What if you could see Jesus as someone relatable and approachable, despite the complexity of his genealogy and divinity? How would that change your relationship with him? Join us as we venture into the fascinating genealogy of Jesus as presented in Matthew Chapter 1, highlighting the importance of understanding our roots and its impact on our current perspectives. We share how we used to box Jesus into an image that seemed unrelatable, and how digging into his family history helps shatter these stereotypes.
Ever wondered about the courage it took for Jesus to die for us on the cross? Our discussion takes an unexpected turn, drawing parallels from the rigorous journey of achieving a black belt in karate to understanding Jesus' immense strength and courage. We also dive into the intriguing aspect of Jesus' unexpected birth, exploring the reactions of the people around him, and what it meant for his faith journey.
In our final thoughts, we focus on the importance of authenticity and personal perspectives, inspired by the lessons from Matthew, the tax collector. Matthew’s unique viewpoint presented Jesus as a king fulfilling Old Testament prophecies, emphasizing how our individual backgrounds and experiences shape our understanding. We invite you to join us in this enriching exploration, as we ponder the power of genetics in determining who we are, and how embracing our authenticity can lead to impactful connections. Don’t miss out on this enlightening conversation!
Email: findingfaith.losingsleep@gmail.com
Twitter: @FindingFaithPod
What if you could see Jesus as someone relatable and approachable, despite the complexity of his genealogy and divinity? How would that change your relationship with him? Join us as we venture into the fascinating genealogy of Jesus as presented in Matthew Chapter 1, highlighting the importance of understanding our roots and its impact on our current perspectives. We share how we used to box Jesus into an image that seemed unrelatable, and how digging into his family history helps shatter these stereotypes.
Ever wondered about the courage it took for Jesus to die for us on the cross? Our discussion takes an unexpected turn, drawing parallels from the rigorous journey of achieving a black belt in karate to understanding Jesus' immense strength and courage. We also dive into the intriguing aspect of Jesus' unexpected birth, exploring the reactions of the people around him, and what it meant for his faith journey.
In our final thoughts, we focus on the importance of authenticity and personal perspectives, inspired by the lessons from Matthew, the tax collector. Matthew’s unique viewpoint presented Jesus as a king fulfilling Old Testament prophecies, emphasizing how our individual backgrounds and experiences shape our understanding. We invite you to join us in this enriching exploration, as we ponder the power of genetics in determining who we are, and how embracing our authenticity can lead to impactful connections. Don’t miss out on this enlightening conversation!
Email: findingfaith.losingsleep@gmail.com
Twitter: @FindingFaithPod
It's time to wake up and pray up here. On the Finding Faith and Losing Sleep podcast, I'm Wes Eason, one of your hosts, and loafing it over on Twitter. Don't forget to follow the two co-hosts. I think they're the pre-hosts, the post-hosts, the most-hosts. The host is with the mostesses. It's Pierre at Pee Wee 31 over on Twitter and Michelle at Gopat Go. 9-1-1, 4-1-1, 4-1-1. I did the night one-one joke before, Michelle. I can't get it out of my head. I thought it was somebody.
Speaker 2:It's just stuck that way now right.
Speaker 1:After Aaron Rodgers left. I think it's an emergency there now.
Speaker 2:We'll see. Nobody really knows, so we'll see.
Speaker 1:We shall see. And, pierre, how are you, my friend, I haven't talked to you in a long time.
Speaker 3:I'm doing well. You had a little rattle right before we went live, like you were opening up hostess like a ding-doh or cupcake or something. I was like, oh boy, here we go. Maybe you were just flipping through your Bible and they just sounded like chips again. Maybe that was it.
Speaker 1:Pierre, Pierre, Pierre, my chippy Bible. I guess we need to see if Frito-Lay makes a Bible. Maybe we can be sponsored by Frito-Lay Bibles or something.
Speaker 2:I don't know.
Speaker 1:Pierre. Hey, we are excited to be here on the Finding Faith and Losing Sleep podcast, episode 18. You guys may not be excited because we're going to be going over Matthew chapter 1, which is the genealogy and then the birth of Jesus. So I got some questions to ask and I got some observations to make from Matthew chapter 1. It's one of those chapters, pierre, michelle, where whenever I first started reading the Bible, I was like, okay, I'll start reading the Bible, you know, come condition, I'm going to start reading the Bible. And I was like Genesis well, that's an old looking book, the Old Testament. It's called Old for a Reason. I'm going to go at least to the New Testament and I'm going to get started there. And I think that was the biggest mistake of my life, because I started the New Testament and I got to all those names and I'm like I have never met anybody with half of these names, more than half, three quarters of these names. Where did all these people come from? Is what I was thinking.
Speaker 3:It's a struggle and I'll tell you like half the times that I've actually attempted to start reading the Bible, probably the main reasons I stopped was because of the genealogy, just the what's the son of this, what's the son of this, what's the daughter of this? And I just I just can't. I don't want to just skim through it Like I'm sure the genealogy was important and I mean you can like read about, you know how it was, basically like their alphabet. You know, back in these times where they were basically remembering their history, which is important. You know your family trees, your family history. But it's a struggle for me. It's like taping the eyelids open and just doing your best to pull through it. I really struggle with all the names.
Speaker 1:Personally, I find it humorous now, michelle, whenever I look at the names and you guys know me I can barely read right. English is my second language. I think you both know that by now. I don't know, I don't know what my first language is, but it's certainly with the way I pronounce the eight and spell and do grammar, english is not my first language, right? That's just what I have come to conclude, and so whenever I look at all these names, I just fake it till I make it. I just keep going through them like yeah, I don't care if I say them wrong, I don't care if I say them right. If I get it 50% right, I feel very accomplished. But they just I find them as funny little names and I'm sure it's not funny little names, michelle.
Speaker 2:I'm sure it's not. I think it's just, I think it's smart to do it your way, west, because then it at least makes it interesting and exciting. Right, like you just go through and say them however you want and like give yourself a little chuckle here and there.
Speaker 1:Well, if you always act like a goober whenever it comes time to do something like this, it just looks natural to you. So that's how I get across with it. But no, but I mean the genealogy, though, is so important because we do get to learn, I guess, the background, and you know, on some of those past episodes of the finding faith and losing sleep podcast, you can go back there and listen to those things and you'll find out our backgrounds to be able to understand us a little bit better. And I, you know, we can sit there and judge a lot of people in this world just on book cover. You know, what is it that we exactly see the moment we see them, we already put them in a box. We already judge people a little bit. You know, we kind of have met somebody that looked like that before or acted like that before, have walked like that before, and so whenever we think about Jesus and we put them in a box wait a minute, we got to find out his history. A little bit, like in those past podcasts, you can find out about our history and go okay, now I can see why Wes says that the way he does, or why Pierre thinks that way, or why Michelle thinks that way, and so we can kind of see those things.
Speaker 1:So let me ask you guys this, because I think it's a good question to ask, and I've been asking myself this all week and I probably should, should just ask you guys this earlier this week to let you think about it. I don't know when, maybe before you became a Christian, or whenever you first thought about Jesus, or not even then. I mean just in your life, because we've all heard that name of Jesus throughout our entire lives but before you got to know him a little bit better, what did you think about him? What box did you put him in? Who was he to you and what kind of reputation did he have?
Speaker 3:I guess so I guess I'll start. So to me he was black and I say that just being raised off of a black family, African American family, however you want to say it and like a lot of our churches, it points to Revelation, which I know we're not talking to now, but it just talks about the burnt skin, which a lot of us take it as brown, dark skin, the wool type of hair and the type of hair that we have. So immediately that's kind of the thought that that's taught At least that was taught with me growing up. And so then you start seeing these pictures of Jesus throughout and you're like, well, that's not who I was taught at all. And then you actually get into the Bible and you're like, well, they're wrong. Also, he's not a white person, honestly.
Speaker 3:But you think about it. There's some type of descent and there's definitely a tan of some sort there when it comes to Jesus. But just from a parent standpoint, that was just the difference, and again, ours was kind of based off of Revelation. But then it also ties into what you can see versus not see. And so honestly, growing up, there's that doubt when things are going wrong in your life, when folks are getting sick, folks are passing away. It's like, OK, well, this is Jesus guy and not even real. Because why would this stuff be happening to good people? Why do bad things happen to good people, which we talked about before? If he was so loving and so kindful and graceful and full of mercy, why do these things take place? So those are a lot of thoughts that ran through younger peers at least.
Speaker 1:I got to know them and I remember the television show Good Times and on the wall they had the picture of the Black Jesus. Did you guys have a picture of the Black Jesus in your house?
Speaker 3:We did not in our house, no, but I'm familiar with Good Times and what you were trying to do.
Speaker 1:I mean, they did it A little Michael. I think Michael was the youngest brother's name and he would go off on that picture sometimes. I liked that. That was one of my favorite shows growing up, by the way.
Speaker 3:I mean that's. I mean it's honest, that's kind of you know what. You're not necessarily raised that way, but just in based off the what you hear in the Black church. And again it points to that version of revelation or that verse in revelations where it talks about the scene like whoever I can't remember who it was that kind of saw the image of Jesus and just that description is kind of what it's based off of.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, those paintings of Jesus that we see, with the clean cut look and the swooping back you know Harry going back and the clean cut face and everything like that and you know he's a tanned Caucasian is what he looks like and that's what I thought. That was the picture I had in my head, because that was always the picture or painting that I had always seen in books or whatever. And then as you get to know things, you're like, okay, that's furthest from the truth, probably, you know.
Speaker 2:That's what I was going to say. My Jesus was not black. Growing up it was basically the one that you just described to us, that was hanging in my grandparents' house, that I saw everywhere. And I agree with Pierre, though, like and you like, the more we read that's not even really anywhere close to what he was. But like, for me growing up it was.
Speaker 2:I mean, if I'm really being honest, like I think I said, when I was younger, we stopped, like, going to church. My dad got my parents got really frustrated with what's the word I'm looking for the hypocrisy that they were feeling and like people talking about people instead of just welcoming people to church, no matter what they were wearing or looking at, and it just got to be too much for them. And we would like watch Robert Shuler sometimes, or you know just different pastors on TV here and there, but more so. It was like we prayed every, you know, every time we had it before, we had meals and stuff like that, but I mean it wasn't like prevalent, I think it was just more of a. You know Jesus died for you and we prayed to God and you know, know the difference between right and wrong type of thing.
Speaker 2:Until I was probably in high school when we started going back to it like a missionary church, and so even then, like as a high school student, I just kind of checked out from really being honest, and so it wasn't really until, you know, I was an adult and bought my first house, and my best friend has always been a really good influence, a really good Christian influence, in my life, and so she really kind of kept me steady, at least having set that example for me. So yeah, I think it wasn't until I got older that I really started to kind of forming an opinion.
Speaker 1:So okay, now Let me ask you this how approachable was Jesus, the church? Because I think Jesus and the church kind of go hand in hand, represent each other, you know. I mean like, like, could he relate to what you were going through? Could it was it was it, was he a relatable character? Did you feel like you could approach him like today? I think, as a Christian, you know we talked to God, we talked to God through Jesus and you know there may be even times when you have conversations with God through Jesus, but you're talking more to Jesus than you are to God, because he's our mediator, you know. So you're just kind of talking and have like a friendly relationship, but did you think that he was a friend back then? Did you think that he was relatable?
Speaker 2:and no, I mean, I didn't.
Speaker 2:For me I didn't see it that way, like I, for me it was God, like I don't know how to explain that but it wasn't until, kind of, I started Diving into faith more and, quite honestly I think I probably mentioned it once on this podcast like I always get confused like am I supposed to pray to God?
Speaker 2:I was supposed to pray to Jesus, like what am I supposed to do? And so it wasn't necessarily Tangible for me and I think I mentioned this previously until I went through my miscarriage and like everything kind of started changing then. So that whole scenario just really brought me closer to Jesus and closer to God and and I started to understand the Holy Spirit and, quite honestly, after having Olivia that's what helps, like you know, with her questions, and so her questions about things started and quite making me go you know what I need to understand this a little better, a little better, like when we talked about the Holy Trinity and you know, so, learning through the eyes of a child has been really great for me. So I think I think that's a really great question, west, because you know, oftentimes we just assume that people have this base understanding and maybe they don't.
Speaker 1:All right, what about you, pierre? For me, I, I thought that Jesus was, I, an unapproachable character, you know, like he would Me and him, just wouldn't get along right, because I always pictured Jesus is kind of a preppy guy and it might have been because of that picture that I used to see, because he looked, he looked like he was the star football player. You know, he, just he looked like he was the guy and I was not necessarily the guy and I, he just he wouldn't be able to relate to me at all. We're just from two different sides of the road, we're from two different planets, which we kind of are. But he, just he, I just to me. I couldn't approach him at all if he was right there in front of me because it just seemed like, I don't know, he was too good, he, two shoes from each of Pierre.
Speaker 3:So he never felt unapproachable. Um, so, even if I Wasn't going to to church myself or if my mom or or whoever wasn't taking me to church like I, I still had those figures. Like my grandma, I would always have something on whether it be like a TD Jake's who I didn't even know back then, but she was watching and you know she, like my family, always had that, that rooted faith somewhere. You know, starting from the elders, you know I had a media. I know the the movie doesn't necessarily do it justice Without the comedy, but you know I had a, a media who you know was in church always praying for us. You know my grandma did the same, and even my mom, you know eventually he's the one that made me promise to obviously get baptized. You know she had some roots there. So it was never a Unapproachable type of feel, it was just more of.
Speaker 3:Is this real type of ordeal?
Speaker 3:Um, and when you look at, you know poverty and you know kind of how you can see others living lives compared to how you're living lives, whether it be you know going from house to house and written, and you know Things on those lines where you go and you got friends that you know, have these big old houses and all these things and it's like okay.
Speaker 3:So you know, what am I doing wrong? Or what am I family do wrong? You know, why are we not living? You know this earthly way, like other people are living? There are some of the questions that I kind of had, um, and kind of just made it, I don't know like not as tangible. I guess, um, in a sense, um, because you knew some of those people and that they weren't the best people either. And so, again, if you know this is supposed to be, uh, a savior of the world and you know you're supposed to be quote-unquote rewarded for, for righteousness and the wicked you know are supposed to be, you know, getting taken down, it just didn't seem real in the the world itself, like that was happening.
Speaker 1:Okay, all right, and uh, before I move on here and a little bit more conversation about this, I need to remind everybody and I forgot to remind everybody at the beginning of this podcast, because we might be under that religious section of the of you know, the google searches or the spotify searches and everything like that we might be under and and if you turned into this podcast for some deep theological debate, it's not going to be here, right? We are a podcast made for the average everyday person who is staying awake at night thinking about life matters, thinking about faithful matters, thinking about just what's going on in their lives in the past and the present and what's going to happen in the future. And that's what this podcast is about. We try to make it for the everyday people. We all have a little bit of theology Underneath our belts, maybe just not some from some big school. We're going to use big words to try and scare people off.
Speaker 1:All right, that's not what we're going to do. We try to just communicate through a normal everyday way, and so that's that's. That's what we are. Hey, that reminds me, pierre, what you? You had me vote for something. You had me vote for me. I.
Speaker 3:Individualize yourself here. But oh, uh, we had nominations for the podcast awards, uh, so got an alert that we were nominated and it seems like the the more nominations you get, um, the better you have at making it to the final. So thanks for whoever initially nominated and, uh, to give you a chance, uh, it's the podcast awards of people's choice. Uh, they can be found at podcast awards on twitter. Um, there's a website, I think the. The deadline is at the end of this month, um, so we got about a week left to be nominated, but we're under the people's choice category and the religion and spirituality Category, so if we have enough nominations, uh, then they will send out kind of the finalists to actually, you know, be voted on, uh, to win a podcast award.
Speaker 2:So we have enough votes for already nominated oh.
Speaker 3:No, the voting's not open yet. It's still nomination. Oh, I got you. Okay, he asked me. Now you.
Speaker 1:Hey, hey, hey, we're under the marriage counseling To me, or the podcast too. Marriage counseling is what we're under. Hey, uh, no, but you, you have that over there on the twitter handle, the finding faith and losing sleep podcast. Twitter handle at finding faith.
Speaker 3:Right, right.
Speaker 1:At finding faith. Pod, you can find that. I'm sure you will pin that Immediately so people can vote for us. No, look, we don't. The vote, the vote, that is very it's, it's, it's, it's nice, it's nice. I'll. I'll be honest with you, it's just nice. And all the five star reviews that you guys have left, the questions, the comments, all those things have been fantastic. Thank you so much for just interacting with us on this podcast and, uh, that it's a blessing. It's a blessing to all of us and we hope that we are blessing to you as well.
Speaker 1:All right, so I told you how my jesus was. My jesus was kind of unapproachable. I just didn't understand him. I didn't think that he would understand me. It just it didn't seem like a fathomable conversation, besides the fact that nobody ever talked about him from wherever I was. But I used to. I used to go to church with my aunt, my uncle, whenever I stay with them on the on in the summertime, and I would hear stuff, right, but it just didn't seem relatable to me. I was never going to be good enough. Yeah, I'm not a church kid, church going kid. Uh, I live, I live in I don't know the wrong side of the tracks. I live in poverty. I live. I'm way to. I can't relate to this because I was just saw. I don't know christianity. I always saw jesus as just being better than what I could ever be. Right, does that make sense? I said that, okay. So when I became a christian, you know, I started in that new testament and I got over there to matthew, chapter one. I was like what the world is going on here? And so I passed all that stuff and I got into other things and I got into teaching, you know, in the new testament. And then years later I studied, I read a book, I studied a book. Whatever you want to say. It was a josh mcdowell book.
Speaker 1:How to study your bible is what it was called, and one of the ways that he Tried to tell people to study the bible was to read a chapter six times and outline books. Right, as you go through outline books, read the chapter six times, entitle the chapter yourself because other somebody else just Entitled your chapter. I don't know if I say entitled, titled your chapter in your bible. So you go ahead and title your chapters. You go ahead and Kind of talk about where the verses in and where the verses begin and where the chapter breaks, kind of come in there, you know, and just title all the different sections in your bible, but read, read a chapter six times so you can get a good understanding of it. I'm like, dude, you want me to read something six times, man? So I did, though, and that was where the like the matthew chapter one kind of struck me, and I looked at Matthew one and I went through it. You know.
Speaker 1:Genealogy first time, genealogy second time. Oh, I gotta do it a third time, you know, but I think it was the fourth or fifth time when I read it, and I went wait a minute, man, hold up who. I remember hearing something about these people, you know, and Abraham Isaac jacob Okay, those guys are all pillars of the faith. Right in chapter verse two, I fill up pillars of the faith. Then you get to Judah and Perez and Zara. By tamar and Perez was born Hezron, hezron Ram. Who, in the world are all these people? And you know, I'd been in. I've been a Christian for a while, so I've been hearing a lot of names, I've been hearing a lot of things, and then it got down to verse five, and and the someone was born boas by Rahab. And I went wait a minute, rahab. Hey, well, it was Rahab. And so I started doing a little research, like who is Rahab? And Uh, first first place that took me was Hebrews 11, the great chapter of faith, like all these heroes of the faith, and Rahab is mentioned in there.
Speaker 1:Rahab was a harlot. Okay, rahab the harlot, and we're talking about the genealogy of Jesus Christ. This is his family history. These are the people that were in his family. This is where he came from. These are the people I'm not gonna say he knew, because these were generations before him, but you know, hey, jesus, do you remember your aunt Rahab? You know? I mean, could you imagine that had a conversation at some point, right, rahab the harlot. Do you guys know what Rahab did for a living? Nope, you don't know. In Joshua, chapter two, she ran an inn. A harlot, a prostitute, ran an inn, did she? She ran a house man. You know what I'm saying?
Speaker 2:Like, she was a madam. That's who she was.
Speaker 1:I mean you. You can cut him up and dice it up and slice it up any way you want to, but I'm gonna tell you what. All apologies to Rahab, oh, I don't mean to say this the wrong way, but I was so happy that Rahab Was a harlot To. There's a degree for me because I will. All of a sudden, I sit there and I look at Matthew, chapter one, and I'm looking at that and I'm reading that. I'm going wait a minute. Jesus does understand me a little bit better. You know, holy cow, this Jesus guy, I don't know about him. That's what I started thinking. You know, I'm like whoa. All of us should be hanging around. A guy with a family history like this is what I started thinking.
Speaker 3:Right, I mean you can see it yourself and not to cut you off there, but think about how popular things like Ancestrycom are, 23andme and basically all these things where you can send off saliva or whatever it is, you know, two blood samples, a couple vials of plasma and kind of find out, you know, like who your history is. You know some folks realize they got different heritage and you know that they may not be 100% African-American, they might have Korean or something like that or it's just. It's interesting from that standpoint. So when you look at it from there and just kind of finding out your family history versus how most people do it, when you read the Bible which is just okay, these are a bunch of names of a bunch of people that had a bunch of kids it kind of changes the perspective of it quite a bit.
Speaker 1:No, it definitely does. And I think about all these names and it's great to go back there and look at all the different stories like that, you know, and it's fun to look at those different stories because you do get to learn more about Jesus and his background, just like listening to past podcasts of ours. You can hear our background and so it's kind of cool to hear that. And I know Jesus didn't walk with these guys necessarily. You know all that stuff, I get it but it made him so much more relatable to me. And you know Rahab she was a great pillar of the faith because she obeyed God is what she did, even though she was in her situation. It became present for the spies of God to go there and she had to. She kept him hid. She basically didn't rat him out, all those things and she was faithful to God through that time and he rescued her.
Speaker 1:And she has mentioned in a great chapter Hebrews, chapter 11, another great chapter. If you ever want to be encouraged about the past of God's people and what they overcame and how they stayed faithful to God, hebrews 11 is great for that. It just it could be a very encouraging chapter. So yeah, like I said, I look at things a little bit different than some people, so I was just happy to see Rahab in there. You know that's. It made Jesus a little bit more relatable to me and I even started questioning whether or not I should hang around him because of his past, so that was interesting.
Speaker 2:Well, if we don't want to be judged on our past, I hope we're not holding it against the earth. You know our ancestors, or whatever. I hope we're not holding it against Jesus In my head, I just think about like Dolly Parton now, like Beth's little house in Texas.
Speaker 3:I believe this community, that Errin Bertrand, it's like as soon as you tell that story, that's like that's who Rahab looks like now. She's like Dolly.
Speaker 1:Parton. Okay, let me print this out there again the Finding Faith and Losing Sleep podcast. You might have come here because of the religious conversation that you had received, and we talk about Jots and Titles and we talk about hey, it gets even better though if I we keep going on here. So I started reading more and I'm like, okay, ruth, and then, right after that, jesse was born, david the king, and David was born Solomon by her, who had been the wife of Uriah. And I went wait a minute, david, david the king, oh man, david was the guy who took Saul's place, you know, in the Old Testament as the king, and it was because of his pure heart, and he's the guy who wrote all those Psalms and everything the wife of Uriah.
Speaker 1:And then, you know, I started remembering that story and so I went back and I looked at that story again and I went, whoa snap, what did David do, you know? And it talks about Bathsheba taking a bath at night and David up on his rooftop and David, you know, essentially telling his guards hey, go get her, bring her to me. And then it gets her pregnant and she was the wife and he knew it the wife of. I don't know if he knew it before I got. I got. I should have went and revisited that story, got her pregnant and then he essentially killed her husband.
Speaker 3:Yeah, had him out on the battlefield yeah yeah, all by himself.
Speaker 1:He set him up and you know, you read a story like that and you're like wait a minute, man, this is Jesus's ancestry. And I start thinking about my background and all the things I've used as excuses over the years, you know, and you guys know, and I said that he was unrelatable, he couldn't understand me.
Speaker 1:And then I started thinking about these stories and I started thinking about God's family and how God does understand me, because God's had a bunch of broken people that he has called his family for a very long time and he has wanted to rescue them, he has wanted to save them. And you know, whenever I start thinking about that and I think about how Jesus knew all this stuff and how he went to the cross, not only for my sins but for their sins, and I think about how can Jesus do such a thing? Right, and I think the Bible tells us how would a man, how can a man die for someone who's a bad guy, like you know, and I always relate that to me but how could Jesus do that for all these people? And I wonder if Jesus didn't feel the added pressure to do it, kind of how you know, how I don't know if you guys have ever been in the muck, a little bit like you just had to grab yourself by the bootstraps and get something done. Okay, I don't know if you guys have ever.
Speaker 1:I used to have this old farmhouse, that house at Bird, and I would crawl underneath there at night, I'm sorry, at night, once a year, I don't know. I would crawl underneath there once a year at you know, just to check it out underneath there Again leaks under here and anything. It's old farmhouse, I'm telling you. There were some times when you're just you're crawling around underneath the floor right, and the floor is just right there at your chin right. There wasn't a whole lot of housing, housing specifications that had to be met whenever my house was built a long time ago, not a crawl space specification.
Speaker 1:No, no, no, and the house was built on so many different times and everything. So I'd crawl underneath there, I'd look and, you know, if I saw a pipe that was trickling or something like that, I'd do my best to fix it to a guy who didn't know anything. Well, I was crawling back out of there one time and I had a flashlight and I had it scooting underneath there man scooting underneath there and just getting dirty, always just dirty, dusty, all cobwebs all over the place, and I shined my flashlight around to try and find my way out. And I'll be, if a possum wasn't staring right at me. A possum, you ever see a possum's face?
Speaker 2:Yeah, they're not gonna hear.
Speaker 1:Have you ever seen a possum face under a house while you're on your belly?
Speaker 3:No, just looking at you. Did you play dead? It's not on me.
Speaker 1:I didn't know I could stand up underneath that house and run, but I did so. I scooted out of that house wow fast. I never know I could go that fast under that house. I used to always hate going underneath that house because I'd have to take my time and crawling underneath there and not hit my head on things. I was good. Whoo, I was gone.
Speaker 2:Right.
Speaker 1:And so I got out and I'm like, okay, it didn't chase me, it didn't beat me out or anything. I'm shining my flashlight, I'm trying to find it. I'm going around the bottom of the house just looking at all different angles. I'm like he didn't move, man, he's playing dead. Right, he's playing dead. So I didn't know what to do and I didn't wanna go back underneath there, so I just started taking rocks and started throwing them by them. You know, wham, wham. I'm trying to wake him up, trying to get him to move, and I realized, huh, he is dead. I got a dead possum under my house. Yeah, yeah, exactly, this isn't going to end well, is what I'm thinking. So I'm a country boy, right? So I sleep on it, not the possum. Actually, I mean, I take a night to think about what am I going to do While you're under there at night? Yeah, yeah, so I had to man up because I had to do something about it, because I did not look forward to the smell of a dead possum, right?
Speaker 2:Right.
Speaker 1:So I did. I crawled back underneath the house. I got a shovel. You know you don't want all the details. I could just tell you if you ever have to move an animal like that, just don't look it in the eyes. Oh, everything will be fine. You'll end up being able to take care of business. And that's what I did.
Speaker 1:But I had to do it and I had something inside of me.
Speaker 1:I had to get mad enough to do it right. I had to feel the urgency, I had to feel a strong desire to do so, and I wonder if that isn't the same thing as what Jesus had to, what he kind of had to get all strung up inside to be able to go to that cross. I wonder if he didn't think of his family history and think about all the sins that had gone through his family history, all the sins that was going to go through his family history because, as we know, we are adopted into his family, we are accepted into him because of what Jesus did on the cross for us, how he lived his life, all those things. And I wonder if he just didn't have to just man up and get up on that cross. I gotta do this, I have to do this and, man, I started appreciating those things a lot more whenever I started thinking about his family history and who he died for, not only in the present like me, you guys but also the people that he died for from his past, you know.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and even like it's like the thing about like the disciples itself, and I honestly hadn't thought of it that way. But the chosen, which I know we've talked about before, is a show I feel like does a really good job of helping me relate to the Bible and I know we'll get to it at some point. But it kind of went over the beautitudes and as he was kind of reciting he being the actor to place Jesus, so he was reciting the beautitudes, like each one it brought like a memory of a disciple and something that the disciple went through and that's kind of what he was doing. This for, you know, blessed are this, blessed are that. You know, blessed are those who mourn, for they would be comforted. And it would just bring back a memory for him of you know one of the disciples and something they had been through or gone through.
Speaker 3:And for me it just made me think about you know him in that moment, thinking all those things and kind of being reminded of why you know he's doing this. You know he's seen the struggles and the hardships that we put on ourselves and he knows that we couldn't do it on our own and that's just kind of a constant reminder of you know why he came to this world and what he had to finish in order to accomplish what he wanted to accomplish. You could think of that with any any tough you know goal it could be, you know work, it could be sports. Just think of things that you've kind of pushed yourself to a limit for knowing the in-go and why you were doing it. And I feel like that was kind of the case for for Jesus, obviously a much bigger scale of an in-go, but just kind of going through life and pushing himself to that limit of knowing what he had to accomplish and what the reward would be once he was finished.
Speaker 2:So I referenced quite a few podcasts episodes ago, something, and I said I would probably say something later, but I can relate to that because my dad and I are a father daughter, okinawan Gojiru Black belts. But, and it's very, our dojo is very old, traditional, like there's no smiling when you're on the mat. Your OB better not touch the ground. There's, you know, like we don't practice coming close when you're, when we're like fighting, because the thought is is if you're going to get, if you know what it feels like to get hit when you actually are in a fight, it's, it's not going to surprise you, you're just going to react. So you know, I had broken ribs, broken noses, all kinds of stuff, just from class. So when I first asked my dad if I could start, you know, starting karate, he was like no, because that's no place for girls, basically was the response. And after years of asking and asking and he finally took us all down to the basement and put us through a workout you never want to go through again. And everybody else was like when he gave him the chance to leave, they were out. And I stood there and I saw that like oh no, I'm not going to be able to do that. No Look. And so he started teaching me. Then he sent me to one of his former students in a town over, and so it kind of progressed from there.
Speaker 2:And in our style you can't make black belt until you're 18. But I actually got permission from my son's say, to make black belt when I was 17. But even when you're going out for promotion it's not a given Like if you're going to get sick, you better get sick in your ghee, it better not ever touch the mat, like it's very old, traditional, closed class typically. And so when I was going out for black belt, you had to go through a program and, quite honestly, when I went out for brown belt, I barely made it. So when I was on my black belt program my dad was like man, not going to do that this time. And so we were in Myrtle Beach and we were on vacation quote unquote vacation for me. I was still on the program, so he put me through a workout that was insane, and I still don't know that I love Myrtle Beach all that much this day. We've been and it's been OK. It's better the second time, third time around.
Speaker 2:But I really made black belt that day, like he pushed me to my limit and then a little further, and my mom took me to all of the classes and we would spend the night in the dojo because we lived an hour and a half away and I was still in high school and it was just, it was a lot.
Speaker 2:And it was a three month program of workouts every single day for hours and tournaments and all of that, and even then there was no guarantee that you're going to make it.
Speaker 2:And so when promotion day came, it was kind of like I've, instead of being the person that was lagging behind, I was finally the person that, because of that workout that my dad had put me through, I was finally that person that was like everybody else is like, oh gosh, what else do we have left to do? And I'm like, hold on, there's not much else to do. Like you're looking at this totally the wrong way. And it was a really beautiful moment and super special because you worked so hard and had to quote unquote strap up your boots, Like you really had to go for it and give it all you had. And then some and I think that relates to kind of what Jesus had to go through Like he had to go through his lashings basically and do what he had to do for us, and so I guess in some ways I can relate, but other ways I just can't, and I'm so thankful for him.
Speaker 1:Oh, definitely For sure, and I think about that often. Just what he did for us and all those things, and it is a strong story, a story of strength there, michelle, and determination to be able to get all that done. I didn't make it through any kind of karate. I don't know. There was karate was not for me. My daughter tried karate, got to the board part, broke the boards, and I think that's as far as we got. So that's cool though that you did that, and I'm glad you remembered talking about the thing you talked about with your father that you would revisit. So that's cool I know those things.
Speaker 1:Move it out here. Matthew, chapter one so that's about the genealogy. So there's a lot of names in there. Don't be scared of the names If you don't know what a name is. Find out what the name is. Find out the story from it, from in the Old Testament. Get to know Jesus in his past a little bit more and I think it makes it more real. I think it makes Jesus more real. But whenever you talk about his birth now, his birth gets crazy too. Right, Not just an ordinary birth. This was a little bit different Because if we go over to Matthew, chapter one, it says the birth of Jesus Christ in verse 18 was as follows when his mother Mary had been betrothed to Joseph before they came together, she was found to be with child by the Holy Spirit. What?
Speaker 3:What Today's world with that, with that, check out. There's zero chance, like like Mary would be on on Mori Povich and try to figure out, you know, if Joseph is the father, especially how it was. There's like no way. That's that's my thought process. It's like Mary Joseph would be on Mori. He keep pulling out the lie detector.
Speaker 1:He hears Joseph on cheaters. Joseph on cheaters, it varies. There I'm riding a donkey and and, and the guy pulls up there and starts confronting Jesus, joseph. So the whole genealogy was to lead us up to Joseph, his father. And so it starts talking about Joseph there and the family history for him, and then it gets crazier. His family history gets crazier because now Jesus has found to be with Holy Spirit. Let me say this we talked about this a couple of different times If you're going to make up a Bible, I don't think you make this the birth story of the, of the person you know, of the, of the, of the center person, of the hero of the story.
Speaker 1:I don't think this is how you make the story. I mean, I don't know, I'm not a great writer, I don't know if I could write a story like this, but I just don't see this being how you would do it. You know you would have some. I guess this wasn't a macular birth, but not one quite like this. To me it just there'd be. There'd be other things going on.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I mean it's, it's tough. I mean, even like you talk about the, the angel appearing and again there's, there's a way that babies are made that we all know of and that's that's not what took place here. So just that in itself, like he, he risk kind of losing any reader that's trying to use logic and and trying to, you know, kind of put in the the factual that they know and see that situation immediately.
Speaker 1:Well, especially the picture of Jesus that I think that I was portrayed as a kid. Where where's that perfect guy, that guy that's better than everybody else, kind of a thing. This isn't this. No, this isn't how his birth story would go to me, you know. So it's kind of cool to see it, because he, I think about it.
Speaker 1:What did the neighborhood kids say about Jesus's birth? You know, did, how? How did did that story ever come out? What did his brothers and sisters think he did? Did his cousins, you know, like other cousins other than John the Baptist? Did his cousins talk about it? Did they hear about Jesus's birth?
Speaker 1:And did some people look at Joseph a little funny, you know, they're really dude or Mary, a little bit funny, you know, I don't know, I don't know how any of that went, except for the fact that there were so many other circumstances around it that were miraculous that they couldn't deny it. You know, like, like, it just couldn't, you couldn't, you knew it was a little sketchy. But then, at the end of everything, you're like oh boy, it all makes sense now, you know, at the resurrection, when he was resurrected from the dead and, and he got Jesus's brother James even becoming a believer afterwards and he wasn't. It didn't seem like there were believers. Many of his family were believers beforehand, but becoming a believer afterwards, and to the death right, a martyr. And so you start thinking about those things that it was like, just it all made sense, just like it did for the apostles After the resurrection. It was kind of like a aha moment, you know, just oh, I get it now. And I wonder if it wasn't the same thing for his family too.
Speaker 1:After, after it all gets said and done, they start looking at the birth story again and revisiting maybe some of those old stories that they heard that just didn't add up, just didn't make sense, that they kind of thought was a little sketchy, and they go oh, I get it now, I get it. I understand why he had to be conceived by the Holy Spirit and not by Joseph, because he was 100% God and he was 100% man and so it's just how it had to be.
Speaker 2:Well, correct me if I'm wrong, but, like hindsight is 2020, so I'm sure they saw that afterwards. But if we back up, when he was with the the disciples and went to his hometown, they were going to throw him off a cliff because they they didn't believe that he was who he says he was, because they were just he's just the guy that they all grew up with and knew right, like guy from the neighborhood, so like that, almost be like what you peer. Going back to back home and be like, yeah, I'm the Messiah. They'd be like shut up here.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and the crazy part is that. So if some like he would think that some miracles took place, but it even talks about how, being back home, he couldn't do much because of their non belief and so he was even hampered, you know, around them just because you know this is just childhood Jesus, you're, you're, no one special, you're no Messiah, and so, like, even their lack of faith and that, in that aspect, like stopped him or prevented him from from doing some of the miraculous things that others got to witness because of that doubt and disbelief.
Speaker 1:Yeah, the prophet wasn't welcoming his hometown, I believe. Quote unquote I think so. So, joseph, her husband, being a righteous man and not wanting to disgrace her, desired to put her away in secret because she was betrothed to him, which meant, you know, promise to him. So, hey, she's going to marry that guy and then she ends up pregnant and he's like, I don't know, I believe it. I guess he didn't believe her story, which I can understand. Why not? You know, joseph, joseph, I'm pregnant. How did that conversation go?
Speaker 3:Joseph man. That's where Mori came in.
Speaker 1:But I mean is there what he's like? He's like you're what? And she, maybe she's showing a little bit and he can't believe it. And then she tells him the story. I can only imagine. Obviously he didn't necessarily believe it right off the start, right?
Speaker 3:I mean just, he didn't believe you, I mean no no, exactly, and I believe it took his own vision for him to even come to to grips that this could be a possibility and a realization. So yeah, I mean he was righteous, but even with him being righteous, it took his own dream and vision to kind of get it together and make a decision, to kind of stay it out and be there for both of them.
Speaker 1:Verse 20 says. But when he had considered this, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream saying Joseph, son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary as your wife, for that which has been conceived in her is of the Holy Spirit, and she will bear a son, and she will bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus, for it is he who will save the people from their sins. And they use the genealogy there, didn't he? Even the angel used it. Joseph, son of David, you know that's what that genealogy was for, and maybe it was to remind Joseph even that.
Speaker 1:Hey man, don't forget David's in your genealogy. Don't forget that bloodlines aren't always as pure as they appear, you know right, and things don't go always as planned, but God always accomplishes his will. God's promise was going to be made through David, the king, and he had to make it through that relationship that David had with Uriah. But David and Uriah's first child didn't live. It passed away, and so it was Solomon, their second child, that carried that promise, right? And so, you know, the bloodline just followed through there. And now here's a little reminder, maybe, to Joseph that his bloodline wasn't exactly as pure as he wanted it to be.
Speaker 3:That'd be so tough like just thinking about it, like it's hard not to just sit here and just kind of imagine Joseph and just that whole ordeal playing out. So even what the angel like coming I think it's 24 that kind of basically calls out Joseph's decision, that basically he did what the angel said. Because even after that, like you'd still be like really, is this really happening to me right now? Is this real? And so, again, to kind of take it all in, take in, obviously, the angel in your dream and taking in Mary and the woman that you believed her to be, it's a lot to kind of take in, because I mean even into, like today's world. You're thinking about trust issues. What dreams you're thinking about? You know, was I hallucinating or was I mirage? There's just so many different questions that come in. So for him to kind of decipher all of that and still decide to go through with it, I mean that says a lot.
Speaker 1:It does.
Speaker 2:I'm stuck right now, Wes, because I swear you just said that Uriah was the woman.
Speaker 1:Oh no, uriah was the husband. I'm sorry I may have I was like wait a minute.
Speaker 2:I'm looking at Pierre like hold on, what did he just say?
Speaker 1:And I couldn't deter you, but I just wanted to clarify that oh no, no, hey, I worked bread man hour, so I've been up for a long, long time. Ok, so I could have. I could have said that I am not a perfect man, michelle, no matter what you think of me.
Speaker 2:I think you're pretty perfect.
Speaker 1:Now I got to say this too. Well, let me read this part and then I'll say it. Now, all this took place, that what was spoken of through the Lord. Through the Lord, the prophet might be fulfilled, saying behold, the virgin shall be with child and shall bear his son and shall call his name Emmanuel, which translated, god with us. Ok. So it was in Joseph Rosamers sleep, did this of the angel, commanded him, took her as his wife and kept her virgin until she gave birth to a son and called his name Jesus.
Speaker 1:Now, matthew quotes here from, I want to say, the book of Isaiah, if I am not mistaken about his name being Emmanuel, and Matthew himself, the writer of this, was a tax collector right. He was one of the guys that Jesus went around and saw and picked and maybe handpicked as well to be one of his apostles. He was one of the guys that went around with him and, as Matthew, the tax collector right and not a guy with good reputation. So he was a guy, though, and he turned out to be very faithful to Jesus, and Matthew wrote this book because he was a Jew, to a bunch of Jews, so he wrote it from a Jewish perspective, so he's always presenting Jesus as fulfilling scripture. Fulfilling scripture. Fulfilling scripture. As you go through the book of Matthew, it presents him as a king as well, kind of throughout the entire thing, for that David lineage that was needed, as the guy who was going to fulfill all those Old Testament prophecies. So that's kind of the picture that Matthew portrays. And all of the apostles in the epistles write Jesus in a specific way, towards a specific audience, because that's where their talents and background lie.
Speaker 1:And I remember, guys, whenever I was a young man and I was doing some sermons and I was at a church and it was filled with a whole bunch of smart people, smart, smart people and I can remember talking like this, trying to sound very smart myself. That's what I did. And there was a man who knew me from before. I decided to turn into a smart fellow and he said I miss the old West. I didn't understand what he said until I started thinking about it and I listened back to a sermon or a lesson that I taught or something and I was like miss the old West.
Speaker 1:And so this is me, this is my background, this is my story and, yeah, we got to change probably some of our habits, some of the things we do in order to be a good child of God. Right, because I don't want to be a disobedient child, but at the same time, my background, my history, the things in my lineage, all those things made me into who I am and I shouldn't shy away from those things. This is my perspective. I shouldn't shy away from those things. I should share them openly and I should have a zeal for my past because of what God has brought me through to bring me into my present. And if I don't share those things, then it seems like all that time that I spent as a kid, all that time I spent growing up, it's kind of wasted and for naught.
Speaker 3:You know Well. In addition, I mean you're kind of in a place to relate to folks similar to yourself that have those similar backgrounds. So if you're trying to be something you're not, then you're missing the opportunity to relate to a certain group, just like Michelle. So she relates to women really well because she's a woman, she's gone through womanly things that have taken place in her life and so if you're doing that and I'm not saying you're not smart, but if you're pretending to be smart you're kind of forcing what you're not and you're not being true to yourself and you're missing a group that you personally were put into this world to relate to. So you just kind of keep that in mind as well. Like even listeners, don't try to be something you're not. Try to be you. You are knit together perfectly. You know, in your mother's womb you've gone through the things you've gone through as an individual to kind of prepare you for some of the relatability and conversations that you're caught to have.
Speaker 2:Well, and I've kind of lived by the premise of if you have to tell somebody you're something, you're probably not, because if you are, it's going to show for itself. So if we pretend we tell people we're Christians but we don't live that way, then we have to tell them that for them to believe it right and maybe to get ourselves to believe it, but if we really are, it's going to show for itself. And as far as you were saying with genetics, genetics are powerful. Like I can't even count how many times I've said to Pierre see where I get it, like, say, with my mom or dad, and be like, yep, there it is, that's why I do what I do. So I think that just runs in all of us and those things are powerful.
Speaker 1:They are, and I realized at some point that I was falling into peer pressure of trying to be smart, right, just like I had fallen into peer pressure to do all the things that I did in my past, and so I was just following that trend. I'm like whoa, whoa, whoa. And so I started being myself and I'm so glad I did. And you're right, pierre, I relate to those people a lot better than I relate to the smart people. I'm not going to minister, listen, I ain't going to minister to them, smart people. That just ain't what I'm going to do. I ain't built for that now. No, listen, hey, we appreciate y'all very much, matthew. Chapter one is in the books, and so are we. We are in the books of that voting thing. Go over to the pinned tweet over on the Finding Faith Pod. Is that right on Twitter?
Speaker 3:Yeah, at Finding Faith Pod, and I do have it pinned in podcast. People's Choice Awards. I believe we'll find out if we're actually a finalist at the end of this month when the actual voting for the award begins. Right now it's just nominations.
Speaker 1:Should beat you up, man Should beat you up. Yeah, I don't like to.
Speaker 3:Yeah, we appreciate again the nominations and just the thought of us just being in in considerations. Very, very grateful for that.
Speaker 2:Yes, it is. You saw how he enunciated that part, right I?
Speaker 1:did.
Speaker 2:Yes, I did.
Speaker 1:No, it is humbling. And look, we're not after all that stuff. It's just not something we're doing. We're putting it out there because if you're a part of this journey with us, I know you would be proud for the podcast to win something as well, or to do whatever. And it's all about the listeners, it's all about God, it's all about those things. It's not about anything else. But we would say it's according to the algorithms, it's all about that five star rating according to.
Speaker 1:But I think it's more important that if you enjoy this podcast and you think somebody could relate to it, just send it to them. Just, you know, tell them, hey, listen to this podcast because it might be able to help you out. You'll understand that you don't have to be an intelligent person to be able to follow God. Maybe that's what you'll say after listening to me, but this isn't built around awards. This isn't built around algorithms. This isn't built around all those things. This is built about three friends trying to get together, discuss topics that keep people up late at night and hopefully come to a conclusion and be a good godly example to those people that are listening to it, and that's all we're trying to do. Can I get an amen on that one.
Speaker 2:Amen Amen. Reach for the West hey listen.
Speaker 1:We want to encourage everybody out there to pray for one another. Pray for us and we will pray for you.