Hey folks. Welcome back to another edition of the Daily Bible Podcast. Hello. We are back on Monday and so hopefully you're having a great Monday so far. I know sometimes Mondays are hard to get into. You get the week started, get your feet under you. But hey, the weather is looking a lot better here in Texas, and we're headed into the final week of October. November is right around the corner. Thanksgiving's coming up. We're gonna have Christmas here before we know it. Yeah, and then it's gonna be 2026. Crazy. Crazy. Absolutely. I welcome the change. Yeah. Hey, I got a question. You mentioned yesterday in the podcast twice, you said we need to do theology within, I think you said community. Community in Canon, right? Yes. If I find myself beginning to question something that I've always been taught, repent. Okay. All right. Next question. So, if I find myself, man I'm rethinking a doctrine that I've always taken for granted. Mm. And I find myself going, okay. Maybe I've listened to somebody else, I've listened to a YouTube guy, or I've, oh, yeah. Found a guy on Twitter or something like that, who challenges my traditional understanding and I begin to think to myself, huh. I've never thought of it that way. Maybe I'm wrong. How does doing theology in the context of canon and community help us understand what we should do in situations like that? Dear listener and friend, if you are asking this because you have been there, let me assure you, I have been there too, and boy was it. hard Many of you know that my wife and I came from the charismatic church. We grew up in, the Assemblies of God, grew up as a loosely, we were tied to it early on. We met in the Assemblies of God church. We got married and eventually we left and we moved ourselves to a conservative Baptist church. And from there we established ourself in the Bible Church. And here we are today at Compass Bible Church in North Texas. So we know the pain of moving from one way of thinking to a whole new way of thinking. And I guess there's several things that I could point out to you that were helpful to us as we made these really hard decisions together. And the first thing was we prayed about it. This is not gonna be rocket surgery for you. You're gonna know this, but so many people I think go past that stage far too quickly. You don't make these decisions quickly. You don't do them in a vacuum. And part of this is opening your soul up to say, Lord, search me and know me. This is David's prayer. Let's see if there's any wicked way in me. Sometimes we like certain doctrinal positions because they're tradition and sometimes we don't like them because they don't sit well with us. And if you're a part of a faithful Bible teaching church, there's gonna be doctrines that you're gonna say, oh, that one's harder for me to wrap my mind around because it doesn't fit or sit well with my sensibilities. So prayer number two I want you to include your pastor. We did this, and this was probably the hardest thing for us. We brought our pastor in somewhere along the line of us, kind of getting close to the decision, but really seeking, like getting a sense of here's what we're thinking, here's how we're feeling about these things. Can you help us work through this and give us some insight and. He was very gracious and very kind to us, and we appreciate that. We look back on that and say, I think we did it right. It didn't feel good, but we appreciated his wisdom and his insight on the matter, and he did bless us when we left. He was able to say, Hey, thank you for coming to me. Appreciate all the work you guys have done, and he let us leave. In a gracious way. It was very hard. We hated that. But prayer pastor and I also included several of my pals just to keep the peas going for you guys. That was a very Baptist of you. You're welcome. I try, I clearly, I've embraced the identity. I'm no longer assemblies of God, but I wanted pals to know what I was wrestling with, and I included several wise people in my circle to say, here are things that I'm working through. Can you help me think about these things? Am I thinking about it right? Do I need resources? Maybe I, I mean, I don't want, I didn't wanna leave. I did not wanna leave. I had every reason to stay. I'm comfortable there. I love the people there. Everyone thinks well of me. They want me to serve in these major areas. I had wanted to stay so bad, but my convictions were changing and I could not deny that. So I included my pals in this and I asked 'em to pray for me and helped me think this through and challenged me. Poke holes in what I'm thinking so that if I'm wrong I can be corrected. And those are three small things. They're big individually, three small things that helped me process through this. And it took a long time. And I guess that would be my final piece of advice is to do it very slowly. Sorry, that's not a p, but patiently, patiently do it slowly. Don't, don't make this decision quickly. I mean, it, it took us. I prob probably months. Mm-hmm. Maybe even close to a year before we decided to move. And then when we went to the new church, we planted our feet there. We were there for years. Mm-hmm. And that also was a slow move for us, even though it was from a good church to another good church, or from one denomination to another denomination. We still took our time with that. And I think that's the safest course of action. And you invite people in the process, please poke holes in my thinking. Show me biblically, help me see this from God's perspective, and I want you to challenge me. Give people permission to do that, and they'll help you with that. Yeah, man, that's so good and helpful and such a wise way to go about it. I would add to that, if this is denomination to denomination, right? Like obviously going from assemblies, God to. Baptist theology or Bible church, non-denominational theology. There's differences there. Denominational differences there. Huge. Yeah. And significant large ones big enough to where you couldn't stay in fellowship with that church. Though you could probably say at the end of the day, I think there were brothers and sisters in Christ in that church. Absolutely. This is not tier one issue. Yeah. Right. There are other situations where some of the things that will intrigue us are going to begin to call into question tier one issues. And that's where I think when community is given to us by God to say, Hey, you're in danger here. It's good for us to have the humility and, to be teachable enough to say, you know what? You're right. I appreciate that. Because part of our job as Christians is to hold one another to orthodoxy. Mm-hmm. Orthodoxy being what is. In line with tier one issues. Right. And the Bible. And Jesus says A disciple is gonna be like his teacher when he is fully formed. Yep. So the more that a person gives themself over to teachers that are not teaching biblical truth, the more they are giving themselves over to become like them that do that. Mm-hmm. There's a difference in listening with discernment versus listening to be taught. And there's a teachability that should come with like-minded believers, but there's a weariness and a caution that we need to bring to the table anytime we're dealing with somebody that is outside the pale of Christianity that wants to tell us what the Bible actually means or what our doctrine should be. Yeah. And. Your point is well taken. I think one of the challenges I wish I had this back then. I didn't have GPT, I didn't have options to say, gimme the best 10 books on the subject. Now, today, there's a lot of ways that you could say, all right, if I were going to research this topic, this theology, I could go to GPT. But why not go to my pastors? Why not go to my pals and say, Hey, I'm studying this. Help me think through this. Or Will you read these books with me? Yeah. Will you? Walk with me through these things, and if you have good friends, I think a lot of people would be willing to do that, especially Christians who know you, love you and have an vested interest in you. Yeah. The challenge is of course, that there's so many people online who develop niche communities around a certain idea, a certain framework, and because the worldwide web is so large, you could have thousands of people following a certain. Idea, a certain train of thought, and all those people together form a community. And it feels like, man, there's so many people that believe this thing, how could I have been so foolish just to believe this other thing? Right? It gives a misperception of what's really taking place. And so again, I noticed I didn't talk about go to the internet and look up this book or that book. Go to your go to people. Go to people in community that you're with and have them help you with these things. It's better to do that than to go online and find your favorite Discord community and have them tell you right. Yeah. Amen to that. Well, hey, we're in Luke 14 and 15 today for our DBR and one of the things, we talked about it yesterday, how there's kind of a smattering of things that Jesus is talking about and it's true here in Luke 14. Again, you've gotta, Sabbath situation here where Jesus is gonna heal, where he's at dinner and the Pharisees are wondering, is he gonna heal? And what's this gonna look like? And then you've got this Jesus teaching them about humility and true generosity. And then you've got a banquet. Story, a banquet parable. Counting the cost, considering the cost of what it's to follow him. I think when we look back, even at yesterday's reading and today's reading, this is in some ways Jesus preparing his followers to know what it's gonna be like to follow him. What this looks like. That he's here to do something different, that he's not here, as we've talked about before, just to do what's always been status quo. He's not here to be another Pharisees. He's not here to be another religious leader, but, at the same time he's here to pursue the unlikely. And that's what he even talks about in this parable. And when he is talking about the Pharisees, he's saying, Hey, careful who you invite. Don't invite the people that can repay you. Don't go and sit in the highest seat of honor. And he says, these are not the things that, that it looks like to be a follower of Jesus. Cost that's associated with that. And I think that's why at the end of chapter 14, that's what he lands on and with pretty stark and startling language when he says, look, if you wanna come follow me, then following me, your love for me has to make every other relationship that you hold dear look like hatred. And that's what he's after here. He's not commanding you to hate the people that are closest to you because that would be to go against what the Bible says in other places. He's commanding you to love him so much. That you are willing to let go of any of those other relationships, that your love for him is foremost that your love for him takes center stage. It is the pinnacle. And if any of those other relationships came to compete with your love for Christ, that you would choose Jesus over those relationships. That's the cost of following Christ. I love the way Jesus says it. He says. And if not, while the other is yet a great way off that he sends a delegation and asks for terms of peace. So therefore, any one of you who does not renounce all that he has, cannot be my disciple. The terms of peace, the terms of the relationship being reconciled is full surrender. Jesus doesn't ask for you to say, well, can I keep these three things? Can I keep this pet sin that I particularly enjoy or can I stay in my hometown? Jesus asked for terms of full surrender. Yeah. That's what it is to be a Christian. Yeah, that's what it's to be a follower. He's not even saying Christian, varsity level. He's talking about just a disciple, a low level learner to be one of his learners is full surrender, which is what he says. Renounce all that you have so. That's not the command for you to say, okay I'm gonna have a yard sale and sell everything that I have because I have to do that. But it's that, yeah, you're right. It, everything that I have is Christ's, I'm a steward of everything down to my very life. The breath that I have is mine because Christ gives it to me to use for him. Yep. Well, chapter 15, we get into. Again, really familiar territory. Here. He tells three parables, all having to do with something that's lost being found. So he begins with the lost sheep and the leaving the 99 to find the wand and finding the wand. Then there's great joy over that. Then he tells the parable, the woman who loses a coin, and she sweeps the house to find it, and when she finds it, she rejoices and throws this great. Feast invites her neighbors there. And again, he says, this is like what happens in heaven when a sinner repents. And then he gives the parable, the prodigal son. And the prodigal son is a familiar story for us who have been around the church for any period of time. The son basically goes to his father and says, dad, you're as good as dead to me. Can you go ahead and gimme my inheritance? And the father acquiesces and does. So the son goes off to a far country and squanderers it in reckless living is what it says there. And he ends up. Regretting that, ruining that as he finds that he doesn't have food to eat and he thinks back to his father's house and he says, well, maybe I can go back and just be a slave in my father's house because they at least got food. And so he goes back rehearsing what he's gonna say to the dad. The dad, while he's still a long way, Jesus multiple times stresses the distance between the father and the son here. And while the son is still a long way away, the father runs to close the gap and meets him and greets him and throws his arm around him. And the son can't even get the repentance out of his mouth yet before the father. Calling for the robe and calling for the fat and calf and celebrating the lost son coming back, just like the lost coin and the lost sheep. And yet then there's the older brother and the older brother in. This is I think without much of a stretch here, to be understood as the Pharisees and the religious leaders of the Jews that are, upset that Jesus would call the gentiles or call those at the byways and the highways, or call the sinners to himself. And they're thinking, we've been so righteous this whole time, as the son says, look, I've been here. I haven't squandered anything. And when have you killed the fatten calf for me? And the father's response is, you've been with me this whole time, and all that I have is already yours. It's right for us to celebrate the return of the rebellious son. Yeah. A couple quick comments here On chapter 15, you'll notice that in each of these parables, they go from larger numbers to smaller numbers. And so with the first one in verses three through seven you have a woman or a shepherd rather who loses one sheep. Out of the 100. So it's one 100th, and then in the next parable, the one of the lost coin, the woman loses one coin out of 10. You have one 10th now. And then finally with the parable of the prodigal son, you have one out of two. So one half is, I think the idea here is that crescendos in this moment and Jesus is trying to make the point of something lost being found and the joy that is felt because of that thing. And on top of that here in verses. Seven, 10 and 32. Each of the responses is meant to be a joyful response. Now, we've talked about this before. Some people, profess faith in Christ, and yet because we don't know what soil they are, we wonder and we get hesitant. Should I celebrate this? Do I join in the party that God is having? Or maybe he's not having a party at all. Maybe this is a false conversion. So talk quickly for us or just as quickly longly, however you want, tell us how to respond and enjoy the party of Heaven without being naive that someone might be professing a false faith. Yeah. Or should we even care about that? Yeah. I think about this with my kids. My kids growing up in a pastor's home, they have been exposed to the gospel from a very young age. We rehearse it with them on a regular basis. Jesus died on the cross so that your sins can be forgiven. He rose against so that you can live with him forever. And that's what, our faith is in so that we can be saved. And so I've had my kids at various stages of youthfulness say that I believe that. And I've always told my kids there's no age limit to salvation. And that's true for anyone really. And so one of the things that we follow up up with though is if that's true, if you've made that profession of faith, praise God for that. That's awesome. You'll start to see a change in your life. You'll start to see how God transformed your life. But I'm always gonna commend faith. I'm always gonna say, that's such a good thing. That's such a good thing. That's awesome. I love that you're thinking that. I love that you've said that I love that you're trusting in Jesus for the forgiveness of your sins and for your future eternal life. Because I don't wanna undermine their faith. I don't wanna make their faith something that they're like, okay, it's out of reach. I can't ever get it. And I don't wanna do that with anyone. Right. Somebody repents. I don't want to look at them and be like, well, we'll see. We're not so sure. Yeah. Now if they repent and they're like, Hey, let me be baptized right now. Right now, I wanna be baptized. We see that with the Ethiopian eunuch. We see some other examples of that in the, even in the book of Acts, there were thousands being added to the church day by day, and they were being baptized. Repenting for forgiveness of sins and then being baptized. Mm. But to be baptized in that context was different than it is in our context, because it was such a high counting of the cost, as we talked about in the last chapter, that to be baptized, they were. Declaring publicly I'm all in, and that might mean that I'm put outta the synagogue. That might mean an end of my relationship with my family. That might mean that I have to find a new job. That might mean persecution, but I'm willing to do it here. The cost is so low for someone to stand up and be baptized. And the last thing that I want is for somebody to say, I'm a Christian because Pastor PJ baptized me, or, I'm a Christian because dad told me that I could be baptized at the age of seven or eight years old. Right. And not, I'm a Christian because my faith is completely in Jesus. And so I think there's a balance we can celebrate, we can commend, we can say, yes, faith is good, saving faith is awesome, is great. And that's awesome that you're saying you believe in Jesus Christ, you're Lord savior. Praise God. That's so good. That makes me happy to hear that. And at the same time, we can be slow to give them too much confidence so that we make sure that this isn't a false profession. Amen to that. Yeah. We really don't know. We never know. We never know. And I guess at the end of the day. I would rather celebrate and if at, some point in the future they turn away, then okay, right. I lament that, right? But I don't want to neglect to join in heaven celebration. God is the one celebrating here. He's the one who's pictured as rejoicing over the loss being found. I think I would rather join in that party and potentially be sad at the end of it, rather than missing a party to celebrate. The salvation of someone who was lost and now is found, I guess I just never know. And so I'd rather celebrate and I'd rather have my heart broken later on. Yeah. Than be cynical and say, ah, really we'll see. We'll see. You know? Right. We will see if there's proof for this. I don't want to get that to that place, and I think that's not a good place where my heart to be, so I'd rather just say, I'll celebrate and I'll thank God for it and I'll just, I'll hope. Yeah. I'd rather hope. Yeah. I'm with you. I'm with you. Well, let's pray. Yeah. We want to have more of that. We want to be able to be a church where we have plenty of reasons to celebrate faith, and we pray that you would do that for us. We pray for the kids in our church that you would lead them to faith and that that would even come at an early age. As I often pray during child dedication, I mean it, Lord, pray that you'd save the children in our church early and that it would be genuine and that they would grow up to follow Christ and that they would grow up to speak. Come the future leaders of the church even what would help us to have plenty of reasons to celebrate with the angels as people give their lives to Christ. I pray that you would even just this next year as we think about where we talked about it this morning or yesterday, morning's podcast of 2026 is almost upon us. God, I pray that 2026 would be a year fruitfulness for us as a church, that we would double down on reaching people for Christ and that people would. Hear the gospel from us, and that we would see salvations and more baptisms because people are coming to believe in Jesus as the Lord and Savior. And so we know that you're able to do that. We pray that you do that in our midst. We pray in Jesus' name. Amen. Amen. Keep reading your Bibles. Tune in again tomorrow for another edition of the Daily Bible podcast. Right. Bye.

​Well, thank you for listening to another episode of the Daily Bible Podcast, folks! We're honored to have you join us. This is a ministry of Compass Bible Church in north Texas. You can find out more information about our Church at compassntx.org. We would love for you to leave a review, to rate, or to share this podcast on whatever platform you're listening on, and we hope to see you again tomorrow for another episode of the Daily Bible Podcast. Ya'll come back now, ya hear? Yeah. I would agree with everything that you said