked that way.

[00:02:46] Pastor Kyle Bushre: Yes. That’s right. Put a little creativity into that ask. That’s what I’m talking about. You know, like go and get in there. Hey, we need you to come down and be like, Jesus.

[00:02:55] Pastor Brian Martin: Yep. Flip some tables. Uh. That was good times.

[00:03:01] Pastor Kyle Bushre: Yeah, absolutely.

What are the differences between the gospels

[00:03:02] Pastor Brian Martin: That was good times. Okay. So one of the things you mentioned early in your sermon was this idea that certain gospels share different bits of detail and information because they are for different intended audiences. And I think that’s, I’ve heard that before myself. And as a Bible reader, I often forget, okay, which one are we in? And what does that mean? Sort of who’s it for? So can you talk a little bit, compare and contrast the four Gospels and who the intended audience is?

[00:03:35] Pastor Kyle Bushre: Sure, sure. I guess the first thing to say would be that all the Gospels are written for the church. So broadly speaking, they’re all for us. Right. And so to say, well, this gospel is just for this particular group of people, and I don’t really get anything out of it. That would be a misreading and misunderstanding of the distinctions and a misunderstanding of why we would want the information about who the original audience is, but the original audience can be very helpful for us to understand from what angle we should be reading something. I’ll give you an example. Um, probably the biggest difference in audience can be seen when you compare the Gospel of Luke with the Gospel of Matthew.

[00:04:14] Pastor Brian Martin: Okay.

[00:04:14] Pastor Kyle Bushre: Okay. And so, uh, because the Gospel of Luke is very clearly written for a Gentile, non-Jewish audience, Luke tells us this up front when he says, I’ve written this to you, most excellent Theophilus, right? Theophilus is a Greek word. It’s a Greek name. It’s written for probably a guy named Theophilus, who was the person who financially backed the creation of the book. Some speculate. That makes sense to me. That would be the chief donor for a project like this. Or at least one who ordered it up. Um, some speculate he’s not actually a man. That Theophilus, meaning lover of God. He’s just talking about anybody who loves God. I think that’s incorrect. It doesn’t make sense of the beginning as well, I don’t think, as understanding him as an actual man. But then you find an entire book that is written for a person who doesn’t really know the background. For instance, you don’t have a whole lot of Old Testament being quoted in Luke. You don’t. Yeah, there’s not a lot. He skips over details that other gospels include that, um, you know, like I mentioned on Sunday.

[00:05:22] Pastor Brian Martin: With palm branches.

[00:05:22] Pastor Kyle Bushre: Hosanna, all these things. I mean, Hosanna is a transliteration, literally of the Hebrew root Hosanna, which means please save us. So it is not even translated please save us into Greek. It is just transliterated Hosanna in Greek. So, uh, that is left out because a Greek reader looking at that, or a Greek person coming from a Greek background would not even know that that was a Hebrew word to begin with. So there’s, there’s indications like that. And that can be helpful because, uh, as I’m reading through Luke, I know that this is being addressed to maybe people who don’t really have a background in the Old Testament, and that’s really helpful when I’m trying to share passages of scripture and ideas with people, um, that don’t have that background. On the other hand, if you go to Matthew, Matthew is just rife with Old Testament allusions.

[00:06:17] Pastor Brian Martin: And starts with the genealogy right?

[00:06:19] Pastor Kyle Bushre: Well, now Luke has a genealogy too, but that’s an interesting point. Matthew’s genealogy. Well, let me start with Luke. Luke’s genealogy starts with Jesus and works its way backwards. Not just to the patriarchs, but all the way back to God.

[00:06:31] Pastor Brian Martin: Okay, Okay.

[00:06:32] Pastor Kyle Bushre: So he’s addressing an audience that is a theistic audience, but doesn’t, but needs to know that Jesus actually came from the first man who came from God. So tied into your theism is this Jesus is basically what he’s saying. But if you go to Matthew, he doesn’t work backward from Jesus. He works forward, but he doesn’t work forward from God. He works forward from Abraham.

[00:06:53] Pastor Brian Martin: Yes.

[00:06:53] Pastor Kyle Bushre: Because he wants to show that he is the fulfillment of all the promises to all the patriarchs. And so this is… And that for a Jewish person would be, wow, Jesus stands with the patriarchs. That’s so much more important.

[00:07:06] Pastor Brian Martin: Because in one way, Jesus wasn’t trying to start a new religion, right? It was meant to be the continuation of what Judaism had been. And some people took the off ramp instead of continuing on the highway.

[00:07:18] Pastor Kyle Bushre: That’s right.

[00:07:19] Pastor Kyle Bushre: They didn’t see the fulfillment in Jesus of all of these promises. Which is why Matthew, to his Jewish Christian readers, again, he’s writing to the church. To these Jewish Christian readers he’s saying, look at all the fulfillments. And by the way, you can use then as a Jewish believer, you can use Matthew’s gospel to reach out to your Jewish friend and show them. Right. It becomes very evangelistic in that sense. So there’s a high contrast between those two. And as a believer today, I might be more apt to take a friend who knows the Bible better to Matthew and show them fulfillment in a way that my friend who doesn’t know Bible background whatsoever, wouldn’t really care about the prophecies of the Old Testament. They’re probably not going to be as impressed by that. So it actually shapes my evangelistic, my way of going about doing evangelism with people around me.

[00:08:14] Pastor Brian Martin: Yeah.

[00:08:14] Pastor Kyle Bushre: Mark was, uh, is pretty clearly written to a Greek audience, a non-Jewish audience. Uh, and that can be easily seen in, say, Matthew chapter, or Mark chapter seven, where he goes in detail, uh, letting his reader know why Jewish people wash their hands before they eat.

[00:08:35] Pastor Brian Martin: Interesting. Yeah, I hadn’t thought about that one.

[00:08:37] Pastor Kyle Bushre: Yeah, I mean, if he’s writing to Jewish people, there’s no reason he would ever… That’d be like me trying to explain to you why I wash my hands before I eat. Because of germs and things like that.  Obviously, you know that. I don’t need to do that, right? So Mark is pretty clearly, it’s the hardest one to place though, because it is the shortest. Um, but it’s, it’s pretty clearly and some people think it was written to specifically, uh, Roman non-Jewish folks.

[00:09:02] Pastor Brian Martin: Yeah, I’ve heard that.

[00:09:04] Pastor Kyle Bushre: Um, and then John is different. John is a, is a completely different wild card. It’s later. It’s written to a, probably to a second generation, a sort of a first, uh, a second generation of the church. Uh, that is dealing with some different things. The Gnostic views that are starting to come. We don’t have probably a full blown Gnosticism at the end of the first century, but there are some Gnostic type views, say Docetism that would say Jesus only seemed to be a man, but was not actually a man. Because we can’t have material and spiritual together. That the Gnostic distinction between those two would be, oh no, spirit is good and separate and holy. Material is bad and unholy and that sort of thing. So Jesus could never have this. Uh, so Docetists would say he only seemed to be a man, and so. And then other Gnostics would say, no, no he was a full man and and fully God but these did not come together in one. They were separate in some sense. They were separated. Um and John comes along and goes, no, no, no. In the beginning was the word, and the word was with God, and the word was God. Okay, we’re all clear. He’s definitely God. The word became flesh and dwelt among us. And we’ve seen it, right? These two came to one. And you can see it in John’s letters as well. You can see that he’s somewhat battling this idea of a second generation of the church that’s beginning to question the nature of Jesus himself as fully God and fully man. Um, so you have and frankly, John is just rife with, uh, theological teachings from Jesus. It’s much more focused, really from John 13-14 forward is really much more focused on Jesus teachings about the spirit coming and how the church is going to be combined to work together. And, um, you know, how they’re going to be connected to him spiritually through the spirit and, um, much more so focused on Jesus teachings than it is on Jesus actions in his life. It has both, of course, but, um, and that’s a distinction, um, that really isn’t along Jewish and Gentile, uh, lines. It’s on, uh, first generation and second generation church lines.

[00:11:24] Pastor Brian Martin: Yeah, that’s a good point. Yeah. Matthew, Mark and Luke are almost trying to make Christians. And John is too, but it’s acknowledging that there are some now.

[00:11:34] Pastor Kyle Bushre: That’s right.

[00:11:35] Pastor Brian Martin: Which is interesting.

[00:11:37] Pastor Kyle Bushre: He’s acknowledging that, he’s trying to steer a church in the right direction. Uh, young budding, growing church um, as an old, old man. He’s trying to steer them in the, in the correct direction.

[00:11:48] Pastor Brian Martin: Mhm. The last three years aside, because, you know, what you’ve had to do for work has impacted it greatly, but so that set aside, like before that, which of the four Gospels do you find yourself most drawn to in reading?

[00:12:06] Pastor Kyle Bushre: I was like, what is this question gonna be?

[00:12:07] Pastor Brian Martin: Yeah.

[00:12:08] Pastor Kyle Bushre: What am I drawn to the most in reading?

[00:12:10] Pastor Brian Martin: Yeah. I know my answer. So I’m just curious what yours is.

[00:12:14] Pastor Kyle Bushre: Oh, that is a hard question to answer. Uh, I guess the one that I’m, I’m kind of an Old Testament guy. I did a lot of my study in the Old Testament. Uh, most of my, uh, most of my work outside of my MDiv, in my formal studies was in Hebrew and Old Testament. So I am drawn to Matthew because of that. And I love seeing those connections and all the threads come together throughout Scripture. Um, uh, that being said, I would also probably say that I think that John, I love the fact that John has captured so much of Jesus’ teaching for us. And so I’m, I love going to a John 15 and learning about abiding in the vine and what it looks like to remain there. And John is so very clear. And plus his Greek is, uh, quite easy to read for me, uh, which is fantastic. So I can do, I feel like more of a scholar as I read it. I don’t know, probably it’s probably not a good reason, but I love watching the, um, I love watching the connections that he makes between himself and the Holy Spirit and his people and how that interplay is going to help us as a church. So that section of John is really important to me. But I guess if I had to give an answer, if I was forced to give a one of four answer, I’d probably say I’d go to the book of Matthew. How about you?

[00:13:33] Pastor Brian Martin: Yeah. Uh, interesting. Mine is John. And I think it’s for a few reasons. I find it to be the most poetic.

[00:13:41] Pastor Kyle Bushre: Oh, okay.

[00:13:41] Pastor Brian Martin: And that sort of speaks to my artist’s soul, if you will, a little bit. Um, I’ll also just say sort of tangentially that if somebody comes to me and says I don’t, there’s this whole big Bible, where am I supposed to start? I tell them, John.

[00:13:55] Pastor Kyle Bushre: Really?

[00:13:56] Pastor Brian Martin: That’s actually where I recommend people start because I feel like, you know, I mean, obviously you can start any, you know…

[00:14:03] Pastor Kyle Bushre: Sure. Of course.

[00:14:04] Pastor Brian Martin: …About anywhere. And that’s fine. And I know some people who are like, I gotta start at Genesis because you can’t start in the middle of a book, you know, or whatever.

[00:14:11] Pastor Kyle Bushre: I have a hard time with that one, too.

[00:14:13] Pastor Brian Martin: Yeah. Right. But my thinking is, okay, I want you to encounter Jesus sooner rather than later. And I find John to be the most readable for somebody who’s not used to the Bible.

[00:14:23] Pastor Kyle Bushre: Oh, really? See, I find the opposite.

[00:14:26] Pastor Brian Martin: Really?

[00:14:26] Pastor Kyle Bushre: Yes. I find that, uh, take the book of Mark. It’s the shortest of the Gospels. Right? And it’s story heavy. And I find that if I’m going to ask somebody who is Jesus, I can point them, they can read a story about Jesus. I can say, well, who do the people in that story think Jesus is? And they can say it. But if they get into like the word became flesh and dwelt among us, I find, now maybe your experience has been different, but I have found that to be, um, much more difficult for a non Bible reader to grab ahold of. But um, but then honestly, there’s a lot of people who really want to wrestle, who are really philosophical too. And they might be actually, they might gravitate toward John as a first read.

[00:15:09] Pastor Brian Martin: I don’t know how, I don’t know how fully thoughtful sort of that being my answer is, you know, or in what way? It was thoughtful maybe is the way to say it. But yeah, I do think John 1, making the case, No, Jesus is God, immediately is probably one of the reasons why it’s my instinct too. And for what it’s worth too, the second book I tell them to read then is James.

[00:15:31] Pastor Kyle Bushre: Ah, there you go.

[00:15:33] Pastor Brian Martin: And because to me, at some point, if somebody’s really hungry, it’s like, okay, I want you to meet Jesus first and then I want you to… James is basically, how to be a Christian.

[00:15:41] Pastor Kyle Bushre: Yeah. I want you to know what this life is going to look like. Read James. Tell me if you’re willing to follow Jesus after you read James. And if you are, then you probably really love Jesus or you’re willing to give him your life. But, if you’re not, you’re not going to make it through James. You’re gonna, at some point, you’re going to check out. That’s a, that’s a fantastic next book.

[00:16:00] Pastor Brian Martin: And it’s short, which is nice too. And it’s like, but it’s so meaty and there’s, you know, so I’ve found the people who actually will do it and come back to me, I’ll say okay…

[00:16:10] Pastor Kyle Bushre: Which is not everybody.

[00:16:11] Pastor Brian Martin: No, it’s not everybody. But what questions do you have now? And then based on their questions then I’ll make a next recommendation kind of a thing. But in James, there’s all kinds of stuff that it says that’s like, hold on what, you know? Like I’m supposed to be happy when I’m suffering. Yeah, actually, let’s explain that. Let’s talk about that.

[00:16:28] Pastor Kyle Bushre: You know, now that you’ve said, now that you talked about… John 1 actually might be a really good place for a person interested in Christianity to start. I don’t know about the whole book because you’re going to really get in the weeds when you get into what all that Jesus has to say in the later chapters. But John one actually might be a fantastic starting point because, for our culture, because we live in a culture that’s trying to redefine Jesus into something else.

[00:16:56] Pastor Brian Martin: Yeah, yeah, that’s a great point.

[00:16:57] Pastor Kyle Bushre: Yeah. And I think maybe you’re right. Yeah, that might be, that might be a good go to where I just say, hey, just read John 1. Let’s just talk about John 1. What do you what do you think?

[00:17:05] Pastor Brian Martin: Well, and again, I think to the point of the differences, there might be something to be said for, any of the Gospels might be a good starting point, depending on who, you know, who it is. And maybe that’s, you know, I don’t want to be overly speculative here, but is that why we have four Gospels and not just one, is partially that God knows there’s different kinds of people in the world with different histories, and maybe any of these Gospels might grab them differently. And, um, you know, it’s like we just got to make sure you hear it.

[00:17:35] Pastor Kyle Bushre: Yeah. I don’t think that’s, I don’t think that’s going out on a limb at all. There must be. There’s a reason God gave us four Gospels.

[00:17:40] Pastor Brian Martin: So yeah.

[00:17:42] Pastor Kyle Bushre: It’s fantastic.

Thoughts about the enduring nature of the Westminster Catechism

[00:17:42] Pastor Brian Martin: Interesting stuff. Well, um, you brought in another, you know, well, I was going to say like another classic, as if it’s on the same level of the Bible. That’s probably, I gotta play my transitions better. 

[00:17:58] Pastor Kyle Bushre: Right.

[00:18:00] Pastor Brian Martin: Period.  Another point. 

[00:18:00] Pastor Kyle Bushre: I mean these are unrehearsed podcasts.

[00:18:02] Pastor Brian Martin: Unrehearsed podcasts. Westminster catechism, which is a pretty important thing.

[00:18:06] Pastor Kyle Bushre: Oh, yeah.

[00:18:06] Pastor Brian Martin: Okay. So, um, you know, I was made to glorify God and enjoy him forever. So this was, I had to look it up to be certain. But written in the 1640s. Why is this a phrase and saying that has stood the test of time? Because this is a creed. Creed, I think, is a fair, maybe…

[00:18:25] Pastor Kyle Bushre: Yeah. Oh, yeah sort of.

[00:18:28] Pastor Brian Martin: In a way, I think it’s used as a creed, even if it wasn’t totally written as one. In any case.

[00:18:32] Pastor Kyle Bushre: It’s a catechism. So it’s, it’s a designed as, um, you know, before the, that’s the answer to a question, which is how catechisms are written. What is the chief end of man? And it’s a way of teaching. So, in fact, it’s a way of teaching children. When you catechize, you give them questions and then you give them answers and they memorize the answers. And then through that, they learn theology or whatever it is that they’re learning. So, um, but yes, it then becomes creedal in that way.

[00:18:59] Pastor Brian Martin: Yeah. Do you ever, this isn’t on my sheet, but I’m going to ask it anyway.

[00:19:03] Pastor Kyle Bushre: Okay.

[00:19:04] Pastor Brian Martin: You ever wonder if we should reconsider catechism classes?

[00:19:09] Pastor Kyle Bushre: Oh my goodness.

[00:19:11] Pastor Brian Martin: You know, but…

[00:19:11] Pastor Kyle Bushre: I’m not prepared for this.

[00:19:15] Pastor Brian Martin: Well, here’s my thing. I think there’s a reason why we got rid of them. And I grew up in a very mainline Protestant and Catholic area. Green Bay is super like, almost everyone I knew went to Catholic Church. And then a few of us went to Lutheran Church. And that was it, right? And everybody went to catechism and it just became rote for almost everyone. It was my parents are making me. And so then there was this like disgruntled feeling. And so I think some kids probably moved further from Jesus because they were forced into this thing. But these questions and answers are pretty important. And, you know, are we missing that in our tradition?

[00:19:55] Pastor Kyle Bushre: Here’s what I would say.  Here’s the truth. Rachel and I, we catechized our kids. So we had, we did it at home. We didn’t do it, it wasn’t part of our church. We used, you know, they grew up in the gospel project, which is what we use here, um at our church here at Calvary. Um, and they had that at the former church where they grew up that I planted in Detroit. Um, and so they’ve been raised up and through that teaching, but, but for home worship, we did catechism, we had catechism books, Protestant catechism books that helped the kids just learn ideas. And it was fantastic. And probably to this day, if you ask them, they could tell you some of those catechism questions and answers, and they learned. They did a pretty good job. We didn’t do it for a really long time, maybe a year or two. Um, but it was actually quite helpful just to start conversations about things. So yeah, I highly recommend something like that. You got to know your kid. Um, when it comes to catechism and that sort of thing. Uh, how they learn. Uh, but I think it can be very helpful, actually.

[00:20:57] Pastor Brian Martin: I think so, too. Yeah. And we’ve done some here with Calvary, with the New City Catechism. And there’s a couple other good ones out there. There’s a fun, um, sort of storybook version called The Ology which is fun. And it, it does a similar thing where it’s not the exact same format, but it’s the same concept of like taking one concept at a time and kind of walking through it. And it has some great pictures and stuff. And I know for a fact Laura has both of those on her shelf. Oh, yeah. Um, that if anybody wanted to page through, she’d be happy to show them and yeah, that’d be great for like school age kids or, you know, preschool and early elementary kind of kind of ages for sure. So yeah, there’s lots of good stuff out there, but. Okay. So all right. I derailed myself.

[00:21:38] Pastor Kyle Bushre: I was going to say that was not me. That was all…

[00:21:40] Pastor Brian Martin: That was this guy. Uh, so I was made to glorify God and enjoy him forever. Why does that stand the test of time?

[00:21:47] Pastor Kyle Bushre: Uh, well, I mean, it stands the test of time because it is the first question in the Westminster Larger Catechism. So in that sense, it kicks everything off. If you’re going to memorize one, you’re going to memorize the first one. But I think for good reason. And I think for good reason, because everybody’s searching for purpose. Everybody’s searching for meaning. Why am I here? What am I made for? And this answers the question. You were made to glorify God and enjoy him forever. And of course, famously, uh, Pastor John Piper tried to turn that into, uh, you were made to glorify God by enjoying him forever. He tied the two. That the enjoyment of God is the purpose for which we are made, and that we are made to delight in him. Uh, he makes, of course, this point in his famous book, Desiring God, which is the book that our staff right now is reading. Uh, but, uh, it has withstood the test of time because it’s sort of the first question everyone asks. I think they did it right. I think that that catechism got it right by making this the first question. I need to know why I’m here and I’m searching for it. And if I know why I’m made now I can dive in and go, how do I do that? How do I, if I were, if I was made to glorify God, if I’m a worship instrument, a worship, a worship creature, and I’m supposed to find all my delight, all my happiness, all my joy in this worship of God, please show me how to do that.

[00:23:15] Pastor Kyle Bushre: I don’t know, on my own, I cannot do that. Um, I have tried to delight myself in every single other thing and it’s led to nothing. How do I find this purpose? And then, of course, it leads you directly to the gospel. So I think for that reason, uh, it’s a great start to the catechism that it stood the test of time that it takes us to the gospel. Um, and I think that that is a great starting point for evangelism too. If you’re talking to somebody and you want to, you don’t even have to start with the gospel. You can just start with, what’s your purpose for life? And they’re probably going to give you a self-appointed purpose. If they’re a non-Christian, they’re going to give you some purpose that they found. Something that they just came up with, something they found in culture, something they gave to themselves. And it’s a great place to kind of work someone toward, do you know that you were fearfully and wonderfully made for a purpose, as opposed to something you had to conjure up on your own? So I don’t know. The answer is, I don’t know exactly why. It’s pithy. It’s really memorable. It’s a great way of, you know, I’ve got it on my wall in my office. So it stands the test of time in my office. Um, because I’ve got it right up there on the wall. Um, but yeah, it’s, uh, there’s probably a lot of reasons.

[00:24:29] Pastor Brian Martin: Okay. Yeah. That’s interesting. I think too, it is maybe partially memorable because it’s so countercultural. Um, I think a lot of people don’t ever think deeply enough to even know what they think their purpose is, and they sort of back their way into one. So it’s countercultural in that way. But I think further, if you actually had people articulate what their life was actually pointing toward, it would probably be something selfish.

[00:24:56] Pastor Kyle Bushre: Yes.

[00:24:56] Pastor Brian Martin: For most people. Or at least instinctually, it would be. And this is inherently not. Yeah. And I think that that makes you think a little bit like, wow. You know.

[00:25:09] Pastor Kyle Bushre: Well, I think people, what happens is a lot of, you’re right, it’s countercultural. People put happiness out ahead of purpose. So they don’t, for instance, they say, um, you know, the parent that says, I just want my kids to be happy. And you go, well, do you want them to be happy for the reason that they were made to be happy? No, no no no. I want them to find a thing that will make them happy.

[00:25:27] Pastor Brian Martin: Right.

[00:25:28] Pastor Kyle Bushre: You go. No. How about you find the thing that you’re made for and then find out that that is actually where happiness is found. That is where your purpose and joy in life is found. In the purpose, not the other way around. And so yeah, in that way, it’s very countercultural. Um, and it’s why it’s on my wall and it’s why I repeat it to people because I think we just got the starting point in the wrong place.

[00:25:52] Pastor Brian Martin: I’ve used the metaphor previously in teaching. I could probably pound in a nail with, like, the handle of a paintbrush, like, right?

[00:26:01] Pastor Kyle Bushre: That’s great, yes.

[00:26:01] Pastor Brian Martin: I could probably accomplish that, but that’s not what it’s for.

[00:26:06] Pastor Kyle Bushre: Right.

[00:26:06] Pastor Brian Martin: And then all of a sudden you take a hammer to it and you’re like, whoa, okay, this is what this was made for, right? And so this idea of we have been, we have a purpose and it’s God ordained. Yes.

[00:26:19] Pastor Brian Martin: And that that’s different than let me try to discover my purpose. You know, I shouldn’t say that so rudely, but it’s partially to myself. It’s probably where I was at one point.

[00:26:28] Pastor Kyle Bushre: The truth is, the seeking out of purpose is great. As long as you understand you’re seeking something outside of yourself as a creature, as opposed to finding my purpose by giving myself something. And I mentioned it, um, was it this week that I mentioned? Just trying to give yourself a purpose, you know, there’s this tension in that.  Because the moment I give myself a purpose, I know I gave myself that purpose.

[00:26:58] Pastor Brian Martin: Yeah. Right.

[00:26:59] Pastor Kyle Bushre: I know that, right? I can’t fool myself into believing that somehow I discovered something. I just assigned myself to something. And since I know that it’s very hard to live that out. It’s very hard to live that out.

[00:27:14] Pastor Brian Martin: Yeah.

[00:27:15] Pastor Kyle Bushre: But when you discover truth, when you discover the truth for why you’re here and you put all the evidence together and you go, this isn’t a random, chaotic universe where I have to assign myself purpose, but actually a well-designed creation in which I’ve been placed.

[00:27:31] Pastor Brian Martin: Yeah.

[00:27:31] Pastor Kyle Bushre: And made for a purpose. Yeah. Now I can hold to that purpose.

How to understand the tension between humility and assurance about our Christian worldview?

[00:27:36] Pastor Brian Martin: Yeah. Mhm. So in that same vein, another thing you touched on, uh, I don’t know if I have this quite right, but you said something along the lines of you were making a cultural observation that you can believe anything you want, as long as you act like you’re not really sure about it, which I loved that. That’s true. I mean, that’s so true. That just rings so true. Which is why it was funny as well as, you know, being poignant. So here’s, the follow up to that, though. How do we hold the tension of assurance and humility when it comes to our worldview?

[00:28:10] Pastor Kyle Bushre: Yeah, that’s a good question. Well, the first thing to say is the gospel makes us humble. And I said this on Sunday, I’ll say it again. There is no bragging about ourselves in the gospel. Paul said, I will gladly brag on the gospel itself. I will brag on Jesus, right? But as soon as I understand that Jesus died for me and it was not because of anything I did, but entirely because of his grace to me, and that it was only God’s selection, his choosing, his opening, my blind eyes, bringing my dead soul back to life that causes me to then put this faith that he gives me as a gift into Jesus. And then I am entirely dependent on what God has done for me in Christ. When I understand the biblical way I was saved, there’s no bragging. There’s no bragging. When I talk to a non-Christian and try to share this gospel with them, I’m literally just saying to them, look what God did for me. Um, here’s what he can do for you. Um, will you put your trust in Jesus? Um, and, uh, you know, there’s no triumphing over other people. Uh, I didn’t win, except that Jesus won for me. So in that way, it’s a very humbling thing. And yet at the same time, I can hold that confidently and firmly. It’s what I believe, and it’s what I believe to be true, based on not only the evidence of the transformation of my own heart, my own regeneration, but on the evidence of the Bible itself, the eyewitness testimony there, or I can appeal to other philosophical things like the existence of morality, the existence of love in our world, things that cannot be explained apart from an external standard, right.

[00:30:08] Pastor Kyle Bushre: Uh, the presence of, people talk about the problem of evil. I would talk about the problem of good. How would we say anything is good or better than other things? By what standard would we measure that? Of course, it’s got to be an external standard, right? There’s all these evidences, all these very good reasons for believing in God and trusting in his witness to us in the scriptures that point us to Jesus. I can hold that very firmly and say it very humbly to a friend. You need this too. And if you disagree with me, that is your right and that is okay. But that doesn’t mean I have to say, well, I guess you can be right. And I can be right. Logically no, that’s not even how arguments work. If you say, if I say Jesus is God and you say Jesus is not God, those cannot be both right. And, or both wrong in the same way. They cannot be.

[00:31:07] Pastor Kyle Bushre: It’s a logical fallacy, right? So. Or logical impossibility is what I mean. Those two things, A cannot be A and not A at the same time. Right. So I can hold that. And then just the tension isn’t between my humility and my arrogance. The tension is between my continued friendship with this person who doesn’t agree with what I believe and my held belief and my desire for my friend to come to know my held belief is his own held belief. And that actually, if you hold all those things correctly, it should make you very compassionate, very loving. Because again, you remind yourself, I didn’t like figure this out. I didn’t give myself something or figure out the right way. And I want everybody to know how right I am. I do think that there are people who approach apologetics that way. They want to be right. And I would say to you, if that is what you’re doing, if you’re trying to win an argument and be shown to be right or be shown to be triumphant or to smirk and point at how wrong everybody else is, just stay out of it. Just stay. You’re not ready to be a ambassador for the gospel then, because you haven’t yet achieved that humility. So how do you do it? How do you see this?

[00:32:30] Pastor Brian Martin: Yeah, I, I think I’m so drawn to it. I think I maybe shared this once on the pod before, but the picture, you know, this is not mine. It’s somebody else. You know, I’m just a beggar.

[00:32:42] Pastor Kyle Bushre: Yeah.

[00:32:43] Pastor Brian Martin: Trying to tell other beggars where to find bread.

[00:32:45] Pastor Kyle Bushre: Yep.

[00:32:46] Pastor Brian Martin: That explanation of the gospel is so compelling to me because to the exact point you’re making. I didn’t do any of this. I didn’t earn any of this. If I think I did, then that’s actually a stark misunderstanding of the gospel from go. And so, um, I think related to that too, and we talked about this, I think two weeks ago on the pod, like Imago Day theology is important here too. Every person is valuable. And so even if I got the information first, it doesn’t mean I own the information.

[00:33:14] Pastor Kyle Bushre: That’s right.

[00:33:14] Pastor Brian Martin: It doesn’t mean it’s, you know, even my information. I just happened to hear it before you happened to hear it. And so, um.

[00:33:23] Pastor Kyle Bushre: To use your beggar and bread analogy, though, to answer your question, even put an even finer point on it.

[00:33:27] Pastor Brian Martin: Yeah.

[00:33:28] Pastor Kyle Bushre: If you were just a beggar who’d found bread and you were trying to point other people to the bread, would it be loving to them to go, I found bread. I think it’s over there. I’m not really sure. Who knows where bread really is anyway. Where did you find your bread? I mean, what is bread really, anyway?

[00:33:48] Pastor Brian Martin: And the whole time his stomach’s rumbling.

[00:33:50] Pastor Kyle Bushre: Yeah, exactly. Like, I don’t know. I mean, I hope you find some bread in life because I brought bread over here, but, hey, you don’t have to find it. Like, that’s just not how anybody believes anything, really.  Not deep down. Not if you actually believe something and not if you actually love the person that you want to see come to it. Now, they may decide they don’t want to go find it. They may not want your gospel. That’s true. But that doesn’t mean we should be soft on whether the gospel is what it really is and what the Word of God actually says.  We just hold the conviction and pray for our friend. And when you get the opportunity, point them to the bread.

[00:34:26] Pastor Brian Martin: Hey, doesn’t it smell good?

[00:34:28] Pastor Kyle Bushre: Yeah. Right. Exactly. Yeah, exactly.

[00:34:31] Pastor Brian Martin: I mean, one of the things that I think I, I might have a hard time articulating this, but I’ve become increasingly convinced that the ways of the Lord are just the best way to live. You know, it just I don’t think I ever disagreed with that, but just the longer I live, the more I see people around me and myself go through things and make mistakes. And it’s just like, it’s just the best, you know? So the bread isn’t just heaven here.  It’s the relationship with the Lord and that matters today. It does matter for what happens when they die. And we don’t know when that’s going to be and we’re not promised tomorrow. And all those things are true. But like the bread is also, you’re not going to be hungry today.

[00:35:10] Pastor Kyle Bushre: Yeah. You can, you can have it now.

[00:35:11] Pastor Brian Martin: You can have it now.

[00:35:13] Pastor Kyle Bushre: Purpose for life. Worshiping the Lord right now and enjoying him forever, which starts today. Not someday. Yeah, absolutely. And you know, the thing is you hold that. You hold firmly to that. I hold firmly to that. I’ll have people walk away from me. They don’t want it. Okay. I’m here when you get back. Yeah, I’m right here. I’m not leaving. I’m ready to share more with you when you’re ready to hear more.

[00:35:36] Pastor Brian Martin: There’s going to be more bread tomorrow.

[00:35:37] Pastor Kyle Bushre: Yeah, I’m right here. Not, maybe you might not be alive to eat it, but you know what I’m saying? Like I’m going to warn you. You know, the bread’s not going anywhere, but you gotta come. Yeah, you got to come to it.

[00:35:51] Pastor Brian Martin: Yeah. I think I want some bread now.

[00:35:55] Pastor Kyle Bushre: Yeah, it does sound good. Right. Like let’s hit up Panera after this.

[00:35:58] Pastor Brian Martin: Yeah. Good. Let’s go hit it up. Oh, well, I think that’s a great place to stop. And that’s because that’s a interesting and beautiful sentiment. So let’s be humble before the Lord and with our friends, and just be willing to share. So yeah. Thanks, Kyle. And thanks for all of you 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.