392: Jeff Gelineau - Outside the Box

Automatically transcribed. Accuracy is good but not perfect, and words are sometimes wrong. Trust the audio over the text.

1. 0:03

   Welcome to Good Christophian Talks. Thank you for joining us this week on this podcast. We select one talk a week to help us get the Bible in our Daily News feed. Each week we post a talk that we previewed from suggestions sent in by listeners from around the world. Then we record a short intro beforehand as a personalized recommendation to you on why we are sharing the talk. And now let’s talk more about this week’s talk. Howdy.

2. 0:34

   This week’s class is entitled Outside the Box, given by brother Jeff Gillenaux from his series Beyond the Book given at the 2025 Great Lakes Christadelphian Bible School. One word to describe this class and the series as a whole is reverent. This is a very reverent class towards our God. It’s not a talk where you’ll learn the most or you’ll put lots of notes in your margin.

3. 1:06

   It’s a talk that pushes the boundary of your thinking, pushes you outside the box a little. Now, the term outside the box is not used in the context to suggest that we need anything more or less than the Bible. But. What Brother Jeff goes on to suggest is that given the nature of our community, where we hold God’s one and only truth, where we read at least three times a day and we study and mark God’s Word constantly, the thought may arise that we possess the owner manual to God.

4. 1:45

   That we can be so dogmatic in what we academically know about our Father that it causes difficulties when he works outside how we initially thought he worked. Brother Jeff’s main exhortation is that when we enter those rough waters, it’s a loving trust in God that will get us through the storm. And towards the end, there’s a big call to action to really expand our circle of compassion beyond our immediate friends and family.

5. 2:21

   I found that this class makes for a really good discussion with others. If there’s someone you know who also listens to the podcast, give them a call or text and ask them what they thought about this class. With that, here is brother Jeff Jelineau outside the box. Thank you to the 18 people who responded yesterday to my questions and comments. I appreciate the all the input.

6. 2:47

   Had a had a aha moment on my own. I’ll share with you. John came over to defend his fellow college students and and said that, you know, it’s not necessarily higher education that takes you away from God, but it’s the pride that often follows knowledge that that makes it hard. So that was an interesting point. We kind of enjoyed that comment.

7. 3:10

   And then someone else came up and said that doubt and humility are connected. And I and I, I put those two comments together and I have to explore this a little bit further. But there’s definitely a connection between certainty and pride and doubt and humility. And I think that’s something for us to spend a little time thinking about. But not today.

8. 3:32

   Today we’re going to head down a different path. We’re going to talk about outside the box. Now, Certainly outside the box is a metaphor, unless your name is Jack. And and we’re going to apply that in in a couple of different ways. So you’re going to get a little confused. It’s not that I’m I’m getting confused, just that you’re getting a little confused. We’re going to talk not just about thinking outside the box, but about about seeing outside the box and about living outside the box.

9. 4:04

   And I want to start by looking back to the good old days when we were young. So for 17 of you doesn’t really apply, but for the rest of us that applies. Might I say, I’ll go ahead and say it. I feel like Ken Somerville when I say this, but young, dumb and happy, That’s what Ken used to say all the time.

10. 4:25

    You, you may start out happy, but the fact that we want to talk about is the more you become aware of life’s complexities and life’s injustices and life’s uncertainties and and hardships, the harder it is to be happy as you get older. That’s why we tend to look back on our youth with such fondness. The 21 year old Jeff didn’t know as many things that I know about now that haunt my brain when I can’t sleep at night. Things were easier when you were young in so many ways, they were easier when you were young.

11. 5:05

    Things were more black and white. You weren’t tormented by all the subtle nuances of life. Maybe as you looked at a situation, looked at a problem, looked at at something, you just say, well, yeah, this is the answer. You didn’t say, well, yeah, but there’s this and there’s this and and you know, all those, all those things that make it hard. So in that sense, I think young people are dumb. They’re not, they’re not yet aware of, of life’s complications, of all the, all the particles that make up the whole, they, they think inside the box everything is very clear.

12. 5:43

    There’s right and there’s wrong. And it’s always clear which one is which, or more importantly, who was right, who was wrong. As you get older, you start to be able to think a little bit outside that box and that’s good, that’s healthy. I think it’s very important that we we do that. We have to mature to get to that point.

13. 6:08

    The part they don’t tell you though, is that it’s going to really ruin your day. You know, it’s really going to when you start to, when you start to see outside the box as well, you’re no longer entirely consumed with your own being and you start to look at those around you and you start to be concerned for those around you. You start to worry for those around you. The the welfare of others becomes your concern. I just love how Paul describes his life. He says, oh that’s what we’re talking about today. Next slide, Paul describes his life. Five times I received at the hands of the Jews. The 40 lashes less, 1/3 times I was beaten with rods. Once I was stoned.

14. 6:57

    Three times I was shipwrecked a day and a night I was adrift at sea on frequent journeys and dangers from rivers, Dangers from robbers, danger from my own people, danger from gentiles, danger in the city, danger in the wilderness, danger at sea, danger from false brothers, and toil and hardship through many a sleepless nights, and hunger and thirst, often without food and cold and exposure. I, I, I can’t think of 1 of those things that have happened to me and he and he’s had, you know, all of them. It sounds like it’s always makes me laugh when I read that because it makes me think of one of those terrible Bible mission presentations at Bible school, you know, become a Bible missionary.

15. 7:49

    Have terrible, uncomfortable things happen to you in faraway countries. You know, if they they come back like, you know, I was AI was a Bible mission. And this is, you know, I got some dysentery, you know, and it’s like, I don’t really want to hear about this. But the point I’m making, though, is Paul thought all of that was nothing compared to that.

16. 8:11

    Apart from all these other things, there’s the daily pressure on me of my anxiety for all the churches. Whipped five times, beaten 3 times, stoned once, shipwrecked not once, not twice, three times. He needs a new travel agent, you know, 24 hours adrift at the sea, dangers everywhere he went in the city, in the country, enemies, friends, sleepless nights, hunger, thirst, exposed to the cold. But worse and all those things is the daily burden of my concern for the ecclesias.

17. 8:52

    The 21 year old Jeff had none of that. The 61 year old Jeff lays awake at night thinking about that sister and what we can do to fix that, help that solve that.

18. 9:09

    When you really become aware of everyone around you, you start to see the pain. Everybody hurts. It’s this, it’s this thing that Kelly and I say all the time and and it’s just so true. Like, you know, and you didn’t know it, you didn’t know it. Everything was going really good. And then the police arrest him and put him in jail. And she tells you, yeah, it’s been going on for three years. And it I didn’t he, you know, he, he told me if I told anybody, he would beat me.

19. 9:40

    And and I haven’t told anybody. And and you just didn’t know the pain that she was in. Everyone is struggling with something. Those who are not aware of what others are carrying don’t feel that same burden. You show up at church, everyone’s dressed real nice. Everyone smiles. You have a couple of nice visits. You talk about the score of the game last night, you hear a good talk.

20. 10:12

    You go home. You mow the lawn, you play some pickleball. You enjoy another episode of Longmire and you crawl into bed and it’s just lather, rinse, repeat. It’s it’s the same way for someone who’s ignorant or or makes the deliberate choice to overlook certain truths, certain realities. But life is not simple. Life is complicated and and it’s nuanced. Things are never nice and clean.

21. 10:42

    It’s not about right and wrong. When you open your eyes a bit and you start looking outside the box, you’re able to see things so differently. And there’s a tension, I think, that naturally exists in our walk in Christ. This tension exists because human beings are complex and things are hardly ever black and white.

22. 11:04

    But we want to see things in terms of either walking with God or not walking with God. And the reality of the situation is much more confusing. There are people in the world who have chosen not to walk with God and yet do good things. And likewise, we’re probably all too familiar with people like ourselves who choosing to live a life of service to God and yet occasionally find ourselves not even coming close to living up to that column. I was getting the mail once and we have a community mailbox. So I walk up the street and I get the mail and outcomes a neighbor who I know to be Christian. And she just says a few things to me and I pick up my mail and I walk home thinking she’s such a better Christian than I am. And that’s, that’s so it’s so disheartening and and troubling and confusing when you’re brought up Christian elephant and you know you have the truth and she doesn’t. I have the truth.

23. 12:13

    I was brought up in the truth. The truth will make you free. And and she talks about these things that are so far above my mind. And I think there’s a there’s a law that exists in our bodies, right? We commit our lives to serve the Lord in our minds, but our bodies are prone to sin. We dedicate our lives to walk with God, yet sometimes our bodies don’t walk with us, even though our inward man and our our fleshly members do not always walk in the same direction.

24. 12:50

    That doesn’t mean you have to abandon your calling to serve the Lord. Even though you feel like you’re not living up to what you should be living up to, or that others are doing a better job than you, it doesn’t mean you should give up. It’s easy to see this principle working in your life, but it’s it’s harder to extend that same understanding to those around you because you fully understand the complexities that go into each of your decisions.

25. 13:22

    But we’re often not able to extend that same kind of grace to other people’s conclusions. None of us really knows what’s going on in the lives of those around us. When you see them walking in the meeting 11 minutes late and you think, oh man, you think you know what’s going on. And that’s the problem. We think we’re really good at reading people. We look at a a few external indicators and we think we have them all figured out, but we’re wrong every time. I want to consider a letter that I have read from a brother, and I want to see how well you are at judging his heart. You’ve never met him, You’ve never seen him, but this is a letter he wrote pouring, pouring his heart out. And let’s see how well you are at judging his heart. God, you’re my last chance.

26. 14:29

    I spent the night on my knees before you. I’ve had my fill of trouble. I’m written off as a lost cause. One more statistic, A hopeless case. Abandoned is already dead. One more body in a stack of corpses, but not so much as a gravestone. You’ve dropped me into a bottomless pit. I’m battered senseless by your rage, relentlessly pounded by your waves of anger. You turn my friends against me.

27. 14:57

    I’m caught in a maze, and I can’t find my way out. Blinded by tears of pain and frustration, I plead for help. Are the dead Alive audience for your miracles? Do ghosts ever join the choirs that praise you? Does your love make any difference in a graveyard? Is your faithful presence noticed in the corridors of hell? Are your marvelous wonders ever seen in the dark? I’m standing my ground, God shouting for help. Why, God, do you turn a deaf, deaf ear? Why do you make yourself scarce?

28. 15:26

    For as long as I can remember, I’ve been hurting. I’ve taken the worst you can hand out, and I’ve had it. Your wildfire fire has blazed through my life. I’m bleeding black and blue. You’ve attacked me from every side, raining down blows on me until I’m nearly dead. The only friend I have left is Darkness.

29. 15:48

    The only friend I have left is Darkness. I lied to you. You know this, brother, That’s Psalm 88. Now, if I were to write a letter like this to you, I don’t think you would have asked me to come speak at your Bible school. I imagined you would think I’m having a crisis of my faith. If I gave an excitation like this, I’d be the subject of an announcement in the next newsletter. Please pray for Brother Jeff as he struggles. David was honestly struggling with his feelings about God. It’s not wrong and it’s not unique to David. It’s not unique in the life of a believer. Now would you?

30. 16:49

    Next time you see David, are you going to tell him he needs to study the Bible more so he can get over this? He needs to do the readings more regularly. Go to a class, maybe listen to some podcasts you can recommend. Would you really want him teaching your Sunday school? Would you really want him talking to the kids in your CYC?

31. 17:10

    You see, feeling like God is far away or or disinterested in you is part of our Bible. No matter how offensive it may seem, it’s never been shamed or or criticized by God.

32. 17:30

    Acting unjustly towards others or worshipping other gods? That gets criticized in almost every chapter, but not honest. Talk about feeling abandoned by God. These expressions of abandonment aren’t evidence that something’s wrong and needs to be fixed. They signal not only what can happen in a life of faith, but what does happen, frankly, what we should expect to happen, what we should be looking for and expecting and not not deluding ourselves into thinking that everything’s fine. In my ecclesia in New England, that was the one word I hated the most.

33. 18:11

    Fine because in New England they give you one word answers. How are you fine? How are things going? Fine. How’s the family? Fine, then why does your daughter have black and Blues on her left eye? Psalm 88 just leaves you there at the end. You notice that only friend I have left is darkness. Have you ever felt that your life is just a deep pit of blah where you’re all alone?

34. 18:53

    That’s what that’s how David felt. Those times where you thought you knew what what you thought you could be certain of and count on turns out to be not so certain at all. We have to learn to embrace the fact that faith looks like this sometimes. And you’re not alone. You’ve got David in your camp.

35. 19:16

    We all have thoughts like that. That’s why that’s why Psalm 88 is included in the Bible. And just wait till you get to Psalm 89. No matter how well we think we know what God’s next move is going to be, things often don’t turn out that way. David thought he felt certain about what God’s plan was, and yet things turned out quite differently for him. With his own son trying to kill him. We shouldn’t be surprised when we find ourselves in a similar spot.

36. 19:49

    In fact, I’m starting to believe that God doesn’t do anything the way that I think it should be done. As I read through the the Bible, especially the Old Testament, not one of those stories is the way I would have written it.

37. 20:05

    That’s part of the idea. God isn’t beholden to to our thinking. God doesn’t act according to our certainty even if we have a Bible verse to back it up.

38. 20:18

    It’s not about God acting in in our time frame. We don’t control God even if we read verses that make us think that God has to do things in a certain way. God controls God. You don’t control God. You have to trust God. And David learned that trust grows best when things are falling apart.

39. 20:39

    He’s not the only one who got that memo. Muscles grow when they’re being stressed. Muscles don’t grow on the bark lounger. They don’t grow on the come in the comfortable seats. They grow when pain and soreness happens.

40. 21:00

    Trust God in the same way trust in God. It is the same way it it grows in times of stress. Your faith grows because it’s stretched, because it’s worked, because it’s pushed, because it’s bent and and torn, and it builds itself back together stronger.

41. 21:22

    If your faith in God makes zero sense to you, and your reasons for trusting God have fallen off a Cliff, you’ve got a friend and Ecclesiastes. Ecclesiastes looks at life through the eyes of humans, not the godly perspective, and life plays out as one cruel joke after another. And then you die. It’s an unhappy business that God has given to the children of men to be busy with.

42. 21:51

    I’ve seen everything that’s done under the sun and behold, everything is vanity and a striving after wind. From a human standpoint, our lives are full of unhappy business that God has given us, and that is depressing. It’s a faith crisis at its best. Everything is youth useless. It’s all it’s just a bunch of nothing.

43. 22:16

    The thing that drives the preacher crazy is that you can spend years of your life accomplishing great things, and when you die, it’s all worthless. There’s no remembrance of former things, nor would be any remnants of later things yet to be among those who come after. I had a good friend who ran a a huge nonprofit and, you know, these staff were bending down and helping the the poorest in the, you know, be trod in the the deaf, the blind.

44. 22:50

    They were, they were doing great work. And if you ask someone to donate to pay their salary, it’d be like, but if you ask someone to donate to buy a new building where we can put your name on the wall, you’d get millions of dollars because you know, we want our name to, to continue, right? We don’t want all this work I’ve done to be useless. We want all that money I’ve generated to to have some meaning.

45. 23:20

    And the preacher goes on for 12 chapters looking at the uselessness of her existence through a human perspective. And when it comes to the end, he isn’t criticized by God for his honesty. He’s actually commended for talking about things that are hard to hear. In the end, it says, the preacher sought to find words of delight, and uprightly he wrote words of truth.

46. 23:42

    The words of the wise are like goads and like nails firmly fixed. Other collected sayings they’re given by the shepherd. What I should have here is a gnarly, nasty slide of some goads. You know that’s a weird word we don’t connect with, but it’s not pretty and it’s painful. Nails can come a little closer to to our minds, right? Nails firmly fixed.

47. 24:12

    He tried to say nice things, he wanted to say nice things, but in the end he just had to speak the truth and his words hurt. And they’re supposed to. And I love the conclusion though, right? Of making many books. There is no end and much study is awareness of the flesh. The end of the matter. All has been heard.

48. 24:28

    Fear God and keep his commandments. This is the whole duty of man. He isn’t saying to stop reading books. I think that what he is saying though is to stop obsessing on studying and trying to work it all out in your head and have it all make sense to you. It’s spiritually and emotionally exhausting to try to understand enough for it to make sense, because it doesn’t.

49. 24:50

    It’s all nothing. It’s all vanity. Just trust. Just trust in God. Believe that God is good and he has your best in mind. Fear God and keep his commandments. Ecclesiastes doesn’t try to hide the human point of view of the reality of it that life is. It doesn’t. But it doesn’t let that that human reality have the final word, right? Yes, you’re right.

50. 25:19

    Life doesn’t make any sense. It really is vanity. Life really is useless. But fear God anyway. But obey God anyway. But trust God anyway, we tend to want to, I think we want to look at in a scientific manner and say, well, you know, I’ve been observing life, God’s creation and it doesn’t make any sense. Therefore, and that’s not the connection we’re to make. Yes, this doesn’t make sense and God has something better planned for us.

51. 25:52

    And I realize that’s, that’s hard, hard to do. It’s hard to keep trusting in God when you see no possible reason to around you. That’s what faith is, though. Faith is continuing on. When you don’t see why you can’t understand the reason, no matter how deep your disillusion is. Move toward God instead of away from God.

52. 26:17

    When we reach that point where things simply make no sense. When our thinking about God and life no longer line up. When any sense of certainty is gone. When we can find no reason to trust God but we still do. That’s what trust is. Ecclesiastes isn’t a story of a man who loses his faith. Ecclesiastes is a story of what faith looks like when all you thought you knew about God and how the world works is ripped apart, when certainty just vanishes like a vapor and you still trust God.

53. 26:53

    Ecclesiastes never says you don’t have to know what to believe, but it says trust God even when you don’t know what to believe. And then there’s Job.

54. 27:10

    Job’s a great example of God not acting like you would expect him to. Now, it’s a basic biblical concept, right? Actions have consequences. It’s all through the the Old Testament. Proverbs 3 is a great example. The Lord Lord’s curse is on the House of the wicked. He blesses the dwelling of the righteous. So if you didn’t read the first chapter of Job, then your responses to Job would be the exact same as his friends did. It’s perfectly normal biblical idea. Actions have consequences, and based on the consequences you’re currently facing, must be you’ve done some pretty terrible actions.

55. 27:57

    Something very wrong. By the looks, by the external look of what’s going on in your life, I can tell that something’s very wrong with your life. You’re obviously doing something very wrong. God wouldn’t just punish you for no reason. And it goes on and on and on for 34 chapters. Why so much on that subject? Why so many friends?

56. 28:24

    With so many opinions and so much to say, I think God really wants to drill into our heads and make us come to grips with a very real idea. What we think we know about God might not be so certain. No matter how certain we think we are, we might not have it right.

57. 28:47

    One of my favorite phrases I’ve just learned recently is the Bible isn’t an owner’s manual to God. It’s not intended to be something you can just open up and read and figure out. Oh yeah, that’s what God is. God is beyond our mental reach, and that’s what Job is told by God. In the last four or five chapters. God makes it clear that he and only he is the Creator and he, and we’re in no position to question him. Where were you when I laid the foundations of the earth? Is it by your understanding that the hawk soars through the sky? And then Job says his last words. I know that you can do all things and that no purpose of yours can be thwarted.

58. 29:36

    Therefore I despise myself and I repent in dust and ashes. It’s after this that God says his final words as well and it’s a bit of surprise. It was to me, right? Don’t forget God has done that whole 5 chapter long section about don’t question me because I’m God and now he says and Lord has spoken these words to Job. The Lord said to LF as the team team and I my anger burns against you and against your two friends for you have not spoken to me.

59. 30:05

    What is right as my servant Job has Job is right, his friends are wrong. I forget the percentage John Launchbury said it, but it’s kind of like high eighties. 89% of Job is wrong. Yeah, if you say, well, it’s in the Bible, it must be right, you know, No, it’s not 89% of the of the what’s recorded and and Job is guys who got it wrong.

60. 30:34

    His friends are wrong. Job’s friends were technically right if you’re going by the book. But when you get beyond the book, when you step outside the box and stop thinking inside the box the way that everyone else would would think, you realize they’re wrong. They had every reason to feel certain about what they were saying. They weren’t punking him.

61. 30:57

    They weren’t being mean. They didn’t say, hey, Job’s having a bad week, let’s go bash on him. No, they these were these were better friends than you’ve ever had. They sat with him seven days. Just sat there for seven days. But they’re wrong. Job and his friends were all operating under the same assumption that God wants all humans to know what God expects from us and the basic rules of living right.

62. 31:30

    And we should be able to understand this. You know you’ve got bad sores. Must be you said something wrong. Job doesn’t deny this way of thinking. That’s why Job is in such distress because he can’t square his suffering with his biblical view of how God works. This is this is my my paradigm.

63. 31:51

    This is my understanding of how God works. And yet I know I didn’t do anything and yet this has happened to me. So I think the message from Job that I want to get is let go of this whole need to know mentality, let go of this whole I need to figure this out kind of thinking and just trust in God.

64. 32:21

    I’m going to go so far as to say let go of the expectation that you can’t. You can even know the workings of God. No matter how much we think we understand God, I don’t think we do.

65. 32:38

    When we find ourselves in Job like moments, the way forward isn’t to expect God to give us some additional information to make everything all click and fall into place. The way forward is just to trust in God. God exposes the limitations of our thinking and job and and in Ecclesiastes and that should help us to see the need for us to just let go of this need to know and just trust in God anyways. Trusting in God is often illogical. Now for those logical people out there, going to hurt to say that, but I think trusting in God is sometimes against all reason.

66. 33:20

    It doesn’t make sense. And when you explained it to us, you know your buddy at work or your golf buddy and they say that’s just crazy, what are you thinking? I think that’s precisely the point though. Trust doesn’t work because we figured it all out in our mind. Trust works because at the end of the day, we literally can’t figure it out. Our little minds can’t grasp what’s going on. We have to get outside of the box. We have to look at things the way God looks at things. Now, this life outside the box is very different than when you remain cocooned in this warm, safe place, right? It’s not neat and tidy outside the box. So if you haven’t got outside the box yet, I’m going to warn you, you know, put your galoshes on before you get out, OK? It’s often not very comfortable outside the box. You bump into reality and you get it all over your nice clean dress.

67. 34:20

    But I would contend if you really want to grow spiritually, you have to be prepared to step outside that box. You have to be willing to get outside of your comfort zone. Do you know how to enlarge your comfort zone?

68. 34:39

    You stand at the edge. If you stand at the in the center of your comfort zone is never going to grow. You’ve got to be willing to stand at the edge to reach out to people and the circumstances and things that are beyond, just beyond, and bring them in. And now your comfort zone enlarges, and you can again stand at the edge.

69. 35:08

    If you stay stay safely inside your comfort zone, you’re not going to grow, and your comfort zone is not going to grow. God is much, much larger than any picture of him you’ve ever visualized. The God you worship is much, much larger than the God that you think you do.

70. 35:36

    God loves you more than you can understand. God wants more joy for you than you’ve ever imagined. And God wants you to be like Him. He wants you to be that way, to be welcoming, to be open, to be inviting, to be caring, to be accepting, to be loving. That’s all that He wants. God doesn’t even know what you’re talking about. When you focus on restricting.

71. 36:17

    God’s not restricting God is liberating. God’s not trying to keep people in a box. God wants to set them free. Why am I trying to put everybody in a box? Why am I trying to classify the nerds and the geeks and the weirdos and, and put everybody in these in these boxes and say, you know, he’s a Shiite Christadelphian and this guy over here is, you know, too liberal. And this one here does this.

72. 36:42

    God doesn’t do that. Get outside that box. Think outside that box. In the Bible, a Sinner is often cast in the role of an outcast. These were groups of people that felt unacceptable. They weren’t part of the crowd. They didn’t feel comfortable around you. They were disgraceful and shameful. And Jesus strategy was simple. He sat beside him, he hugged him, he laughed with him, and he literally broke bread with them.

73. 37:32

    Over and over in the New Testament, a simple statement about Jesus keeps coming up and up and up. He had compassion on them. Compassion isn’t just about feeling the pain of others, It’s about bringing them toward yourself. It’s about drawing close to them, befriending them, hugging them, eating with them, sharing with them. It’s not easy.

74. 38:03

    Does that sound comfortable to you? Is that inside your comfort comfort zone? You see, society has cast them out for a reason. People aren’t just randomly selected to be rejected. Something about them makes them hard to be around. You know, they, they got some weird thing or they smell, you know, or they got that stupid thing they’re always saying, you know, or, or they got this hobby horse they want to talk about all the time. They’re briskly, they’re hard, they’re noisy, they’re uncomfortable.

75. 38:38

    And if you’re thinking like everyone else thinks in the box, you don’t want to spend any time with them. And eventually they’ll probably just stop coming to meeting after all, so you won’t have to spend time with them.

76. 38:56

    You have to think outside the box to be loving to those outside. If we love what God loves, then in compassion we’re going to lower, enlarge our borders and love more people. Margins get erased. Our circle grows. I got some questions for you some. I’d love to hear some of your thoughts. It’s been super helpful for me and will be will continue to be. So here’s five other questions for you to think about. I’ll read it tonight in bed.

77. 39:36

    And last night I had a little cry and fell asleep. It was nice. Kelly and I love to visit France. We’ve been several times and when I tell that to Americans, a lot of them will tell me that they visit France and they found the French very rude and off putting. For those of you who’ve been to France and been sitting in a beautiful cafe having some foie gras, oh gosh, no. Having, you know, just some lemonade, read that wine, right? Have you ever seen an American in France? I mean, even I don’t like them,

78. 40:36

    and I’m one of them. If you think that nothing is as good as it is in America, the French people are going to be rude. But if you love France and you find their culture so developed and and intelligent and cultural and refined and better than yours, and you look forward to talking to the people, you’re going to find them very friendly. Isn’t that strange?

79. 41:17

    Meeting the world with love in your heart will determine what you find in the world. I knew a brother who worked 40 years and never had anyone nice that he worked with. Everybody was terrible. He didn’t like them all and none of them liked him. And I knew a brother who worked 40 years and had the best people he’d ever worked with, and they were all nice and they all liked him.

80. 41:53

    They worked at the same place. Les Miserables says it the best to love another person is to see the face of God. We all have a circle. We all have this circle of compassion. How far does your circle extend? Terrible people find only themselves inside that circle. Many people find maybe their immediate family members are in the circle. A few have added some trusted longtime friends, but how blessed we are to have members of our Clesia we can add to our circle of compassion.

81. 42:35

    That’s great. How much further can you extend it? How much further beyond that? It’s not going to feel comfortable. It’s going to be darn right scary and the committee in the center is not going to like it. Can you bring in even more?

82. 43:02

    Go out to the highways and the hedges and compel people to come in that my house may be filled? Sure, it’s easy to include your family, your friends, and even some members of your ecclesia. But look what Jesus says. When you give a dinner or a banquet, don’t invite your friends or your brothers or your relatives or your rich neighbors, lest they also invite you in return and you be repaid. For many years, my brother and I would send each other Christmas cards every year, and he would include $100 check in his and I would include $100 check in mine. And one year I called him and said, hey Mick, let’s do $1,000,000 checks this year.

83. 43:49

    And we realized how stupid it was that we were doing. I was inviting him to my house for dinner, and he was inviting me to his house for dinner. I was inviting him to my house for dinner. He was inviting me to his house for dinner. Pretty boring, pretty boring.

84. 44:09

    But when you give a feast, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind, and you will be blessed because they cannot repay you, for you will be repaid at the resurrection of the just. How about the ones that are on the margins? How about the outcast, the ones you don’t feel connected to? Reach outside the box.

85. 44:36

    Go outside your comfort zone. Bring in that person who isn’t feeling their worth and make them feel wanted. Make them feel loved. Make them feel needed. Make them feel like they’re a part of something. Make them feel God’s love. I know it’s hard, but it’s right, and you know it’s right. I also know that you’re going to succeed sometimes and you’re going to fail sometimes.

86. 45:05

    That’s life. It’s just the way things are. There’s UPS and there’s downs and there’s hills and there’s valleys and that’s tomorrow’s class. Thank you for listening to the Good Christadelphian Talks podcast. We hope this talk helped you in your walk and brightened your day. If you would like to hear more, please subscribe for new episodes. We are on all major podcast platforms and also on YouTube. If you enjoyed this particular talk, please share it with someone else who you think might enjoy it too. For show notes on the talk you just listened to, visit [email protected] or check out the Show Notes section of your podcast player.

87. 46:00

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88. 46:16

    You can send a suggestion using the Contact Us tab on our website or message us on any of our social media accounts. Thank you for listening. God bless and talk to you next week.