Church is Messy

Church Is Messy, 04-29-2026 Ep142
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Svea: Welcome back to Church's Messy. I'm so excited to be sitting down with Caleb today. Yeah. Hey, Caleb. Welcome.

Caleb: Thank you. Absolutely. It's fun just having the two of us and not having a third party in the room.

Svea: I know. Yeah, I know. Rick's not here to give you the look.

Caleb: That's right. Exactly. The look of either either.

Popping my Ps or bes into the microphone. Oh, you do that, don't you? Yeah. It just happens.

Svea: Your theater background,

Caleb: the theater background, it comes in. Tisha also, this is another thing, from our passage, I don't get married. I'm trying to save you from having more troubles in this life.

It wasn't until I was married that I found out that. Also I say whs with what and where like I actually, oh, kind of pronounce the H in it sometimes too.

Svea: All. And your diction is

Caleb: incredible. Yes it's on point, but it's annoying apparently too.

Svea: Rick, often we'll start off with some kind of a story from a hobby he's into or something like that.

Do you have a little hobby story worked up for us?

Caleb: No. No. No, not at all. I have no hobbies. My hobbies are sitting around. I'm like, why? Why can't sitting and doing nothing be a hobby? How is that's if that's relaxes you, why is that? Why is that a problem?

Svea: I

Caleb: also,

Svea: well, there's a lot of spiritual formation people that would call that rest and say, you're just more spiritual than the rest of us.

Caleb: Oh, that sounds good. I also just enjoy making fun, of making fun of Rick and the amount of of time and energy that he puts in of to prepare. To then go and. Do what I do for my hobby, which is just sitting and enjoying life. But he has to put in all this work and effort to go and do it out in the woods somewhere.

And I'm like, why? Why do you put in all the work on the front end of that? Like that? Just, I don't understand that

Svea: your method is cheaper.

Caleb: Yeah, it's very much cheaper.

Svea: Glad to have you here today, Caleb, and glad for so many reasons.

Glad not to, not just to get to talk about a great message that you preached this last weekend, but but you've been out of the office a little more than usual over the last couple months and I'm just so happy that you're back.

Caleb: Thanks. Thanks. Yeah. Podcast is a good place to give a little more description to things.

Yeah. About let's see, I'm coming up on almost three months now. About three months ago I had a couple days of not feeling great. I still don't really know if it was a cold that started it, but all of the symptoms that I had in that just continued. And they'd never left. And, two and a half, three months later, thankfully I've had the tests done that would show us if anything more serious were going on.

So all of those have been clear, which is great. But it's still undiagnosed and, it's not, it's weird. It's not it's not vertigo. Like nothing starts to spin, but it's those sensations and those feelings and from very loving people who want me to feel better, I have a long list of things that I can still try that I haven't tried to see if it will help me get better.

And who knows? I might step into some of those here in the next couple weeks. But I, I just am taking, I'm taking life as I have the energy to. Yeah. I'd say the best way to describe it, or even, I would say the biggest hurdle that I keep, that I have to get past every day is not feeling too lightheaded and fatigue is a serious symptom these days.

So doing this at the. On the morning of a Tuesday

Svea: in the beginning of the

Caleb: day is a lot more helpful.

Svea: Yeah. I'm glad that our podcasting routine fits your lifestyle right now.

Caleb: It does. It does. It does. So I appreciate all the prayers and the concerns that everybody has had.

They're definitely the things that I can still engage with in life, and they're the things that, that I just can't. Being being in the lobby is one of those things that it's actually difficult because, especially for us on staff our heads are on a swivel. While on Sundays, 'cause we're wanting to make sure we connect with different people and welcome people and greet people.

And that is not the best situation for somebody who deals with lightheadedness. Yeah. Though I can't quite do that yet. I'm trying to be as involved as I can and being able to preach and find a way to do that. Even by using a table as a, just a a steady piece Yeah.

To help me. That was good.

Svea: It wasn't a bad look. It worked

Caleb: well. Good. It especially worked for those that were not there for the first service, for the for the nine o'clock service on Sunday. If you went to the other two, you would not know this unless you watched the video that we've got online.

But I I spilled coffee

Svea: Oh yeah.

Caleb: All over my lap, right before I walked out for the for the nine o'clock on Sunday. If you missed it, you can go back, just watch the first couple minutes of the sermon.

Svea: It was like on old sitcoms or TV shows where the actress is pregnant and so they have to hide her behind tables.

Caleb: Yeah, totally. I was like, laundry

Svea: baskets.

Caleb: This is perfect. Not only did I wear a coat or jacket as my outfit for the day, but I also had a table in front of me. Yeah. So it worked out pretty well.

Svea: Super thankful that most of the scary stuff that you've been tested for has all been ruled out and that you're not facing something super scary.

Yeah. But continued prayers for your energy to come back. Thank you. But really glad to have you back here. Really great to have you preach again. That seems like a really good benchmark. To show that you're you're on the upswing at least. Sure,

Caleb: yeah.

Svea: Absolutely. Glad to be sitting back with you. But you didn't have the easiest passage to jump right back into preaching with a passage that, at least as its headlines have, is really pretty much focused on slavery and singleness, right?

Caleb: Yeah. Yeah. I What was that? It was, nine months ago, something uhhuh when we put all that together and. And I think it was Rick who was like, Caleb, he can do that one. And I was like, what? There was no discussion here. Like why is it that, yeah. That just happened for me. So I don't know.

Even getting to the point of preaching, there may have been just a little bit of my own I am not going to run away from this topic. Yeah. I'm gonna lean in. I'm gonna make this happen,

Svea: yeah. Yeah. Something I really appreciated from how you approached this passage was you didn't fall into the trap of just.

Focusing on the more sensational aspects of slavery or singleness, but rather you really focused on letting the text speak for itself. And I think that was that's very respectable. In in not just getting sidetracked into. Maybe what people might have expected you to talk about

Caleb: Sure.

Svea: In this, but to really look and see, what was Paul trying to communicate here? Yeah. And and how does that speak to us? Yeah. Continuing on today.

Caleb: Yeah, absolutely. And I I definitely am more prone in my not only my preaching style, but in my scripture study style. I'm, I am, I'm a context.

How did it, what was it saying to the people that it was written to? What did this mean for the original audience? I'm a context junkie for sure. And I think that drives, that, drives some of that for me of what is the text saying. But I think also we have to be, we have to be really careful to not try to take something out of a passage that's not actually there.

And to not put something into it that is not being addressed.

Svea: Yeah.

Caleb: So I appreciate the encouragement in that though. But yeah, I, that's that's one of the things I love. It's one of the reasons why one of my favorite one of my favorite theologians and and pastors he passed away just a few, a few years ago, but Kenneth Bailey.

Is phenomenal in helping us to understand that with his studies of the Middle East and even first and second century. Arab Christian and Syriac Christian commentaries. And his knowledge of all of that it's super helpful. So if you're looking to really do a deep dive, Kenneth Bailey's one of the places to go.

Svea: Yeah. I'll second that. He's got some great stuff on New Testament context yeah. Yeah. Good stuff. The slavery context I think is difficult because when we hear slavery, we jump to more of our. Our American experience of slavery. Yeah. And the absolute atrocities that were committed against humanity.

Caleb: Yeah.

Svea: In that form of slavery. And while slavery in the first century, context wasn't great.

It wasn't quite as as much an institution of of torture. Yeah. And taking the dignity maybe a little bit more akin to like someone. Enlisting in the military in the sense of like someone who's.

Unable to to see a way forward and decides, this would be a way where I've got a stable housing, stable job, stable income. But I'm going to, in the process, give away my own freedom and rights to decide where I'm gonna live and what I'm gonna do.

Caleb: Yep.

Svea: That, that slavery was a social institution that protected people who didn't have other choices in life.

But they did give away a lot of their freedoms and rights.

Caleb: Yeah, absolutely. In the process. Absolutely. And there was still, I, it's still the Roman Empire. It's still first century. So when they conquered a people, they would, they could, they would still enslave some of them. So it, it was a both and from what my knowledge of that time is there were those who were slaves because their people were conquered.

So that was still a thing. But still the, the the, 16th through early 21st century slavery construct that we are very well aware of that was still not the way in which many slaves were treated back then. They were still had a little bit more dignity that was in play, but at the same time, even to what you said, and 'cause Paul specifically addresses us, he's there was a choice that people made.

To become slaves, to become servants in a household. And he's look, if you can get your freedom, do it. So if you can figure out a way to pay off the debt, whatever it is, whatever reason that you chose to walk into this, if you can figure out how to get out of it, do that Also. If you're not there, but you're thinking about doing it, don't choose to do that.

And, which is a, of course, that's a that, that idea I think is just, especially for us here in the United States, is just such a far out concept. It's just, it's almost impossible for us to imagine that type of social construct.

Because it's just so far removed from our

Svea: Sure.

Caleb: From our reality.

Svea: Sure.

Caleb: Yeah.

Svea: And I just wanna clarify. By bringing up the military as an example, I wasn't denigrating the military in any way. I didn't mean anything negative about that. No. Just the idea of seeding your own individual rights in order to accomplish Oh, yeah. Something else. It

Caleb: was,

Svea: and not everyone in the first century chose to be a slave too.

Nope. If you were born into it, you were born, then you're born into

Caleb: it.

Svea: Yep. Yeah, it was still a complex,

Caleb: but it was a very, yeah, a very different, very complex. That's why there's a, a. Fantastic biography of Fed of Frederick Douglas. That was written in the past maybe. Maybe. Oh gosh.

It could have been 10 years ago, but I wanna say it was in the last five. But when I came across this quote of his that that I used, I was like this just sets the tone that what we're talking about. In the Bible is even what Frederick Douglass understood as Paul's not addressing what the evil was of slavery in the United States.

That was a very different thing. And it was an evil practice for people who claimed Jesus to then also perpetrate the slavery in the United States or anywhere around the world at that time. But to perpetrate that under the name of Christianity was evil. And at best. Hypocritical and at worst blasphemous.

Svea: I thought that Frederick Douglass quote was so powerful.

Caleb: Yeah.

Svea: In the way that. It spoke volumes that someone that had the experiences that Frederick Douglass had could separate the realities of Christianity from the ways that his culture had distorted Christianity.

And I think in that there, there's powerful reach for us even today as we're wrestling through some of this that all things done in the name of Jesus are not necessarily Jesus

Caleb: yeah.

Yeah. Absolutely. And I I, to be honest, fail. Like I didn't even, it, that didn't, it didn't hit me till just now when you said that, but that, that quote applies to how does the church, and I'm not trying to get us off of this topic to the next one, but how does how does the church today even use marriage?

Or family, the health of finding a spouse and having kids and whatever. Some who claim Jesus say that's the ultimate goal in life.

That's not the peaceful, loving. Impartial,

Svea: yeah.

Caleb: Life that is in Christ. Yeah. To say that marriage, a successful marriage and having productive children is the ultimate, golden life is a very partial very partial, hypocritical way to approach.

Svea: Do you mean partial in the, like incomplete sense or partial in the biased sense.

Caleb: Biased.

Svea: Okay.

Caleb: Yeah. Partial in the biased sense of. Now it's 'cause it's setting off. If you don't get married, there's something wrong with you. If you can't find a spouse, then there's something that you've done to make God be like, you're not ready yet.

You're not that, that you haven't arrived. And it then ostracizes and leaves out a whole thriving section of not only just our society, but of the church for sure.

Svea: Yeah.

Caleb: Yeah.

Svea: Yeah. We certainly have had a church culture in America that has fed married couples a lot more naturally

Caleb: Yeah.

Svea: Than the single population. And, and I think in the church, I was reading this in one of the Barna studies a little while ago, that single people outnumber married couples in most evangelical churches now. Whether it's people who have never been married or people who have been divorced, or people who are widowed.

Caleb: Yeah.

Svea: That the common or the greater population is moving towards a single life status rather than married.

Caleb: Yeah, and I mean there is, and let's not you I would wanna make clear there's, there is an absolute place for there to be ministries that are focused on strong marriages.

There are places, a place in the church for ministries that focus on how to be good parents to children. Like all of that is necessary and needed, but. What we're highlighting here is that it's been to the detriment of seeing the value in another way of living. And in this passage.

Again, it's a, i, it, this kind of gets to the kind of the context junkie that I am. But it seems like Paul is specifically talking about an event a time in Corinth at this time of saying, look, because of the present crisis, here's what I'm asking you to consider. But at the same time, he is highly valuing. It's okay, just pick which way you're gonna do it, but just pick away, go that way. And then be okay with it. And so if that's married, great. And if it's staying single, great. You still have value in Jesus no matter what is going on.

Svea: Yeah. This is where I think your two points that you brought out of the passage were so helpful.

So with this idea that whether you're serving in slavery or you're free, whether you are single, whether you are married, when you come to Christ, that's not. An opportunity for you to use Jesus now as your excuse to make the life change that you want for your own reasons. Yeah. Rather than for finding your greater security in Christ.

Yeah. Yeah. So talk a little bit more about that, about this idea of the temptation that we might have when we come to know Jesus as, okay, here's now this is my excuse for, I no longer want to do X, Y, Z anymore, because now I'm all for Jesus.

Caleb: I do think that sarcastically Paul. Intentionally to help not to help break down walls, but also sarcastically.

He he starts this middle section of chapter seven out with talking about circumcision and uncircumcision. He's you don't put a rule on someone else. He's talked about that all so many times. That's constant throughout all of his letters to these churches. Don't put a rule on somebody else because.

All of the rules that you thought were even necessary are now definitively gone because of Jesus. Don't put a rule on somebody else and and don't, sorry. This is one of those moments with what I've been dealing with, I just have a total brain blank. So

Svea: the sarcasm of circumcision

Caleb: using that.

Yeah. There we go. That's a fascinating way to get us back on topic. The sarcastic ness of circumcision.

Svea: I don't think that's a sentence I've ever said before and I hope I never will again.

Caleb: Oh my gosh. Yeah. Yeah, but we don't put a rule on somebody else, but then we don't use, okay, now I believe in Jesus.

So now I can get out of doing things that I don't wanna do, or I can now use that as my reason to change my circumstance in some way, shape, or form. When he's no, God's where you are in life. When God calls you, there's a reason why. There's a reason why he's engaging in your salvation in that moment where you are.

As long as you can be in that, stay in it. As long as it is not harmful to you, stay in it. And I think this is why he's very specific with slavery. He's I'm not telling you to stay a slave forever. If you can get outta slavery, get out of it. And if you're not in it and you're tempted to go into it.

Don't choose to go into it. If you're if you're struggling to put a roof over your head, and again, this is contextual to that day and time. If you're struggling to put a roof over your head, if you're struggling to provide food for yourself and or your family, and so you're considering becoming a slave servant of a household forever, don't make that decision.

Don't use Jesus as a reason now to say now I've gotta figure out how to change my circumstance. Because of that, wherever you are, when God's called you, it's for a reason. When we believe in Jesus the first time, there for many people, not gonna say for everybody. 'cause I can't speak for everybody, but I know for myself, I know for many people that I've been in relationship with is, when you first believe in Jesus, there is just this rush of energy.

It's all of the newness. There's an excitement, there's a passion. There's okay, so now what does it look like to like, really follow him? And we can even take this to the point of thinking about the job that we have. So if we bring it into, like today's context, you bring it into the job you have, you can be like, okay, I believe in Jesus, so maybe I'm not supposed to be in this job anymore.

And we can make, we can be tempted to make maybe rash decisions about what it looks like to be a follower of Jesus in the profession that we're in. And actually I've had this conversation even specifically with folks who are, who practice law. Is they feel this tension of how do I follow Jesus while maybe I'm representing a, something that I don't agree with.

Or I'm having to argue a side of a case that I don't like that I'm having to argue. And I think, I think Paul would even directly even today say, don't make an immediate rash decision based on this. Really consider, what does it look like to be a believer, to be a Christian, to demonstrate Jesus where you are, where he's called you, you may eventually get to the point of saying, yeah, you know what, I need to get out of whatever I'm in.

But it's not an automatic, and I think, I do think that Paul you actually uses a bit of the, a bit of the highest card here of. In the, in verses 15 and 16, leading into this whole passage when he is talking about, look, if you and your spouse are unbelievers and one of you becomes a believer, you don't then say I believe in Jesus now, so I am divorcing you, and I'm out.

He's no, you actually can't do that. That's not, you don't use Jesus as a excuse to just step away from that.

Svea: And the other aspect that you brought out in the message. That speaks to this too, that I think is really strong, is this idea that don't turn to something other than Jesus to find your security, your certainty in life.

'Cause I think there is a temptation. People may have been choosing slavery as a way of providing. A secure future. Yeah. For themselves or for their family. Same thing with marriage. People could have been turning to marriage as, I can't care for myself as a single woman on my own, so I'll, agree to get married and then I know that I'll be part of my husband's household and find some security that way.

And Paul's saying, no, your security's in Christ.

Caleb: Yep.

Svea: And don't turn to these human institutions looking to make that the foundation of your security. Yeah. Your significance, your satisfaction. Yep. When truly the only thing that is stable in the way that we tend to try to run to things that are stable.

The only thing that truly is that is Jesus.

Caleb: Yeah, absolutely. And I again, contextually, culturally, there was much more involved in getting married that had to do with financial security. That had to do with, with even just life, health and where that even puts you in status in society now, for sure, in our society today, there is not as, as you've even described, there's more recent studies are seeming to show that there are more single people in church today than married people.

So even in our society, the idea of being single is a little, it's more accepted. It's not as controversial of a thing. But but I think if we only apply it to, if we only think about it in terms of the context of Corinth, we actually can still miss the point of you don't get married to provide yourself the security of a relationship.

You don't get married to provide yourself with the security of someone who will love you for the rest of your life. That's still running after the wrong thing. That's still as gets said in church circles a lot is we have this Jesus hole in our heart and he's the one who's supposed to fill it.

And though that's a bit of cliche at the same time, the idea there is still, if you're trying to run after filling your satisfaction with anything other than him, then. Then you're seeking your security in something else.

Svea: And I resonate with that as someone who married a good man in my early twenties, but five years into that he got cancer and he died not many months later.

And I had to wrestle through that. I had found so much security in that marriage and, suddenly, within a year's time, found myself a single mom to two very little kids and didn't feel secure at all. Sure. And to recognize, even within the context of a good marriage, we really can't depend on anything like that to be our permanent security.

Caleb: Yeah.

Svea: And yet, Jesus never left me in that.

Caleb: Yeah.

Svea: Jesus was the one who was with me on every single day of that whole journey. And on days where I felt like I'm not quite sure how I'm gonna do the next day, it was just he would give me enough manna to get through that next day and give me the hope to keep going.

And so I feel like I can resonate with what you were pointing us to, that that truly our security isn't found. In a relationship, in a life status or anything like that because the rug can get pulled out from underneath you.

Caleb: Yeah.

Svea: Pretty quickly.

Caleb: Yeah.

Svea: But but through it all, Jesus is faithful.

Caleb: Yep. Yep. I'm I'm reminded of a I think it's Earnest Hemingway. He wrote this in one of his novels where a character in a novel was had gone, experienced bankruptcy and, he was, this character was asked, so how did you arrive at this point? What happened? And the answer was like, gradually and then all of a sudden.

Svea: Yeah.

Caleb: And I think we can experience so many things in life like that, where we think we've got it together and we very gradually something can start to change and then it just feels like all of a sudden the rug gets ripped out from under us. And if Jesus is not the thing.

If Jesus is not the relationship, if Jesus is not the person that we are looking to for our certainty in life, for our certainty, for everything then we will feel. I. Either just really unsteady, like we built our house on sand. Or we will feel completely alone. And it'll be it does make it difficult to grab onto him if he's not a part of that foundation.

Yeah. I and I think that's, that, that's also the interesting part about this section of First Corinthians from verses 25 through 40 where Paul starts the whole section out by saying. I don't have a command from the Lord, but. As one who's been trustworthy in what I've, in what I've done with you and in what I've guided you through in life and in topics about life.

I, I think I've got a good opinion here. I think I've got a good perspective on how to approach this because he

Svea: a bit a street cred.

Caleb: Yeah, exactly. Because he, he bookends it. He actually brings he ends in verse 40. He ends it in a similar way of saying, and I think I too have the spirit of the Lord basically like, and so yeah, there's my opinion and I think it is guided.

By the Holy Spirit's work in my life. And being able to see a lot of different ways to approach how to live, but how to approach it in a Jesus way. Which is why I think in this section, he covers both his bases. There's no clear do this except to say, just pick which way you're gonna go.

Yeah. And either way you're not sinning. He literally says that whether if you get married, you're not sinning, and if you stay single, you're not sinning. But don't try and ride this in between the two. Don't play with other people's emotions. Don't string other people along.

Pick what you're gonna do and do it. And just trust the Lord's work in what your choice is.

Svea: So can I put you on the spot and ask you a personal question?

Caleb: Sure, why not?

Svea: We'll see how you answer. How,

Caleb: have you ever had somebody say, no, I don't want, don't ask me. I don't. I don't.

Svea: It's not even that I'm like expecting the right answer.

I'm just trying to give you a chance to catch your breath here. Oh my gosh. Brace yourself. We started off in the beginning of this, talking a little bit about the health challenges that you've been navigating over the last three months.

Caleb: Sure.

Svea: How are you finding security in Jesus in this chapter of your life?

Caleb: Yeah. That definitely is putting me on the spot and asking a more personal question. Even prior to this, when I would've said that I was. Felt fully healthy, would have stents of being sick just like any other human. You get a cold, you get the flu. You, I haven't had strep for years, but, 10 years ago when I had strep the last time.

Have all those kind of things, but it's always okay, this is gonna end at some point. It is definitely the perspective of, I don't know if this is ever gonna go away and. But what I've realized is even prior. Two, three months ago I still had a daily, I still felt the daily challenge in my life of the process of sanctification.

It's a kind of a Christian word that. We've, that we have in today's world. It's but Paul describes it really as you're working out your salvation every day you're having, you are choosing to follow Jesus. We have our moment of salvation, but every day you're still choosing to live that out.

And what I have found, what as comparing kind of the healthy times, if I can describe them that way, I felt the challenge of just saying, okay, I'm gonna really lean in, got leaning in following Jesus. What does that look like today? Now over these past three months, that challenge is still there, but it's got this whole other thing of how far can I actually push myself physically to follow Jesus when I get tired?

Really easy?

When I. It can be as simple as sitting in a swivel chair in a meeting. And if I pivot too many times, I am like, have to close my eyes. You've probably seen me do this sometimes where I just, I have to close my eyes and like just look down at the ground to just get things to settle a little bit.

And so even in that it's if I have to live with this the rest of my life. There's still certainty in that I have, I still have to look for the certainty, but the certainty is Jesus is still with me. The certainty is my salvation is still in him. And I, probably a little bit subconsciously, that's why Psalm 23 really resonated with me.

I try to personally a little bit of look into my personal life. I try to personally have a practice of every day. Every day. I, I. Say what we call the Lord's Prayer out of out of Matthew when Jesus taught us disciples to pray. And I also daily try to remember to say Psalm 23.

And I those are and that's not just over the past three months. That's just a part of my regular discipleship with Jesus. But it's the reminders of none, of, none, of any, anything is because of my work. It is his work on not only working through me, but caring for me. He makes me lie down in green pastures.

He leads me beside quiet waters. He restores my soul. He prepares a table before me. He comforts me. All of those things. There's there there's only one, one action figure in Psalm 23 and it's him.

Svea: Love that.

Caleb: And i, yeah I actually changed this for anybody that was a part of our service.

Saturday night, not Sunday. I actually, I went through a list of things and I, and it didn't quite get across the point that I was trying to get across. So I actually changed it for the weekend or for Sunday. And changed it to Psalm 23 because the point that I was trying to get across on Saturday night is many people in Jesus' life came to him and said, I wanna follow you.

And Jesus I in my opinion this is a Caleb Smith personal opinion. I think many of those times Jesus is responding personally to the people that are asking, can I follow you? And he's putting in front of them something that they would consider too far, something that they would consider. Okay, I'm actually, I'm not gonna do that.

If that's what it takes to follow you. I'm out. Because he is one. It's a moment of saying, if you're in, this is what it's gonna feel and this is what it's gonna look like. And so even for me in this way is okay I don't feel great every single day. Does that mean that Jesus doesn't love me anymore?

Does that mean that he's does slowly starting to remove his presence from my life? Does that mean that I shouldn't work? As a pastor anymore because there are now things that I can't do, and so I need to go find another job, right? Like those things absolutely have come into my head and even my heart at times.

But it's even if in three years I'm not a pastor in a church anymore for whatever reason, hopefully it's not because I've run away from it. Hopefully it's not because something has happened that has forced me out of it. Hopefully it's because of a intentional discipleship decision. With him, because he's my certainty. I'm not using him as the excuse to say, there you

Svea: go.

Caleb: I shouldn't do this anymore. Yeah. Or, yeah. Because I'm following Jesus and because this is what's happening in my life, then that means that affects everything else that's going on.

Svea: Yeah,

Caleb: And I do think that there's that deeper layer, especially for those of us who are believers that we've been walking with Jesus for many years.

What is it that we can take out of a passage that says, that really says, don't use Jesus as your excuse? I think it's evaluating everything in our life and saying, I'm not just gonna make rash decisions and blame it on him. I'm gonna make sure. That the way in which he's working in this aspect of my life, that everything else is just making sense with that before running into something.

Svea: Oh that's really good. Thank you for for being willing to just peel the layers back a little bit and see how this is playing itself out in your own life. And I think that's one of the most beautiful things when when you see a pastor who's not only taken the time to study the passage, but to really let it.

Speak into your own life as well. And that's encouraging to see how this passage has done that for you, Caleb.

Caleb: Absolutely. I could have, after I spilled coffee on myself before the first service, I could have said, Jesus is telling me that I shouldn't go out there and preach.

That wouldn't make any sense. So there's my other practical application.

Svea: We're really glad that you did. Very glad you did. Especially since you don't write a manuscript. It's not like one of us could have just read it for you.

Caleb: No, that would've been fun. No, that would've been very interesting to see someone else try that.

That's that is very true. I have a, I have a different approach.

Svea: Yeah. We appreciate your approach as well. Glad to have you back here on the podcast. Good to have you back here in the office and look forward to the, your next message.

Caleb: Thanks. Appreciate it. Good to be back.