Life Is A Lab Class

0:00 This is Jimmy Internet. We are coming to you from the heart, the center of the dartboard of the Texas Hill country on a Sunday afternoon. We're doing something a little bit different this time and we want to welcome you to the show. This is our podcast, Living Up in a Down World and of course I have my beautiful wife, Annette, right across.

0:44 By the way, this is a very special day for Miss Annette. I knew you were going to do that. For Dame Annette. We're not going to say how young you are. Please don't. But we are going to say happy birthday to you. We are so honored to have you with us. Give a round of applause. A little heartbeat to go with that. Just for me, that's my heart right now for you. Happy birthday, sweetie. Thank you. How do you feel? I mean, do you feel any older? You know how it is. Everybody always says, do you feel older on your birthday? You know, about two weeks ago I started to feel older. Well, I actually looked in the mirror and I thought, oh my gosh. Was that when I found you in a fetal position in your closet? Yes. No. Crying, sucking your thumb?

1:24 No, not in the closet at all. It's not done. Well, let me ask you a question. Speaking of aging, don't you like the wisdom that comes? That's the best part of aging. I know. It is. It's the trade-off, isn't it? It is. So we get more bumps, bruises, and scratches and treadwear on our tires, so to speak. And yet the payoff is we get this bank of information, this bank of wisdom to draw from, these deposits that are made along the way, whether you wanted them or not. And hopefully learn from all the challenges and mistakes that we've made in the past. Mistakes. What mistakes have we made? Not that we've made, that others have made. Here you go.

2:05 We're always the victim, aren't we? It's always somebody else's fault. Always. Actually, just for our awesome listeners, just so you know, Annette and I, we're owners. What an owner is, an owner is someone who owns what they do. They own their mistakes. They own their flaws. They own their missteps. And we're all about owning it, aren't we? Right. Why are we so much about owning it? What do you think? I don't know, because we understand that we're human. There you go. Challenges are going to come. We're not always going to make the right decisions. Pastor Robert Morris from Gateway Church, who is one of my favorite pastors, who I got to spend some time with this week.

2:48 I'll talk a little bit more about that in a bit, maybe. It was a wonderful time. But he is doing a sermon series, or was up until Easter, I'm not sure if he's going to continue, called... Yes. No, it was Joyce Meyer spoke today at Gateway. I think next week he's going to finish it, though. It has been a great series called Divinely Human. I absolutely appreciate that and love that because it really talks about the fact that we are divine. We have the image of God, the Imago Dei in Latin, the image of God, but we also have our human side, which is not a bad side, it just is. Being human isn't wrong or bad, it just is.

3:28 We were born that way, right? What can we do? He's doing the series where he's taking Bible characters and talking about the divine side of them, but also the human and flawed side. We're owners. We own our stuff, so to speak. To me, you can be a victim or a volunteer. How about a victor? Yes, or a victor. Rock the metaphor. Yes, there you go. Some people are volunteers for a long time before they become a victor. No doubt. We've done this. We've been in this game. I say this game. We've been in this career. I've been doing this 38 years, and Nett's been doing it with me 28, really 30, because we've been married for 30 years.

4:16 We've seen a lot of different things in working in what some people call the people business, which is church life, being a pastor, shepherding people. Through the years, with the various churches we've been in, whether it was student ministry or doing... I was working for Dave Ramsey, or whether you were running an office. For all those other years we've been in church ministry, there's literally been thousands of people that have crossed our paths that we've been able to walk with. We've seen a lot of stuff, wouldn't you say? We've seen both the divine and the human, haven't we? Yes, that's for sure. Lots of it. Mostly human, but the divine is good too.

4:59 If you're interested in looking for something to study or listen to, I would highly recommend going to gatewaypeople.com and listening to Robert Morse's messages, particularly on this series called Divinely Human. I think you would be encouraged and you'd get a lot out of it. I started this little convo and got sidetracked. Squirrel, squirrel, that's me. That's a story of my life living with you. No doubt. Do you remember the time you asked what was on my mind? I said, don't ever tell me again. Well, you're cutting to the point. What happened was I said, are you sure you really want to know what's on my mind? I mean, literally what's on my mind?

5:39 You say, yeah, I want to know what you're thinking about. So I proceeded to rattle off what was pinging in my brain. About an hour later, I said, I was never going to ask you again. You're like, I will never ask that question again. This is probably a good idea. I said, but imagine if you were living in this brain. This is why I believe you're ADD. Totally. Not ADHD, because you're not hyperactive. Remember I said I'm an owner? Yes. I own that totally. Which is not always a bad thing. I was going to say, it actually bodes pretty well for me. It's a good thing, especially for someone in your lot of work. It's exhausting, but I can have a lot of different things going. It's more exhausting for me than it is for you. For sure. Wearing this girl out. Well, again, we want to say thank you for joining us today.

6:22 We actually have Mr. Chevy with us. He's being restless. I know. What are you doing over there? I'm not doing anything. I didn't snap my fingers. The snap is like a signal. No, he's trying to get comfortable. He's just uncomfortable. He's a good boy. He's like, it's not the right day. He's like, what are we doing in here? He's throwing him off. We had a visit from our daughter, Faith. It was so good to have her over because it's your birthday, Miss Daymonette. I think only Adam Curry can say that. Adam uses Daymonette. I know, but I just think about that when we're doing podcasting because I think about Adam and Tina, of course. So anyway, she came over and you wanted a very special birthday lunch. So by the way, Sunday, so this is Palm Sunday, which I want to talk a little bit about that because I think that's very interesting.

7:07 I've got a confession to make regarding Palm Sunday, but we'll talk about that in a minute. But you had a very special... You said, where do you want to go for lunch? Well, we've been doing keto for several weeks with our few cheat meals in and out. Me more than you. Yeah, right. As the doctor has prescribed. But I was so craving, this is crazy, Sonic. I wanted a cheeseburger and french fries. Go big or go home. I told my son, he texted me a little bit ago to say happy birthday and he was like, what did you do for your birthday? I said, well, I was hungry for Sonic. He just was like, what?

7:47 Of all the places. He said, why not five guys? I said, we live in Fredericksburg. We don't have a five guys. The only five guys we have are down on the corner saying, we'll work for food. I wanted a, what do you call it? Mud pie? Oh, that chocolate mud something pie. Mud slide pie or something like that. Oh yeah, I think that's it. Mud slide pie from Clear River. Clear River, which is amazing. Ice cream and bakery in town that's been there for years. Anyone who visits Fredericksburg or tours, they know that we're going to Clear River for ice cream. So how was your hamburger? Your Sonic number one with mustard.

8:28 It was a little bit as good as I knew, which is crazy. I never was a fan. Did you do french fries today? Yes, but I never was a fan of Sonic until recently. I rocked the tater tots today. I know you love, and the corn dog. You love the corn dogs. Corn dogs for Jimmy Pruitt, for Pastor Jimmy are basically a food group of their own. I grew up a latchkey kid, so guess what I cooked? Tony's pizzas and Gary's super dogs growing up. My mom would buy them in 24 packs, so we had them all the time. It's amazing I still have a heartbeat. How funny. My arteries aren't completely clogged. You had a cheeseburger, tater tots, then a corn dog.

9:10 Well, only reason I had that, you see, don't make it sound like I'm such a glutton. No, you're not. And you had the corn dog for dinner. For dinner. Because we just ate dinner. That's right. I threw it in the air fryer and it was just as good as it went. It was better. So yeah, and you wanted a bite, and I was a little stingy. You were very stingy. You had only one corn dog. I know, but I just wanted, I mean, so I literally... You don't even know what corn dogs mean to me. I know, but honey, it's my birthday. I couldn't believe it. That's true. That's true. You mean run down to Sonic and get you another one? This is what I love about my birthday. It's early in the month, April 2nd, so I like to celebrate the whole month. Your birthday's January 30th. You only get two days, the 30th, 31st.

9:51 That's it. So I have the better birthday. Sucks to be me. You're funny. You do have the better birthday because it's like one day after April Fool's. Which I'm so glad it's not April Fool's. What time of the day were you born? I'm curious. I think it was... I have no idea. Was it well into the day? No, I think it was early morning. It's like you weren't far off from April Fool's, baby. Wow. That would have been horrible. Right. Or great, depending on your perspective. So what I want to talk about today, we had Palm Sunday. So here's the confession. I said I had a confession to make. You did. The confession is this, that in 38 years of teaching and preaching, which I've done, I mean this has made my whole career, my whole life, my whole adult life.

10:32 Well, technically I'm not really an adult, but anyway, my whole life, I have never preached specifically a Palm Sunday message. No, you never have. Not since I've known you. Before you start throwing sticks and stones at me through the internet there, the reason is because I wasn't raised in church at all, so I didn't become a Christian until I was 18 years of age. And it didn't really take root until I was 19. And so I was really late to the game in terms of being in ministry and whatnot. Not as late as some. I met a guy that went into the ministry at 58 years of age recently, Arlie Lammers, one of our local pastors here.

11:12 Now he's retired, but anyway, wonderful guy. I met a guy last week who's 38 years of age. He was an attorney and then he felt called ministry. So I wasn't as late as some, but I was late for most. So I had a lot of catching up to do because I had no Christian reference in my background, in my past. So I was like just learning everything brand new at 19 years of age. So not growing up with traditions. Our Easter tradition was Easter egg hunts over at Nanny and Pawpaw's house. That's it. I mean, all the cousins, the whole big family got together. We had a great time, but there was zero reference to Jesus Christ in the resurrection.

11:55 There was nothing. So I never heard anything about that. You know, just here and there, maybe in my childhood at some one point or another. But for the most part, all it was, it was about dying Easter eggs. Remember the dye kits you would buy and it had the little wire egg holder and the dot little tablets you dropped. It was always exciting, right? We would dye the eggs and sometimes they'd have little stickers you could put on them. Those were cheesy, but I liked actually dying them, dropping them into the hot dye. But that was a big deal for us. And then we hunted them and we had a great time, but never anything about Jesus Christ. And so when I became a Christian, this was all new to me and it didn't have, I had no tradition.

12:35 So there was nothing burned into my habits or my traditional rhythms or celebrations. So and you grew up, well, not you grew up, but you became a Baptist. You're right. I have never grown up. Exactly. You're really right about that. I'm sorry. But you became a Baptist and I don't, you know, I was Baptist for many years, but I don't recall a Palm Sunday. I'm sure they preached on Palm Sunday, but it's not as prevalent as it is in the... Yeah. It wasn't in the church's IT either. It's more like Catholic, Episcopalian, Presbyterian. Protestant and Catholic are quite, I mean, they have beautiful traditions. As I've grown older and have gotten to make so many friends who are pastors and priests and involved in other faith traditions, I'm the president of our local ministerial association.

13:25 So I have great relationships with guys from Calvary Chapel to non-denominational to Baptist to Episcopalian and Catholic and lots of Lutherans in Fredericksburg because it's a German town, it's a German community. It's a lot of Lutherans. We've been here seven years and this is the first time you've preached it. First time in seven years, but the first time in 38 years of teaching and preaching that I've actually... And you really don't recall preaching on it before? I don't. And maybe I did. I literally don't remember and it's not in my mind that I've ever done it. So why do you think it was so special this... I mean, what made you say, okay, this is the time. I'm ready to preach this?

14:06 Actually I cannot tell you that I've actually been racking my brain about why has this suddenly become so meaningful to me? I don't know other than I believe the Holy Spirit said, I want you to do this. And to our church, I mean, we're in a very... Okay, we're not in a multicultural community in terms of ethnicity, but we are in a very multicultural community theologically and we're in a multicultural generationally. So we have a wide range of ages in our church. I mean, we represent everybody from child to very old adults, but we also have a lot of theological perspectives.

14:47 We have a lot of Catholics that come to our church and we love our Catholic friends, a lot of Episcopalians, a lot of Presbyterians and many, many, many Lutherans and some Baptists in there. And then we have some non-denominational and Charismatics. We're like 31 flavor... What? Baskin-Robbins 31 flavors. At least. Heinz 57. I think we're more on the 57 side of things. But it's a beautiful array and really I always joke and I'm not telling you in a joke, I say, this is what heaven looks like. All these different denominations, churches of Christ as well, coming together, celebrating our common values, our commonalities in Christ, and that's what unifies us.

15:28 It's not always our second and third tier beliefs. It's our primary belief in Jesus as Lord. Jesus Christ is our Savior. He's our Messiah. So I think after these seven years of being here in Fredericksburg, getting to know many wonderful Protestants and hearing of all these beautiful, wonderful traditions, for some reason this year it was heavy on me. Well, I think too preaching on heaven and what that means to us, think about what Jesus did on the cross for us. And so I think all that and with all these funerals that we've been having, we also had someone that was very close to us pass away last week.

16:10 So I think at our age, we began to really think about our mortality. And what's important? What matters at the end of the day? I'm more interested in church history now than I've ever been. So that kind of brings us to what we talked about before we just dive into Palm Sunday. This is a part of it. We were talking about this, how remember I asked you about purging. What are we learning from this? So we shared, I think it's two weeks ago we shared. We talked last week too. We've shared a little bit over the last few weeks about how when Annette came back from a conference, she sat me down and said, I really want you to help me with something.

16:53 I want to stop. I want to purge. I want to get rid of things that are non-essential in a sense. I remember here in Richard Foster say eliminate and concentrate. So I want to eliminate the non-essentials. Let's focus on what's important. And so we've been doing that and what it's done, it's bought back, first of all, tons of hours in our evenings especially. But also it's created margin in us emotionally and spiritually. And so how's your purge going? Well, the thing is for me, I was sitting in church, I actually was standing up worshiping and the thought came to me how I feel so pure in heart.

17:37 The Bible says the pure in heart will see God. I feel like I'm seeing God in a whole different lens than I did before because I feel more pure. Not that we're watching or doing anything that was wrong, but when you put your total focus on things that are so good like Jesus and you're learning about Him, you're watching things that are uplifting, nothing that's pulling you down, that's bringing fear in your life, that's causing you to mistrust people. I just don't have any of that in my life, five weeks now. And so I feel so pure.

18:18 I almost started to cry in church today because I felt, wow, I could have felt like this a long time ago. And yet I'm feeling it now and I'm more drawn to Jesus and the Holy Spirit than I've ever been in my life. I'm more focused and I feel like I'm more confident as a Christian, as a Christ follower, a lot more confident than I've ever been. And that bodes well to do what we did, which is just get rid of the non-essentials in our life. Which is interesting because there was a time probably six months, a year or two years ago, where that didn't even cross our mind.

19:03 Because like everybody else, we would, somebody would say, hey, there's this great show on Netflix you can binge watch. And we would. We'd spend a whole weekend watching shows back to back to back to back. And let me just, first of all, say not that there's a problem with that. I don't want to ever intimate that somehow that's a problem for you. And it was fun. But there comes a point in your life as you grow where you say, I want more. I know I already have all of God I'm going to get, but I want him to have more of me. Exactly. That's the simple way of saying it. And so how do I give him more of myself?

19:44 Well, maybe just getting rid of some things. It's not like, this is not epic. This is not dramatic. We didn't like weep and wail and thrust our spear for our stomach. I didn't fall on a spear or anything for this. It was just literally saying, Hey, we don't have to watch all of that. And so we were totally hooked on the Chicago Wednesday night series, Chicago, Chicago fire. My dad was a firefighter so that I love that show and Chicago PD. So my dad being a first responder, obviously that's all kind of meaningful and nostalgic for me, but not essential.

20:25 Exactly. And we found ourselves getting emotional over other people's drama. Yes. So anyway, so just as an update on this purge thing, I mean, it's an experiment for us and life is a lab class, right? Right. So in a real sense, this life is a staging area for the next life. Well, the sad thing is I knew God had told me that I needed to get rid of things in my life. It just took me so long before I would acquiesce and just say, okay, I'm ready to do this. Which is interesting because you're the microwave and I'm the slow cooker. I know. So normally I'd be the one going, well, I really think about and process this. But for you, normally it's like you make a decision.

21:06 I had to, it was almost like I had to, I had to hear it loud, louder and louder. It was, it was an addiction. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. But anyway, so just as an update guys. Well, I think that we need to be able, we, we all need to, if we're followers of Jesus, we need to be at the point. Or come to a point where we say, Jesus, what is it that you want me to put aside so that I can be more like you? Perfect. I love the way you put that. So it's not a matter of us telling you to do something like this because first of all, that's your own business and in your own walk with God, wherever you happen to be on the, on the timeline is your walk with God.

21:58 It's personal to you. We're just sharing with you something that's really helped us and it's, it's at a season and it seems very natural and right for us in the season, but it wouldn't have felt right or natural a year ago, you know? So yeah, it's the right thing now. So anyway, good update. All that say is, is wherever you add her in your season, sometimes you've got to come to the place where you say, I want more out of my walk with God and out of my faith and I'm experiencing right now. And so whatever that looks like, I want to go there. So that's for you and hope that'll help you. So I, today I, I dove into Palm Sunday study.

22:41 So for those of you who don't know, or if you're kind of new to the broadcast, I nerd out on Bible study. I'm not a nerdy guy. I mean, I played football, I would lift weights, I pump iron, I play lead guitar. I'm, I'm a, I'm a dude. But when it comes to scripture and the Bible, God, when I was a brand new young Christian at 18, 19 years of age, it was a, I fell in love with the word of God, the Bible. And so I get really excited studying. I nerd out, I always say I'm nerding out, but it's really not nerding out. It's just being diligent, but that's my term. I nerd out studying. And so when I was diving into this study on Palm Sunday, so many amazing things.

23:25 And of course the Holy spirit leads us to the right sources, listening to the right messages, reading the right things. Annette and I have really gotten more acquainted with the Logos Bible software. And so we dive in and study, but you know, for those of you that are looking to study the Bible, there are great programs online. You can Google and get free resources to study the Bible online. And then I also use another one called Olive Tree, which is a great Bible app that you can, over the years I've bought commentaries and different pieces, different translations. So there's a lot of great tools out there that used to, I'd have a desk full of books.

24:06 I mean, massive books like Strong's. We got rid of most of them. Exhaustive concordance. It was very exhaustive. But all these big books. But now, you know, with computers and digital age, it's so easy to really do good Bible study. And so as I begin to dive into this Palm Sunday, and I discovered some things that I think are interesting, and maybe that would be interesting to you. So what is Palm Sunday? Palm Sunday is the day that we celebrate that Jesus rode in to Jerusalem. And it's called traditionally in Christian history, the triumphal entry, the triumphal, the victorious entry.

24:47 And it's really when Jesus was coming into the final five days of his earthly life, he knew that his destiny was to be crucified and be slain as an atonement for the sin of mankind. I like the question that you posed at the very beginning of the message. What would you do if you knew you had five days before you died? Right. So we showed a little video to start off the service, and it just really kind of captured the last few days of Jesus. And it was real subtle. It wasn't dramatic. It was just really, the idea was to get you to think. And our, my associate pastor, Russ Hearn, he is, Pastor Russ is just a genius at finding these videos, we call them sermon bumpers.

25:37 It's kind of the transitional time between coming out of a time of meeting, reading the service and then going into the message. But he's so good at picking these videos that we've actually said, everybody sit down. I'm just stop the thing. It's not fancy. I say, stop, everybody quit fellowship and thank you for the buzz. Now sit down. And so literally, it's just get everybody in their seats. And we do two services at the bridge. We probably had 500 and something people there today that give or take. That's kind of the size we are. So it's a big group of people and I'm, it's like herding cats, but I'm like, sit down. I really want you to watch this. So we watched the, we watched the video and the thought occurred to me, what, how would you live your life?

26:22 If you knew you had five days to live, would you do anything different? Wow. When I was up on the platform, I was going to ask you, what did, how did you feel the response? Okay. It was literally like, not that I could see the, their cogs turning in their brains, but if their brains had mechanical clogs, you know, cogs, they were turning and churning because that question is very arresting. If you knew you only had five days on this earth to live on this earth, would you, would you do anything different? So I could tell, I mean, you could feel the room and I have a real sense of feel for a room. So I could feel the room. People were thinking, processing.

27:02 And I said, you know, Jesus rode into Jerusalem, by the way, on a donkey. It's just unbelievable. I know it's amazing. Rode into Jerusalem on a donkey on Palm Sunday, they laid Palm branches and their cloaks down on the ground because what they would do when a king would come into a city, there was a lot of pomp and circumstance. Remember when we were in Paris, that was a great story. Well, we were on the Louvre and we had no idea. We're just tourists, typical tourists. We're going in and out of the store, eating really good food. Remember that? That was amazing. Enjoying the shops and stuff. It was just a great experience and the sights and the sounds.

27:43 It was crowded, but it was just festive almost. And of course, people riding around on bicycles and electric scooters and just fun and beautiful weather at that time of year that we were there. And then all of a sudden sirens. I mean like a bunch of sirens and motorcycles, the police over there ride these stunning, beautiful BMW police motorcycles. They're like... You were salivating the whole time. I was. Those motorcycles are gorgeous. They're like, look futuristic almost. Anyway, so the Parisian police, they were like, the French police are up and down. They were clearing the roadway and that's a very busy street coming down. There's just nonstop traffic.

28:25 And all of a sudden within five minutes, that street was clear and vacated. And we're like, what is going on? And police were lining the sides. I mean, it was almost like, and I mentioned this, it's almost like I didn't even want to breathe because I was afraid I'd get tackled by a secret service agent or something. I mean, you could tell something big was happening in Paris on the Louvre that day. And then at the very end, down at the end where that huge monument is, we saw lights. And the lights were all of the police escorts that were escorting this entourage. And I remember later seeing on the news, it was the Korean president and a delegation from Korea that was there visiting Paris for some kind of meeting with the government.

29:10 And I just remember how you had this sense of awe and a sense of epic. It was a sense of majestic. Like, this is important. Whatever's happening. It was a triumphal entry. It was a triumphal entry. It really was. I remember, and it was like, it was so quiet. We were taking pictures. Yeah, yeah. I took a ton of pictures. Yeah, like, is this okay? Am I going to get tackled? But it was really... But we didn't know what we were taking pictures of. No, we didn't even know at the time. It was fascinating. So then thinking about Jesus, in the first century when a king would enter a city, they would come in on a stallion. They would come in on the biggest horse. I mean, everything for a king was go big or go home.

29:52 The biggest everything. The biggest, the best, the shiniest armor, the most ornate horse dressing, and then the largest horse in the kingdom. So everything was big, big, big. And Jesus comes in for his triumphal entry as a king, and they're shouting, Hosanna, Hosanna, which by the way, doesn't mean what you think it means. I discovered in my study that when they were crying out, Hosanna, what they were literally saying is, save us now. That's what it means. Save us now. That's what it literally translated. I always, I'd never looked it up. I just had this assumption that Hosanna, because it's in Christian worship songs, means, oh Lord, we praise you.

30:37 Lord, we love you. Lord, you're amazing. You know, just praise God, you're amazing. Turns out that's not what it is at all. In fact, it's a completely different term and phrase, and it literally means, save us now. They were crying out. So it's a heart cry. It's a cry of desperation. It's not a praise. It's a cry of desperation where they were saying to Jesus as he came in, and by the way, he didn't enter on a horse. He entered on what? On a donkey. Not just a donkey. No. On the donkey's colt, a foal. Shocking. Can you imagine?

31:18 I picture Jesus tall because I'm so short anyway, and so I always picture him, a real tall man, just majestic looking. The lion of the tribe of Judah. And he's on this small, small. He wasn't on the mama donkey. Now they brought them both. They brought both the mom, the mama donkey, and the colt. And they came together. They had them tied together because probably the mom was leading and the little colt was falling. But Jesus didn't even ride on the mama donkey. No. Can you imagine? His feet have to be dragging. But I want to know, the Bible doesn't talk about it, but I wish I knew what the people were thinking when they saw him because here they are shouting, our king, our king.

32:06 Hosanna. Seeing him, I just can't even fathom that. You would think there would be some grumbling like, what? You think they're going to be like, wait a minute. I thought he was going to come in on a horse. So you have to understand there's a lot of history behind this. There's so much context. I won't go into it all, but here's the basic context. Rome had been in charge for over a hundred years, for over a century. So they had dominated the Jewish people, had dominated the nation of Israel in particular, the heart of Israel, which is Jerusalem. And they had dropped the hammer hard many times. They were oppressive.

32:47 They were brutal. They decimated the people. The people were just broken down, broken down generation after generation. But prophets, even hundreds and even thousands of years before, begin to say there is coming a day when a Messiah will arise. Messiah, meaning a leader, a deliverer, a rescuer. One to save you. One who will come to save and deliver will come. And there were over 400, or around 400 biblical prophecies out of the Old Testament that allude to and speak to this Messiah that's coming. Of course, now on this side of history, we understand that was Jesus.

33:31 And so all these generations had told story after story, prophets had spoken. And so all these stories got passed down through the generations. So by the time you turn into the first century, you know, from BC to AD, there's this massive expectation of there will come a deliverer. And we have been under the hand of Persia. We've been under the hand of Babylon. We've been under the hand. I mean, just one nation after another has ruled over the Jewish people. We were under the hand of Pharaoh in Egypt in the beginning. And now we're under the hammer of Rome.

34:11 And Rome was as brutal as any of them. And they're expecting a Messiah. On the scene comes this carpenter or bricklayer, depending on who you read. Stone Mason, stone Mason from Nazareth. Nazareth. Can anything good come out of Nazareth? Nazareth was a joke to the nation of Israel. And they saw it as like the low of the low. So Jesus comes out of Nazareth. He grows up in obscurity for most of his 30 years. And then suddenly he comes on the scene when he meets a Samaritan woman at a well, and he tells her who he is.

34:54 And she runs to the city and announces, I've met him. Come and see a man who told me everything about myself. And now through a woman of all things, she evangelizes Samaritan. Isn't it beautiful? She becomes the first evangelist. Was not a man. Sorry, bros. It was a woman. It was. And she runs and she tells. And that starts his public ministry. By this time, he had already called some of his disciples to himself. Not all of them, but some of them. So all the backdrop here is that something is building here with the birth of Jesus Christ. And Jesus actually fulfilled over 300, just under 400, depending on who you read, prophecies from the Old Testament.

35:38 In fact, on the day he was crucified, how many do you remember? 28. He fulfilled 28 messianic prophecies about himself just in one day. So this last five days of his life, that's why I ask, what would you do if you knew you had five days? Well, Jesus knew he had five days and he had a mission to fulfill. And so he fulfilled that mission, starting with his triumphal entry. He comes off of Mount Olivet, which looks over, it's called the Mount of Olives, which looks over the east side of Jerusalem. And he goes down this hill on a donkey. On a baby donkey, which is completely the opposite.

36:23 And so basically Jesus is the one who flips the script in our life. He never comes like we think he's going to come. I don't know about you who are listening today, but maybe you've prayed, you've asked God for things, you've cried out to him and you felt like he didn't answer your prayer or he didn't answer it like you thought he was going to answer it. Listen, just so you know, that's his MO. He never comes like you think he's going to come. He flips the script consistently. And that's exactly what Jesus did when he rode in on a donkey. Palm leaves waving, which is basically their symbol of our, it'd be like us waving an American flag for a dignitary coming through in a parade.

37:09 It's basically the same thing. And Jesus came into the city and his triumphal entry was not on a stallion. It was on a donkey, not only a donkey, but a baby donkey. It was as low as he could go. And what he was saying in that moment was, I'm not coming like you think I'm coming. Because I thought he was going to come and obliterate all of the Romans and give them freedom. But he was giving them freedom in a different way. They just didn't know. Exactly. In fact, only Jesus is recorded in the scriptures as weeping three times. And in this instance, it says that as he came into the city, he wept over the city. And the reason he wept, Luke records this, is because they didn't know the time of their visitation.

37:54 They didn't know that peace was among them. They could have had peace from the get go, but they didn't know. They didn't see it. Their eyes were blinded. So Jesus had to go to the cross. So this begins, this day begins what's known in the Christian tradition as passion week or holy week. And it's called Palm Sunday. And so there's a litany of events that will happen throughout the week in terms of what Jesus did, what he experienced, which led up to his eventual crucifixion, which next week we'll talk a little bit about that. Because it'll kind of be our Easter edition of the show. And so our encouragement to you is, is we kind of, I landed on some things that I want to encourage you with.

38:38 And the first one is this, in terms of what this means for real life, making faith real for the rest of us is simply this. Jesus flips the script on every life he touches. I've often said this, that Jesus often brings us what we need in a package we didn't expect and in a package we didn't necessarily want. That's for sure. Can you imagine if he answered every prayer we prayed? Oh, there'd be carnage on highways. Yes. Because I prayed some prayers that I'm thankful that they didn't get answered.

39:18 Because I wouldn't be here today. We wouldn't be here today. We would be in a whole, you know, who knows what kind of profession we would be in. How's he flipped the script on your life? I mean, what happened to you that would be different? Well, the way I grew up, who knows what could have happened? I probably would have been a real man hater, which then would have lent itself to hate God as much as I cried out. Think about it. I cried out to God so much as a child, as an abused child from an abusive parent.

40:00 I remember standing at my window and praying and praying that a cop would come by so I could wave at him and say, please help me. And I'm glad he didn't answer that. Wow. I know. Isn't that crazy? Because a lot of things had to happen to get me to where I am today. And honestly, I could literally, I could have hated God for that. But there were so many, so many things that have taken place in my life that are just God winks. You know how you talk about God winks? That I believe they've all culminated into who I am today.

40:42 And so, yeah, I'm very thankful that some of the prayers I've prayed did not work out because God, and I was telling you this as we were driving home, God knows the end from the beginning. And so it's best for us to pray for His will, not ours. Wow. And let God do what He's going to do. Man. You know, I was telling somebody at church today, I didn't tell you this, but how proud I am of you. Why? Because you're a champion. You're a rock star to me, Annette, because I know your past. Others don't know your whole story and some of the things you had to overcome and things you had to work through.

41:26 And a lot of people aren't willing to do the work. They're not willing to persevere. They're not resilient. You're one of the most resilient human beings I've ever met. I'm a fighter. I'm a warrior. You are. And I love that about you. I had a gentleman say, you're a Joan of Arc. Do you remember that? That was... That's powerful. Highsmith. Remember? Yes, I do remember that. Coach. You're a Joan of Arc. So you're a Joan of Arc. And I was told by Tommy Hayes that you're a David. And I'm like, boy, Joan of Arc and David getting together, that's a scary combo. We're going to slay the world. And I'm going to play a guitar in the meantime. A harp.

42:06 All these years. No kidding. But I'm just so proud of you because I love being able to tell others your story, to give them hope. Look, you think it's bad. Let me tell you where Annette has been. And she is... It's not just that you fought. It's that you surrendered to God. Exactly. Fighting takes effort. Surrendering is a release. And I've seen you both fight and I've seen you surrender. Well, when I was crying out for a police to come, God came instead. Because it was during that time that I was invited to church.

42:49 And I went to church for the first time the week before Easter. And I remember feeling such love, overwhelming love in this church. And I had never felt anything like that. And I really do believe that that was God just enveloping me with His arms of other people. Do you think He was showing you what's possible? Yes, I do. That you could have a life like this? I needed God. That you could have a life like this. Yes. It's powerful. Yes. It's beautiful. Well, I'm proud of you and you really are a hero to me. I mean that.

43:30 You're a model of someone who has said, I'll never quit. I'll never give up. It's the Holy Spirit. Period. It's beautiful. It's beautiful. And those of you that are listening right now, I mean, first of all, I want to thank you for those of you that have written in to us and have asked questions or you've shared your story. And we want to invite you to continue to do that. You can go to livingupinadownworld.com. How easy is that? Livingupinadownworld.com. And you can email us. I love, we love hearing your stories, hearing your testimonies, hearing pieces of your journey. And that has been absolutely so encouraging to us. To read your stories. I'll always get back with you via email.

44:12 Maybe a day or two or three, depending, but I will write you back. And we want to hear from you. We want to hear about your story, about your journey, about where you are. Even if it's not in a good place, we can handle it. And better yet, God can handle it because we care about you and we want the best for you. And I've got our own stories and our own tales of woes, so to speak, that we've had to overcome. But here's what I know. Greater is he that is in you than he that is in the world. And that God has made you an overcomer. In Christ, you can. In Christ, you will overcome. That's the beauty of the gospel, the good news of Jesus Christ.

44:53 We invite you to the table. And we want you to know that with us, you have a seat at the table with us. So write in, let us know what's going on in your life. For one thing, we'll pray for you and pray with you to encourage you. That's our heart. If you just need somebody to reach out to who maybe is far enough away that you feel safe, then feel free to write in to us. We want to hear from you. LivingUpInADownWorld.com. We also want to always give a shout out to our dear friends, Adam and Tina Curry. Adam and Tina have really coached us through and helped us. This is episode number 13, by the way. Can you believe it? 13 weeks. 13 weeks in a row.

45:33 And we're so thankful that God brought us into their life and them into ours. And we've become the absolute friends. And we're so thankful for that. We've been able to walk together and watch them on their own faith journey. It's been exciting. So we encourage you to check out their podcast. Adam has a great podcast with John Dvorak called No Agenda, where they do basically, in their own words, media assassination. It's hilarious. But it's also very informative. And then also, really, I think our favorite is this. Curry and the Keeper. With both Adam and Tina together. And they've really created a format for us in what we're doing here.

46:19 And they invited us into the podcast world, even just based on theirs. So we'd encourage you to check them out. Curry and the Keeper. You can find them on Fountain or any of the other main things. But Fountain is one of the best. We encourage you to go to Fountain and check it out. Anything you have to say at the end here, Annette? This has been a sweet time. Yes. I'm just, I'm really at peace today. It's been a really, really good day. Thank you for making my birthday special. And I love you so much. I love you more. You're supposed to say I love you more than that. That's our family. It is. All right, family. We love you guys. Have an amazing week on purpose, living up in a down world.

47:00 We will see you next week. Hey, Easter is on the way. And Jesus, even though He took the hit for us, we're going to declare that Jesus Christ is risen. Amen. God bless you. We love you. God bless you.