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 Rochester, Minnesota. I’m your host, Brian Martin, and I’m here today again with Kyle Bushre, who preached a sermon titled To Seek and Save the Lost, looking at Luke 19: 1-10 in our ongoing series, Salvation has Come. All right, Kyle, I might have to, I might have to turn in my, like, legit evangelical card here.
Pastor Kyle Bushre: Oh, my.
Pastor Brian Martin: I don’t know this song.
Pastor Kyle Bushre: What? What?
Pastor Brian Martin: So I gotta tell you, it was so funny, like, okay, let me be clear. I have heard it, but it was not a part of my childhood.
Pastor Kyle Bushre: That is impossible.
Pastor Brian Martin: Isn’t that so weird?
Pastor Kyle Bushre: How did you dodge that? That’s like running through a field of landmines and somehow coming out unscathed. It’s not possible.
Pastor Brian Martin: So both Anne and I are like, we were like, do you know that song? I don’t know that song either. No, she didn’t grow up in the church the same way I did. But we both were like, I don’t really know the song. And then we looked down the row and our girls are like, we know this song. We’re like, how do you know this song? We, neither of us knows this song.
Pastor Kyle Bushre: Wow.
Pastor Brian Martin: And we think one of our friends, like, taught it to them when they were little or whatever. Like…
Pastor Kyle Bushre: Anyway, that’s, do you know the BIBLE?
Pastor Brian Martin: Yes, that one I know.
Pastor Kyle Bushre: That’s the book for me. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. You know that one. How do you. That is like the same. Those are taught back to back. I’m sorry. Those come in a package. How do you mean?
Pastor Brian Martin: I don’t know. Do we need to revoke my license?
Pastor Kyle Bushre: I don’t know. I think we need to question it. I yeah, I mean, we need to contact the EFCA, I think find out what’s going on here.
Pastor Brian Martin: I know. I mean nobody asked that in in my…
Pastor Kyle Bushre: Oh my goodness.
Pastor Brian Martin: In my licensing interview.
Pastor Kyle Bushre: Wow. Okay.
Pastor Brian Martin: I, nobody asked that in my interview at Calvary either, which is I mean, if we’re making a higher in the future, we should probably ask that question.
Pastor Kyle Bushre: That should be one. Yeah, it should be one of the top questions.
Pastor Brian Martin: Could you please sing in the key of E, the Zacchaeus song? No? Next
Pastor Kyle Bushre: Well, here’s the thing about it is that, um. Yeah, it’s one of those, uh. Well, I thought it was ubiquitous. I thought everybody knew this song.
Pastor Brian Martin: Well, clearly, most of the people in the room knew of a certain age, anyway.
Pastor Kyle Bushre: Yeah. And you are of that certain age.
Pastor Brian Martin: I know.
Pastor Kyle Bushre: Which is crazy. But then the other thing is, is that knowing this song doesn’t mean we know anything about what you believe, because the song contains, from what I can tell, no theological content. It’s the craziest song. Yeah, it just end. I’m going to your house today and that’s it. That’s the whole..
Pastor Brian Martin: Yeah stating facts. Spitting truth.
Pastor Kyle Bushre: Yeah. And you’re like, why, Jesus? Why are you going to his house today?
Pastor Brian Martin: You know, what’s so interesting about that is there is a Veggie Tales version of this, I believe, which I also did not grow up on.
Pastor Kyle Bushre: Oh, Okay.
Pastor Brian Martin: Which is interesting. And I think it became a little more prominent after I was little.
Pastor Kyle Bushre: That missed me. Yeah, yeah, I was, I was too old for it.
Pastor Brian Martin: So there’s Veggie Tales version of it. And one of the reasons, because when I actually looked it up, you know, whatever. After all this and preparing for today and, um, and I’m reminded of something Phil Vischer said, which was after he made VeggieTales, you know, he was proud of it, but he was like, you know, I realized we were telling kids about the Bible, but we weren’t really teaching them the Bible. And then he came out with What’s in the Bible, right?
Pastor Kyle Bushre: Which is awesome.
Pastor Brian Martin: Which is awesome.
Pastor Kyle Bushre: Yeah. Parents, if you are interested in something that’s really great for your kids, check that out.
Pastor Brian Martin: So rich and meaty, you’ll learn stuff.
Pastor Kyle Bushre: Yeah. I mean, it’s fantastic.
Pastor Brian Martin: We used it as curriculum here for a while. Um, actually in one of our…
Pastor Kyle Bushre: Kids here at Calvary. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Pastor Brian Martin: Um, but I do believe it is on right now media for anybody listening, by the way.
Pastor Kyle Bushre: Um, yeah, we loved it. Our kids watched the whole series. It was good.
How to handle bible stories that feel like they are “for kids”
Pastor Brian Martin: So good. So anyway, to that point. So you mentioned this, uh, in a certain way, you know, yes, we had good fun with the song, but I think there’s actually like a, an interpretive and hermeneutical challenge of reading stories like Zacchaeus that are common in elementary Sunday school. And I think it’s because we have this like, at least for me and I think for some other people too, we have a harder time reading them for like theological value in adulthood. Because we’re like, and part of it’s probably like, I know this story or whatever. Um, but I mean, I, I just want us to remember, like Zacchaeus was not written as a children’s story.
Pastor Kyle Bushre: Correct, yes.
Pastor Brian Martin: I mean, I don’t it’s not a problem, of course, that we’re teaching it to our children. It’s great on a flannel graph, right?
Pastor Kyle Bushre: Yeah. Yeah.
Pastor Brian Martin: Guy going up the tree and the little, you know, I mean, I get it.
Pastor Kyle Bushre: Of course. Yes.
Pastor Brian Martin: It’s very visual, anyway. But I think the point is they’re not written that way. So how do we overcome challenges like that as readers of Scripture? Like, you know, and I think Noah’s Ark is another good example.
Pastor Kyle Bushre: Jonah is also a good example. I was just talking to somebody yesterday about Jonah. They were. And the fact that when you read that book, that book is full of very important truths about what it means to be faithful to the Lord. What does repentance look like? Who is the gospel for? I mean, it’s just, uh, you know, uh, xenophobia, fear of strangers, fear of love for enemies. I mean, there’s so much in the book, and yet everybody’s like, oh, yeah, Jonah and the whale, he gets, he gets spit up, you know, whale spits him up onto the ground, and then God gives him another chance and end of story. Actually, it’s not. There’s a whole lot going on there.
Right.
And the same is true of, of, I mean, obviously the flood is a huge judgment from the Lord. And so we need to go back and reread that if we think it’s just, you know, a boat full of animals all smiling and happy.
Pastor Brian Martin: It’s a story about mass genocide and we put it in our kids nursery.
Pastor Kyle Bushre: I wouldn’t know, I’m not sure I’d use genocide so much as judgment. Genocide would be a single, yeah, yeah, yeah…
Pastor Brian Martin: I agree judgement is a better word but you know what I’m saying.
Pastor Kyle Bushre: Yeah, it’s bad. It’s not good. It’s a yeah, it’s God’s wrath being poured out on humanity and God’s saving, choosing to save one family. So yeah, so you go to Zacchaeus and you say, well, I know everything about, everything I know about Zacchaeus comes from the song. And I, you know, we just have to, as readers of the Bible, as adults say to ourselves, great that we know the structure. Here’s what I would say to an adult who has difficulty reading those stories or, you know, of reading them fresh. Enjoy the fact that you got some structure as a child in understanding sort of the beats of the story, but recognize that there was no way at that age you could possibly have understood the depth of what God was communicating through these stories, right? There’s no way you could have known that. And so what you get to do, it’s actually an advantage. You get to go back and go, okay, I think I know this story, but I’m certain that I don’t. I think I know it.
Pastor Brian Martin: Yeah.
Pastor Kyle Bushre: But I’m certain I don’t. So let me go in and see what these things mean. What. Okay. Jonah got swallowed by a whale. Why? Let me explore that. Let me really dive into what would cause this to happen. And then you can read for that. Why did Zacchaeus climb up into a tree? Well, he wanted to see the Lord. Okay, so you go, all right, well done. I don’t have to think about that anymore. No. You do. Why did he want to see the Lord? Did he want to see the Lord because he knew Jesus was God? No. So what is he? He’s spiritually curious. And that’s where you can start to piece together the beats of the story. You go, oh, he’s in a sense, I don’t like this word very much, but he’s in a sense a seeker. He’s a person who wants some information or at least has some curiosity. That’s why I like spiritual curious better. He’s got some curiosity about Jesus. Oh, that teaches me about what it means to look, what it looks like when someone is spiritually curious. Yeah, I get a sense for that. They it’s a person who is blocked in some way from seeing Jesus and puts himself in a position to understand who Jesus is a little bit better, and that helps me understand the world around me a little bit better. And you can do that with the story beats. So I don’t think it’s a disadvantage, but it would be a huge disadvantage if you thought you got the comprehensive story, you know, from flannel graph, and that was it. That’s all there was to teach about that. No, you just got the facts. Just a couple of facts. Yeah. Now go from there.
Pastor Brian Martin: And our interpretive approach always has to include context, right? So part of the context when we’re reading needs to be who was this written to? Who is this for? You know, and who’s it for? It’s for all of us, in one manner of speaking. But who was it written to? And the answer isn’t second graders. Right. And so we have to be. And we sometimes bring that baggage into our reading without knowing we’re bringing that baggage. So just being aware, right. This wasn’t written for second grade. I mean, it also, for second graders, especially if they’re in the Lord, right? Um, but just remembering that.
Pastor Kyle Bushre: Yeah, I heard somebody a long time ago, somebody said to me, and I think they’re right, that the Bible is an adult book. And this is really helpful I think. It doesn’t mean you can’t teach it to children, but children are not going to be able to fully understand what’s there. Now, even as adults, we continue to, as I like to say, plunge the depths of Scripture. We continue to learn as we, but it was written from eyewitness accounts from adults to the church who are adults, to turn around to teach to the rest of the church. Right? So it’s not a children’s storybook. We make children’s story books out of the stories of the Bible to get kids introduced to the truth. Right? And there are better ones than others. The ones that are that simply moralize, you know, do this, don’t do that. Be a good kid. God loves you. These sort of sort of vanilla statements. Those you can find those in storybooks. Those are not great Bible story books, but you go to like a Jesus storybook Bible that says, here’s how the whole Bible hangs together…
Pastor Brian Martin: Yeah.
Pastor Kyle Bushre: And points us to the gospel, points us to Christ. And we can see the pattern of the gospel throughout the Old Testament and lived out in Jesus and then carried out by the apostles. Um, those storybooks can be in a sense, beginner books that bridge, help children bridge into an adult reading where they can actually handle scripture. Yeah. So, that’s what I would encourage. It’s great. We used them. We used storybooks. I mean, every good, I think every parent that’s wanting to teach their kids about Jesus uses storybook, but you can’t stay there because the Bible is so much richer and deeper than that. And it’s written for adults.
Pastor Brian Martin: Yep. Yep. And to your point, I mean, I’ve been thinking of, you know, in child dedication. We use the Deuteronomy passage. Teach them to your children. Right? You know, I mean. Right. And that’s a very specific thing. But I think the principle carries. Right.
Pastor Kyle Bushre: Absolutely.
Pastor Brian Martin: That, you know, as adults, we have a responsibility to do that. I think I would add one other, you know, just sort of practical thing too. I find when a story feels too familiar to me, I will read it in another version.
Pastor Kyle Bushre: Ah, yes.
Pastor Brian Martin: And I find that to be really helpful. You know, you gave a shout out to The Message on Sunday for example and actually, I think that’s actually a great use of The Message, by the way. I’ve used that on purpose. Sure. To be like, okay, I’m really familiar with this story. Let me read a very different version of it.
Pastor Kyle Bushre: If you think of it like a commentary or one guy’s take on on the Bible, then that’s it’s a, you can use it that way. Right. I did actually crack The Message this week to see if they used wee little man. I was certain they did not, but I did what I thought if there was a 1% chance that he could have said that, I should know that.
Pastor Brian Martin: That’s funny. But yeah. Or, you know, I mean, what other ones that would read a lot differently than the ESV would you be more common, you know, to pick up?
Pastor Kyle Bushre: I mean, I think the NIV is still popular. Yeah. I think the NASB is actually a more rigid read than the ESV. So that makes it a little bit more difficult. Although it is, is, is very accurate.
Pastor Brian Martin: And, but it is different. I mean, I like the differentness of it.
Pastor Kyle Bushre: Yeah. No doubt.
Pastor Brian Martin: So I would agree with that.
Pastor Kyle Bushre: Yeah. And, and I would say I might even go, I might even go with like a New Living translation. Yeah. As a paraphrase, I that can be helpful if you really are stuck, especially if you’re really stuck in a, in a passage and you just, I don’t know what that’s talking about. Go to one of those. Read them like commentaries though. Yeah. Because you’re not getting a, you know, you’re getting thought for thought, not word for word translation there. But it can be helpful. It can be helpful for understanding.
Pastor Brian Martin: Yeah, so the, there’s quite a few publications that have parallel versions. Which I think can be really interesting. Do you use the CSB much?
Pastor Kyle Bushre: I do not. No.
Pastor Brian Martin: Yeah. Anyway, I, it’s been interesting to me. I’ve been watching to see what the free church does with the CSB, because there’s a lot of free church scholars that worked on CSB, but it hasn’t come into as much of the fore of…
Pastor Kyle Bushre: I think it’s going to be very hard for any. I think it’s very, very hard for any translation to pass the ESV in the evangelical world. Yeah. It’s so solid. I just, I mean, I might have made the same argument back in the 90s with the NIV though. I might have said, well, no one’s ever going to pass the NIV, but actually, yeah, the ESV is more accurate than the NIV in that sense. So it’s and still readable.
Pastor Brian Martin: Well, it’s interesting you bring that up because I was actually talking to somebody this weekend about this. And so what I was told in seminary, so I, when I went to Northwestern, they had just switched to ESV as their preferred translation. And so we were required to, you know, buy an ESV study Bible as part of our program, which is fine. Makes complete sense. And their argument for it was, you know, we like the ESV the best because it has the best scholarship based on the Dead Sea Scrolls. That was that was one of their arguments. Right. And I was explaining to in the conversation I was having this weekend because it took several decades to get there. Because they were discovered, was it the mid 60s?
Pastor Kyle Bushre: Oh boy.
Pastor Brian Martin: I think it was I don’t know whatever.
Pastor Kyle Bushre: Something like that.
Pastor Brian Martin: Yeah. But then the point was first archaeologists had to, like figure out how to preserve all this stuff and like, do all that. And that took a decade. And then it had to be read in the original languages and translated. And then that took a decade. And then scholars started making conclusions based on all that. And so that’s why we didn’t get like Dead Sea Scrolls. Now we’re going to change our translations instantly. It took this time of like scholarship had to happen. And then we were like, yeah, that makes sense that we should maybe update that word or we should, because we understand that better now. Anyway, I just thought that was an interesting.
Pastor Kyle Bushre: Yeah, yeah. I mean, that’s why we should never lock in as far as, you know, setting a saying, you know, the ESV has arrived. In fact, there was a discussion at one point of locking the language of the ESV and saying, this is it. This is we’re not translating…
Pastor Brian Martin: Oh, interesting.
Pastor Kyle Bushre Yeah. There was actually some discussion. Um, and then they went back on it and they said, no, that’s not the right approach. And so they’re going to continue to come up with versions, not only because, not because, the Greek and the Hebrew and Aramaic change, but because English changes, and the way we communicate changes.
What is the relationship between wealth and faith?
Pastor Brian Martin: Because language is a living, breathing thing. It changes, it grows it, you know, we remove words from the lexicon, we add words to the lexicon. It’s just part of it. Yep. Anyway, all right. Well, back, back to Sunday and, and what we had. So, you talked some about wealth, of course, because you have to, because it’s a key part of this passage. Yeah. And it’s absolutely true, of course, that it’d be wrong to assume that anyone with any wealth can’t be walking with the Lord like that would be right. That’s too much, right? But it would also be wrong to assume I would, I think you would agree that poverty is somehow more spiritual.
Pastor Kyle Bushre: Right.
Pastor Brian Martin: Like you pointed out, well, like you might have fewer distractions. You know, there’s probably some good things there or whatever, but so, you know, so much as we can speak to this and this is obviously going to be broad strokes, but what’s the right relationship between wealth and faith? Or what is the relationship between wealth and faith?
Pastor Kyle Bushre: Yeah. Well, the relationship between faith in Christ and anything we have is stewardship. So whatever…
Pastor Brian Martin: That’s such a good word.
Pastor Kyle Bushre: Whatever I have is not mine. So even the phrase I have is a little misleading. I have been given to oversee anything that I have literally my house, my the money that I have, but also my time, my job, my energy, uh, my free time, my family. Everything that I have been given is not mine ultimately, but God’s ultimately. And I think that is the first step toward understanding how to answer this question of, of, you know, what, how do I think about wealth as it relates to my faith? If you don’t get that right, I don’t think anything that follows that matters. Yeah. Because if you’re if you start with a this is mine, I am the I’m the king. I am the captain of this stuff. This is it belongs to me and not to God, but to me. Yeah. Uh, then then you, then you start to, you know, all the decisions that you’re going to make are going to come through your heart first and not the gospel first. All the stuff that if you’re a steward, if, if you don’t own it, the first thing you have to ask is who does. My master owns it. And secondly, you have to say, well, what would my master have me do with this? And now we’re thinking right. Now we’re thinking biblically about stuff. And actually we’re getting a little ahead of ourselves because next week we’re actually going to look at the parable of the ten minas and which is a very close to the talents parable. And it’s also about not owning the stuff and using the stuff correctly. So the beauty of your question is that it’s getting to what we’re going to be talking about even more depth next Sunday, but this…
Pastor Brian Martin: Glad to help.
Pastor Kyle Bushre: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. A little foreshadowing.
Pastor Brian Martin: Set you up.
Pastor Kyle Bushre: Absolutely. But yeah, in this case, you, if I’m thinking that all my stuff is not my stuff and all my stuff is God’s stuff, and I’m only there to move it around and do with it with God what have me do with it, well, now, I’m free. I believe I’m released from having to hoard anything. Now I can just get everything that God’s given me into its proper place. And if he chooses to give me a lot. Yeah, then I have a lot to manage. And if he chooses to give me a little, then I have a little to manage. And that’s just how to approach stuff. And if you get, like I say, if you get that right, then everything else makes sense. Now, it doesn’t matter if I’m rich or poor.
Pastor Brian Martin: Yeah.
Pastor Kyle Bushre: The only reason it would matter is if I, that stuff got it’s, as I like to say, hooks in me. If that thing became my idol, then like Zacchaeus, I might need to do something pretty radical with this stuff because I’m starting to worship the money, the wealth. That’s really what’s important to me. Yeah. And I got to get rid of it. It’s actually misleading my own heart. And so that’s what I would say to a person. It’s not it’s great if you’re wealthy. That means God’s given you a lot to manage. But are you worshiping the stuff? Is the stuff more important to you? Is the wealth more important to you than the Lord? Do you think this stuff is yours and yours alone. For you to have this most lavish life that you could possibly have. And you know, make paradise on earth for yourself. Do you believe that’s why God gave it to you? Now, we’re pretty far away from why God would give you wealth, right? And you’re not able to manage that wealth well. And that’s what Zacchaeus learned. Clearly, that’s what he learned about himself. I got to get rid of half of this before I can make any other choice. I gotta get rid of half. I gotta give half of this away to the poor so that it is no longer my God. Then I can manage the rest of it. And then he goes on and manages the rest of it by giving four fold away to the people he had wronged. Right. And then he said, I’m going to live on whatever remains. And like I said on Sunday, we don’t know what that how much that is. But he got his heart right with Jesus by getting his stewardship job correct. And once he had that done, now he can live for Jesus.
Pastor Brian Martin: Yeah, yeah. There’s an irony in it that this needs to be convicting. You know, that if it’s consuming us, if it has it’s hooks or whatever, it needs to be convicting, but submitting to this reality that we are stewards and not owners is also freeing. Because you can crush yourself under the weight of trying to build your own wealth. You know, in this sense, or the other examples you gave to like, I think about that a lot with parenting. If you think of parenting as sort of, I’m responsible for my kids and whatever, it can crush you. Yeah, it can crush you. Yep. But if you’re like, they’re gods. Yep. And I need to steward this as best as I can. I have a responsibility here as a parent to input as much as I can. And outcome is kind of up to the Lord. You know.
Pastor Kyle Bushre: They belong to God and I’ve been given them for a time.
Pastor Brian Martin: Yes.
Pastor Kyle Bushre: And my job is to launch them well, right. Teach them the gospel. Route them well, launch them well.
What is good stewardship?
Pastor Brian Martin: It’s the same thinking. Yep. It’s a stewardship, not an ownership in that sense. Right? Yeah.
Pastor Kyle Bushre: Yeah. And I don’t have to micromanage everything that that my every choice my kids make. I just have to guide them toward Jesus. Um, you know, because that’s good stewardship of my parent, my parent role. So yeah, absolutely everything can be managed like that. It’s great. It’s so much better than feeling like it’s all mine. And I’ve got to, you know, I’m going to make this paradise on earth. Nope. I’m just going to move God’s stuff around to make optimal kingdom choices and to, to, to glorify God the best I can with it for as long as he has me here.
What role we play in God’s seeking?
Pastor Brian Martin: Yeah. Yep. It’s huge. It’s huge. Well, this passage also has this idea of. And you spoke to it, but God’s ability to or not ability, obviously ability, but God’s desire to seek the lost. Right. So what role do we play or can we play in God’s seeking of the lost? What role do we play as Christians?
Pastor Kyle Bushre: What role do we play? I well, we’re told, how beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news. Right. So we take the message. We go out and we spread this. We spread the gospel, we spread the Word of God like a sower sowing seed and we just throw it everywhere. Hard path, rocky path, whatever, you know, good soil. Um, it doesn’t matter. We just throw, we just throw the word everywhere. That’s our job. Our job is to, you know, get the word out, make podcasts where we talk about Jesus and, and write sermons and, and put together adult Sunday schools and
Pastor Brian Martin: Have conversations with neighbors and.
Pastor Kyle Bushre: Everything we can just to try to, yeah, share the gospel at work. You know, as we, I, that illustration I used a couple of weeks ago with Al Baraka, you know, in the towers known as the Rev. Why? Because he shared the gospel with his coworkers, right? Yeah. That’s what we do. That’s our job. We do not do the other part. We don’t draw anybody. We can speak to the spiritually curious. We can show them Jesus, and then we can see what God does in their heart. And maybe they give away half their stuff and give back fourfold to anybody they’ve wronged and, and, and turn to follow Jesus. And great if they do. And maybe they, maybe they hear, they hear, uh, that it’s going to cost them too much like the rich ruler. And it’s, they just, they turn and they walk away. And you’ll notice that Jesus didn’t chase him down. He just explained what just happened there to his disciples, that’s all he did. Yeah. Because it is the work of the spirit in that person’s heart that makes the change. It is not us. Yeah.
Pastor Brian Martin: So, I was told something once that I really resonated with. I heard a pastor say, look, guys, you got to share the gospel. Just don’t be weird. You know, and he was like, he’s like, and the point he was making was it doesn’t have to be, you don’t have to like, you know, some people, you know, you’ve heard some preachers who have like preacher voice, you know, like, I mean, and we all do that to some degree when we’re on stage or whatever. But like, but there’s guys who go like, you don’t sound like that when I talk to you at all. Yeah. Like, you know. And I think some people, you know, even do that in conversation. You bring up Jesus and they, like, turn on a character or something.
Pastor Kyle Bushre: Yeah.
Pastor Brian Martin: He’s like, if it’s a part of your life, just talk about it like it’s a part of your life. It doesn’t have to be, it’s not performative and it shouldn’t be. Yeah. Because that comes off as disingenuous. You know, and even I think sometimes even we can almost use cultural values against themselves in a, in a helpful way in that sense. Like, what I mean is, um, there’s some people that the way I would that I have and that I would walk into the conversation is sort of, uh, let me tell you my experience with Jesus. I see, you know what I mean? Like, right. You’re, there’s a lot of people in the world who are just, you know. Yeah. But you can’t disagree with my personal experience. Well, you can’t disagree with mine then, either. So let me tell you about how Jesus is a part of that. Yeah, yeah. So there’s ways to talk about it that I mean, it should just be normal. It should just be a part of who we are.
Pastor Kyle Bushre: Yeah. It should be, uh, it’s something we can talk about easily with others because it’s genuine in us. If it’s not genuine in you, if this is where people run into the problem, right of being a witness is that no part of their life appears openly, at least not to the vision of others, that people can see it in your life. None of it. Your life. If your life doesn’t look like that, you follow Jesus regularly. Then when you turn on the talk about Jesus, it’s going to be like left field. Like, yeah, you don’t seem like a person who follows Jesus the way you’re talking about him right now. Right. And if there’s a disconnect there, that disconnect needs to be shored up probably for you to have a good witness. Yeah. But yes, I, you know, I think the beauty of the Zacchaeus story is that at the end of the day, who seeks Jesus, seeks. Jesus is the one that came and Zacchaeus. Zacchaeus was curious. God orchestrated a great opportunity for him to hear the gospel, or at least to encounter Jesus. But Jesus came and got him, not the other way around. And I bring that into every encounter that I have with. When I talk with people who don’t know the Lord. Yeah. If they’re going to give, let me have an audience and I get to talk about Jesus a little bit. Fantastic. But I know that it’s from that point on that Jesus is going to need to seek this person.
Pastor Brian Martin: Yeah.
Pastor Kyle Bushre: You know?
Pastor Brian Martin: Yeah. And to be clear, like I’m guessing you would agree with this. I mean, I’ve had these conversations. I probably should have them more. I do this for a living. It’s terrifying.
Pastor Kyle Bushre: Oh, yeah.
Pastor Brian Martin: Do you know what I mean? Oh, yeah. I mean, it’s scary. And so if you know, if you’re thinking, hey, I know there’s this, you know, person I work with or whatever that I really should be sharing the gospel with. But man, am I freaked out. Yeah. Yeah. That’s normal.
Pastor Kyle Bushre: Yeah. That’s normal. Yep.
Pastor Brian Martin: It feels real scary.
Pastor Kyle Bushre: Yeah. Because there is this. There’s a fear of rejection. Yeah. There’s, there’s no question about that.
Pastor Brian Martin: Or disrupting the relationship or making it weird at work or whatever it is.
Pastor Kyle Bushre: And you could be, you might even be ostracized. That I mean, in the worst case scenarios, right?
Pastor Brian Martin: Absolutely. But that’s really normal. So in any case let’s look at verse seven just here for a moment. From the passage and I’ll just read it. And when they saw it, they all grumbled, he has gone in to be the guest of a man who is a sinner. So how do we, as you know, so the crowd is annoyed because they think Zacchaeus, well, they know Zacchaeus isn’t, yeah, a good, good guy.
Pastor Kyle Bushre: Yeah. They’re right. They’re right about it. They are objectively right about him not being a good guy.
Pastor Brian Martin: Right? So I would say as Christians, how should we look at this and how do we translate this idea to today? And so like, should we be friends with so-called tax collectors and sinners? You know? Right. And, and what should that friendship look like and not look like? Because I think sometimes we give confusing messaging in the church about friendship. Okay. Where, you know, I think particularly with youth and this is not me criticizing my colleagues who are working with youth. I was a youth pastor for a long time. I think I did this, that’s more what I’m speaking to. Like, hey, bring, you know, make sure that your friends are lifting you up and not tearing you down and that they’re encouraging you toward Jesus, but also invite your own church friends to.
Pastor Kyle Bushre: Right
Pastor Brian Martin: You know, or whatever, like, so what should that friendship look like?
Pastor Kyle Bushre: Well, I think we just have to know going in what we’re talking about here. If we are talking about, hey, you need to have friends in your life who are going to build you up, there’s going to be Christian friends in your life. That’s right. We’re talking about people who are going to be close to you, who are going to pray with you, who are going to walk with you in life. And yeah if we say you need to invite your unsaved friends to youth group, if you can, or we’re inviting you to do that, we’d like you to do that. You don’t have to, but we’d like you to do that. And we’d like you to share the gospel. We’d like you to get into circles where you’re around people who don’t know Jesus, and to build friendships with these folks and spend time with them. Yeah, I there is no problem doing that. In fact, that is the mission, and I, we want to be sent into the mission field that is our community. We just have to be we just have to be aware that’s what we’re doing.
Pastor Brian Martin: Yeah.
Pastor Kyle Bushre: I don’t know that we need to do anything more than to simply be aware that we are in a relationship with a person who is not going to lead me closer to Jesus. I know this. This person is not drawing, uh, from the running river of God’s wisdom that we find in, say, Psalm one. Right. Like stream, like a tree planted by streams of living water. Yeah. I know I’m not drawing truth from this person. Um, I know that their values aren’t going to be my values. And I just, I can still be friends with a person where all those things are different. Yeah. As long as I’m as I’m aware that they’re different and I’m not going to go along with them, I’m not. If they try to take me in a direction I shouldn’t go, I’m not going to go that direction. But I’m here for them. I want to love them. I want to pray for them. I’ll walk through life with them. I’m going to look for opportunities to share the gospel with them. I’m going to go hang out and have, you know, have dinner, you know, with a friend like that.
Pastor Brian Martin: Yeah.
Pastor Kyle Bushre: So the caution, I guess is simply to just be a discerning person. And I think most people can be that. Now I do, we do run into the problem with parents saying, I don’t feel my son or daughter is a strong enough Christian to be discerning like that. Yeah. Okay. Then you got to weigh that out. You got to think through what is the best environment for your child. How do you help guide. Right. That’s just parenting. But I would say by and large a person who follows Jesus and loves Jesus is going to be able to be a discerning person, at least at some point in their life. And we need to allow for that because that’s what’s required for the mission, is what I would say. So yeah, it’s true. We need people to that we like, you know, the attention you brought up, we need you do need people in your life who are going to be great friends who love Jesus are going to build you up. And you also need to be salt and light to a dying world. And you’ve just got to be strong enough to be able to be both of those things.
Pastor Brian Martin: Yeah. And you have to know what category you’re in. Yep. And it matters, which I guess is frankly another example of stewardship in one manner of speaking. So yeah, yeah. But I think sometimes we get caught in the this sort of set apart trap, which is, is a fair argument to some degree. And, you know, I do think the people of God should be different, but I don’t think that means we can never interact with people who don’t believe exactly what we believe.
Pastor Kyle Bushre: Yeah. When the Bible warns us against, say, having fellowship with those who practice lawlessness or things like that, or avoiding these sorts of things. It’s calling us to avoid being part of what they’re doing. It’s calling us to be separated from their activity, not misled into sin, not hearing the siren call of of a, of a sinful lifestyle and crashing into those rocks. Right? It’s, it’s warning us against doing those things. Uh, you know, when, when I mentioned Psalm one before, right? And it talks about making sure that you don’t find yourself, uh, you know, standing in the way of sinners and sitting in the seat of scoffers. Right? Yeah. It’s you know, walking in the foolishness walk. I can’t remember how it’s phrased right now, but basically you’re walking in foolishness, you’re standing in sin, and then you become a mocker. That’s a progression toward I’m going to become like these people, right? That’s the thing that the Bible is, uh, blessed is the man who does not walk in the counsel of the wicked. Thank you, I got it. It was. I knew it was there. It was like the tip of my brain.
Pastor Brian Martin: Don’t thank me. I didn’t have anything to do with helping you with that.
Pastor Kyle Bushre: I don’t know what happened there, I got it, I nailed it. Anyway, um, that’s the idea, is that if you are finding yourself sinking in the, in the quicksand of sin, and you’re not going to be able to get out of it, and you’re, you’re going along. That’s the problem, right? It’s not the relationship with the person who’s far from Jesus. Yeah. You can be quite a light of Christ to that person. Yeah. And God has placed you there. And that’s a fantastic thing. But you’re going to have to say no a lot, right? You’re going to have to say, I disagree with that. You’re going to have to you’re going to have to say, you know, here’s how I would think about that as a Christian. And even if that’s an uncomfortable thing. Yeah, you’re going to have to live like that in that relationship with people. And if you’re not able to do that, then I would say pull away because you don’t want to be misled. Yeah, and that’s right. Yeah. That’s the danger.
Pastor Brian Martin: Yeah. And that does matter. And we have to be honest with ourselves about which, which, you know, relationships or situations are tempting to us and which aren’t. You know, I remember I had a good friend who he was in this like men’s group and everybody was talking about struggles. And obviously a very common one among men is lust. And especially young men, you know, whatever is lust. And he was like, you know, if there were eight guys in the group, seven of them said that. And he was like, yeah, I don’t really struggle that much with that. But man, I like weed a lot. You know, like that was his thing.
Pastor Kyle Bushre: Oh no.
Pastor Brian Martin: And everybody else was sort of like, oh, that’s a different kind of a struggle. And what I would just say is he would have to avoid different situations. And some of those other guys would potentially like, they both would have to, you know, I mean, obviously anything that would lead…
I think the eighth guy struggled with lust anyway. He just didn’t wanna admit it.
Pastor Brian Martin: Maybe. I mean, maybe he did, but he didn’t feel like that was his primary struggle at the time. And, and anyway, the point is we’re not all built the same. In that sense. We’re all susceptible to sin, and that’s universal. But our level of temptation might be different. Our level of whatever, you know, we might be able to endure different things. And so we just have to be honest with ourselves.
Pastor Kyle Bushre: You got to know yourself.
Pastor Brian Martin: And we have to be honest in community about those things like, hey, this probably isn’t good for you, brother, because I can see you going down this road. You spend time with those people and your language gets a lot worse or whatever the example might be. And we got to be honest with each other about that too.
Pastor Kyle Bushre: Yeah. And that’s yeah. And honest with each other. That’s really cool. That’s a really good point. You know, you can make a lot more non-Christian friends if you have a good community around you of, of Christians who can watch your life and see you if you’re making changes or if you’re being misled or any of these things, they’re there to help you. Um, so we can be a much more effective missions organization reaching people who are lost and very far from Jesus. If we, if we do it together, if we’re building one another up and checking in with each other. Hey, let’s pray about this in our, in our shepherding community. Who are you? Who are you talking to? Who are you reaching out to? Who are the people in your life who need Jesus and, and, and how can we come around to you in prayer and support to help you to reach out to this person? So yeah, it’s important to be in that community. Yeah.
Pastor Brian Martin: Yeah. Great. Well, I think that’s probably all we have time for today. But I know we’re having so much time flies when you’re having fun, right? Yep. Well, thanks again, Kyle, and thanks to everybody here for joining us on the Calvary Callback. We hope this time was encouragement to you. Uh, was an encouragement to you. Excuse me. And whether you are 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.
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