# These Teachings of Jesus Will CHANGE How You Live (No Ads)

An episode of [Bible Stories](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/podcast/6792328054), 22 Oct 2026, 31 min.

Audio: https://dts.podtrac.com/redirect.mp3/api.spreaker.com/download/episode/74781141/these_teachings_of_jesus_will_change_how_you_live_no_ads_mp3_128k.mp3



## Transcript

[0:00] Speaker 1: Welcome back to the Bible Stories. You may notice there
[0:03] Speaker 1: are no ads on this video because YouTube has demonetized
[0:07] Speaker 1: our channel. To support us, you can scan the first
[0:10] Speaker 1: QR code to join the Bible Stories podcast app, where
[0:15] Speaker 1: you can listen offline and access exclusive episodes. Or, if
[0:19] Speaker 1: you simply want to give, you can scan the second
[0:22] Speaker 1: QR code to donate directly. Thank you for helping us
[0:27] Speaker 1: keep these Bible Stories going. The teachings of Jesus that
[0:32] Speaker 1: change how a person lives are not the ones we
[0:35] Speaker 1: quote most. They are the ones he repeated most. Read
[0:39] Speaker 1: the four Gospels side by side, and you will see
[0:43] Speaker 1: him coming back to the same six things, in different towns,
[0:47] Speaker 1: in different years, over and over. But why did Jesus
[0:51] Speaker 1: do this? Because nobody in his audience owned a book,
[0:55] Speaker 1: so nobody could go home and look up what he
[0:57] Speaker 1: had said. There were only ears and memory. That is
[1:01] Speaker 1: why a teacher in Galilee traveled from town to town,
[1:05] Speaker 1: repeating the same things, so that even people who couldn't
[1:09] Speaker 1: read would remember them. Do not be afraid. No other
[1:13] Speaker 1: command comes out of his mouth as often. He said
[1:17] Speaker 1: it to a father named Jairus in the worst minute
[1:20] Speaker 1: of that man's life. Jairus had come begging for his
[1:25] Speaker 1: dying daughter, and while Jesus was still walking toward the house,
[1:29] Speaker 1: messengers arrived to say the girl was already gone. Jesus
[1:34] Speaker 1: turned to a man whose child had just died and said,
[1:38] Speaker 1: Do not be afraid, only believe. He said it on
[1:42] Speaker 1: the water in the dark. His friends were rowing against
[1:46] Speaker 1: a wind in the middle of the night, hours from shore,
[1:50] Speaker 1: and a figure came toward them across the waves, and
[1:52] Speaker 1: their terror was not unreasonable.' It is I,' he said.'
[1:57] Speaker 1: Do not be afraid.' He said it to Peter after
[2:01] Speaker 1: a catch of fish, so large the nets began to
[2:04] Speaker 1: tear when the fisherman went down on his knees in
[2:07] Speaker 1: the bottom of the boat.' He said it on the
[2:10] Speaker 1: mountain when three of his closest friends were lying face
[2:13] Speaker 1: down in the dirt, unable to look up. He said
[2:17] Speaker 1: it to men he was sending out to towns that
[2:19] Speaker 1: would not want them. He said it to women running
[2:23] Speaker 1: from an empty grave with their hearts hammering. And in
[2:27] Speaker 1: the upper room, on his last free night, he said
[2:30] Speaker 1: it twice in the space of one conversation because the
[2:33] Speaker 1: men in front of him were frightened and he knew it.
[2:37] Speaker 1: Now notice something that changes how the command lands. He
[2:41] Speaker 1: never once said, do not be afraid in a situation
[2:45] Speaker 1: where there was nothing to be afraid of. Every single
[2:49] Speaker 1: time the fear was reasonable. The child really was dead.
[2:53] Speaker 1: The wind really was against them. The towns really would
[2:58] Speaker 1: turn hostile. The tomb really had been sealed by soldiers.
[3:03] Speaker 1: He did not walk around telling calm people to stay calm.
[3:07] Speaker 1: He walked into the exact moment when fear was the
[3:10] Speaker 1: honest response, and he spoke into it. That means the
[3:15] Speaker 1: command was never an accusation. He was not telling frightened
[3:19] Speaker 1: people they were failing at faith. If fear were a disqualification,
[3:24] Speaker 1: he would have said it once, sternly, and moved on. Instead,
[3:29] Speaker 1: he said it constantly, gently, and always with something attached.
[3:35] Speaker 1: Look at what he attached. To the men on the water,
[3:38] Speaker 1: he attached his own presence. It is I. To the
[3:43] Speaker 1: men going out to hostile towns he attached the fact
[3:46] Speaker 1: that the hairs of their heads were numbered, and they
[3:49] Speaker 1: were worth more than many sparrows. And to a small
[3:52] Speaker 1: group of anxious followers he attached the largest promise of all.
[3:57] Speaker 1: Do not be afraid, little flock, for it is your
[4:00] Speaker 1: father's good pleasure to give you the kingdom. Luke chapter
[4:04] Speaker 1: 12 verse 32 He does not argue the fear away.
[4:09] Speaker 1: He does not explain that the situation is less serious
[4:13] Speaker 1: than it looks. He puts a fact underneath the fear
[4:16] Speaker 1: and lets the fact hold the weight. Your father is
[4:20] Speaker 1: not reluctant. He is pleased. Whatever it is you are
[4:24] Speaker 1: lying awake about at three in the morning, the God
[4:27] Speaker 1: who holds it is not standing at a distance deciding
[4:30] Speaker 1: whether you are worth the trouble. Do not be afraid, then,
[4:34] Speaker 1: is not a command to feel differently. It is a
[4:38] Speaker 1: command to reckon with who is in the room. And
[4:42] Speaker 1: there is a mercy in the sheer number of times
[4:45] Speaker 1: he said it. If he had said it once, we
[4:47] Speaker 1: would treat it as a high standard we had already
[4:50] Speaker 1: fallen short of. Saying it more than a dozen times
[4:54] Speaker 1: in more than a dozen different kinds of trouble tells
[4:58] Speaker 1: us something else. He expected his people to be afraid repeatedly.
[5:02] Speaker 1: He built the reassurance to be spoken again. A word
[5:07] Speaker 1: you need to hear only once is a lesson. A
[5:10] Speaker 1: word you need to hear every few days is a companion.
[5:15] Speaker 1: So the honest way to receive this teaching is not
[5:18] Speaker 1: to try harder to be brave. It is to learn
[5:21] Speaker 1: to hear the sentence again tonight and again next week,
[5:25] Speaker 1: and to notice that the one saying it has never
[5:28] Speaker 1: grown tired of saying it. The next teaching. For whoever
[5:34] Speaker 1: wants to save his life will lose it, and whoever
[5:37] Speaker 1: will lose his life for my sake and the sake
[5:40] Speaker 1: of the good news will save it. Mark chapter 8
[5:44] Speaker 1: verse 35. He said it when he was sending his
[5:48] Speaker 1: followers out into danger. He said it again right after
[5:51] Speaker 1: Peter finally called him the Messiah, and then immediately tried
[5:56] Speaker 1: to talk him out of the cross. He said it
[5:58] Speaker 1: in the middle of a warning about a coming crisis,
[6:02] Speaker 1: and he said it in Jerusalem days before his death,
[6:06] Speaker 1: standing beside the image of a seed that has to
[6:09] Speaker 1: go into the ground before it can become anything. We
[6:13] Speaker 1: hear the words and think of martyrs, and there is
[6:16] Speaker 1: truth in that. But look at what saving your life
[6:19] Speaker 1: actually means in ordinary practice, because that is where this
[6:23] Speaker 1: teaching does its work. To save your life is to
[6:27] Speaker 1: manage it, to keep your options open and your heart
[6:30] Speaker 1: at a safe distance, to hold enough control that nothing
[6:34] Speaker 1: can hurt you too badly. It is deciding early on
[6:38] Speaker 1: exactly how much of yourself you will risk in any room,
[6:42] Speaker 1: and then never going past that line for the rest
[6:45] Speaker 1: of your life. Most of us are not consciously clinging
[6:48] Speaker 1: to anything. We are just careful, and careful is exactly
[6:52] Speaker 1: the thing he says will cost us. Not because caution
[6:56] Speaker 1: is wicked, but because a life spent being guarded is
[7:01] Speaker 1: a life that never gets lived. you can protect something
[7:04] Speaker 1: so well that nobody ever benefits from it, including you.
[7:09] Speaker 1: The seed that refuses the ground stays a seed. It
[7:13] Speaker 1: keeps its shape perfectly and produces nothing. The other half
[7:19] Speaker 1: is where the mercy is. Whoever loses his life for
[7:22] Speaker 1: my sake will save it. Losing is not the end
[7:27] Speaker 1: of the sentence. The letting go is not a loss
[7:30] Speaker 1: he requires and then leaves you with. It is a
[7:33] Speaker 1: handing over to someone who intends to give it back larger.
[7:38] Speaker 1: That is why this teaching survived in every account. It
[7:42] Speaker 1: is not a hard demand made once in a hard moment.
[7:46] Speaker 1: It is the shape of the whole thing. There is
[7:49] Speaker 1: no version of following Jesus where you keep hold of
[7:52] Speaker 1: your life with one hand and follow with the other.
[7:56] Speaker 1: And there is no version where the hand you open
[7:59] Speaker 1: stays empty. Some repetitions in the Gospels are simply a
[8:03] Speaker 1: teacher covering ground in a new village. This one is different.
[8:09] Speaker 1: This one is a record of failure, and it is
[8:12] Speaker 1: one of the most encouraging things in the New Testament.
[8:15] Speaker 1: Follow it in order. In Capernaum, the disciples had been
[8:20] Speaker 1: arguing on the road about which of them was the greatest.
[8:24] Speaker 1: When Jesus asked what they had been discussing, they said nothing,
[8:28] Speaker 1: because there is a particular kind of silence that comes
[8:31] Speaker 1: from being caught. He sat down, called the twelve to him,
[8:36] Speaker 1: and said, If anyone wants to be first, he shall
[8:39] Speaker 1: be last of all, and servant of all. Mark chapter
[8:43] Speaker 1: 9 verse 35. That should have settled it. Later, on
[8:49] Speaker 1: the road up to Jerusalem, Jesus told them plainly that
[8:52] Speaker 1: he was going there to be handed over and killed.
[8:56] Speaker 1: James and John responded to that announcement by asking for
[9:00] Speaker 1: the two best seats in the coming kingdom, one on
[9:03] Speaker 1: his right and one on his left. The other ten
[9:07] Speaker 1: were furious, though it is worth noticing that they were
[9:09] Speaker 1: furious because those two had asked first. So Jesus said
[9:14] Speaker 1: it again, longer this time and sharper. Whoever wants to
[9:19] Speaker 1: become great among you must be your servant, and whoever
[9:23] Speaker 1: wants to be first must be slave of all. Mark
[9:26] Speaker 1: chapter 10, verses 43 and 44. That was the second time.
[9:33] Speaker 1: Then comes the third, and the setting of it is
[9:36] Speaker 1: almost hard to believe. On the final night at the table,
[9:40] Speaker 1: hours from his arrest, with his own death sitting on
[9:44] Speaker 1: him so heavily that he would soon be sweating in
[9:46] Speaker 1: a garden, they argued about rank again. In that room,
[9:51] Speaker 1: at that meal, and he answered them a third time,
[9:55] Speaker 1: and then added a line that has no parallel anywhere
[9:58] Speaker 1: in ancient teaching. about greatness. But I am among you
[10:03] Speaker 1: as one who serves, Luke chapter 22, verse 27, three
[10:09] Speaker 1: times over months in three settings, each one closer to
[10:15] Speaker 1: the cross. and each time the men in front of
[10:18] Speaker 1: him had just proven they had not absorbed it. Here
[10:22] Speaker 1: is what he never did. He never got exasperated and
[10:25] Speaker 1: dropped the subject. He never told them they had used
[10:28] Speaker 1: up their chances to understand. He never withdrew the teaching
[10:33] Speaker 1: from people who had shown three times that they were
[10:36] Speaker 1: not ready for it. He simply said it again, and
[10:39] Speaker 1: then he stopped saying it. On that last night he
[10:43] Speaker 1: got up from the table, took off his outer clothing,
[10:47] Speaker 1: wrapped a towel around himself, poured water into a basin,
[10:51] Speaker 1: and washed their feet. Twelve pairs of feet, including the
[10:55] Speaker 1: feet of the man who would sell him before morning.
[10:58] Speaker 1: The washing of feet was work for the lowest servant
[11:02] Speaker 1: in the house, the kind of job that nobody in
[11:04] Speaker 1: that room would have volunteered for, and their teacher did
[11:07] Speaker 1: it while they watched. Then he sat back down and said,
[11:11] Speaker 1: If I, the Lord and the Teacher, have washed your feet,
[11:15] Speaker 1: you also ought to wash one another's feet. John 13.14
[11:21] Speaker 1: Words three times, and then a basin. That is what
[11:26] Speaker 1: it looks like when someone will not give up on you.
[11:31] Speaker 1: What this teaching does to a life is not complicated,
[11:34] Speaker 1: and it is not comfortable. It goes after the running
[11:38] Speaker 1: calculation most of us are making all day long about
[11:41] Speaker 1: where we stand, the quiet tally of who was thanked
[11:45] Speaker 1: and who was overlooked, who got the credit that should
[11:48] Speaker 1: have come to us, who sits above us and who
[11:51] Speaker 1: sits below. It is the calculation that turns a family
[11:56] Speaker 1: dinner tense, that keeps score in a church over who
[11:59] Speaker 1: was asked to help and who was not. And that
[12:02] Speaker 1: can sour 30 years of faithful work in one afternoon
[12:06] Speaker 1: when somebody else is praised for it. Jesus does not
[12:10] Speaker 1: tell us to think less of ourselves. He tells us
[12:13] Speaker 1: that the whole ladder is pointed the wrong way, and
[12:17] Speaker 1: that the lowest place, the unnoticed work, the thing nobody
[12:21] Speaker 1: will ever thank you for, is the place where greatness
[12:24] Speaker 1: actually happens in his kingdom. He is not describing a
[12:28] Speaker 1: spiritual technique. He is describing where he himself was standing
[12:33] Speaker 1: while he said it. When Jesus taught his followers how
[12:37] Speaker 1: to pray, he gave them a short prayer with a
[12:40] Speaker 1: handful of requests. God's name honored, God's kingdom come, bread
[12:46] Speaker 1: for today, forgiveness, deliverance. Then he finished the prayer and
[12:51] Speaker 1: immediately circled back to one line, and only one. For
[12:56] Speaker 1: if you forgive others their trespasses, your heavenly Father will
[13:00] Speaker 1: also forgive you. But if you do not forgive others
[13:03] Speaker 1: their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses. Matthew
[13:09] Speaker 1: chapter 6 verses 14 and 15 Out of everything in
[13:14] Speaker 1: that prayer, forgiveness is the one he stopped and pressed,
[13:18] Speaker 1: and he pressed it again elsewhere. He told them that
[13:22] Speaker 1: when they stand praying, if they hold anything against anyone,
[13:26] Speaker 1: they should forgive. He told them that the measure they
[13:29] Speaker 1: used on others would be the measure used on them.
[13:34] Speaker 1: And when Peter came with a question, hoping to be
[13:37] Speaker 1: commended for his generosity, the pressing went further still. Peter
[13:42] Speaker 1: asked how many times he had to forgive somebody who
[13:45] Speaker 1: kept sinning against him, and then offered a number. Seven times?
[13:50] Speaker 1: He must have thought that was gracious. Most of us
[13:53] Speaker 1: stopped counting long before seven. Jesus answered, I do not
[13:58] Speaker 1: say to you seven times, but seventy times seven. Matthew 18.22
[14:05] Speaker 1: The number was not a target. Nobody keeps a ledger
[14:08] Speaker 1: to 490. The number was chosen to make the ledger
[14:13] Speaker 1: itself absurd, to take the notebook out of Peter's hand
[14:17] Speaker 1: and close it. And then Jesus told him a story
[14:20] Speaker 1: about a man forgiven a debt so enormous he could
[14:24] Speaker 1: never have repaid it, who walked straight out of that
[14:27] Speaker 1: mercy and seized a neighbor by the throat over a
[14:31] Speaker 1: small one. That story is the key to the hard
[14:35] Speaker 1: sentence in Matthew. What Jesus says about forgiving and being
[14:39] Speaker 1: forgiven is not a transaction where our mercy purchases God's.
[14:44] Speaker 1: It is a statement about how a heart works. Forgiveness
[14:48] Speaker 1: received and forgiveness given are one motion, not two. If
[14:53] Speaker 1: I truly understand what was cancelled for me, I cannot
[14:56] Speaker 1: stand in that mercy and simultaneously hold another person's throat.
[15:01] Speaker 1: And if I can, then something has not yet gone
[15:04] Speaker 1: all the way in. But we have to be honest
[15:07] Speaker 1: about what forgiving is, because a great many people have
[15:11] Speaker 1: been wounded by a shallow version of this teaching. Forgiving
[15:15] Speaker 1: is not saying the thing was small. It was not small.
[15:19] Speaker 1: Forgiving is not pretending you were not damaged, or deciding
[15:23] Speaker 1: the memory should stop hurting on command, or handing someone
[15:28] Speaker 1: dangerous the keys to your life again. Releasing a debt
[15:32] Speaker 1: is not the same as reopening an account. Forgiving is
[15:35] Speaker 1: deciding you will no longer be the one who collects.
[15:39] Speaker 1: It is taking the invoice you have been carrying, the
[15:42] Speaker 1: one you have read so many times you know it
[15:45] Speaker 1: by heart, and handing it to God, who is a
[15:48] Speaker 1: better judge than you, and a far better judge than
[15:51] Speaker 1: you would be on your worst night. It is a release,
[15:55] Speaker 1: and the first person released is almost always the one
[15:58] Speaker 1: who was holding it. There is also a reason this
[16:02] Speaker 1: teaching came wrapped inside a prayer rather than delivered as
[16:06] Speaker 1: a separate command, and the placement is doing real work.
[16:10] Speaker 1: He did not say, forgive, and then let us go
[16:13] Speaker 1: find the strength somewhere. He put it in the same
[16:17] Speaker 1: breath as asking for daily bread, which is to say,
[16:20] Speaker 1: he put it among the things we are supposed to
[16:22] Speaker 1: come and request. If you cannot forgive somebody yet, that
[16:27] Speaker 1: is not a reason to stay away from him. That
[16:30] Speaker 1: is the thing to bring. Ask for the willingness before
[16:34] Speaker 1: you have it. Many people have found that the willingness
[16:38] Speaker 1: arrives long before the feeling does, and that the feeling
[16:42] Speaker 1: eventually follows the decision rather than leading it. That is
[16:46] Speaker 1: why he circled back. Of everything in that prayer, this
[16:50] Speaker 1: is the line most likely to be skipped by people
[16:53] Speaker 1: who mean every other word. There is one more thing
[16:57] Speaker 1: Jesus repeated so often that the repetition becomes almost insistent,
[17:03] Speaker 1: and it is not a command about behavior at all.
[17:06] Speaker 1: It is an invitation to ask. Ask, and it will
[17:11] Speaker 1: be given you. Seek, and you will find. Knock, and
[17:14] Speaker 1: it will be opened for you. Matthew chapter 7 verse 7.
[17:19] Speaker 1: He said that in his great sermon, and then he
[17:21] Speaker 1: explained it with the plainest comparison he could find. If
[17:26] Speaker 1: your child asks you for bread... You do not hand
[17:29] Speaker 1: him a stone. You are not perfect, and you still
[17:32] Speaker 1: know how to give your children good things. How much more, then,
[17:36] Speaker 1: the father? He told two whole parables, whose only point
[17:40] Speaker 1: was to keep asking. In the first, a man stands
[17:45] Speaker 1: outside a friend's house at midnight, knocking for bread, and
[17:48] Speaker 1: does not stop knocking until the friend gets out of bed.
[17:52] Speaker 1: In the second, a widow with no money, no standing,
[17:56] Speaker 1: and no lawyer wears down a judge who does not
[17:59] Speaker 1: care about her purely by coming back. Neither story is
[18:04] Speaker 1: flattering to the one being asked, and that is deliberate.
[18:08] Speaker 1: He is not saying God is reluctant like the sleeping
[18:10] Speaker 1: friend or hard like the judge. He is saying that
[18:14] Speaker 1: if persistence works, even on the reluctant and the hard,
[18:17] Speaker 1: you can stop worrying about whether it is safe to
[18:20] Speaker 1: keep asking the one who is neither. Then look at
[18:24] Speaker 1: the last night. In the upper room, in one evening,
[18:28] Speaker 1: in the space of three chapters of conversation, Jesus told
[18:32] Speaker 1: his frightened friends to ask no fewer than six separate times.
[18:38] Speaker 1: Whatever you ask in my name, if you ask me
[18:41] Speaker 1: anything in my name, ask whatever you wish. Whatever you
[18:45] Speaker 1: ask the Father in my name, the Father will give
[18:48] Speaker 1: you whatever you ask. And finally, ask, and you will receive,
[18:53] Speaker 1: that your joy may be made full. John chapter 16
[18:56] Speaker 1: verse 24 consider what that evening cost him. He had
[19:02] Speaker 1: hours left. He knew what was coming, and he could
[19:06] Speaker 1: have spent the time on anything. He spent a large
[19:09] Speaker 1: part of it telling men who were about to fail
[19:12] Speaker 1: him badly that they should ask. Which tells us something
[19:16] Speaker 1: about who this teaching is for. The people who most
[19:20] Speaker 1: need to hear it are the ones most convinced they
[19:23] Speaker 1: have forfeited the right to be heard. Everyone in that
[19:27] Speaker 1: room was about to run. One would deny knowing him
[19:31] Speaker 1: three times before dawn, and to those men that night
[19:35] Speaker 1: he said, Ask six times. If you have stopped praying
[19:40] Speaker 1: because you assume the line has gone quiet, or because
[19:43] Speaker 1: you know exactly what you did and cannot imagine bringing
[19:46] Speaker 1: your name into his presence again, this teach was repeated
[19:51] Speaker 1: for you more than any other reason. He said it
[19:54] Speaker 1: to the ones who were about to fail. He said
[19:57] Speaker 1: it while looking at them. Near the end of his ministry,
[20:02] Speaker 1: one word begins to appear over and over in the
[20:06] Speaker 1: mouth of Jesus. Watch. Keep awake. Be ready because you
[20:11] Speaker 1: do not know the hour. He said it about a
[20:14] Speaker 1: householder who does not know when the thief will come.
[20:18] Speaker 1: He said it about servants waiting up for a master
[20:21] Speaker 1: whose ship might dock at midnight or at dawn. He
[20:25] Speaker 1: said it about young women whose lamps went out because
[20:28] Speaker 1: they had not thought far enough ahead. Then in Mark,
[20:32] Speaker 1: after saying it three times in one discourse, he widened
[20:36] Speaker 1: it to include everyone who would ever hear it. What
[20:40] Speaker 1: I tell you, I tell all. Watch Mark chapter 13
[20:45] Speaker 1: verse 37. Almost every generation of Christians has managed to
[20:51] Speaker 1: turn this teaching into something it is not. It becomes
[20:54] Speaker 1: a hunt for dates, a decoding of headlines, a nervous
[20:58] Speaker 1: scanning of the sky. But look at how he actually
[21:02] Speaker 1: used the word. In every one of those pictures, the
[21:05] Speaker 1: faithful servant is not staring at the horizon. The faithful
[21:10] Speaker 1: servant is doing his job. Watching, in the way Jesus
[21:14] Speaker 1: meant it, is not surveillance. It is being fully awake
[21:19] Speaker 1: in the life in front of you, so that whenever
[21:21] Speaker 1: he arrives, you are not caught living a life you
[21:24] Speaker 1: would be ashamed to be found in. And then there
[21:28] Speaker 1: is the last time he used the word, and it
[21:31] Speaker 1: is the reason this teaching should never be handled harshly.
[21:35] Speaker 1: In the garden, on the night he was arrested, Jesus
[21:39] Speaker 1: took Peter, James, and John a little further in and
[21:42] Speaker 1: told them his soul was crushed to the point of death.
[21:46] Speaker 1: Then he asked them to stay there and keep watch.
[21:50] Speaker 1: He walked a stone's throw away and prayed with a
[21:53] Speaker 1: grief none of us can measure. And when he came back,
[21:57] Speaker 1: they were asleep.' Simon, are you sleeping? Could you not
[22:02] Speaker 1: watch one hour?' Mark 14.37 The last recorded time Jesus said, Watch,
[22:12] Speaker 1: it was answered with sleep by his three closest friends,
[22:16] Speaker 1: on the worst night of his life. And what he
[22:18] Speaker 1: said next is the thing to hold on to. Watch
[22:22] Speaker 1: and pray that you may not enter into temptation. The
[22:26] Speaker 1: Spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak. Mark
[22:31] Speaker 1: chapter 14 verse 38. He named their weakness without condemning it.
[22:38] Speaker 1: He said, the spirit is willing before he said the
[22:41] Speaker 1: body is weak. He knew they meant it. He knew
[22:45] Speaker 1: they could not do it. He did not stop asking,
[22:49] Speaker 1: and he did not throw them away for failing. That
[22:52] Speaker 1: is the tone this teaching should always carry. Stay awake
[22:57] Speaker 1: from the one who watched alone so that our sleeping
[23:00] Speaker 1: would not be the end of us. Lay the six
[23:04] Speaker 1: side by side, and something becomes clear that no single
[23:08] Speaker 1: one shows on its own. Not one of them is
[23:12] Speaker 1: a task you complete. There is no evening when you
[23:15] Speaker 1: finish being unafraid, no morning when the letting go of
[23:19] Speaker 1: your life is done, no point at which you have
[23:22] Speaker 1: served enough, forgiven enough, asked enough, or stayed awake enough
[23:27] Speaker 1: to be excused from the next day. Every one of
[23:30] Speaker 1: the six is a direction, not a destination. From fear
[23:35] Speaker 1: toward trust, from grip toward open hand, from the high
[23:40] Speaker 1: seat toward the low one, from holding the debt toward
[23:44] Speaker 1: releasing it, from silence toward asking, from sleep toward attention.
[23:50] Speaker 1: That could sound exhausting, and for many sincere people it
[23:53] Speaker 1: has been, because they were handed these teachings as six
[23:57] Speaker 1: standards to be met, and then measured against them. But
[24:01] Speaker 1: a direction cannot be failed the way a task can.
[24:05] Speaker 1: A ship, of course, is not disqualified from the harbour.
[24:08] Speaker 1: It turns. You can have leaned the wrong way for
[24:12] Speaker 1: 40 years and lean back today, and the leaning back counts,
[24:17] Speaker 1: even if the distance you cover in a lifetime is small.
[24:21] Speaker 1: The six teachings he repeated most are the six that
[24:24] Speaker 1: are always open to be started again, which may be
[24:27] Speaker 1: exactly why he kept repeating them to people who kept
[24:30] Speaker 1: getting them wrong. And notice what these teachings are not.
[24:36] Speaker 1: They are not about the things religion so often measures.
[24:39] Speaker 1: He did not say six times what to eat, or
[24:42] Speaker 1: how loudly to pray, or which day to keep, or
[24:45] Speaker 1: which of the finer points to defend. He said six
[24:49] Speaker 1: times what to do with your fear, your life, your status,
[24:53] Speaker 1: your grudge, your empty hands, and your ordinary hours. Every
[24:58] Speaker 1: one of them is invisible from the outside. Every one
[25:02] Speaker 1: of them decides who you become. There is one more
[25:06] Speaker 1: thing they share, and it is the deepest thing. Not
[25:10] Speaker 1: one of the six is possible on your own. You
[25:12] Speaker 1: cannot decide to stop being afraid by deciding it. Fear
[25:17] Speaker 1: leaves when something more solid than the fear takes its place,
[25:21] Speaker 1: and that has to come from outside you. You cannot
[25:24] Speaker 1: let go of your life unless you are confident somebody
[25:27] Speaker 1: is going to catch it. You cannot take the lowest
[25:31] Speaker 1: place unless your worth is already settled somewhere that the
[25:34] Speaker 1: seating chart cannot reach. You cannot release a debt with
[25:38] Speaker 1: nothing in your own account. You cannot ask without believing
[25:43] Speaker 1: someone is listening. You cannot stay awake for a master
[25:46] Speaker 1: you do not love. Which means these are not six
[25:50] Speaker 1: moral requirements handed down to be attempted. They are six
[25:55] Speaker 1: things that become possible when a person is being held.
[25:59] Speaker 1: The teaching and the teacher cannot be separated. Take Jesus
[26:04] Speaker 1: out of these six, and you are left with a
[26:06] Speaker 1: set of demands no honest person can meet. And this
[26:11] Speaker 1: is where every one of the six comes home, because
[26:14] Speaker 1: he lived all of them first, and he lived them
[26:16] Speaker 1: out in the open where his friends could watch. He
[26:19] Speaker 1: did not save his own life. He had every chance to.
[26:23] Speaker 1: He could have stayed in Galilee, kept the crowds, avoided
[26:27] Speaker 1: the city, and he walked toward Jerusalem instead with full
[26:31] Speaker 1: knowledge of what waited there. He took the lowest place
[26:35] Speaker 1: with a towel in his hands and water in a basin,
[26:38] Speaker 1: kneeling in front of men who had spent that very
[26:41] Speaker 1: evening arguing about rank. He forgave out loud from the
[26:46] Speaker 1: cross while the nails were still doing their work, and
[26:49] Speaker 1: the people he forgave had not asked him to. In
[26:52] Speaker 1: the garden he asked his father for what he wanted
[26:55] Speaker 1: with tears, which is the only reason any of us
[26:58] Speaker 1: can be told that asking is allowed. and through that
[27:02] Speaker 1: same long night he stayed awake while everyone who loved
[27:06] Speaker 1: him slept. He told frightened people not to be afraid,
[27:10] Speaker 1: and then he walked into the one place where there
[27:13] Speaker 1: was genuinely everything to fear, and he did not turn around.
[27:19] Speaker 1: So when he says,'' Do not be afraid,'' it is
[27:21] Speaker 1: not the advice of someone who has never been terrified.
[27:25] Speaker 1: When he says,'' Let go of your life,'' it is
[27:28] Speaker 1: not the counsel of someone protecting his own. When he says,
[27:32] Speaker 1: take the low place, forgive the debt, ask the Father,
[27:37] Speaker 1: stay awake, every one of those sentences comes from a
[27:40] Speaker 1: man who had already done it and would do it
[27:43] Speaker 1: again a few hours later. He is not standing above
[27:47] Speaker 1: the six teachings, handing them down. He is standing inside them,
[27:53] Speaker 1: further in than any of us will ever go, holding
[27:56] Speaker 1: the door. which brings this to you and to whatever
[27:59] Speaker 1: you carried into this hour. Maybe it is fear, and
[28:03] Speaker 1: not the dramatic kind, the kind that waits until the
[28:07] Speaker 1: house is quiet, a test result, a bank balance, a
[28:11] Speaker 1: child who has stopped calling, a body that no longer
[28:15] Speaker 1: does what it did five years ago. Maybe it is weariness,
[28:20] Speaker 1: the sort that has been building so long you have
[28:22] Speaker 1: stopped expecting it to lift. Maybe it is a room
[28:25] Speaker 1: that is quieter than it used to be, and the
[28:28] Speaker 1: particular loneliness of having plenty to say and nobody to
[28:32] Speaker 1: say it to. Maybe it is a name you cannot forgive,
[28:36] Speaker 1: and you are so tired of carrying it that you
[28:39] Speaker 1: have simply learned to walk with the weight. Every one
[28:43] Speaker 1: of the six teachings he repeated was spoken to people
[28:47] Speaker 1: in exactly that condition, not to the accomplished, to the frightened,
[28:52] Speaker 1: the failing, the ones who had already misunderstood him twice.
[28:56] Speaker 1: He said these things over and over to people very
[28:59] Speaker 1: much like us, and he never once said them as
[29:02] Speaker 1: a way of telling anyone they were not enough. And
[29:05] Speaker 1: to the tired he added one more invitation, which he
[29:09] Speaker 1: did not need to repeat, because he said it so
[29:12] Speaker 1: plainly the first time. Come to me, all you who
[29:16] Speaker 1: labor and are heavily burdened, and I will give you rest.
[29:21] Speaker 1: Matthew 11.28 Come to me. Not fix yourself, and then come.
[29:29] Speaker 1: Not understand it all, and then come. Come, all of
[29:33] Speaker 1: you who are worn out from carrying what you were
[29:35] Speaker 1: never built to carry alone, and I will be the rest.
[29:40] Speaker 1: That is where these teachings lead. They do not lead
[29:43] Speaker 1: to a better performance. They lead to a person, and
[29:47] Speaker 1: he has been saying the same six things patiently for
[29:50] Speaker 1: two thousand years, because he has never yet met anyone
[29:53] Speaker 1: who got them right the first time, and he has
[29:56] Speaker 1: never yet turned one of them away for it. So
[29:59] Speaker 1: take one, not all six. Take the one that found
[30:04] Speaker 1: you tonight and lean that direction tomorrow. He will say
[30:08] Speaker 1: it again if you need to hear it again. He
[30:11] Speaker 1: always has. If this video helped you grow deeper in
[30:18] Speaker 1: God's Word, I want to personally invite you to be
[30:21] Speaker 1: part of what we are building here. Every video on
[30:25] Speaker 1: this channel takes many hours of study and careful research
[30:28] Speaker 1: to make sure we bring you content that is faithful
[30:31] Speaker 1: to Scripture and worthy of your time. If you would
[30:35] Speaker 1: like to support this mission and help us keep making
[30:38] Speaker 1: these videos, you can find a link in the description
[30:41] Speaker 1: below to give a one-time gift or become a monthly supporter.
[30:47] Speaker 1: Every gift, no matter the size, goes directly toward creating
[30:52] Speaker 1: more content like this. And if you are not in
[30:55] Speaker 1: a position to give right now, that is completely fine.
[31:00] Speaker 1: The best thing you can do is subscribe, share this
[31:03] Speaker 1: video with someone who needs to hear it, and keep
[31:06] Speaker 1: studying God's Word with us. Thank you for being here,
[31:10] Speaker 1: and may God bless you richly. you

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