WEBVTT 00:00:37.040 --> 00:00:39.520 Welcome to the Stone Choir Podcast. 00:00:39.520 --> 00:00:40.720 I am Corey J. 00:00:40.720 --> 00:00:41.680 Mahler. 00:00:41.680 --> 00:00:43.840 And I'm still Woe. 00:00:43.840 --> 00:00:47.440 On today's Stone Choir, we're going to be discussing the subject of 00:00:47.440 --> 00:00:51.040 excellence. This is a little bit of a continuation of last week's 00:00:51.040 --> 00:00:53.600 episode where we talked about purpose and motivation. 00:00:53.600 --> 00:00:56.640 It was inspired by a conversation Cory and I were having sometime 00:00:56.640 --> 00:01:00.480 in the last week where we were discussing what the new Earth 00:01:00.480 --> 00:01:03.680 might be like with regard to our bodies, the perfection of our 00:01:03.680 --> 00:01:08.000 bodies, to what degree speculatively might they become more excellent than they 00:01:08.000 --> 00:01:11.040 are? Purely you know idle speculation, and I don't know if we'll 00:01:11.040 --> 00:01:14.000 even get into it today, but it made me realize something that 00:01:14.000 --> 00:01:18.720 inspired this episode, which is that there is a feminization that has 00:01:18.720 --> 00:01:22.960 taken place in the culture that we're all participants in, men and 00:01:22.960 --> 00:01:27.040 women. And when I say feminization, I'm not being insulting to women 00:01:27.040 --> 00:01:31.600 here, but there is a particular aspect of the female psyche that 00:01:31.600 --> 00:01:37.440 we've talked about on several occasions, including the leadership episode most conspicuously. 00:01:37.440 --> 00:01:42.160 Women have a tendency towards equalization, towards egalitarianism. 00:01:42.640 --> 00:01:47.040 Where if someone is superior by some measure, the tendency is to 00:01:47.040 --> 00:01:48.320 be a crap in a bucket. 00:01:48.320 --> 00:01:52.560 It's just inherent to how girls interact socially with each other. 00:01:52.560 --> 00:01:54.000 It's just how it works. 00:01:54.000 --> 00:01:59.040 And the feminization aspect that concerns us here this week is that 00:01:59.200 --> 00:02:02.720 that has entered into how all of us think and talk about 00:02:02.720 --> 00:02:06.480 everything around us, such that when we see something that is more 00:02:06.480 --> 00:02:10.640 excellent by whatever degree the tendency is to tear it down. 00:02:10.640 --> 00:02:13.600 When you see something excellent, you don't say, Wow, that's amazing. 00:02:13.600 --> 00:02:14.720 I'm impressed. 00:02:14.720 --> 00:02:18.800 I'm blessed to have seen this incredible thing, to have seen someone 00:02:18.800 --> 00:02:20.320 do something at their peak. 00:02:20.320 --> 00:02:21.280 Just blew me away. 00:02:21.280 --> 00:02:23.040 I can't believe they were able to do that as a human 00:02:23.040 --> 00:02:25.840 being. But there it is, I saw with my own eyes. 00:02:25.840 --> 00:02:29.440 That should be the approach and the response that we naturally have. 00:02:29.440 --> 00:02:34.240 And yet we're in a position civilizationally where the normal response from 00:02:34.240 --> 00:02:37.920 even decent decent men otherwise is to tend to want to tear 00:02:37.920 --> 00:02:40.000 it down and say, well, that's not that impressive. 00:02:40.160 --> 00:02:40.800 I could do that. 00:02:40.800 --> 00:02:41.680 Like it's whatever. 00:02:41.680 --> 00:02:42.560 It's no big deal. 00:02:42.560 --> 00:02:44.320 He that he that was easy. 00:02:44.800 --> 00:02:47.440 there's nothing to what I just saw. 00:02:47.440 --> 00:02:49.520 That is, we think, a real problem 00:02:50.400 --> 00:02:56.640 because when you look at how scripture exemplifies excellence, it's often lauded 00:02:56.640 --> 00:02:58.320 as you know the pinnacle. 00:02:58.320 --> 00:03:01.440 You know, there's a word that's used in Greek that is translated 00:03:01.440 --> 00:03:04.320 sometimes excellence in in the New Testament. 00:03:04.320 --> 00:03:07.200 Most of those cases involve I think we'll link in the show 00:03:07.200 --> 00:03:08.000 notes if you look. 00:03:08.000 --> 00:03:09.920 Like we're not gonna do a big word study. 00:03:09.920 --> 00:03:12.720 There's not some fiddly Greek etymology point here. 00:03:12.880 --> 00:03:15.920 It's just a matter of in the New Testament when God speaks 00:03:15.920 --> 00:03:22.000 of excellence, often it's related to moral excellence, which everybody's fine with. 00:03:22.000 --> 00:03:26.640 We're fine with the most excellent, the most moral, the best, most 00:03:26.640 --> 00:03:29.200 sinless version of whatever. 00:03:29.200 --> 00:03:35.360 Where this feminization causes us to fall down is that the first 00:03:35.360 --> 00:03:38.720 example of that word in Greek that's being used for good or 00:03:38.720 --> 00:03:43.440 excellent is in Genesis one thirty one, where after God says God 00:03:43.440 --> 00:03:45.840 saw that it was good, God saw that was good, God saw 00:03:45.840 --> 00:03:48.240 that it was good, on the last day, God saw that it 00:03:48.240 --> 00:03:49.120 was very good. 00:03:49.120 --> 00:03:53.760 After creation was completed, it could be reasonably translated that word very 00:03:53.840 --> 00:03:57.840 good, the two words meaning very good, you could have translated excellent. 00:03:57.840 --> 00:04:01.280 It was correctly done very good to differentiate between the good good 00:04:01.440 --> 00:04:04.560 good. I'm not trying to say that the translation's wrong, but it 00:04:04.560 --> 00:04:07.600 does mean excellent, just like it means in the New Testament. 00:04:07.600 --> 00:04:11.760 And what's vital about noticing that is that when God in effect 00:04:12.000 --> 00:04:16.880 called creation excellent after he finished it, there was no actual moral 00:04:16.880 --> 00:04:18.080 action taking place. 00:04:18.080 --> 00:04:19.920 It was just a bunch of stuff. 00:04:19.920 --> 00:04:22.960 He created man, he created all the stuff, and he saw that 00:04:22.960 --> 00:04:24.160 it was very good. 00:04:24.160 --> 00:04:26.000 And then he rested. 00:04:26.000 --> 00:04:31.440 If we exclusively limit the notion of excellence to moral excellence, then 00:04:31.440 --> 00:04:35.280 we can't appreciate anything that's just impressive. 00:04:35.280 --> 00:04:38.640 You know, a sunset, like, oh that was pretty, but you know, 00:04:38.640 --> 00:04:42.560 whatever. We end up being casual and we end up being irony 00:04:42.720 --> 00:04:48.080 poisoned by seeing things that are genuinely impressive and genuinely good and 00:04:48.080 --> 00:04:52.960 beautiful. When you look at the philosophy that was involved in those 00:04:52.960 --> 00:04:57.680 words at the time that scripture was written, it ties directly into 00:04:57.680 --> 00:04:59.040 the transcendentals. 00:04:59.040 --> 00:05:03.200 The discussion of excellence is directly tied to what is good, beautiful, 00:05:03.200 --> 00:05:03.920 and true. 00:05:03.920 --> 00:05:05.840 All these things are bound up. 00:05:05.840 --> 00:05:11.840 And so, in a roundabout way, when we today, in effect, I'm 00:05:11.840 --> 00:05:16.240 talking as Christians here, we have a tendency to deny that a 00:05:16.240 --> 00:05:20.720 man can have done something excellently, that a man can have performed 00:05:20.720 --> 00:05:26.800 in sports or in music or politics, anything that is an endeavor 00:05:26.800 --> 00:05:30.800 of man, to say that that guy did excellently, he's an excellent 00:05:30.800 --> 00:05:35.840 example, we get really nervous because we try to think in moral 00:05:35.840 --> 00:05:40.160 terms. And so the reason for discussing this today is to not 00:05:40.400 --> 00:05:44.480 to talk about works righteousness or any nonsense like that. 00:05:44.480 --> 00:05:47.920 If you're excellent at something and you're not gonna save yourself. 00:05:47.920 --> 00:05:51.120 And there's no excuse for not being morally excellent. 00:05:51.360 --> 00:05:54.720 That's the one case among all of them where falling short is 00:05:54.720 --> 00:05:57.600 falling short of the glory of God, and that's sin. 00:05:57.600 --> 00:05:59.440 Christ died for that. 00:05:59.440 --> 00:06:03.200 But if you're not an excellent baseball player, that's not sin. 00:06:03.200 --> 00:06:05.520 That's someone else doing a whole lot better. 00:06:05.520 --> 00:06:09.840 And so when we see excellence, we should celebrate it, but we 00:06:09.840 --> 00:06:12.080 shouldn't think that it doesn't exist. 00:06:12.080 --> 00:06:15.200 Christians have gotten into this bizarre mindset. 00:06:15.360 --> 00:06:20.160 Again, I believe it's downstream from feminism causing girls to enter into 00:06:20.160 --> 00:06:23.520 all these spaces where they're part of how we're interacting, how we're 00:06:23.520 --> 00:06:25.440 assessing everything that we see. 00:06:25.440 --> 00:06:28.960 And bit by bit, this notion of crabs in a bucket where 00:06:28.960 --> 00:06:32.080 if you see something better, you can't just appreciate it for how 00:06:32.080 --> 00:06:32.880 good it is. 00:06:32.880 --> 00:06:36.080 So the first part of this episode is just an exhortation to 00:06:36.080 --> 00:06:37.520 admire excellence. 00:06:37.520 --> 00:06:39.920 You know, one of the most recent examples is I've talked about 00:06:40.400 --> 00:06:42.560 before. And then people get mad at me for saying I'm a 00:06:42.560 --> 00:06:46.240 fanboy. I have a thousand bad things to say about Elon Musk, 00:06:46.240 --> 00:06:50.800 but you cannot deny the excellence of the engineering achievements that he 00:06:50.800 --> 00:06:53.520 has accomplished in numerous companies. 00:06:53.520 --> 00:06:56.240 Even if you think they're a waste, even if you think it's 00:06:56.240 --> 00:07:00.080 completely retarded to go to Mars, and the fact that Starship, you 00:07:00.080 --> 00:07:04.240 know the booster itself is two hundred and thirty three feet tall, 00:07:04.240 --> 00:07:09.200 that tower basically flying into space like a building when these huge 00:07:09.200 --> 00:07:12.720 objects then come back down and land and they're captured by a 00:07:12.720 --> 00:07:14.080 pair of chopsticks. 00:07:14.080 --> 00:07:16.480 The first time that that was done, I left. 00:07:16.480 --> 00:07:19.920 I like I watched in rapt attention, not to see it succeed, 00:07:19.920 --> 00:07:21.280 but to see it blow up. 00:07:21.280 --> 00:07:24.240 Because there's no way that something like that can happen the first 00:07:24.240 --> 00:07:29.440 time. And in the Walter Isaacson biography of Steve of I was 00:07:29.680 --> 00:07:32.400 gonna say Steve Jobs, Elon's the same kind of guy. 00:07:32.400 --> 00:07:38.400 In Elon's biography, they describe where the notion of capturing the starship 00:07:38.400 --> 00:07:41.120 with the tower came up, where he brought it up in a 00:07:41.120 --> 00:07:44.560 meeting, and all of Elon's engineers who were like some of the 00:07:44.560 --> 00:07:48.160 very best engineers in the world of doing this stuff basically argued 00:07:48.160 --> 00:07:50.960 with him for an hour and said there's no way that the 00:07:50.960 --> 00:07:53.760 tower is gonna be able to capture starship. 00:07:53.760 --> 00:07:56.160 Because the problem that they were trying to solve was how do 00:07:56.160 --> 00:07:56.880 they land it? 00:07:56.880 --> 00:07:59.600 Because they wanted to reuse the thing and reuse it rapidly. 00:08:00.000 --> 00:08:05.440 And Falcon 9 has little legs, little tripod legs that come out. 00:08:05.440 --> 00:08:08.480 But Starship is so much bigger that putting the same kind of 00:08:08.480 --> 00:08:11.280 legs on there was going to add a ton of weight and 00:08:11.280 --> 00:08:14.240 a ton of complexity, which makes everything, you know, means you get 00:08:14.480 --> 00:08:15.760 less payload orbit. 00:08:15.760 --> 00:08:17.840 It means it's just everything's harder. 00:08:17.840 --> 00:08:22.240 And so just brainstorming, Elon said, Well, what if we have the 00:08:22.240 --> 00:08:23.280 tower catch it? 00:08:23.280 --> 00:08:25.920 And they talked about different ideas and came up with what they 00:08:26.000 --> 00:08:29.920 called the Mechazilla chopstick thing, where you have two big arms that 00:08:29.920 --> 00:08:33.280 would actually catch the rocket as it fell from space. 00:08:33.280 --> 00:08:35.680 And as engineers like that's insane, we can't do that. 00:08:35.680 --> 00:08:39.120 We don't know how and they decided in that meeting they were 00:08:39.120 --> 00:08:39.840 gonna do it. 00:08:39.840 --> 00:08:41.360 And it took them years. 00:08:41.360 --> 00:08:44.960 And so when we watched that happen for the first time, no 00:08:44.960 --> 00:08:46.240 one had ever seen it. 00:08:46.240 --> 00:08:47.520 It was science fiction. 00:08:47.520 --> 00:08:51.040 It was completely ridiculous the notion that you could just catch a 00:08:51.040 --> 00:08:54.640 giant spaceship with a pair of chopsticks as it fell to the 00:08:54.640 --> 00:08:57.600 ground. And that does exactly what they did on the very first 00:08:57.600 --> 00:09:03.760 try. That is us being privileged to witness excellence in those endeavors 00:09:03.840 --> 00:09:09.600 and engineering and rocketry, literal rocket science, absolutely amazing that that was 00:09:09.600 --> 00:09:12.560 accomplished. And it doesn't matter if you think of going to Mars 00:09:12.560 --> 00:09:13.840 as retarded. 00:09:13.840 --> 00:09:17.840 Especially, frankly, if you think that everything that he's doing with Starship 00:09:17.840 --> 00:09:21.840 is stupid and a waste of time, the reason we're doing this 00:09:21.840 --> 00:09:25.360 episode is that that person who gets angry when they see this 00:09:25.360 --> 00:09:29.360 misallocation of resources, misallocation of talent, not even making the case for 00:09:29.360 --> 00:09:30.800 whether that's a good thing. 00:09:30.800 --> 00:09:33.920 If you think that it was stupid that they tried, you in 00:09:33.920 --> 00:09:38.000 particular are bound to respect the fact that they did it. 00:09:38.000 --> 00:09:41.840 Because you have every reason to dislike it, but you cannot disregard 00:09:41.840 --> 00:09:43.680 the fact that they pulled it off. 00:09:43.680 --> 00:09:45.200 We witnessed excellence. 00:09:45.200 --> 00:09:48.960 We witnessed something that no one thought was possible, including his own 00:09:48.960 --> 00:09:52.560 experts. Like nobody thought it was possible until they decided to do 00:09:52.560 --> 00:09:54.960 it and they just did it and they made it work. 00:09:55.360 --> 00:09:58.480 When we talk about excellence in one sense, that's what we mean. 00:09:58.480 --> 00:10:01.600 To see something so amazing that you can't believe your own eyes. 00:10:01.600 --> 00:10:05.440 I've watched that video fifteen times and I cheer every time because 00:10:05.440 --> 00:10:06.720 it's incredible. 00:10:06.720 --> 00:10:09.920 I have the vaguest notion of the complexity and the effort that 00:10:09.920 --> 00:10:10.720 went into that. 00:10:10.720 --> 00:10:13.040 And so I'm not cheering for like Mars or anything. 00:10:13.040 --> 00:10:16.960 I'm happy to see men doing the very best work that anyone's 00:10:16.960 --> 00:10:19.040 ever done in that sort of thing. 00:10:19.040 --> 00:10:21.520 And I don't even care about the practical applications. 00:10:21.680 --> 00:10:25.760 I care about seeing something done so well that it seems impossible 00:10:25.760 --> 00:10:27.920 that it even happened. 00:10:27.920 --> 00:10:31.440 The opposite response, the typical response, and the response I see a 00:10:31.440 --> 00:10:34.960 lot of time, which is why I'm mentioning this specific example is 00:10:34.960 --> 00:10:36.960 that guys will say, Oh, that's no big deal. 00:10:36.960 --> 00:10:38.400 Like that's that wasn't that hard. 00:10:38.400 --> 00:10:38.960 It was dumb. 00:10:38.960 --> 00:10:40.080 It was a waste of time. 00:10:40.080 --> 00:10:42.160 I don't see anything there. 00:10:42.160 --> 00:10:45.360 This is a deranged response to excellence. 00:10:45.360 --> 00:10:48.560 It's a corrupt, it's a spiritually corrupt response. 00:10:48.560 --> 00:10:52.880 It's an utterly feminine crabs in a bucket response to see one 00:10:52.880 --> 00:10:54.480 of the coolest things that's ever happened. 00:10:54.480 --> 00:10:56.480 Like just it's friggin' cool. 00:10:56.480 --> 00:11:00.160 A rocket fell from space and they caught it and recycled it. 00:11:00.240 --> 00:11:01.760 That's insane. 00:11:01.760 --> 00:11:02.640 And we saw it. 00:11:02.640 --> 00:11:04.000 You should think that that's cool. 00:11:04.000 --> 00:11:05.680 You know, I'm acting like a spaz here. 00:11:05.680 --> 00:11:08.320 Like it's just obviously this is an amazing thing. 00:11:08.320 --> 00:11:11.200 Even if the idea, even if their purpose is dumb, the fact 00:11:11.200 --> 00:11:14.640 that they pulled it off is insanely cool. 00:11:14.640 --> 00:11:20.240 Most people, it seems like a loudmouth, have this innate desire to 00:11:20.240 --> 00:11:25.200 tear that down, to see something impressive that even Elon's best guys 00:11:25.200 --> 00:11:28.080 didn't think were possible until they pulled it off. 00:11:28.080 --> 00:11:30.720 To see that and to want to tear it down, that's what's 00:11:30.720 --> 00:11:31.840 spiritually corrupt. 00:11:31.840 --> 00:11:34.080 It's got nothing to do with thinking that going to Mars is 00:11:34.080 --> 00:11:35.440 stupid or whatever, fine. 00:11:35.440 --> 00:11:36.560 Don't care. 00:11:36.560 --> 00:11:39.760 To think that to see something like that is just dumb in 00:11:39.760 --> 00:11:44.080 I don't care, I'm not impressed at all, that's a sickness. 00:11:44.080 --> 00:11:49.280 When the Michael Crichton novel Westworld was turned into an HBO series, 00:11:49.280 --> 00:11:53.040 it became a very HBO thing, it was pornographic and extremely violent. 00:11:53.040 --> 00:11:55.840 I'm not recommending it, but I did watch it. 00:11:55.840 --> 00:12:00.160 And from the very beginning there's an element that's relevant to this. 00:12:00.160 --> 00:12:03.600 The premise of Westworld was there was an amusement park, a theme 00:12:03.600 --> 00:12:07.760 park Where there were these so-called hosts, there were androids. 00:12:07.760 --> 00:12:10.720 They were perfect simulacra of humans. 00:12:10.720 --> 00:12:13.760 So there you couldn't tell whether someone was a human or an 00:12:13.760 --> 00:12:19.760 android. And one of the ways that they kept this theme park 00:12:19.760 --> 00:12:23.280 working was that these androids that were told they were programmed to 00:12:23.280 --> 00:12:26.240 believe they lived in the 1800s in the old west. 00:12:26.240 --> 00:12:29.920 One of the tests the the maintainers of the park would would 00:12:30.000 --> 00:12:33.040 perform on them to make sure they were performing correctly, according to 00:12:33.040 --> 00:12:37.040 their programming, was to determine whether or not they'd been contaminated by 00:12:37.040 --> 00:12:40.000 any outside knowledge of the future, or the present, in the case 00:12:40.080 --> 00:12:41.520 of the people visiting. 00:12:41.520 --> 00:12:43.920 So periodically they would pull one of the hosts out of the 00:12:43.920 --> 00:12:47.200 park and they would show it a picture of a skyline, a 00:12:47.200 --> 00:12:51.600 modern skyline with future sick skyscrapers and things, or some example of 00:12:51.600 --> 00:12:54.800 technology. And they would ask 'em, what do you see in this 00:12:54.800 --> 00:12:56.000 picture? And the host 00:12:57.200 --> 00:13:01.280 not having any knowledge of the future would look at it. 00:13:01.280 --> 00:13:04.640 And if they were performing correctly, if they were not buggy, the 00:13:04.640 --> 00:13:07.360 response was, I don't see anything at all. 00:13:07.360 --> 00:13:11.680 And I think that's what we are dealing with today where people 00:13:12.000 --> 00:13:16.880 when they see something excellent, there's this pull, there's this programming that's 00:13:16.880 --> 00:13:21.840 entered people's minds to see something amazing and excellent and laudable, something 00:13:21.840 --> 00:13:25.360 that's worthy of respect and just to respond to I don't see 00:13:25.360 --> 00:13:26.480 anything at all. 00:13:26.480 --> 00:13:30.000 And the way that manifests is usually derision, is to tear it 00:13:30.000 --> 00:13:31.760 down and to be nasty about it. 00:13:31.760 --> 00:13:35.120 So the purpose of doing this episode is to say things that 00:13:35.120 --> 00:13:38.560 are excellent are worthy of adulation and of respect. 00:13:38.560 --> 00:13:41.120 Even if you don't want to give Elon adulation, that's fine. 00:13:41.120 --> 00:13:44.800 But you have to respect the accomplishment because it was something incredibly 00:13:44.800 --> 00:13:48.320 difficult, something that was pulled off with perfect precision. 00:13:48.320 --> 00:13:50.720 It's okay for us to recognize that. 00:13:50.720 --> 00:13:53.440 It doesn't diminish us the fact that we can't do it. 00:13:53.440 --> 00:13:54.640 I can't do that. 00:13:54.640 --> 00:13:57.120 We'll get to that at the end, that when we see these 00:13:57.120 --> 00:14:02.240 moments of excellence in all various fields, we have to get aside 00:14:02.240 --> 00:14:06.240 from this notion that if someone does something really well that you 00:14:06.240 --> 00:14:10.240 are diminished, we're actually privileged to witness excellence. 00:14:10.240 --> 00:14:13.760 We are made better in the witnessing that thing, even in the 00:14:13.760 --> 00:14:18.560 contrast to our mundane lives, things that we couldn't possibly do are 00:14:18.560 --> 00:14:24.480 still a testament to how valuable hard work and brilliant ideas are 00:14:24.800 --> 00:14:27.360 when it's all combined into one piece. 00:14:27.520 --> 00:14:32.080 And again, that's whatever field you could pick art, music, you know, 00:14:32.080 --> 00:14:36.720 we're using some examples that are public performances, public examples, because that's 00:14:36.720 --> 00:14:39.040 a case where we're all looking in the same direction. 00:14:39.040 --> 00:14:41.280 We're We're all looking at something to see is this going to 00:14:41.280 --> 00:14:42.160 succeed or fail? 00:14:42.160 --> 00:14:44.640 You know, who's going to win the World Series? 00:14:44.640 --> 00:14:46.640 Is this rocket going to crash? 00:14:46.640 --> 00:14:49.040 Is this Soprano going to hit the high note? 00:14:49.200 --> 00:14:53.200 Whatever it is, you want them to succeed, hopefully, but even if 00:14:53.200 --> 00:14:55.840 you want them to fail, you have to respect when they succeed. 00:14:55.840 --> 00:14:58.640 All the more if you think that they're gonna beef it, it's 00:14:58.640 --> 00:15:01.440 not gonna work out, and they actually pull it off and you 00:15:01.440 --> 00:15:03.040 were wrong about it. 00:15:03.040 --> 00:15:04.640 Show them some respect. 00:15:04.640 --> 00:15:08.000 Show the fact that someone did something way better than you could 00:15:08.160 --> 00:15:10.720 is a reason for us to celebrate. 00:15:10.720 --> 00:15:14.800 Because these are some of the things that make this life worth 00:15:14.800 --> 00:15:19.920 living. These moments of excellence, these moments that show us our How 00:15:19.920 --> 00:15:24.080 much better we can all be when we are gifted by God 00:15:24.240 --> 00:15:28.800 and when we do hard work and when we're pursuing specific purposes 00:15:28.800 --> 00:15:30.400 that are you know laudable. 00:15:30.400 --> 00:15:33.120 You know, for the argument of last week's episode, we're not going 00:15:33.120 --> 00:15:36.160 to tell you what that laudable godly purpose should be. 00:15:36.160 --> 00:15:38.560 Just going to assume that you're working towards something good. 00:15:38.560 --> 00:15:43.280 You know, if someone is a serial killer, we call them prolific. 00:15:43.280 --> 00:15:45.120 We don't call them excellent. 00:15:45.120 --> 00:15:50.000 The notion of excellence always inherently has some positive moral aspect to 00:15:50.000 --> 00:15:54.320 it. Something is not excellently done if it's gross or bad or 00:15:54.320 --> 00:15:57.120 harmful. There are other words that you can describe it, but you 00:15:57.120 --> 00:15:59.280 don't say someone's an excellent serial killer. 00:15:59.280 --> 00:16:00.480 It's the opposite. 00:16:00.480 --> 00:16:02.400 Excellence has nothing to do with that. 00:16:02.400 --> 00:16:05.520 So even in the way that we speak about bad things, we 00:16:05.520 --> 00:16:09.120 sort of understand that there's an inherent moral tenor to just seeing 00:16:09.120 --> 00:16:09.920 something good. 00:16:10.160 --> 00:16:14.000 And even if it's something as mundane and you know corporately poisoned 00:16:14.160 --> 00:16:19.760 as major league sports, to see something well executed is still worthy 00:16:19.760 --> 00:16:20.880 of respect. 00:16:20.880 --> 00:16:23.920 And I think as Christians and as decent men, we need to 00:16:23.920 --> 00:16:27.040 get it out of our heads that we should be sitting on 00:16:27.040 --> 00:16:32.160 the sidelines and sniping and making snide ironic comments when we see 00:16:32.160 --> 00:16:33.840 things that are glorious. 00:16:33.840 --> 00:16:37.760 It doesn't diminish God it doesn't diminish God's glory to say that 00:16:37.760 --> 00:16:40.480 there's glory in this life for certain things. 00:16:40.480 --> 00:16:44.560 God even uses these many examples of you know the runner's wreath 00:16:44.560 --> 00:16:46.560 when he finishes the race first. 00:16:46.560 --> 00:16:50.960 These are examples from this life that are not condemned as amoral 00:16:50.960 --> 00:16:54.160 in scripture to help us understand heavenly things. 00:16:54.160 --> 00:16:57.680 If you despise the earthly things, how can you possibly have a 00:16:57.680 --> 00:16:59.680 connection to the heavenly thing? 00:16:59.680 --> 00:17:04.880 Excellence sets an example and it's an inspiration and it's a privilege 00:17:04.880 --> 00:17:05.680 when we witness 00:17:05.920 --> 00:17:06.880 it. 00:17:07.200 --> 00:17:10.640 Somewhere in the world there is a man who is the best 00:17:10.640 --> 00:17:12.640 at building with Legos. 00:17:12.880 --> 00:17:16.640 That's a trivial example of excellence, but it's still a form of 00:17:16.640 --> 00:17:20.000 excellence because it obviously took him time. 00:17:20.000 --> 00:17:22.640 He had to invest in the ability to do that, he had 00:17:22.640 --> 00:17:26.720 to figure out how to do it, and some of the constructions 00:17:26.720 --> 00:17:31.360 using Legos Legos or similar things, or Lego as the company would 00:17:31.360 --> 00:17:34.000 prefer we call the plural, I believe. 00:17:34.000 --> 00:17:35.680 Those are impressive. 00:17:35.680 --> 00:17:39.600 That is a form of excellence, and as Will highlighted in his 00:17:39.600 --> 00:17:43.680 introduction, some forms of excellence are of a trivial sort. 00:17:43.680 --> 00:17:48.320 They're not necessarily launching a rocket and capturing it with what amount 00:17:48.320 --> 00:17:50.560 to metal chopsticks. 00:17:50.560 --> 00:17:54.720 But it is still a form of excellence, and again, you are 00:17:54.720 --> 00:17:57.840 not diminished by the fact that there is someone somewhere in the 00:17:57.840 --> 00:18:01.840 world who is better at Lego than you are. 00:18:01.840 --> 00:18:06.480 There is some level at which you could do that same sort 00:18:06.480 --> 00:18:07.200 of thing. 00:18:07.200 --> 00:18:10.320 Perhaps it's not as good as he is, perhaps it's better, it 00:18:10.320 --> 00:18:12.000 just depends. 00:18:12.000 --> 00:18:14.720 But there is an excellence with regard to that, just like there 00:18:14.720 --> 00:18:19.280 is an excellence in basically every field of human endeavor. 00:18:19.280 --> 00:18:22.640 The The most common example and the one that is perhaps the 00:18:22.640 --> 00:18:26.880 most readily grasped is indeed professional sports, because that's something that we 00:18:26.880 --> 00:18:28.080 can all see. 00:18:28.080 --> 00:18:32.160 And it's something that we all recognize when we see it. 00:18:32.160 --> 00:18:36.080 Because we can look at those who perform at that level and 00:18:36.080 --> 00:18:39.440 see something that if we're honest with ourselves at least, we recognize 00:18:39.440 --> 00:18:41.360 we could never do. 00:18:41.360 --> 00:18:43.600 Now perhaps we could be better than we are. 00:18:43.600 --> 00:18:46.240 Certainly, if I spent more time practicing tennis, I would be better 00:18:46.240 --> 00:18:48.640 than I am now. 00:18:48.640 --> 00:18:52.000 But I'm never going to be a world champion with regard to 00:18:52.000 --> 00:18:58.160 tennis. God has given out gifts to different men in different measure. 00:18:58.160 --> 00:19:00.960 He may have given you intellect, he may have given you 00:19:02.240 --> 00:19:04.880 aptitude with regard to sports. 00:19:04.880 --> 00:19:07.840 Whatever it happens to be, and we talked about this in the 00:19:07.840 --> 00:19:12.400 episode God's Gifts, Man's Duties to a Certain Degree, which is part 00:19:12.400 --> 00:19:14.880 of what factors into this. 00:19:14.880 --> 00:19:18.800 But in every field of human endeavor, there is going to be 00:19:18.800 --> 00:19:22.000 someone who is the best at any given time, and there's going 00:19:22.000 --> 00:19:25.600 to be someone who was or will be the best historically, perhaps 00:19:25.600 --> 00:19:30.160 he's living now, hardly to tell depending on the field. 00:19:30.160 --> 00:19:35.120 Just because that person is excellent in that field, you are not 00:19:35.120 --> 00:19:38.880 diminished, which is part of what we are attempting to tamp down 00:19:38.960 --> 00:19:43.920 to exterminate if we can with this episode, you should not view 00:19:43.920 --> 00:19:47.440 yourself as being diminished by the fact that there are those who 00:19:47.440 --> 00:19:50.080 are better at certain things than you are. 00:19:50.080 --> 00:19:54.080 That's going to be the case in almost any endeavor you pursue. 00:19:54.080 --> 00:19:57.440 There will probably be someone who is better at it. 00:19:57.440 --> 00:20:01.360 Until perhaps if you are the one who eventually becomes the best 00:20:01.360 --> 00:20:05.520 in that field, it will have taken you decades of practice, and 00:20:05.520 --> 00:20:07.600 you will be on top for a certain period of time. 00:20:07.600 --> 00:20:10.400 We could think of perhaps chess. 00:20:10.400 --> 00:20:14.640 The highest ranked grandmaster in the world usually doesn't stay there for 00:20:14.640 --> 00:20:15.200 very long. 00:20:15.200 --> 00:20:18.960 There are some historical exceptions, of course, but those men were truly 00:20:18.960 --> 00:20:24.880 exceptional. By and large, sports again a very good example. 00:20:24.960 --> 00:20:28.720 If you are the top in a particular sport, you're not going 00:20:28.720 --> 00:20:32.160 to be there for very long just because of the biological reality 00:20:32.160 --> 00:20:33.200 of aging. 00:20:33.200 --> 00:20:35.360 Someone else will replace you. 00:20:35.360 --> 00:20:38.880 But there is a form of excellence with regard to being at 00:20:38.880 --> 00:20:42.160 the top or anywhere near the top. 00:20:42.320 --> 00:20:45.040 This is in fact something that has been brought up a number 00:20:45.040 --> 00:20:48.720 of times with regard to the Olympics, and there's something to the 00:20:48.720 --> 00:20:52.400 argument, it's perhaps tongue in cheek to some degree, but there are 00:20:52.400 --> 00:20:55.120 those who have argued that we should have an average person person 00:20:55.600 --> 00:20:59.280 in every single one of the events just to compare. 00:20:59.280 --> 00:21:03.280 And that might actually help because when we're only looking at those 00:21:03.280 --> 00:21:07.040 who are the absolute top of the field, perhaps it's a little 00:21:07.040 --> 00:21:10.880 bit difficult for us to recognize the level of excellence that we 00:21:10.880 --> 00:21:14.400 are viewing and to have that right response of admiration for that 00:21:14.400 --> 00:21:15.440 achievement 00:21:16.320 --> 00:21:20.560 because we're not being honest with ourselves and looking at how well 00:21:21.120 --> 00:21:24.640 and how highly those individuals are performing compared to what we could 00:21:24.640 --> 00:21:27.920 do or an average person could do, assuming you're an average person 00:21:27.920 --> 00:21:30.320 in the endeavor. 00:21:30.320 --> 00:21:33.760 If you're just looking at the top five or six tennis players 00:21:33.760 --> 00:21:38.000 in the world, you're comparing them to each other instead of to 00:21:38.000 --> 00:21:39.680 an average player. 00:21:39.680 --> 00:21:44.800 An average player would be completely demolished by the top leagues in 00:21:44.800 --> 00:21:46.080 any sport. 00:21:46.080 --> 00:21:48.240 You would score zero points. 00:21:48.240 --> 00:21:51.440 You probably wouldn't even return the serve. 00:21:51.440 --> 00:21:55.360 But it's difficult to see that when it's just the top players 00:21:55.360 --> 00:21:56.720 against each other. 00:21:56.720 --> 00:21:59.760 But we have to be honest with ourselves and recognize that we're 00:21:59.680 --> 00:22:01.040 not the best in every Every field. 00:22:01.040 --> 00:22:03.200 We may not be the best in any field. 00:22:03.200 --> 00:22:05.520 And there's nothing wrong with that. 00:22:05.520 --> 00:22:08.800 Again, you are not diminished by the fact that there are those 00:22:08.800 --> 00:22:12.640 who are excellent in their fields of endeavor. 00:22:12.640 --> 00:22:17.120 And I want to distinguish two different things here that are related 00:22:17.120 --> 00:22:21.120 and feed into each other, but the reason I want to distinguish 00:22:21.120 --> 00:22:27.200 them is that in the modern mind, natural talent has been downplayed 00:22:27.200 --> 00:22:29.280 to some certain extent. 00:22:29.280 --> 00:22:31.840 And the reason for this is envy. 00:22:31.840 --> 00:22:35.280 And really, that's sort of the core in a way of the 00:22:35.280 --> 00:22:37.680 episode that we are doing today. 00:22:37.680 --> 00:22:42.560 We are arguing against envy because there are those who become envious 00:22:42.560 --> 00:22:46.800 of others when those others have been given certain talents above and 00:22:46.800 --> 00:22:49.520 beyond what the person himself has been given. 00:22:49.520 --> 00:22:54.000 So you look at this other and go God gave him exceptional 00:22:54.000 --> 00:22:55.680 athletic ability. 00:22:55.680 --> 00:22:59.440 He is excellent in this field, at least in part, because of 00:22:59.440 --> 00:23:01.760 the gifts given him by God. 00:23:01.760 --> 00:23:04.080 If you look at that with envy, that's sinful. 00:23:04.080 --> 00:23:05.360 You should not do that as a Christian. 00:23:05.360 --> 00:23:08.000 You must not do that as a Christian. 00:23:08.000 --> 00:23:10.960 But at the same time, it is destructive to yourself and to 00:23:10.960 --> 00:23:13.120 society. That is not the way that we should view this. 00:23:13.120 --> 00:23:15.120 That's the crabs in a bucket thing. 00:23:15.120 --> 00:23:18.400 When you have that envy, mentally you are attempting to tear that 00:23:18.400 --> 00:23:19.280 man down. 00:23:19.280 --> 00:23:25.040 Instead of recognizing this as an example of excellence, to which others 00:23:25.040 --> 00:23:28.880 can aspire, to which you can aspire to a certain degree, to 00:23:28.880 --> 00:23:32.800 whatever degree you have the ability to do that, but on top 00:23:32.800 --> 00:23:33.680 of that natural 00:23:34.560 --> 00:23:38.640 talent, there is also the acquired skill. 00:23:38.640 --> 00:23:43.040 Because it is insufficient in almost any field simply to have that 00:23:43.040 --> 00:23:43.920 natural talent. 00:23:43.920 --> 00:23:48.240 Now there are some fields in which the natural talent counts for 00:23:48.240 --> 00:23:50.960 more than in other fields. 00:23:50.960 --> 00:23:54.000 But in essentially any field, you are also going to have to 00:23:54.000 --> 00:23:55.680 acquire knowledge or skill. 00:23:55.680 --> 00:23:59.120 And I'll say knowledge or skill because perhaps God has given you 00:23:59.120 --> 00:23:59.920 intellectual talents. 00:24:00.240 --> 00:24:04.160 You're going to have to acquire knowledge in a particular field to 00:24:04.160 --> 00:24:06.000 become the top in that field. 00:24:06.000 --> 00:24:08.800 It doesn't matter how good you are at math, if you know 00:24:08.800 --> 00:24:12.480 nothing about calculus, you You're not going to be a very good 00:24:12.480 --> 00:24:17.680 mathematician. That's acquired knowledge, the equivalent of acquired skill in a sport, 00:24:17.680 --> 00:24:19.760 which yes, there's knowledge as well in sports. 00:24:19.760 --> 00:24:23.600 Obviously, it's not just all skill. 00:24:23.600 --> 00:24:28.160 But it's a combination of that natural talent and the acquired skill 00:24:28.320 --> 00:24:31.920 that makes individuals the top in their field. 00:24:31.920 --> 00:24:36.720 And you should not envy those whom God has given greater natural 00:24:36.720 --> 00:24:40.880 talent. That natural ability again is a gift from God, and Scripture 00:24:40.880 --> 00:24:46.160 is very clear, that God does not hand out these gifts equally. 00:24:46.160 --> 00:24:49.760 We've gone over this in a number of episodes previously. 00:24:49.760 --> 00:24:54.400 Part of this is your inheritance, your patrimony, you receive these things 00:24:54.400 --> 00:24:56.480 from your ancestors. 00:24:56.480 --> 00:25:00.560 There are certain subgroups of humans who are better at sprinting. 00:25:00.560 --> 00:25:04.160 There are certain subgroups of humans who are better at long distance 00:25:04.320 --> 00:25:07.920 running. There are some who are better at hand eye coordination. 00:25:07.920 --> 00:25:12.960 These things are gifts from God that are handed down generationally. 00:25:12.960 --> 00:25:16.240 You have that as part of your patrimony if you have whatever 00:25:16.240 --> 00:25:18.560 particular skill it happens to be. 00:25:18.560 --> 00:25:20.560 It's not a matter of envy. 00:25:20.560 --> 00:25:22.160 It can be a matter of jealousy. 00:25:22.160 --> 00:25:25.120 It is something that you should certainly guard because that is important, 00:25:25.120 --> 00:25:29.040 and we went over the distinction between those in a previous episode. 00:25:29.040 --> 00:25:31.520 But it is not a matter of envy because you do not 00:25:31.520 --> 00:25:35.040 look at those to whom God has given these gifts and think 00:25:35.360 --> 00:25:39.360 I have to tear that man down because he is diminishing me. 00:25:39.360 --> 00:25:44.080 A good example of this, a more concrete example. 00:25:44.080 --> 00:25:49.360 While we are recording this episode and every episode, we are using 00:25:49.360 --> 00:25:52.800 a handful of different technologies that we did not create. 00:25:52.800 --> 00:25:55.760 Now in Wo's case he did help with some of it because 00:25:55.760 --> 00:26:00.640 we are both using Macs, but we didn't design the processors, we 00:26:00.640 --> 00:26:05.280 didn't design the storage, in this case SSDs, we didn't create the 00:26:05.280 --> 00:26:08.400 microphones or the underlying technology. 00:26:08.400 --> 00:26:11.680 We're not the ones who figured out how to use electricity to 00:26:11.680 --> 00:26:12.640 do these things. 00:26:12.640 --> 00:26:16.880 And the list goes on and on, from the monitors down to 00:26:17.040 --> 00:26:20.880 the buttons on the control pad I use to mute and unmute 00:26:20.880 --> 00:26:22.720 my mic. 00:26:22.720 --> 00:26:27.840 Not one of these things would exist without men who were excellent 00:26:27.840 --> 00:26:29.840 in their fields. 00:26:29.840 --> 00:26:33.200 I'm not diminished by the fact that those men were excellent in 00:26:33.600 --> 00:26:36.160 a way that I am not, in a field in which I 00:26:36.160 --> 00:26:37.360 am not excellent. 00:26:37.360 --> 00:26:39.840 In a field in which I will never be excellent, I have 00:26:39.840 --> 00:26:42.800 no interest in pursuing those fields. 00:26:42.800 --> 00:26:46.480 Even if say I could pursue them, I'm not going to pursue 00:26:46.480 --> 00:26:51.200 them, and maybe I couldn't reach the level that they reached. 00:26:51.200 --> 00:26:55.280 We are all benefiting from the fact that those men were excellent 00:26:55.280 --> 00:26:56.640 in their fields. 00:26:56.640 --> 00:27:01.440 Far from being diminished, this podcast wouldn't exist. 00:27:01.440 --> 00:27:03.200 No podcast would exist. 00:27:03.200 --> 00:27:06.720 So many other things would not exist if not for those men 00:27:06.960 --> 00:27:12.000 whom God gifted a certain natural talent and then they acquired the 00:27:12.000 --> 00:27:15.920 additional knowledge to be the top of their fields, to be excellent 00:27:15.920 --> 00:27:17.600 in their fields. 00:27:17.600 --> 00:27:22.000 That is how we should view excellence with regard to any field. 00:27:22.000 --> 00:27:27.200 With regard to sports, you can view that person as sort of 00:27:27.200 --> 00:27:30.560 a figure, someone in the field, something to which you can aspire 00:27:30.560 --> 00:27:33.120 if you are interested in that sport, if it's a sport that 00:27:33.120 --> 00:27:35.840 you happen to play, or whatever it happens to be. 00:27:36.000 --> 00:27:39.040 You can look at the top player of a game, it could 00:27:39.040 --> 00:27:40.240 be poker. 00:27:40.240 --> 00:27:43.520 And if you are a poker player, you can aspire to that 00:27:43.520 --> 00:27:46.800 level of excellence in that field. 00:27:46.800 --> 00:27:49.040 Again, this is every field. 00:27:49.040 --> 00:27:51.440 These are all positive again as well as Woe was saying in 00:27:51.440 --> 00:27:55.920 his introduction, excellence carries with it a moral connotation. 00:27:55.920 --> 00:28:00.400 Excellence is only with regard to things that are good. 00:28:00.400 --> 00:28:05.520 That doesn't mean things that are sort of the moral height of 00:28:05.520 --> 00:28:10.880 human achievement to perhaps abuse the term there. 00:28:10.880 --> 00:28:14.240 The example I gave of using Lego. 00:28:14.240 --> 00:28:16.320 Is that moral or not? 00:28:16.640 --> 00:28:21.120 Yes, but not in the sense that we usually employ moral. 00:28:21.120 --> 00:28:25.520 It's not in the sense of following the Ten Commandments. 00:28:25.520 --> 00:28:28.400 It's in the sense of being something that is constructive. 00:28:28.400 --> 00:28:30.000 It is not destructive. 00:28:30.000 --> 00:28:32.560 That's the moral distinction that we are drawing. 00:28:32.560 --> 00:28:36.320 And so the things that are constructive are morally good. 00:28:36.320 --> 00:28:38.000 They can have an excellence. 00:28:38.000 --> 00:28:40.160 You can be excellent at them. 00:28:40.160 --> 00:28:43.840 And again, that is whether it is something as trivial as building 00:28:43.920 --> 00:28:49.920 something with Lego or capturing a spaceship that you designed, or any 00:28:49.920 --> 00:28:52.400 other human endeavor. 00:28:52.400 --> 00:28:56.080 And that is another point that I would like to make with 00:28:56.080 --> 00:28:59.120 regard to excellence. 00:28:59.120 --> 00:29:03.440 There are different levels, different kinds really of human achievement. 00:29:03.440 --> 00:29:05.840 Some are more excellent than others. 00:29:05.840 --> 00:29:10.640 Not all fields, not all endeavors, not all achievements are equal. 00:29:10.640 --> 00:29:14.560 There is inequality even with regard to being excellent. 00:29:14.560 --> 00:29:19.360 And so if you are excellent at Lego, that's not as impressive 00:29:19.360 --> 00:29:22.960 as being The top of the field in mathematics. 00:29:22.960 --> 00:29:28.320 The man who is the best at theoretical math is achieving a 00:29:28.320 --> 00:29:32.720 level of excellence that is different, that is greater than the excellence 00:29:32.720 --> 00:29:34.000 of building with Lego. 00:29:34.000 --> 00:29:37.360 I don't mean to beat up on Lego, but it's just an 00:29:37.360 --> 00:29:38.720 easy example for this. 00:29:38.720 --> 00:29:42.000 It's very concrete we can all recognise what it is, because virtually 00:29:42.000 --> 00:29:46.000 everyone listening to this podcast has at some point held Legos or 00:29:46.000 --> 00:29:47.760 stepped on one. 00:29:47.760 --> 00:29:48.640 But different fields 00:29:49.520 --> 00:29:53.920 are not identical in terms of the excellence in that field. 00:29:53.920 --> 00:29:57.840 It is more excellent to achieve certain things than to achieve others. 00:29:57.840 --> 00:30:00.480 This is again something that we should celebrate. 00:30:00.480 --> 00:30:02.160 We should recognize that greater degree 00:30:03.040 --> 00:30:06.080 of excellence, and be thankful for it. 00:30:06.080 --> 00:30:10.480 That's something that God has given to us, because we all benefit 00:30:10.480 --> 00:30:15.520 from excellence of other men in other fields, whether it is the 00:30:15.520 --> 00:30:19.040 technology that we are using, the medicine that helps us to live 00:30:19.040 --> 00:30:22.640 longer and healthier lives, the man who designed the pen that I 00:30:22.640 --> 00:30:25.360 use in order to write my notes for the show, whatever it 00:30:25.360 --> 00:30:30.000 happens to be, we all benefit from that excellence, and it is 00:30:30.000 --> 00:30:34.080 a gift from God of which we should not be envious, and 00:30:34.080 --> 00:30:36.480 certainly which we should not seek to tear 00:30:36.480 --> 00:30:37.120 down. 00:30:37.600 --> 00:30:40.160 One last example from sports. 00:30:40.160 --> 00:30:43.040 I looked these stats up on Grok because I don't really pay 00:30:43.040 --> 00:30:44.000 attention to baseball. 00:30:44.000 --> 00:30:45.200 I don't like baseball. 00:30:45.280 --> 00:30:48.240 But as Corey's saying, these sorts of things are prime examples we 00:30:48.240 --> 00:30:49.280 can all understand. 00:30:49.280 --> 00:30:53.200 I'd imagine virtually everyone listening has swung a baseball bat a couple 00:30:53.280 --> 00:30:55.280 times. So I looked up on Grok. 00:30:55.280 --> 00:30:57.440 It's entirely possible these aren't precise. 00:30:57.440 --> 00:31:00.400 I'm giving a general illustration of a type. 00:31:00.400 --> 00:31:03.360 So if you're a super baseball nerd, please don't hate me. 00:31:03.360 --> 00:31:05.040 I'm not misleading anybody. 00:31:05.040 --> 00:31:09.840 What I did was looked up the World Series from 2024 between 00:31:09.920 --> 00:31:12.800 apparently the Dodgers and the New York Yankees. 00:31:12.800 --> 00:31:16.960 I was curious about the performance of the batters because batting percentages 00:31:16.960 --> 00:31:20.160 are something that I think is often used in example, you know, 00:31:20.160 --> 00:31:21.440 batting a thousand. 00:31:21.440 --> 00:31:26.240 It's a baseball metaphor that's applies in in all sorts of cases. 00:31:26.240 --> 00:31:30.240 And the stats that I looked up indicated that the average batting 00:31:30.800 --> 00:31:35.280 rating for the winning team for the Dodgers for the World Series 00:31:35.280 --> 00:31:39.680 last year was two twenty-nine, which is abysmally low. 00:31:39.680 --> 00:31:42.640 If you're batting two twenty nine, you're probably not gonna get into 00:31:42.640 --> 00:31:45.120 the major leagues in the first place. 00:31:45.120 --> 00:31:48.880 And I was also curious about watching the number of ab bats 00:31:48.960 --> 00:31:50.240 for any given player. 00:31:50.240 --> 00:31:52.880 And again, this is just very rough math, but it's gonna be 00:31:52.880 --> 00:31:57.040 typical. In the World Series, in a given game, a batter was 00:31:57.040 --> 00:31:59.840 gonna be up an average of three to five times. 00:31:59.840 --> 00:32:04.000 It was on average gonna swing between four and eight times and 00:32:04.000 --> 00:32:06.160 had an average of two twenty-nine. 00:32:06.160 --> 00:32:09.760 So the reason I highlight this is that if you did happen 00:32:09.760 --> 00:32:12.960 to watch those baseball games, or you watch any baseball game, you're 00:32:12.960 --> 00:32:15.200 gonna see something similar to that. 00:32:15.200 --> 00:32:18.080 You're gonna see one guy come up probably no more than half 00:32:18.080 --> 00:32:20.160 a dozen times, most of the time. 00:32:20.160 --> 00:32:23.760 He's probably not gonna swing the bat more than a dozen times 00:32:23.760 --> 00:32:28.560 on average, and he's going to miss almost all of those pitches. 00:32:28.560 --> 00:32:32.640 And so for us sitting on our butts on our couches watching 00:32:32.640 --> 00:32:36.560 that, it's very easy for us not to see the excellence inherent 00:32:36.640 --> 00:32:41.120 in being Los Angeles Dodger or a New York Yankees player. 00:32:41.120 --> 00:32:45.040 The average salary for the winning team was around six million dollars. 00:32:45.040 --> 00:32:47.360 And for that and the most important games of their life, they 00:32:47.360 --> 00:32:49.040 batted 229. 00:32:49.040 --> 00:32:51.200 They missed almost all their pitches. 00:32:51.200 --> 00:32:53.520 If you're sitting there watching them and you're thinking, I could do 00:32:53.520 --> 00:32:56.080 that. I've swung a bat, I've I've hit a ball pretty good. 00:32:56.080 --> 00:32:58.960 Some of you maybe even played in the minor leagues or something. 00:32:58.960 --> 00:33:01.120 I doubt we have any major league listeners. 00:33:01.120 --> 00:33:03.920 Just by virtue of how rare that is. 00:33:03.920 --> 00:33:06.400 It's not that this punkest would or wouldn't appeal. 00:33:06.400 --> 00:33:10.160 It's just there's so few guys at that level of excellence to 00:33:10.160 --> 00:33:12.080 even be able to be in the room. 00:33:12.080 --> 00:33:16.160 The very worst player in MLB is better than all of us 00:33:16.240 --> 00:33:17.040 of baseball. 00:33:17.040 --> 00:33:18.000 And he's the worst. 00:33:18.320 --> 00:33:21.040 of all his teammates, of all the teams, the very worst guy 00:33:21.040 --> 00:33:22.560 does a better job than us. 00:33:22.560 --> 00:33:25.120 He's excellent enough to be in the MLB. 00:33:25.120 --> 00:33:28.960 And the minimum salary for the league is seven hundred forty thousand 00:33:28.960 --> 00:33:32.480 dollars. He's getting paid seven hundred forty thousand dollars to do a 00:33:32.480 --> 00:33:35.520 terrible job at being a professional ball player. 00:33:35.520 --> 00:33:37.760 Now the worst guy in the league gonna get sent down and 00:33:37.840 --> 00:33:42.320 somebody's gonna replace him because there's always competition because of the degree 00:33:42.320 --> 00:33:45.600 of excellence that's manifest at the highest levels. 00:33:45.600 --> 00:33:48.240 Again, sports is just an example that can be given because we 00:33:48.240 --> 00:33:49.600 all are aware of it. 00:33:49.600 --> 00:33:53.680 That sort of excellence, that sort of competition is present everywhere. 00:33:53.680 --> 00:34:00.000 And And the irony poisoning that's endemic, particularly to my cohort of 00:34:00.000 --> 00:34:01.280 my generation. 00:34:01.280 --> 00:34:03.760 I'm a very young Xer. 00:34:03.760 --> 00:34:06.720 I basically grew up with older millennials. 00:34:06.720 --> 00:34:10.560 JD Vance and Pete Hegsith are about my age. 00:34:10.560 --> 00:34:13.600 We all probably watched the same cartoons and TV shows as a 00:34:13.600 --> 00:34:15.360 kid. Probably ate the same cereals. 00:34:15.360 --> 00:34:16.880 We had the same experience. 00:34:16.880 --> 00:34:20.400 So I can tell you from firsthand experience, having lived very similar 00:34:20.400 --> 00:34:24.880 childhoods to them in time is that when you watch them on 00:34:24.880 --> 00:34:32.320 camera and they are sincere and they're earnest and they're approaching things 00:34:32.320 --> 00:34:35.120 from a very pragmatic perspective. 00:34:35.120 --> 00:34:40.080 They're not screwing around the reason I'm highlighting them is that my 00:34:40.080 --> 00:34:43.200 generation was completely irony poisoned. 00:34:43.200 --> 00:34:46.720 Irony and sarcasm were our native tongue. 00:34:46.720 --> 00:34:48.560 And I've gotten most of it out of my system. 00:34:48.560 --> 00:34:49.920 I used to be really good at it. 00:34:49.920 --> 00:34:52.480 I wasn't nearly as bad as some, but we all grew up 00:34:52.480 --> 00:34:53.120 that way. 00:34:53.120 --> 00:34:55.200 Just being completely ironic about things. 00:34:55.200 --> 00:34:58.480 Saying one thing, meaning the other, you know, the way it manifests 00:34:58.560 --> 00:35:02.160 in particular when we're talking about excellence is tearing it down. 00:35:02.160 --> 00:35:03.760 And it was never sincere. 00:35:03.760 --> 00:35:05.200 It was always smug. 00:35:05.200 --> 00:35:08.800 It was too cool for school approaches to whatever you saw. 00:35:08.800 --> 00:35:10.480 You're not going to get excited. 00:35:10.480 --> 00:35:14.960 You're not going to have a sincere response to seeing something cool. 00:35:14.960 --> 00:35:17.280 You're just going to shrug and say, whatever, I've seen better. 00:35:17.280 --> 00:35:18.080 I could do better. 00:35:18.080 --> 00:35:18.720 Like whatever. 00:35:18.720 --> 00:35:24.320 It's the dismissiveness coming from that irony and sarcasm has mostly gone 00:35:24.320 --> 00:35:28.320 away the way it was when you know we were kids. 00:35:28.320 --> 00:35:31.760 But what replaced it was something that in some ways is even 00:35:31.760 --> 00:35:36.720 worse, which is the sincere form of well that's nothing at all. 00:35:36.720 --> 00:35:41.200 I saw a rocket fall from heaven and be captured by the 00:35:41.200 --> 00:35:45.040 very same launcher that sent it up that way. 00:35:45.040 --> 00:35:47.600 Some people will look at that and say, I don't see anything 00:35:47.600 --> 00:35:48.160 at all. 00:35:48.160 --> 00:35:52.480 They're like the android that's been programmed not to see excellence, not 00:35:52.480 --> 00:35:55.920 to see anything better than its own world, its own existence. 00:35:55.920 --> 00:36:01.360 It's this programmed blinders that prevent an entire generation of people younger 00:36:01.360 --> 00:36:05.120 than mine, although I think we've all pretty much adopted it. 00:36:05.120 --> 00:36:09.920 Is the idea that if you see something that's genuinely excellent, sarcasm 00:36:09.920 --> 00:36:11.600 and irony have mostly gone away. 00:36:11.600 --> 00:36:13.120 Now it's very sincere. 00:36:13.120 --> 00:36:15.600 And it will take a couple different forms. 00:36:15.600 --> 00:36:19.920 The Christian version of this poison is to say, well, that's not 00:36:19.920 --> 00:36:20.960 for the glory of God. 00:36:20.960 --> 00:36:24.000 That's not for God's kingdom, so that doesn't matter at all. 00:36:24.000 --> 00:36:25.920 Which is deranged. 00:36:25.920 --> 00:36:28.320 That's not what you find in scripture. 00:36:28.320 --> 00:36:31.920 Because again, we're not talking about how we are saved. 00:36:31.920 --> 00:36:35.840 It's absolutely true that the way that God saves us is manifest 00:36:36.000 --> 00:36:37.200 solely on the cross. 00:36:37.200 --> 00:36:38.960 And we receive that by faith. 00:36:38.960 --> 00:36:41.680 We talk about it all the time to point out that whenever 00:36:41.680 --> 00:36:45.360 we say anything good about anything else, whenever we try to point 00:36:45.360 --> 00:36:48.320 at excellence elsewhere, we're not diminishing the cross. 00:36:48.320 --> 00:36:49.680 We can't do that. 00:36:49.680 --> 00:36:52.960 You can't diminish the cross by pointing to something else good in 00:36:52.960 --> 00:37:00.400 creation. That, frankly, is profoundly blasphemous to point at God's perfect 00:37:00.400 --> 00:37:03.200 work on the cross and say, well, some baseball player did a 00:37:03.200 --> 00:37:04.960 good job, so the cross is threatened. 00:37:04.960 --> 00:37:05.840 Are you kidding me? 00:37:05.840 --> 00:37:07.840 That's never anyone's rational thought. 00:37:07.840 --> 00:37:10.240 You know, this is the default position of Christians in the church 00:37:10.480 --> 00:37:14.400 today. It's the most I had somebody yesterday criticize one of my 00:37:14.400 --> 00:37:16.880 posts when I rebutted his dumb point. 00:37:16.880 --> 00:37:19.280 He's like, You think this is for the glory of God? 00:37:19.280 --> 00:37:23.360 It doesn't have anything to do with an argument or a discussion. 00:37:23.360 --> 00:37:27.760 There's this mode of thought that has captured the Christian mind where 00:37:27.760 --> 00:37:31.600 anything that I don't like can't be excellent, it can't be good, 00:37:31.600 --> 00:37:33.280 it can't be beautiful or true. 00:37:33.280 --> 00:37:35.120 Either it's about the cross or it's a lie. 00:37:35.120 --> 00:37:38.880 It's from it's worldly and we gotta just dismiss it. 00:37:38.880 --> 00:37:42.320 The purpose of this episode is to say that that's disgusting. 00:37:42.320 --> 00:37:43.440 That's not right. 00:37:43.440 --> 00:37:44.640 That's not Christian. 00:37:44.640 --> 00:37:46.000 It's not sane. 00:37:46.000 --> 00:37:46.960 It's not rational. 00:37:46.960 --> 00:37:50.400 There's nothing good about that programmed response. 00:37:50.400 --> 00:37:53.360 It's not universal, but it's incredibly common. 00:37:53.360 --> 00:37:56.560 This will come up all the time where people will, if you're 00:37:56.560 --> 00:38:00.240 going back and forth with someone about anything as a Christian, you're 00:38:00.320 --> 00:38:03.680 Christian, you can say you're Christian, they say they're a Christian, and 00:38:04.000 --> 00:38:07.680 they don't like whatever it is that you're saying here's a good 00:38:07.680 --> 00:38:10.720 example of something, they'll just say, Well, that's not about the cross, 00:38:10.720 --> 00:38:14.320 that's not the gospel, that's not about heaven, that that I don't 00:38:14.240 --> 00:38:15.360 see anything at all. 00:38:15.360 --> 00:38:17.600 There's nothing good or beautiful or true there. 00:38:17.600 --> 00:38:21.680 There's nothing excellent there because it has nothing to do with salvation. 00:38:22.000 --> 00:38:23.920 I can't say any more clearly. 00:38:23.920 --> 00:38:27.200 This is not how God speaks about anything. 00:38:27.200 --> 00:38:33.120 When God gives us specific examples of moral conduct, yes, absolutely, excellence 00:38:33.120 --> 00:38:35.600 and moral conduct is the benchmark. 00:38:35.600 --> 00:38:39.120 And Christ is a benchmark who led the perfect life precisely because 00:38:39.120 --> 00:38:40.080 none of us can. 00:38:40.080 --> 00:38:43.280 And no matter how hard we try and how much we care 00:38:43.360 --> 00:38:46.960 and how much we love God, we will never perfect in this 00:38:46.960 --> 00:38:49.600 life our ability not to sin. 00:38:49.600 --> 00:38:53.040 We are given faith and we are given through sanctification the ability 00:38:53.040 --> 00:38:58.480 to sinless, to resist specific individual daily sins, to be tempted and 00:38:58.480 --> 00:39:01.840 to realize it, and say not today Satan, I don't want anything 00:39:01.840 --> 00:39:03.120 to do with that. 00:39:03.120 --> 00:39:06.560 But in the long run, every day, every week, every month, every 00:39:06.560 --> 00:39:10.080 year, for the rest of your life, you're going to sin. 00:39:10.080 --> 00:39:12.720 And that's why we point to the cross. 00:39:12.720 --> 00:39:16.400 That is why Christ is there pouring out his blood and his 00:39:16.480 --> 00:39:19.680 sacrifice for the fact that we can't live a perfect life. 00:39:19.680 --> 00:39:24.160 So excellence morally is always going to pale in comparison to godly 00:39:24.160 --> 00:39:27.360 living, to God's example of godly living. 00:39:27.360 --> 00:39:29.440 That doesn't mean that godly living doesn't exist. 00:39:29.600 --> 00:39:32.640 And it doesn't mean that it shouldn't be an example to us. 00:39:32.640 --> 00:39:36.960 But in other aspects of life, it's not a question of falling 00:39:36.960 --> 00:39:40.480 short of the glory of God to say that, well, I'm not 00:39:40.480 --> 00:39:43.440 a major league baseball player, and so what that guy is doing 00:39:43.440 --> 00:39:46.000 is stupid and dumb and it's not that impressive anyway. 00:39:46.000 --> 00:39:48.000 He hit two twenty nine the World Series. 00:39:48.000 --> 00:39:49.120 What a joke. 00:39:49.120 --> 00:39:52.080 You can't be disrespectful of excellence. 00:39:52.080 --> 00:39:56.480 For someone to have done something that difficult that well for that 00:39:56.480 --> 00:40:00.240 long to tear them down and to say, well, by my standards, 00:40:00.240 --> 00:40:01.280 that's nothing at all. 00:40:01.280 --> 00:40:02.400 It's perverted. 00:40:02.400 --> 00:40:04.240 It's spiritually perverted. 00:40:04.240 --> 00:40:07.280 And it's common among believers and unbelievers alike. 00:40:07.280 --> 00:40:09.760 And the only difference is, you know, kind of what attack they'll 00:40:09.760 --> 00:40:13.040 take. Everyone's gonna say, well, that's stupid and dumb and I could 00:40:13.040 --> 00:40:13.680 do that. 00:40:13.680 --> 00:40:18.160 And additionally, Christians will pile on with the additional blasphemy of, well, 00:40:18.160 --> 00:40:19.200 that's not even the gospel. 00:40:19.200 --> 00:40:21.200 So you're not allowed you can't like that. 00:40:21.200 --> 00:40:23.360 You can't think that Legos are fun. 00:40:23.360 --> 00:40:26.080 You can't think that this art is worthwhile. 00:40:26.080 --> 00:40:28.560 That's gross and you're not allowed to do that because it's not 00:40:28.560 --> 00:40:29.520 in the Bible. 00:40:29.520 --> 00:40:31.680 This is not Christian living. 00:40:31.680 --> 00:40:32.960 We have to do better. 00:40:32.960 --> 00:40:34.880 And we have to root it out of our own hearts and 00:40:34.880 --> 00:40:36.320 our minds and the way we think. 00:40:36.640 --> 00:40:41.200 This episode is a meta-episode about how we process the world around 00:40:41.200 --> 00:40:45.120 us. Because when you see excellence, if your first instinct is to 00:40:45.120 --> 00:40:48.960 tear it down and be derisive, you're making the world a worse 00:40:48.960 --> 00:40:52.080 place. And then when you bring Jesus into and say, well, this 00:40:52.080 --> 00:40:57.440 thing that someone did well that's laudable, that's morally above reproach, but 00:40:57.440 --> 00:41:01.040 it doesn't spread the gospel, so I'm gonna say something nasty about 00:41:01.040 --> 00:41:03.680 it, that's not permissible. 00:41:03.680 --> 00:41:07.280 That is in fact an anti-testimony for the cross. 00:41:07.280 --> 00:41:11.280 When you're doing that sort of thing in public where non-Christians can 00:41:11.280 --> 00:41:15.280 see you, and every time someone does anything good, you attack it, 00:41:15.280 --> 00:41:17.520 and you say, Well, as a Christian, I'm gonna tell you that 00:41:17.520 --> 00:41:19.120 this isn't how Jesus saved us. 00:41:19.120 --> 00:41:20.960 So you got to stop that. 00:41:20.960 --> 00:41:23.040 That makes you miserable. 00:41:23.040 --> 00:41:24.720 It's not good company. 00:41:24.720 --> 00:41:26.720 It's not a good Christian example. 00:41:26.880 --> 00:41:28.800 It's everything wrong. 00:41:28.800 --> 00:41:31.760 It's destroying the gospel when Christians act this way. 00:41:31.760 --> 00:41:35.440 And yet increasingly it seems like that's almost all that we see. 00:41:35.440 --> 00:41:37.680 And so, you know, we're talking about excellence. 00:41:37.680 --> 00:41:40.960 This will not be the most excellent episode that Stone Choir has 00:41:40.960 --> 00:41:42.640 ever done, and that's fine. 00:41:42.640 --> 00:41:46.800 Well the earliest episode that we did was on forgotten doctrines and 00:41:46.800 --> 00:41:52.000 scripture, and we highlighted five specific examples of doctrines that just kind 00:41:52.000 --> 00:41:53.600 of fell by the wayside. 00:41:53.600 --> 00:41:54.880 We don't do them anymore. 00:41:54.880 --> 00:41:56.080 We look at the Bible. 00:41:56.080 --> 00:41:59.840 We read scripture and we read these passages where it says things 00:41:59.840 --> 00:42:03.680 like, shake the dust off your feet is a curse against those 00:42:03.680 --> 00:42:04.960 who reject the gospel. 00:42:04.960 --> 00:42:06.240 And what do we do? 00:42:06.240 --> 00:42:08.000 We don't see anything at all. 00:42:08.000 --> 00:42:12.480 We're the Westworld android that's looking right at God's word saying to 00:42:12.480 --> 00:42:13.600 do something. 00:42:13.600 --> 00:42:17.360 And for basically 2,000 years, no Christians ever seen that or read 00:42:17.360 --> 00:42:20.960 that. And as we said in that episode over two years ago, 00:42:20.960 --> 00:42:22.480 I don't know what to do with that. 00:42:22.480 --> 00:42:24.720 I look at that passage and say, well, it's there. 00:42:24.720 --> 00:42:30.000 There's clearly there's some doctrinal element to this, particularly because the apostles 00:42:30.000 --> 00:42:30.560 did it. 00:42:30.560 --> 00:42:34.080 There are two examples in scripture of them obeying that to the 00:42:34.080 --> 00:42:36.160 letter, and they had just went away. 00:42:36.160 --> 00:42:39.520 We don't curse at people anymore for rejecting the gospel. 00:42:39.520 --> 00:42:41.440 God says to and we don't. 00:42:41.440 --> 00:42:46.080 So as we said in that episode about forgotten doctrines, neglected doctrines, 00:42:46.080 --> 00:42:47.600 that's not the core of the faith. 00:42:47.600 --> 00:42:50.960 That's not the most interesting or most important thing about Christianity at 00:42:50.960 --> 00:42:54.000 all. And yet when it's in scripture and we can't even see 00:42:54.000 --> 00:42:56.160 it, that's when we have a problem. 00:42:56.160 --> 00:42:59.040 So that episode, like this episode, and a lot of the episodes 00:42:59.040 --> 00:43:01.280 that we do, they're diagnostic tools. 00:43:01.280 --> 00:43:04.240 When we're dealing with scripture, when we're dealing with life, when we're 00:43:04.240 --> 00:43:09.280 dealing with other people, are there specific examples like choosing our purpose 00:43:09.280 --> 00:43:13.760 and seeking our motivation correctly, manifesting leadership in a way that's going 00:43:13.760 --> 00:43:17.520 to be godly and laudable, including stepping aside so that the better 00:43:17.520 --> 00:43:20.560 man can be the leader and it maybe some days it shouldn't 00:43:20.480 --> 00:43:21.600 be you. 00:43:21.600 --> 00:43:27.280 When we're looking at examples of excellence and we're responding in pernicious 00:43:27.520 --> 00:43:31.200 it's not even a carnal fashion because this is a new spirit. 00:43:31.200 --> 00:43:35.360 So it's not just unbelievers talk one way and believers talk another 00:43:35.360 --> 00:43:38.160 way and you know, Christians need to be a better influence on 00:43:38.160 --> 00:43:40.480 all these pagans are getting this stuff wrong. 00:43:40.480 --> 00:43:45.520 Culturally, post Gen X, when the irony and the sarcasm died, the 00:43:45.520 --> 00:43:49.120 new attack is to say there's nothing good, beautiful, and true at 00:43:49.120 --> 00:43:51.680 all. There's nothing in the world that's beautiful. 00:43:51.680 --> 00:43:52.960 It's all the same. 00:43:52.960 --> 00:43:54.640 There's nothing in the world that's excellent. 00:43:54.640 --> 00:43:55.680 It's all the same. 00:43:55.680 --> 00:43:56.880 You see excellence? 00:43:56.880 --> 00:43:58.080 That's not the gospel. 00:43:58.080 --> 00:43:58.960 Forget about that. 00:43:58.960 --> 00:43:59.840 That's not important. 00:43:59.840 --> 00:44:02.080 They should have done this other thing instead of this thing. 00:44:02.080 --> 00:44:04.160 Even though the thing that they did was excellent and it was 00:44:04.160 --> 00:44:07.920 amazing. I'm gonna despise it because I didn't do it and I 00:44:07.920 --> 00:44:10.720 know in my heart that I couldn't do it and I envy 00:44:10.720 --> 00:44:11.600 that they did it. 00:44:11.600 --> 00:44:14.000 I'm gonna be something gross in the punch bowl. 00:44:14.000 --> 00:44:17.520 I'm not gonna let them just enjoy this moment that's happy. 00:44:17.520 --> 00:44:21.120 I'm gonna say something nasty to tear them down. 00:44:21.120 --> 00:44:24.000 That's not a pagan versus Christian problem. 00:44:24.000 --> 00:44:26.720 That's a cultural problem that is everywhere. 00:44:26.720 --> 00:44:28.400 And it's just bad. 00:44:28.400 --> 00:44:32.800 We We should not look at excellent things and our first instinct 00:44:32.800 --> 00:44:34.160 is to tear them down. 00:44:34.160 --> 00:44:37.040 And so the reason for mentioning this, like this is not the 00:44:37.040 --> 00:44:40.960 most excellent episode we'll ever do, but it's a really important diagnostic 00:44:40.960 --> 00:44:44.320 tool to say: look, you're gonna catch yourself doing this? 00:44:44.320 --> 00:44:45.440 Think about it. 00:44:45.600 --> 00:44:47.680 As a diagnostic tool for yourself. 00:44:47.680 --> 00:44:48.640 What were you thinking? 00:44:48.640 --> 00:44:51.440 How did you get there when you saw something excellent? 00:44:51.440 --> 00:44:54.640 And the first thing that came out of your mouth was dismissal 00:44:55.200 --> 00:44:58.880 or envy or something just mean and nasty about something that was 00:44:58.880 --> 00:45:00.000 genuinely good. 00:45:00.000 --> 00:45:01.360 Why did you do that? 00:45:01.360 --> 00:45:05.600 What is it inside you that produced that fruit? 00:45:05.600 --> 00:45:07.200 Because that's the value there. 00:45:07.200 --> 00:45:08.480 That's the problem. 00:45:08.480 --> 00:45:11.680 I can't tell anyone individually what it's gonna be and yeah, we 00:45:11.840 --> 00:45:17.360 have been complaining lately online about people psychoanalyzing and psychologizing everything, but 00:45:17.360 --> 00:45:21.040 Christians do need to inspect our own motives to understand Why did 00:45:21.040 --> 00:45:23.120 I see one thing and then respond a certain way? 00:45:23.120 --> 00:45:24.320 Why did I say this? 00:45:24.320 --> 00:45:26.640 That cycle should always be going. 00:45:26.640 --> 00:45:28.080 Not in a panicky mode. 00:45:28.080 --> 00:45:30.480 Just, okay, does this check out? 00:45:30.480 --> 00:45:34.080 If I acknowledge the fact that it's undeniably true that God's watching 00:45:34.080 --> 00:45:36.880 me right now, watching me say this and do this, can I 00:45:36.880 --> 00:45:38.880 defend this before the throne of God? 00:45:38.880 --> 00:45:40.800 Because that's where it is in effect. 00:45:40.800 --> 00:45:44.720 Everything that we say and do is already taken before the judgment 00:45:44.720 --> 00:45:45.360 throne in the future. 00:45:46.160 --> 00:45:49.680 So we live our lives pretending that that's not the case because 00:45:49.680 --> 00:45:51.760 that's an awful lot of weight to bear. 00:45:51.760 --> 00:45:53.280 And that's kind of a later thing. 00:45:53.280 --> 00:45:55.040 We don't want to think about that too much. 00:45:55.040 --> 00:45:58.800 But in a moment, when you catch yourself seeing something excellent, that's 00:45:58.800 --> 00:46:00.160 whatever. I could do that. 00:46:00.160 --> 00:46:01.360 That's not impressive at all. 00:46:01.360 --> 00:46:02.160 That's whatever. 00:46:02.400 --> 00:46:03.440 it's dumb. 00:46:03.440 --> 00:46:06.160 If you're doing that, and it turns out that you had gross 00:46:06.160 --> 00:46:08.480 motives, maybe think about fixing them. 00:46:08.480 --> 00:46:09.360 That's it. 00:46:09.360 --> 00:46:12.480 This isn't heaven or hell for its own sake. 00:46:12.480 --> 00:46:17.520 But as I said earlier, this irony poisoning transmuting into I'm just 00:46:17.520 --> 00:46:22.240 gonna tear it down because good, beautiful, and true don't exist, excellence 00:46:22.240 --> 00:46:26.400 doesn't exist, that is actually theological in nature. 00:46:26.400 --> 00:46:30.560 That is actually a backdoor attack against God Himself. 00:46:30.560 --> 00:46:33.040 Because when you say that the only thing that exists is the 00:46:33.040 --> 00:46:36.720 cross and the gospel and all this worldly stuff is just it's 00:46:37.120 --> 00:46:38.640 whatever. It doesn't I don't even care. 00:46:38.880 --> 00:46:41.200 Congratulations, you're a Gnostic. 00:46:41.200 --> 00:46:44.160 That's what Gnosticism reduces everything to. 00:46:44.160 --> 00:46:48.400 That this life is a mirage and it's just some future without 00:46:48.400 --> 00:46:50.000 bodies or anything else. 00:46:50.000 --> 00:46:51.280 That's paganism. 00:46:51.280 --> 00:46:52.400 That's a heresy. 00:46:52.400 --> 00:46:55.120 We did an entire episode on that because we did at the 00:46:55.120 --> 00:46:58.960 beginning of last year specifically to highlight that that heresy is roared 00:46:58.960 --> 00:47:00.560 back in the church. 00:47:00.560 --> 00:47:06.480 So the small minor point about thinking about excellence, when you use 00:47:06.480 --> 00:47:09.440 that as a test, you're going to find potentially that in a 00:47:09.440 --> 00:47:12.880 lot of cases it's going to diagnose spiritual rot that maybe you 00:47:12.880 --> 00:47:15.040 didn't know even was there. 00:47:15.040 --> 00:47:16.640 So just think about this stuff. 00:47:16.640 --> 00:47:21.440 And if you catch yourself deriding something excellent, stop. 00:47:21.440 --> 00:47:24.960 Just back away quietly and bite your tongue. 00:47:24.960 --> 00:47:27.200 Don't say anything at all if that's your impulse. 00:47:27.200 --> 00:47:28.640 Because it's not a healthy one. 00:47:28.640 --> 00:47:33.840 It's not good for you, and it's not good for anyone else. 00:47:33.840 --> 00:47:39.040 At the end of many of his sacred compositions, perhaps all of 00:47:39.040 --> 00:47:41.120 them, I'm not certain on that point. 00:47:41.760 --> 00:47:48.320 Bach would write SDG Soli Deo Gloria, which of course we all 00:47:48.320 --> 00:47:51.600 know is glory to God alone, or to God alone be the 00:47:51.600 --> 00:47:55.200 glory, however you want to formulate that from the Latin. 00:47:55.200 --> 00:47:56.160 He did not do so 00:47:57.200 --> 00:48:02.880 on his secular works, but he could very well have done so. 00:48:02.880 --> 00:48:08.080 It's one of the points that we are making in this episode. 00:48:08.080 --> 00:48:09.760 It does not diminish 00:48:10.640 --> 00:48:14.240 You in any way, and it does not diminish God's glory when 00:48:14.240 --> 00:48:16.800 there are excellent things in his creation. 00:48:16.800 --> 00:48:21.520 And this really should go without saying it should be so obvious. 00:48:21.520 --> 00:48:26.960 Creation is God's creation, and so the things that are excellent in 00:48:26.960 --> 00:48:30.000 creation are to the glory of God. 00:48:30.000 --> 00:48:34.320 And that is from the trivial, maybe you're the best at darts 00:48:34.320 --> 00:48:35.680 in the world, up to 00:48:36.560 --> 00:48:41.920 compositions like those from Bach that will probably never be rivaled, regardless 00:48:41.920 --> 00:48:46.080 of how long God permits this universe to continue. 00:48:46.080 --> 00:48:48.640 And so he could very well have written the same thing on 00:48:48.640 --> 00:48:51.840 his secular works because those were to the glory of God as 00:48:51.840 --> 00:48:58.080 well. When you do things in your field that are excellent, you 00:48:58.080 --> 00:49:00.480 are doing that to the glory of God because you are using 00:49:00.480 --> 00:49:06.240 the gifts that God gave you in order to accomplish those things. 00:49:06.240 --> 00:49:11.600 And so we shouldn't deride these achievements, we shouldn't deride the excellence 00:49:11.600 --> 00:49:15.680 of other men in their fields, regardless of what that field may 00:49:15.680 --> 00:49:19.040 be, because we should recognize in that that it is something that 00:49:19.040 --> 00:49:22.080 is done to the glory of God. 00:49:22.080 --> 00:49:26.400 And in particular, Protestants need to recognize 00:49:28.080 --> 00:49:31.600 this is going to be a little different for the Roman Catholics 00:49:31.600 --> 00:49:36.400 and some others, but in particular, Protestants need to recognize that if 00:49:36.400 --> 00:49:40.960 you are inclined toward advancing the argument that, oh, well, that isn't 00:49:40.880 --> 00:49:42.240 about the cross. 00:49:42.240 --> 00:49:47.920 What you are effectively doing is denying the doctrine of justification. 00:49:47.920 --> 00:49:51.040 And the way in which you're doing that, the reason you're doing 00:49:51.040 --> 00:49:52.240 that, is because 00:49:53.120 --> 00:49:59.040 Correctly interpreted and correctly taught, the doctrine of justification is that it 00:49:59.040 --> 00:50:05.520 is a legal declaration that you are without sin, because Christ took 00:50:05.520 --> 00:50:06.880 your sin for you. 00:50:06.880 --> 00:50:09.600 Christ paid the penalty for you. 00:50:09.600 --> 00:50:13.040 And a legal declaration takes place in an instant. 00:50:13.040 --> 00:50:15.440 It is not an ongoing matter. 00:50:15.440 --> 00:50:18.560 Justification is not an ongoing matter. 00:50:18.800 --> 00:50:20.800 It is once and done. 00:50:20.800 --> 00:50:24.480 Now, the issue when you try to say that oh well that's 00:50:24.480 --> 00:50:28.720 not about the cross is you're trying to drag out justification into 00:50:28.720 --> 00:50:30.640 the rest of the Christian life. 00:50:30.640 --> 00:50:32.720 And it doesn't belong there. 00:50:32.720 --> 00:50:37.200 Justification is the entrance into the Christian life. 00:50:37.200 --> 00:50:44.640 Sanctification is the Christian life lived out after justification. 00:50:44.640 --> 00:50:48.320 That is not all about the cross. 00:50:48.320 --> 00:50:50.560 And so when someone tries to tell you that, oh well that 00:50:50.560 --> 00:50:53.920 isn't about the cross, that's not about Jesus, that's not what it 00:50:53.920 --> 00:50:55.200 means to be a Christian. 00:50:55.200 --> 00:50:58.560 And as Woe said, that's not how God speaks in his word. 00:50:58.800 --> 00:51:02.960 There is more to the Christian life than just the cross. 00:51:02.960 --> 00:51:06.960 Once you are justified, there is the and then of the Christian 00:51:06.960 --> 00:51:11.120 life. And part of that is living according to the skills and 00:51:11.120 --> 00:51:15.680 the abilities, all of these gifts that God has given you, and 00:51:15.680 --> 00:51:20.320 not deriding or attacking others for doing the same. 00:51:20.320 --> 00:51:25.280 If someone is excellent at a sport, regardless of what sport it 00:51:25.280 --> 00:51:29.280 happens to be, is that explicitly about justification? 00:51:29.280 --> 00:51:30.960 No, of course it's not. 00:51:30.960 --> 00:51:32.960 But is it to the glory of God still? 00:51:32.960 --> 00:51:34.320 Yes, absolutely. 00:51:34.320 --> 00:51:38.480 Because it is a demonstration of the gifts that God has given 00:51:38.480 --> 00:51:39.840 to that person. 00:51:39.840 --> 00:51:43.040 He could not achieve those things if God had not given him 00:51:43.120 --> 00:51:47.200 those abilities, and if he had not used those abilities. 00:51:47.200 --> 00:51:50.960 And it is proper to recognize both of those things. 00:51:50.960 --> 00:51:53.520 You can give thanks to God for the gifts that He has 00:51:53.520 --> 00:51:57.680 given to men, and you can also admire what those men have 00:51:57.680 --> 00:52:01.840 done with those gifts, because again there is the combination of that 00:52:01.840 --> 00:52:04.400 natural talent and the acquired skill. 00:52:04.400 --> 00:52:08.480 It is insufficient just to have the gifts from God. 00:52:08.480 --> 00:52:13.920 If God made you the best potential tennis player in all of 00:52:13.920 --> 00:52:16.880 human history, and all you do is sit on the couch and 00:52:16.880 --> 00:52:18.480 eat Cheetos. 00:52:18.480 --> 00:52:21.200 You are never going to be a good tennis player. 00:52:21.200 --> 00:52:25.120 It doesn't matter that you have the natural ability, that you have 00:52:25.120 --> 00:52:26.800 those natural gifts. 00:52:26.800 --> 00:52:28.880 You also have to put in the work. 00:52:28.880 --> 00:52:32.480 And so we can recognize that both of those things are present, 00:52:32.480 --> 00:52:37.440 and both of those things are worthy of honor and respect. 00:52:37.440 --> 00:52:43.120 And as Woe was saying about the issue of irony and sarcasm, 00:52:43.120 --> 00:52:48.080 being an older millennial, we sort of got both ends of this 00:52:48.080 --> 00:52:52.080 one, which is the case in so many different fields. 00:52:52.080 --> 00:52:55.680 But for us, we sort of got the tail end of all 00:52:55.680 --> 00:53:00.160 that irony and sarcasm, perhaps particularly growing up in Southern California, but 00:53:00.160 --> 00:53:03.920 we certainly got that, but we also lived through that transition, really 00:53:04.080 --> 00:53:08.400 Satan switching up his tactics, that transition to what has really hit 00:53:08.720 --> 00:53:13.200 the zoomer generation and younger, just full on in the face. 00:53:13.200 --> 00:53:15.280 It's a sort of nihilism. 00:53:15.280 --> 00:53:19.040 It's this denial that there is anything beautiful or good in the 00:53:19.040 --> 00:53:22.160 world, and that it's all just eh. 00:53:22.160 --> 00:53:24.240 It exists, that's fine. 00:53:24.240 --> 00:53:28.320 You'll see people who can see the most beautiful sunrise, and many 00:53:28.320 --> 00:53:31.600 of them are I'm not going to say there's one best one 00:53:31.600 --> 00:53:34.960 in all of history, because there are many beautiful ones, and they'll 00:53:34.960 --> 00:53:36.480 see that and they'll think nothing of it. 00:53:36.480 --> 00:53:39.280 Oh it's just another sunrise. 00:53:39.440 --> 00:53:42.240 No, every one of those sunrises is a gift from God and 00:53:42.240 --> 00:53:45.280 is something He created, and it is beautiful, And the same of 00:53:45.280 --> 00:53:47.120 course for the sun set. 00:53:47.120 --> 00:53:50.960 The natural world is beautiful, and we should recognize that and enjoy 00:53:50.960 --> 00:53:55.840 that. There are a number of anecdotes from different men who knew 00:53:55.840 --> 00:53:59.200 Tolkien, and some of them would say they didn't like to go 00:53:59.120 --> 00:54:03.200 for walks with him, because he would take too long looking at 00:54:03.200 --> 00:54:07.760 trees and various other things in the natural world. 00:54:07.760 --> 00:54:11.920 I don't think that that's a negative attribute to have. 00:54:12.160 --> 00:54:14.640 I don't think that's a negative personality trait. 00:54:14.640 --> 00:54:18.720 I think recognizing the beauty of the things in God's creation is 00:54:18.720 --> 00:54:21.840 admirable. And I think we should all spend a little more time 00:54:21.840 --> 00:54:22.880 doing that. 00:54:22.880 --> 00:54:25.520 We spend so much of our time rushing from one place to 00:54:26.000 --> 00:54:29.200 another that we don't stop and take any time to look at 00:54:29.200 --> 00:54:32.240 the creation that God has gifted us. 00:54:32.240 --> 00:54:34.160 God made us stewards of creation. 00:54:34.160 --> 00:54:37.360 We should recognize the beauty of it and enjoy it. 00:54:37.440 --> 00:54:40.000 Perhaps I act a little bit like talking on some of my 00:54:40.000 --> 00:54:41.120 hikes and walks. 00:54:41.120 --> 00:54:43.440 Usually I'm just with the dogs though, and they don't tend to 00:54:43.440 --> 00:54:48.080 complain. But I do think that we should stop and look at 00:54:48.080 --> 00:54:51.120 the things that are around us. 00:54:51.360 --> 00:54:54.560 Beauty is another one of those gifts of God 00:54:55.440 --> 00:54:58.720 that you don't really have to acquire. 00:54:58.720 --> 00:55:00.640 You can't even really acquire. 00:55:00.640 --> 00:55:04.560 It is something that you have or do not have as God 00:55:04.560 --> 00:55:06.960 has given it to you in the measure that He has given 00:55:06.960 --> 00:55:07.840 it to you. 00:55:07.840 --> 00:55:10.480 Yes, it is something that you have to maintain. 00:55:10.480 --> 00:55:14.800 The most obvious example for human beings would be obesity, because you 00:55:14.800 --> 00:55:17.920 can certainly lose the beauty that God has given you if you 00:55:17.920 --> 00:55:21.280 permit yourself to become morbidly obese. 00:55:21.280 --> 00:55:25.200 But just because beauty is something for which you didn't really have 00:55:25.200 --> 00:55:29.520 to work, doesn't mean it is something that we should ignore or 00:55:29.520 --> 00:55:32.800 something that we shouldn't honor and respect, it is still a gift 00:55:32.800 --> 00:55:37.760 from God, it is a good thing given to humanity in various 00:55:37.760 --> 00:55:41.040 measure across different people from God. 00:55:41.040 --> 00:55:43.520 And again it ties into the transcendentals. 00:55:43.520 --> 00:55:46.320 So much of this ties back to that in many of the 00:55:46.320 --> 00:55:50.480 episodes that we've done, this should be a core concern of Christian 00:55:50.480 --> 00:55:55.040 thought and the Christian life, because goodness, beauty, and truth, in whichever 00:55:55.040 --> 00:55:59.760 order you prefer, are attributes of God, which is to say they 00:55:59.760 --> 00:56:00.720 are God's nature. 00:56:00.720 --> 00:56:03.840 We won't get into the specifics of how that works here because 00:56:03.840 --> 00:56:06.800 it's complicated subject for another time. 00:56:06.800 --> 00:56:10.240 But these But these things being part of God's nature, in so 00:56:10.240 --> 00:56:13.920 far as they are reflected in the creation, are reflections of God 00:56:13.920 --> 00:56:19.440 Himself, and we should recognize that reflection of God in His creation, 00:56:19.440 --> 00:56:21.360 and we should cherish it. 00:56:21.360 --> 00:56:25.440 We should never think that these things are trivial or something that 00:56:25.440 --> 00:56:26.240 can be dismissed. 00:56:26.240 --> 00:56:29.760 Oh, I've seen a sunrise before, I don't care about this one. 00:56:29.760 --> 00:56:33.280 Would you respond that way if God were standing next to you? 00:56:33.280 --> 00:56:35.600 Would you tell him I don't care about this sunrise that you 00:56:36.080 --> 00:56:38.480 created because I've seen other ones? 00:56:38.480 --> 00:56:41.920 Each and every one is a gift from God, and the same 00:56:41.920 --> 00:56:44.800 is true of every time you see a beautiful flower or a 00:56:44.800 --> 00:56:48.640 particularly interesting piece of moss, whatever it happens to be To be, 00:56:48.640 --> 00:56:52.880 again from the seemingly most trivial up to the grandest scale. 00:56:52.880 --> 00:56:56.320 Whether it is the most beautiful sunrise you've ever seen in your 00:56:56.320 --> 00:57:00.800 life over a mountain range while you're out camping, or again a 00:57:00.800 --> 00:57:04.240 particularly interesting piece of moss. 00:57:04.240 --> 00:57:08.960 It doesn't matter, because they are all excellent in a certain way. 00:57:08.960 --> 00:57:12.400 They are all gifts from God, things that He has created for 00:57:12.400 --> 00:57:14.320 us to enjoy. 00:57:14.320 --> 00:57:19.680 And so whether it is the natural world, or humans are also 00:57:19.680 --> 00:57:21.760 part of the natural world, but we do like to draw the 00:57:21.760 --> 00:57:25.920 distinction, or it is the gifts that have been given and trained 00:57:26.080 --> 00:57:31.920 and are on display have been exercised by men, we should cherish 00:57:31.920 --> 00:57:32.960 these things. 00:57:32.960 --> 00:57:35.680 We should not attack these things, we should not seek to tear 00:57:35.680 --> 00:57:40.960 them down or to minimize them, or to respond ironically or sarcastically. 00:57:40.800 --> 00:57:44.480 And I recognize that I have a tendency to respond with irony 00:57:44.480 --> 00:57:48.560 or sarcasm, but by and large I do not do so, and 00:57:48.560 --> 00:57:53.920 I intentionally avoid doing so with things like this, because these things 00:57:54.000 --> 00:57:57.840 again are gifts from God and we should not minimize them. 00:57:57.840 --> 00:58:00.880 Because when you minimize these things, what you're really doing is you're 00:58:00.880 --> 00:58:03.120 insulting God. 00:58:03.120 --> 00:58:06.240 And that is something of which we should be terrified. 00:58:06.400 --> 00:58:09.680 Christians should never want to no one should want to, but Christians 00:58:09.680 --> 00:58:13.200 certainly should never want to insult God. 00:58:13.200 --> 00:58:17.920 And if you insult his creation, you are insulting him. 00:58:18.800 --> 00:58:22.080 We could think of some of the responses of Job's friends as 00:58:22.080 --> 00:58:25.120 much as we like to return to the book of Job. 00:58:25.360 --> 00:58:29.360 But I think that a large part of this is that if 00:58:29.360 --> 00:58:35.280 we resort to irony or sarcasm if we're from the older millennial 00:58:35.280 --> 00:58:40.000 or older generations, or a certain form of nihilism or perhaps even 00:58:40.000 --> 00:58:45.600 absurdism in some cases for the younger millennials and younger generations, is 00:58:45.600 --> 00:58:49.600 that if we respond in that way, we don't have to engage 00:58:49.600 --> 00:58:51.200 with these things in 00:58:52.080 --> 00:58:57.280 an authentic and a heartfelt way, a real way, and if we 00:58:57.280 --> 00:59:01.280 have that sort of light touch, then nothing matters to us too 00:59:01.280 --> 00:59:06.000 much, and nothing runs the risk of causing us some kind of 00:59:06.000 --> 00:59:08.880 harm. And that is not really a life lived. 00:59:08.880 --> 00:59:11.360 That is life avoided. 00:59:11.360 --> 00:59:14.320 You are going to have to invest in certain things in this 00:59:14.320 --> 00:59:17.520 life. One of the most obvious examples, of course, and everyone should 00:59:17.520 --> 00:59:20.880 have thought of it already, is marriage. 00:59:20.880 --> 00:59:25.200 When you marry, you are running a very real risk of suffering 00:59:25.440 --> 00:59:26.720 certain harms. 00:59:26.720 --> 00:59:28.880 That doesn't mean that you should avoid it. 00:59:28.880 --> 00:59:32.560 It doesn't mean that a wife is a curse. 00:59:32.560 --> 00:59:34.320 A wife is still a gift from God. 00:59:34.320 --> 00:59:37.360 He who finds a wife finds a good thing and finds favor 00:59:37.440 --> 00:59:38.960 with the Lord. 00:59:38.960 --> 00:59:40.800 That should be cherished. 00:59:40.800 --> 00:59:43.600 The same is true of everything in this life. 00:59:43.600 --> 00:59:47.360 If you invest in it, there is the very real risk of 00:59:47.360 --> 00:59:48.320 some kind of harm. 00:59:48.320 --> 00:59:51.600 In many cases, there is the certainty of harm. 00:59:51.600 --> 00:59:54.080 Another good example would be pets. 00:59:54.080 --> 00:59:59.040 If you invest time and emotion and all of these other things 00:59:59.040 --> 01:00:02.720 into your pets, there is going to be a certain level of 01:00:02.720 --> 01:00:06.320 harm inflicted on you when the pet dies, and you are going 01:00:06.320 --> 01:00:09.920 to by and large outlive a number of your pets in this 01:00:09.920 --> 01:00:14.320 life. I think I've outlived seven of my dogs so far. 01:00:14.320 --> 01:00:16.880 That is just the reality of living this life. 01:00:16.880 --> 01:00:22.000 But again, if you do not make that investment, if you remove 01:00:22.000 --> 01:00:26.320 yourself from it by having this light touch shielded by your irony 01:00:26.320 --> 01:00:30.720 and your sarcasm or your nihilism, all you're doing is harming yourself 01:00:30.880 --> 01:00:32.480 and insulting God. 01:00:32.480 --> 01:00:35.520 You're saying, I'm not going to invest in your creation because I 01:00:35.520 --> 01:00:38.640 don't want to deal with these things. 01:00:38.640 --> 01:00:41.360 You aren't actually avoiding the harm. 01:00:41.360 --> 01:00:45.440 You're inflicting a greater and more lasting harm on yourself. 01:00:45.440 --> 01:00:50.160 And the way to avoid that is by not having these inauthentic 01:00:50.160 --> 01:00:53.200 responses to the natural world. 01:00:53.280 --> 01:00:57.200 If you look at a sunset, you are going to recognize that 01:00:57.200 --> 01:00:58.800 it is beautiful. 01:00:58.800 --> 01:01:03.600 The only way that you can respond to that in any other 01:01:03.600 --> 01:01:08.480 form, in any other way, than recognizing the beauty and appreciating it 01:01:08.640 --> 01:01:12.160 is if you have been trained by the world and reinforcing it 01:01:12.160 --> 01:01:17.440 yourself to respond with that sort of aloofness, that indifference to these 01:01:17.440 --> 01:01:20.400 things. Don't do that. 01:01:20.400 --> 01:01:26.800 Have the actual, authentic, natural response that God gave you for free. 01:01:27.120 --> 01:01:30.160 You recognize excellence when you see it. 01:01:30.160 --> 01:01:32.800 There are some cases in which it's more difficult to discern 01:01:33.680 --> 01:01:37.680 excellence, or at least certain degrees of it, but by and large 01:01:37.760 --> 01:01:39.920 we recognize it when we see it. 01:01:39.920 --> 01:01:43.440 You recognize if someone is great at a sport, because you can 01:01:43.440 --> 01:01:46.480 kind of look at it and go, there's no way I could 01:01:46.480 --> 01:01:47.360 do that. 01:01:47.360 --> 01:01:51.120 He would destroy me at tennis or whatever it happens to be 01:01:51.200 --> 01:01:52.240 bowling. 01:01:54.160 --> 01:01:56.480 The same thing is true of the natural world. 01:01:56.480 --> 01:01:59.520 When you see beautiful, you recognize it. 01:01:59.520 --> 01:02:03.520 Because beauty is something that is built into creation and is built 01:02:03.520 --> 01:02:04.960 into the human psyche. 01:02:04.960 --> 01:02:06.720 It is something that God has given us. 01:02:06.720 --> 01:02:10.800 Because don't forget that we are in fact icons, idols of God 01:02:10.880 --> 01:02:15.200 in this world, and so we have a reflection of His abilities 01:02:15.200 --> 01:02:18.160 that He has given us, of His attributes. 01:02:18.160 --> 01:02:21.760 And so we recognize goodness, beauty, and truth when we see these 01:02:21.760 --> 01:02:26.800 things. The only way that you can fail to recognize those is 01:02:26.800 --> 01:02:29.280 by deliberately suppressing them. 01:02:29.280 --> 01:02:32.720 Now, over a lifetime of wickedness, of course, it becomes easier because 01:02:32.720 --> 01:02:36.960 eventually your conscience becomes seared, your heart becomes dead, it becomes a 01:02:37.520 --> 01:02:40.480 stone, and so then it's too late. 01:02:40.480 --> 01:02:43.920 You no longer recognize goodness and beauty and truth. 01:02:43.920 --> 01:02:47.440 What we're saying is don't go down that path. 01:02:47.440 --> 01:02:49.200 Don't take that road. 01:02:49.200 --> 01:02:51.200 It doesn't lead anywhere good. 01:02:51.200 --> 01:02:54.320 It leads to a place where all you've done is destroyed yourself 01:02:54.320 --> 01:02:57.280 and made the world worse in the process. 01:02:57.280 --> 01:02:59.520 That's of course what Satan wants. 01:02:59.520 --> 01:03:02.880 Satan doesn't want you to recognize that there's beauty in the world. 01:03:02.880 --> 01:03:06.480 He doesn't want you to recognize that there's goodness in the world. 01:03:06.480 --> 01:03:10.320 He certainly doesn't want you to recognize there's truth. 01:03:10.320 --> 01:03:13.680 He would much rather you respond with indifference. 01:03:13.680 --> 01:03:16.160 But if he can't get you to be totally indifferent, then at 01:03:16.160 --> 01:03:18.960 least you can be ironic in your approach, or you can be 01:03:18.960 --> 01:03:20.800 sarcastic in your response. 01:03:20.800 --> 01:03:23.360 That's almost as good. 01:03:23.360 --> 01:03:25.120 Do not do that. 01:03:25.120 --> 01:03:27.440 That is not living a Christian life. 01:03:27.440 --> 01:03:30.160 It's not living a life worth living. 01:03:30.160 --> 01:03:35.600 You can't have this light touch with regard to life, and actually 01:03:35.600 --> 01:03:37.920 have a life that is lived. 01:03:37.920 --> 01:03:41.440 You may very well live a long time. 01:03:41.680 --> 01:03:43.760 But effectively you died long ago. 01:03:43.760 --> 01:03:47.040 It doesn't matter how many years God happens to give you on 01:03:47.040 --> 01:03:51.600 this earth, if you don't spend them appropriately, if you don't invest 01:03:51.920 --> 01:03:53.920 them appropriately. 01:03:53.920 --> 01:03:58.800 And part of that is recognizing that excellence exists, that there is 01:03:58.800 --> 01:04:03.040 excellence all around you, and that it is to be appreciated, not 01:04:03.040 --> 01:04:09.040 attacked, or derided, or ignored, or treat it as trivial, or indifferent, 01:04:09.040 --> 01:04:13.600 but recognized for what it is, a gift from God that is 01:04:13.600 --> 01:04:17.600 meant for us to enjoy and to make the world better for 01:04:17.600 --> 01:04:21.360 us, and then we can indeed enjoy those improvements as well. 01:04:21.360 --> 01:04:26.400 Excellence is a good thing, regardless of where we find it, regardless 01:04:26.400 --> 01:04:28.960 of the field, and we should celebrate 01:04:28.960 --> 01:04:29.600 that. 01:04:30.400 --> 01:04:34.080 As Cory was describing walking in nature and appreciating it. 01:04:34.080 --> 01:04:38.000 Even before he referenced Job, I had already pulled up Job 38 01:04:38.240 --> 01:04:40.720 and following, so I could reference it again. 01:04:40.720 --> 01:04:42.960 Hopefully a few of you thought of that. 01:04:42.960 --> 01:04:45.360 If you haven't read it before, or if you haven't had it 01:04:45.360 --> 01:04:49.200 recently, go read Job 38 through the end of the book. 01:04:49.200 --> 01:04:53.360 It's when God comes out of the whirlwind and challenges Job and 01:04:53.360 --> 01:04:55.280 says, Who are you to challenge me? 01:04:55.280 --> 01:04:59.280 And what he does is describes creation. 01:04:59.280 --> 01:05:02.160 He describes his very good work. 01:05:02.160 --> 01:05:06.880 God describes the excellent world that he has created, in contrast to 01:05:06.880 --> 01:05:11.840 Job's uppity attitude to challenge him. 01:05:11.840 --> 01:05:14.160 That's part of what's going on here. 01:05:14.160 --> 01:05:16.080 It's a question of attitude. 01:05:16.080 --> 01:05:18.400 And the reason that I mentioned JD Vance and P. 01:05:18.400 --> 01:05:22.160 Heggseth earlier is because as we see guys like that from that 01:05:22.160 --> 01:05:26.240 generation who are seem to be good examples so far of what 01:05:26.800 --> 01:05:30.960 men should be doing in their political positions, they come across as 01:05:30.960 --> 01:05:32.720 sincere because they are. 01:05:32.720 --> 01:05:36.000 It's very difficult to fake sincerity. 01:05:36.000 --> 01:05:38.960 And that's something that for all of our faults, Corey and I 01:05:38.960 --> 01:05:39.920 are both sincere. 01:05:40.000 --> 01:05:42.960 I think that comes through to people who are also sincere. 01:05:42.960 --> 01:05:46.000 Someone who's not sincere, it's gonna sound alien. 01:05:46.000 --> 01:05:48.240 And so there are a lot of people who hear JD Vance 01:05:48.320 --> 01:05:49.920 and Heggseth and whomever else. 01:05:49.920 --> 01:05:51.120 I don't think Trump's sincere. 01:05:51.120 --> 01:05:54.480 I think he's always a performer, but he surrounds himself with sincere 01:05:54.480 --> 01:05:57.600 guys. I don't mean that Trump is insincere, but like he's just 01:05:57.760 --> 01:05:59.840 he's always on. 01:05:59.840 --> 01:06:04.240 When his lieutenants go out, they have not a vulnerability, but they 01:06:04.240 --> 01:06:10.080 have a sincerity that shows that it's rooted in something substantial. 01:06:10.080 --> 01:06:11.680 They're not just performing. 01:06:11.680 --> 01:06:14.080 They're not performing for the camera or the microphone. 01:06:14.080 --> 01:06:16.000 They're not performing for an audience. 01:06:16.000 --> 01:06:19.200 They're getting a message out there, but they're doing it in a 01:06:19.200 --> 01:06:21.760 way that's I don't know of a way to describe it other 01:06:21.760 --> 01:06:22.960 than sincere. 01:06:22.960 --> 01:06:28.000 The irony poisoning, the refusal to recognize excellence, the refusal to see 01:06:28.000 --> 01:06:29.680 beauty in the world. 01:06:29.680 --> 01:06:34.000 All of it is, again, it's fundamentally an anti-Christian attitude. 01:06:34.160 --> 01:06:37.520 That's the reason the Job 38 and following is such a useful 01:06:37.680 --> 01:06:39.440 text. It's not a proof text. 01:06:39.440 --> 01:06:43.280 It's just here's God talking about himself through the world that he 01:06:43.280 --> 01:06:45.920 created and saying, Look at this. 01:06:45.920 --> 01:06:47.600 Do you want to see how big I am? 01:06:47.600 --> 01:06:49.120 Look at everything around you. 01:06:49.120 --> 01:06:51.280 I'm the one who made this. 01:06:51.280 --> 01:06:54.960 There are things in this world that should rightly inspire awe. 01:06:54.960 --> 01:06:56.720 Chief among them is God Himself. 01:06:57.120 --> 01:07:00.640 But when He calls upon us to see how awesome He is, 01:07:00.640 --> 01:07:02.480 He points to creation. 01:07:02.480 --> 01:07:08.160 And so if you cannot at least recognize excellence in creation, there's 01:07:08.160 --> 01:07:11.680 a spiritual blindness that you really need to examine and fix. 01:07:11.680 --> 01:07:13.840 And that's true in other human endeavors. 01:07:13.840 --> 01:07:16.000 As Corey said, we are part of creation. 01:07:16.000 --> 01:07:17.600 We're creatures. 01:07:17.600 --> 01:07:21.520 We are at the top of the food chain by design. 01:07:21.520 --> 01:07:24.000 We are to be stewards of this world. 01:07:24.000 --> 01:07:25.920 We're not to prey upon it. 01:07:25.920 --> 01:07:27.840 We are to care for it. 01:07:27.840 --> 01:07:30.400 But that is done from a place of dominance. 01:07:30.400 --> 01:07:33.920 And that is scripture itself attests what we all see with our 01:07:33.920 --> 01:07:34.640 own eyes. 01:07:34.640 --> 01:07:37.680 That inspires a degree of fear among the beasts. 01:07:37.680 --> 01:07:41.360 They recognize that we are dangerous. 01:07:41.360 --> 01:07:43.680 We are something to be feared. 01:07:43.680 --> 01:07:45.280 And that's not a bad thing. 01:07:45.280 --> 01:07:47.600 That's a recognition of hierarchy. 01:07:47.600 --> 01:07:50.320 Creatures can recognize, and yet people can't. 01:07:50.640 --> 01:07:56.480 When people can no longer recognize hierarchy, it's not only breaking the 01:07:56.480 --> 01:08:01.840 social paradigm that's necessary for a civilization, it's also breaking what's necessary 01:08:01.840 --> 01:08:04.960 to have a proper relationship with God because 01:08:05.920 --> 01:08:10.240 creature creator is hierarchical. 01:08:10.240 --> 01:08:14.640 If you can't recognize that you were not equals with God, that 01:08:14.640 --> 01:08:18.000 you are not equals with other men in all ways. 01:08:18.000 --> 01:08:22.080 We are in terms of salvation, we're either saved or we're damned. 01:08:22.080 --> 01:08:25.920 And all men who are saved, it's received as a gift from 01:08:25.920 --> 01:08:31.680 God. So there's no pulling rank when it comes to salvation, but 01:08:31.680 --> 01:08:35.600 in every other way, there's going to be some degree of rank 01:08:35.600 --> 01:08:39.840 and hierarchy, and therefore you will find excellence among you, and you 01:08:39.840 --> 01:08:42.400 will find people who just completely fall short. 01:08:42.560 --> 01:08:45.280 And what does God say to do with those, with the meek? 01:08:45.280 --> 01:08:47.680 He says to care for them. 01:08:47.680 --> 01:08:53.520 The fact that there's superiority somewhere in the room does not diminish 01:08:53.520 --> 01:08:54.960 everyone else. 01:08:54.960 --> 01:08:57.920 It means that everyone else has an example and potentially everyone else 01:08:57.920 --> 01:08:59.120 has a protector. 01:08:59.120 --> 01:09:01.360 That was the purpose of the leadership episode. 01:09:01.360 --> 01:09:07.120 The guy who's taller, stronger, smarter, braver, you put him in charge 01:09:07.280 --> 01:09:09.120 because he's going to take care of you. 01:09:09.120 --> 01:09:11.280 He's going to do a better job at doing the things that 01:09:11.280 --> 01:09:13.040 need done than you could do. 01:09:13.040 --> 01:09:15.360 And if you're that man, you need to step up and do 01:09:15.360 --> 01:09:19.040 it. I think one of the most important things that we lose 01:09:19.040 --> 01:09:24.560 when we refuse to acknowledge excellence, is the recognition of how it 01:09:24.560 --> 01:09:28.320 touches on all of our lives in the mundane aspects. 01:09:28.320 --> 01:09:33.040 Because when you see the guy in the World Series bat 229, 01:09:33.040 --> 01:09:36.960 you know, he swings the bat, you know, half a dozen times 01:09:36.960 --> 01:09:38.240 in the game. 01:09:38.240 --> 01:09:41.520 A dozen times at the most, maybe. 01:09:41.520 --> 01:09:45.040 What you don't see is that in that year he swung the 01:09:45.040 --> 01:09:46.880 bat fifty thousand times. 01:09:46.880 --> 01:09:48.160 That's why he's a pro. 01:09:48.400 --> 01:09:52.160 Because he swings the bat fifty thousand times a year every year. 01:09:52.160 --> 01:09:53.680 You don't do that. 01:09:53.680 --> 01:09:57.360 So you couldn't possibly bat even two twenty-nine in the World Series 01:09:57.520 --> 01:10:00.000 because you Because you couldn't even touch a pitch from a major 01:10:00.080 --> 01:10:01.600 league pitcher. 01:10:01.600 --> 01:10:06.480 We don't recognize greatness and so we don't recognize the value of 01:10:06.480 --> 01:10:09.680 our own mundane acts, the daily grind. 01:10:09.680 --> 01:10:12.800 You know, we talked last week about purpose and motivation. 01:10:12.800 --> 01:10:14.480 That's about the daily grind. 01:10:14.480 --> 01:10:16.800 Not every day that you have at work is going to be 01:10:16.800 --> 01:10:18.960 excellent, and that's fine. 01:10:18.960 --> 01:10:22.640 Not everything has to be superlative in order for it to be 01:10:22.640 --> 01:10:24.880 good and worthy. 01:10:24.880 --> 01:10:28.240 When we take pot shots at excellence, what we're doing is we're 01:10:28.160 --> 01:10:31.120 denigrating all the hard work that it took to get there. 01:10:31.120 --> 01:10:34.560 And that's usually what the guys they'll thank God, they'll thank their 01:10:34.560 --> 01:10:37.920 families, they'll thank their coaches for putting them through the ringer with 01:10:37.920 --> 01:10:41.760 training. Because they didn't just swing half a dozen times in the 01:10:41.760 --> 01:10:44.960 game, they swung fifty thousand times in the season. 01:10:44.960 --> 01:10:47.280 That's what got it done. 01:10:47.280 --> 01:10:50.480 And so when you just see a few small examples and you 01:10:50.480 --> 01:10:55.840 see excellence manifest in that moment, always remember the the same ordinary 01:10:55.840 --> 01:10:59.280 stuff that they got it done with you are capable of. 01:10:59.280 --> 01:11:01.920 And again, you know, we talked about talent, not saying everyone can 01:11:02.240 --> 01:11:04.560 be a major league player and shouldn't want to. 01:11:04.560 --> 01:11:07.440 I don't think that's like I would rather those guys with that 01:11:07.440 --> 01:11:09.760 ability do something else, but I also don't care. 01:11:09.760 --> 01:11:12.640 I'm not gonna take pot shots of them when they're doing something 01:11:12.640 --> 01:11:13.600 really well. 01:11:13.600 --> 01:11:17.680 What I will recognize is that their tenacity, you know, it's not 01:11:17.680 --> 01:11:20.080 just that they swung the bat fifty thousand times. 01:11:20.080 --> 01:11:22.880 They're doing drills for whatever their positions are. 01:11:22.880 --> 01:11:25.760 Lately, you know, for last decade or two, they're all in the 01:11:25.760 --> 01:11:26.720 weight room. 01:11:26.720 --> 01:11:32.160 Probably many of them have scientifically calibrated diets that they stick to 01:11:32.160 --> 01:11:36.800 religiously during the season in preseason training, specifically so that they can 01:11:36.800 --> 01:11:40.000 compete at that level because that's how hard it is. 01:11:40.000 --> 01:11:43.680 So all those mundane things that you don't see on the big 01:11:43.680 --> 01:11:47.520 screen are what it takes to achieve that level of excellence. 01:11:47.520 --> 01:11:49.840 And even then, most don't achieve the excellence. 01:11:49.840 --> 01:11:53.280 But the mundane work, you are a participant in that too, every 01:11:53.280 --> 01:11:56.640 day. Every time you go to work, you're probably, you know, if 01:11:56.640 --> 01:11:59.600 you're lucky, you have an excellent day a couple times a month. 01:11:59.600 --> 01:12:02.560 And the rest of the time, you're sometimes you just feel lucky 01:12:02.560 --> 01:12:03.840 to get through it. 01:12:03.840 --> 01:12:09.040 But what's important is that you are a participant in excellence by 01:12:09.280 --> 01:12:11.280 doing the mundane things. 01:12:11.280 --> 01:12:14.000 You're doing the same kind of grind that they're doing. 01:12:14.000 --> 01:12:17.840 You're doing a different grind with different results, and you have, you 01:12:17.840 --> 01:12:22.000 know, ostensibly set a good purpose for for whatever is keeping you 01:12:22.000 --> 01:12:23.920 in the game for your job. 01:12:23.920 --> 01:12:26.640 You know, sometimes the purpose is just I gotta feed my family. 01:12:26.640 --> 01:12:30.000 That is one of the paramount purposes in any man's life. 01:12:30.160 --> 01:12:33.280 Job might stink, but if it feeds your family, you do it 01:12:33.360 --> 01:12:34.880 'cause you gotta get it done. 01:12:35.440 --> 01:12:41.440 That doesn't always look or feel excellent, but doing that work is 01:12:41.440 --> 01:12:46.960 invaluable. And the reason for highlighting excellence, for highlighting the pinnacle. 01:12:46.960 --> 01:12:49.200 In fact, I looked up the etymology of excellence. 01:12:49.200 --> 01:12:51.600 I can get into it because it doesn't really matter here, but 01:12:51.600 --> 01:12:55.840 the etymology of excellence has to do with lofty or great heights 01:12:56.000 --> 01:13:01.120 pinnacle. It's all relative in physical terms, where you have something higher. 01:13:01.600 --> 01:13:05.520 And every time we talk about these things in just normal conversation, 01:13:05.520 --> 01:13:09.360 the heights, the peaks, the pinnacle, the thing that's excellent is that 01:13:09.360 --> 01:13:11.040 which is above the rest. 01:13:11.040 --> 01:13:15.200 There can only be one capstone that's right on top, right in 01:13:15.200 --> 01:13:15.840 the middle. 01:13:15.840 --> 01:13:18.240 And then all the other stones on the wall are what make 01:13:18.240 --> 01:13:19.360 it possible. 01:13:19.360 --> 01:13:22.480 So the daily grind, the hard work that we do that doesn't 01:13:22.480 --> 01:13:25.520 get recognition, you know, you get paid for it, hopefully. 01:13:25.840 --> 01:13:28.640 but you don't necessarily get a pat on the back for it 01:13:28.720 --> 01:13:30.640 and it doesn't look impressive. 01:13:30.640 --> 01:13:35.040 But by delivering day after day, you are building a wall that 01:13:35.200 --> 01:13:39.440 will eventually have a capstone that can be called excellent through having 01:13:39.440 --> 01:13:40.800 lived a good life. 01:13:40.800 --> 01:13:42.800 And this has nothing to with salvation. 01:13:42.800 --> 01:13:48.720 It's just show up, do the work, be honest, be completely ordinary, 01:13:48.720 --> 01:13:51.840 and you are a participant in the very excellence that we celebrate 01:13:51.840 --> 01:13:53.040 whenever we see it. 01:13:53.040 --> 01:13:57.840 It's a good thing to be sincere about seeing amazing performances, about 01:13:57.840 --> 01:14:02.240 seeing amazing moments in history, because it's a reminder that 01:14:03.120 --> 01:14:06.880 we as men are capable of doing incredible things when we put 01:14:06.880 --> 01:14:08.960 that much effort into it. 01:14:08.960 --> 01:14:11.120 And not every man can achieve that. 01:14:11.120 --> 01:14:13.520 You know, rocket science is rocket science. 01:14:13.520 --> 01:14:16.320 You know, rocket science and brain surgery, two of the hardest things 01:14:16.320 --> 01:14:17.440 that man can do do. 01:14:17.440 --> 01:14:22.000 So they're highlighted, they're singled out or doubled out as examples of 01:14:22.000 --> 01:14:25.200 most of you can't do this and you wouldn't want to because 01:14:25.200 --> 01:14:27.040 you're going to kill people if you try. 01:14:27.040 --> 01:14:28.480 It's really hard. 01:14:28.480 --> 01:14:30.960 Even if you're good at it, it's really hard. 01:14:30.960 --> 01:14:34.720 When we see someone doing the best, someone doing something that's very 01:14:34.720 --> 01:14:39.280 good, something that's excellent, always give that the credit that's due. 01:14:39.280 --> 01:14:42.560 Just be willing to have a sincere and open heart to say, 01:14:42.560 --> 01:14:44.000 yeah, that's impressive. 01:14:44.000 --> 01:14:46.160 I'm delighted to have seen that. 01:14:46.160 --> 01:14:48.800 And you can do that with the recognition of all the hard 01:14:48.800 --> 01:14:50.480 work that it took to get there. 01:14:50.480 --> 01:14:53.520 You know, we see the rockets go up every time that Elon 01:14:53.600 --> 01:14:56.400 launches. Now it's so mundane that no one really pays attention to 01:14:56.400 --> 01:14:57.840 most of the rocket launches. 01:14:58.000 --> 01:15:00.480 He blew up a bunch of rockets at the beginning. 01:15:00.480 --> 01:15:03.680 The first rockets all exploded because it's rocket science. 01:15:03.680 --> 01:15:06.720 So when you see guys at the pinnacle doing excellent work, it's 01:15:06.720 --> 01:15:09.360 easy to forget how much struggle it took to get there. 01:15:09.360 --> 01:15:12.640 And that's struggle is a struggle that you're familiar with. 01:15:12.640 --> 01:15:18.480 So just remember that when you denigrate excellence, you're actually dragging yourself. 01:15:18.480 --> 01:15:23.280 You're diminishing yourself by refusing to acknowledge that the same hard work 01:15:23.280 --> 01:15:26.240 that you do, that you participate in is a sort of hard 01:15:26.240 --> 01:15:27.760 work that produces excellence. 01:15:27.760 --> 01:15:30.800 And even though the trajectory of most of our lives is going 01:15:30.800 --> 01:15:34.480 to follow a path where we don't ever see visible public excellence 01:15:34.480 --> 01:15:36.640 like we're talking about as examples here. 01:15:36.640 --> 01:15:38.560 That's perfectly fine. 01:15:38.560 --> 01:15:44.000 The hard work, the sincere and honest work has a moral excellence 01:15:44.000 --> 01:15:45.840 because it's the right thing to do. 01:15:45.840 --> 01:15:48.080 And you don't do it for credit, you don't do it for 01:15:48.080 --> 01:15:52.480 glory, except for the glory of God, and that's just fine. 01:15:52.480 --> 01:15:55.680 But try to make sure you get away from the irony poisoned 01:15:55.680 --> 01:16:00.320 or post-irony poisoned feminized crabs in a bucket attitude of I'm gonna 01:16:00.320 --> 01:16:03.040 tear this thing down because it's better than me. 01:16:03.040 --> 01:16:04.480 No man should act that way. 01:16:04.480 --> 01:16:07.040 And certainly no Christian should act that way. 01:16:07.040 --> 01:16:10.560 We should celebrate excellence because it's an example for us all. 01:16:10.560 --> 01:16:12.080 It's an inspiration. 01:16:12.080 --> 01:16:15.840 To be a human who is alive to witness such things is 01:16:15.840 --> 01:16:16.880 a privilege. 01:16:16.880 --> 01:16:18.400 We should be happy about it. 01:16:18.400 --> 01:16:21.440 Just as happy as Tolkien was walking in the woods, and he 01:16:21.440 --> 01:16:23.120 will again in the new earth. 01:16:23.120 --> 01:16:26.400 Everything will be recreated, and we're all gonna get to enjoy walks 01:16:26.400 --> 01:16:27.600 with Tolkien together. 01:16:27.600 --> 01:16:28.720 We'll have eternity. 01:16:28.800 --> 01:16:30.960 I look forward to my turn because I loved his books as 01:16:30.960 --> 01:16:32.160 a kid. 01:16:32.160 --> 01:16:37.120 That creation that he celebrated, ad nauseum for some people's tastes and 01:16:37.120 --> 01:16:41.600 his novels, were inspired by his love of God's creation. 01:16:41.600 --> 01:16:45.600 It's a good thing to be inspired by the excellence around us, 01:16:45.600 --> 01:16:47.760 even when it seems mundane. 01:16:47.760 --> 01:16:50.480 So I hope this has been a positive episode. 01:16:50.720 --> 01:16:54.000 This is a framework and a tool for thinking, let's just make 01:16:54.000 --> 01:16:57.520 sure that when we're looking at things elsewhere in the world, things 01:16:57.520 --> 01:17:01.120 outside of ourselves, that we're using the right benchmark. 01:17:01.120 --> 01:17:04.320 And it should never be, well, that guy's doing something I could 01:17:04.320 --> 01:17:06.800 do if I wanted to, but I'm not doing it, so it 01:17:06.800 --> 01:17:08.400 doesn't matter that he did it. 01:17:08.400 --> 01:17:12.400 If he did something excellent and beautiful and good and amazing, give 01:17:12.400 --> 01:17:13.920 him credit where it's due. 01:17:13.920 --> 01:17:16.640 Show men respect when they do well. 01:17:16.640 --> 01:17:18.880 And then when respect is due to you, 01:17:19.760 --> 01:17:22.160 hopefully it'll be accorded to you. 01:17:22.160 --> 01:17:25.840 This is also a reminder, give people a pat on the back. 01:17:25.840 --> 01:17:28.320 If someone's doing a really good job and no one's ever telling 01:17:28.320 --> 01:17:30.560 them, try to go out of your way to tell them. 01:17:30.560 --> 01:17:34.640 Very rarely do men get compliments for doing good work. 01:17:34.640 --> 01:17:36.240 Doesn't happen much anymore. 01:17:36.240 --> 01:17:38.720 And part of that's a lack of sincerity. 01:17:38.720 --> 01:17:42.160 Back when the you know there were newspapers, I clipped a Dilbert 01:17:42.160 --> 01:17:44.560 comic that I still have somewhere in that Somewhere in the house 01:17:44.880 --> 01:17:49.120 where Dilbert went in for his review with his pointy haired boss, 01:17:49.120 --> 01:17:53.120 and his boss said that he only met expectations last year. 01:17:53.120 --> 01:17:55.600 And Dilbert went back and forth with a couple things that he 01:17:55.600 --> 01:17:58.960 had done, and one of them was like donating his kidney to 01:17:58.960 --> 01:18:03.120 one of their top customers in his boss's response was well I 01:18:03.120 --> 01:18:06.720 said you meet expectations because I expected you to do that. 01:18:06.720 --> 01:18:08.880 That's not the way to treat people. 01:18:08.880 --> 01:18:12.000 If someone goes above and beyond, make sure that you acknowledge and 01:18:12.000 --> 01:18:14.400 respect doing something amazing. 01:18:14.400 --> 01:18:19.280 It uplifts everyone to acknowledge and to respect that which is deserving 01:18:19.280 --> 01:18:20.400 of respect. 01:18:20.400 --> 01:18:22.640 When you see excellence, call it excellent. 01:18:22.640 --> 01:18:25.520 It's okay to be sincere about these things. 01:18:25.520 --> 01:18:26.560 That's it. 01:18:26.560 --> 01:18:27.680 Be sincere. 01:18:27.680 --> 01:18:31.280 Don't be ashamed to just be genuinely impressed by something. 01:18:31.280 --> 01:18:32.960 It doesn't diminish you. 01:18:32.960 --> 01:18:34.640 I don't know where that came from. 01:18:34.640 --> 01:18:39.360 We try to trace the trajectory here, but it's insane to me 01:18:39.360 --> 01:18:43.200 that to see something that's better than I could do somehow makes 01:18:43.200 --> 01:18:44.240 me less. 01:18:44.240 --> 01:18:47.600 No. I'm privileged to have been alive to see it. 01:18:47.760 --> 01:18:50.240 I'm honored to be a witness to it and to be able 01:18:50.240 --> 01:18:52.320 to tell others how cool it is. 01:18:52.320 --> 01:18:53.520 That is a good thing. 01:18:53.520 --> 01:18:54.720 It's a blessing. 01:18:54.720 --> 01:18:58.960 We should never have any response other than respect for greatness. 01:18:59.680 --> 01:19:05.360 One of the functions of excellence in the world is serving as 01:19:05.360 --> 01:19:10.320 a standard toward which we can aspire, or a pinnacle we can 01:19:10.320 --> 01:19:11.920 seek to reach. 01:19:11.920 --> 01:19:16.240 This is perhaps how some people view mountain peaks, those who are 01:19:16.240 --> 01:19:20.480 inclined to go out and summit mountains at any rate. 01:19:21.840 --> 01:19:26.560 We shouldn't view it as being something that is a challenge to 01:19:26.560 --> 01:19:28.560 our abilities because it exists. 01:19:29.040 --> 01:19:33.040 So, for instance, most of us will never climb most of the 01:19:33.040 --> 01:19:37.920 tallest mountains, not only in the world, but even just in, say, 01:19:38.000 --> 01:19:42.320 our own home countries, or in some cases, our own home state. 01:19:42.320 --> 01:19:46.160 I used to live in California, as all of you know, and 01:19:46.160 --> 01:19:50.720 very few Californians will ever climb Mount Whitney, it being the tallest 01:19:50.720 --> 01:19:53.120 peak in the lower forty eight. 01:19:53.120 --> 01:19:56.960 That doesn't mean that the existence of Mount Whitney somehow diminishes you 01:19:56.960 --> 01:20:00.720 as a person because you'll never climb that mountain peak. 01:20:01.680 --> 01:20:05.120 Most of us will never play in the major leagues in any 01:20:05.120 --> 01:20:09.840 sport. We will never be the best chess player in the world. 01:20:09.840 --> 01:20:16.400 Another good example of being a pinnacle of one's field that should 01:20:16.400 --> 01:20:20.080 perhaps be mentioned in this episode since we've talked so much about 01:20:20.000 --> 01:20:24.640 about space flight and rockets and things is Wernher von Braun. 01:20:24.640 --> 01:20:30.480 Without his achievements, we probably would not have a space program. 01:20:30.480 --> 01:20:34.560 We would certainly have been set back some unknown amount of time 01:20:35.040 --> 01:20:37.840 with regard to rocketry and things like that. 01:20:37.840 --> 01:20:40.560 He was an exceptional man. 01:20:40.560 --> 01:20:44.400 The things that he achieved in his life are of an order 01:20:44.400 --> 01:20:48.960 and magnitude that is seldom met by any man. 01:20:48.960 --> 01:20:52.720 And so regardless of what you may think of his politics or 01:20:52.720 --> 01:20:57.120 anything like that, you can recognize the excellence of what he achieved 01:20:57.120 --> 01:20:59.760 in the physical sciences. 01:20:59.760 --> 01:21:02.480 If you are someone in those fields, you can look at him 01:21:02.480 --> 01:21:06.800 and let what he achieved serve as motivation for you. 01:21:06.800 --> 01:21:11.280 You can look at that excellence and strive toward it. 01:21:11.280 --> 01:21:14.800 Attempt to achieve that sort of excellence yourself. 01:21:14.800 --> 01:21:18.000 Perhaps you won't rise to that level and you probably won't in 01:21:18.000 --> 01:21:18.960 this case. 01:21:18.960 --> 01:21:22.080 But just because you won't rise to that level doesn't mean you 01:21:22.080 --> 01:21:26.400 can't achieve your own personal sort of excellence. 01:21:26.400 --> 01:21:29.280 And that is sort of the point with which I want to 01:21:29.280 --> 01:21:32.720 leave you in this episode. 01:21:32.720 --> 01:21:36.960 There is such a thing as objective excellence, and there is such 01:21:36.960 --> 01:21:40.480 a thing as subjective excellence. 01:21:40.480 --> 01:21:45.360 Objective excellence is the easier one to understand, perhaps, because we all 01:21:45.360 --> 01:21:48.480 recognize the existence of it. 01:21:48.480 --> 01:21:52.720 There is a best tennis player in history. 01:21:52.720 --> 01:21:55.520 Perhaps he hasn't been born yet, and so I could say there 01:21:55.520 --> 01:21:58.400 will be a best tennis player in history. 01:21:58.400 --> 01:22:01.040 At the point we are now in history, there is a best 01:22:01.040 --> 01:22:02.720 tennis player in the past. 01:22:02.960 --> 01:22:09.360 One of the players, existing players, is the best at that game. 01:22:09.360 --> 01:22:14.400 One of the chess grandmasters is the best at chess. 01:22:14.400 --> 01:22:19.680 The same is true with regard to every human undertaking, every human 01:22:19.680 --> 01:22:24.720 endeavor. There is a man who is the best at it. 01:22:24.720 --> 01:22:29.600 That is, in one sense, the objective best, because he is the 01:22:29.600 --> 01:22:31.040 best human at it. 01:22:31.040 --> 01:22:33.920 You could also say that there is an objective best in that 01:22:33.920 --> 01:22:39.840 there is a perfect version, but that's sort of a philosophical aside. 01:22:39.840 --> 01:22:45.200 In contrast to that, we have the subjective excellence. 01:22:45.200 --> 01:22:48.080 And that is your personal form of excellence. 01:22:48.080 --> 01:22:52.640 And so, with regard to anything that you undertake in your life, 01:22:52.640 --> 01:22:57.760 there is a a best version of you at that thing. 01:22:57.760 --> 01:23:00.240 It's going to take work to get there. 01:23:00.240 --> 01:23:04.480 I will never be a concert pianist, but I could certainly be 01:23:04.480 --> 01:23:06.960 better at the piano than I am now. 01:23:06.960 --> 01:23:11.280 There is a level I could reach that would be my personal 01:23:11.280 --> 01:23:15.760 version of excellence with regard to playing the piano, the same for 01:23:15.760 --> 01:23:21.200 playing tennis, lawn darts, whatever it happens to be. 01:23:21.200 --> 01:23:26.080 With regard to your personal undertakings in this life, there is an 01:23:26.080 --> 01:23:29.840 excellence that you can achieve in that endeavor. 01:23:29.840 --> 01:23:33.920 And one of the ways that you can use the excellence of 01:23:33.920 --> 01:23:37.440 other men is by looking at those who are excellent in the 01:23:37.440 --> 01:23:42.320 same fields in which you endeavor and aspiring to that. 01:23:42.320 --> 01:23:46.480 You can look at the performance of a great pianist, one of 01:23:46.480 --> 01:23:49.040 the best ones in all of history and there are a number 01:23:49.040 --> 01:23:49.840 of them. 01:23:49.840 --> 01:23:53.280 And you can aspire to that, you can let that serve as 01:23:53.280 --> 01:23:55.280 a motivation for you. 01:23:55.280 --> 01:24:00.080 Part of your purpose to tie back into last week's episode can 01:24:00.080 --> 01:24:00.800 be to achieve 01:24:02.160 --> 01:24:07.280 the best level of performance that you, given your gifts and abilities, 01:24:07.280 --> 01:24:10.720 and obviously time and other things, can achieve. 01:24:10.720 --> 01:24:14.000 The motivation for that can in part be looking at these other 01:24:14.000 --> 01:24:16.240 men who have achieved these great things. 01:24:16.240 --> 01:24:18.640 That's a proper response to that. 01:24:18.640 --> 01:24:23.600 That's honoring and respecting that excellence in other men, instead of the 01:24:23.600 --> 01:24:27.440 negative way of using that and using it to tear down perhaps 01:24:27.520 --> 01:24:30.720 that man if you can and yourself at the same time. 01:24:30.720 --> 01:24:35.040 You shouldn't look at these other men as being necessarily competition. 01:24:35.040 --> 01:24:37.840 Not everything in life is a competition. 01:24:38.080 --> 01:24:39.280 Some things certainly are. 01:24:39.280 --> 01:24:43.520 We've talked about sports in this episode. 01:24:43.520 --> 01:24:48.320 But in some ways, it's not a competition between you and these 01:24:48.320 --> 01:24:49.440 other men. 01:24:49.440 --> 01:24:53.120 Because what you are attempting to achieve, the thing toward which you 01:24:53.120 --> 01:24:57.120 are working, is that subjective excellence. 01:24:57.120 --> 01:25:00.320 Yes, if you happen to be one of the men competing at 01:25:00.320 --> 01:25:03.600 the very pinnacle of the field, then you are competing over that 01:25:03.600 --> 01:25:07.280 objective excellence, and there's a form of competition there. 01:25:07.280 --> 01:25:09.920 But it's not in the sense of tearing down the other men 01:25:09.920 --> 01:25:12.480 or having his accomplishments tear you down. 01:25:12.480 --> 01:25:15.680 It should be in the sense of building each other up and 01:25:15.680 --> 01:25:16.960 letting his achievements 01:25:18.000 --> 01:25:21.600 serve as motivation for you to achieve, and then he should in 01:25:21.600 --> 01:25:25.200 turn let your achievements serve as motivation for him to go on 01:25:25.200 --> 01:25:27.360 and achieve further things. 01:25:27.360 --> 01:25:32.080 This is a productive use of these differences that God has built 01:25:32.080 --> 01:25:38.000 into creation, of these distinctions between and among men, of this hierarchy 01:25:38.160 --> 01:25:41.600 that is a natural part of everything in God's creation, because there 01:25:41.600 --> 01:25:46.400 is hierarchy everywhere Which this is a point that we have emphasized 01:25:46.400 --> 01:25:49.360 in a number of episodes, and we will undoubtedly continue to do 01:25:49.360 --> 01:25:52.800 so, because it has simply fallen away in modern society. 01:25:52.800 --> 01:25:55.200 But there is hierarchy everywhere. 01:25:55.200 --> 01:25:59.040 It doesn't matter if we try to construct a society that does 01:25:59.040 --> 01:26:02.640 not have hierarchy, it will still exist. 01:26:02.640 --> 01:26:05.280 Because God built it into creation. 01:26:05.280 --> 01:26:08.800 You cannot get rid of the things that God has built into 01:26:08.800 --> 01:26:13.360 creation You can ignore them to your detriment, but you will not 01:26:13.360 --> 01:26:17.680 destroy them, because they are things that God has designed, things that 01:26:17.680 --> 01:26:22.720 God has implemented, things that God intends to exist in this life, 01:26:22.720 --> 01:26:24.080 and in the next. 01:26:24.400 --> 01:26:27.920 We're not all going to be equal in the next life. 01:26:27.920 --> 01:26:31.440 There's no way that you can read God's Word and think that 01:26:31.440 --> 01:26:35.360 we will all be equally good at everything in the next life. 01:26:35.360 --> 01:26:37.920 That's completely and utterly absurd. 01:26:37.920 --> 01:26:42.160 For one, I have a reach of about an octave on a 01:26:42.160 --> 01:26:46.080 piano. I am never going to be able to play some of 01:26:46.080 --> 01:26:51.200 the more difficult, particularly Scandinavian pieces, that call for a reach of 01:26:51.200 --> 01:26:53.200 an octave plus two or three. 01:26:53.200 --> 01:26:55.200 I simply can't do that. 01:26:55.200 --> 01:26:59.920 It is beyond my abilities, physically speaking. 01:26:59.920 --> 01:27:04.480 That doesn't mean that I am diminished by the existence of those. 01:27:04.480 --> 01:27:07.600 I should look at those pieces and the men who can play 01:27:07.600 --> 01:27:09.760 them and be impressed. 01:27:09.760 --> 01:27:12.640 I have respect for the men who can do that well. 01:27:12.640 --> 01:27:16.240 It's something that I personally can't do, but I can certainly play 01:27:16.240 --> 01:27:19.360 some of the other pieces, particularly the German ones, and I can 01:27:19.360 --> 01:27:21.520 try to play those well. 01:27:21.520 --> 01:27:25.840 We have been so trained by the modern world, which has been 01:27:26.000 --> 01:27:30.880 quite frankly, designed by Satan, but we have been so trained to 01:27:30.880 --> 01:27:37.440 try and diminish everything around us in order to make ourselves not 01:27:37.440 --> 01:27:41.120 necessarily feel better, but not feel worse. 01:27:41.600 --> 01:27:46.160 Because the alternative to that is, of course, putting in the effort, 01:27:46.160 --> 01:27:49.760 is doing what needs to be done in order to achieve that 01:27:49.760 --> 01:27:51.680 personal level of excellence. 01:27:51.680 --> 01:27:54.640 And it's much easier to sit on the couch and eat Cheetos. 01:27:54.640 --> 01:27:58.880 And that is, quite frankly, what Satan would rather you do. 01:27:58.880 --> 01:28:02.160 He doesn't want you to use the gifts that God has given 01:28:02.160 --> 01:28:06.400 you. He doesn't want you to enjoy this creation that God has 01:28:06.400 --> 01:28:07.920 gifted to us. 01:28:07.920 --> 01:28:11.440 He would much rather that you just think that everything is a 01:28:11.440 --> 01:28:13.440 matter of indifference. 01:28:13.440 --> 01:28:16.800 That everything is, well, it's there, but who cares? 01:28:16.800 --> 01:28:19.600 It's another sunrise, it's another mountain. 01:28:19.600 --> 01:28:21.520 What does it matter to me? 01:28:21.520 --> 01:28:24.240 And so the response that he wants from you when you see 01:28:24.240 --> 01:28:29.760 excellence is to think that it's trivial, is to ignore it. 01:28:29.760 --> 01:28:32.960 Even better to try and tear it down. 01:28:32.960 --> 01:28:37.760 The response of the Christian, the response of the moral man, is 01:28:37.760 --> 01:28:42.880 to look at that and recognize the greatness for what it is, 01:28:42.880 --> 01:28:48.400 to recognize the excellence that is an expression of again the gifts 01:28:48.400 --> 01:28:51.760 from God and the hard work that those men have put in 01:28:51.920 --> 01:28:55.680 to use those gifts, to train those gifts, to refine them, to 01:28:55.680 --> 01:29:01.120 hone them to that fine point To recognize the depth of that 01:29:01.120 --> 01:29:06.080 achievement and see it as a cause for celebration and motivation in 01:29:06.080 --> 01:29:07.680 your own life. 01:29:07.680 --> 01:29:10.400 Now, it may be that when you look at a sports figure, 01:29:10.400 --> 01:29:14.320 that's not going to be motivation for you personally because perhaps you 01:29:14.320 --> 01:29:18.160 have no interest in baseball or you have no interest in tennis. 01:29:18.160 --> 01:29:21.520 But again, in your own field, there will be those who are 01:29:21.520 --> 01:29:24.080 excellent in that field. 01:29:24.080 --> 01:29:26.400 Let them serve as motivation for you. 01:29:27.280 --> 01:29:31.040 Let them serve as a fixed point, as it were, something to 01:29:31.040 --> 01:29:33.920 which you can aspire, because you can look and see. 01:29:33.920 --> 01:29:36.960 This is the sort of thing that men can achieve if they 01:29:36.960 --> 01:29:41.040 use God's gifts that He has given to them and they put 01:29:41.040 --> 01:29:44.480 in the work, and it's that putting in the work that truly 01:29:44.480 --> 01:29:49.520 matters, because again it is insufficient if all you have is the 01:29:49.520 --> 01:29:53.760 natural talent and you do nothing with it, if you are the 01:29:53.760 --> 01:29:58.880 most intelligent man who has ever lived in all of human history, 01:29:58.880 --> 01:30:03.120 whatever man that happens to be, and all you do with that 01:30:03.120 --> 01:30:07.120 intelligence is play video games all day. 01:30:07.120 --> 01:30:10.480 Are you really using the gifts that God gave you? 01:30:11.040 --> 01:30:13.200 The answer of course is no. 01:30:13.200 --> 01:30:15.440 And that's a big part of this. 01:30:15.760 --> 01:30:20.160 What we are advocating, what we are saying, is that God has 01:30:20.160 --> 01:30:22.320 given you certain gifts. 01:30:22.320 --> 01:30:26.400 Perhaps He hasn't given you the gifts necessary to be a rocket 01:30:26.400 --> 01:30:29.040 scientist, or to be a brain surgeon, or to be a major 01:30:29.120 --> 01:30:33.760 league baseball player, but he has given you gifts that you can 01:30:33.760 --> 01:30:40.160 employ in whatever occupation you have, in whatever undertaking has been set 01:30:40.160 --> 01:30:41.520 before you. 01:30:41.520 --> 01:30:45.280 You can use those things and you can hone them using the 01:30:45.280 --> 01:30:49.680 motivation from looking at other great men, from those who have achieved 01:30:49.680 --> 01:30:54.000 excellence in their fields or your field, and you can use these 01:30:54.000 --> 01:30:56.160 things to the glory of God. 01:30:56.560 --> 01:30:59.600 And that's an important point. 01:30:59.600 --> 01:31:04.640 The glory of God is not putting crosses on your shoes if 01:31:04.640 --> 01:31:07.600 you're a cobbler, if you're a shoemaker. 01:31:08.080 --> 01:31:10.720 It's making good shoes. 01:31:10.720 --> 01:31:14.640 And the reason for that is because making the good shoes is 01:31:14.640 --> 01:31:17.120 using the gifts that God has given you. 01:31:17.120 --> 01:31:19.440 And maybe you don't make the best shoes in the world. 01:31:19.440 --> 01:31:23.680 That's not the point The point is using the gifts that God 01:31:23.680 --> 01:31:27.280 has given you to the best of your ability, honing those gifts, 01:31:27.280 --> 01:31:32.560 becoming excellent in your field with regard to your own capacity. 01:31:32.560 --> 01:31:35.040 That is what you should be doing as a Christian man. 01:31:35.600 --> 01:31:38.800 It's not putting the cross on your shoes and declaring before all 01:31:38.800 --> 01:31:41.920 the world, look how Christian I am because I put a cross 01:31:41.920 --> 01:31:43.280 on my shoes. 01:31:43.520 --> 01:31:45.760 Your neighbor needs good shoes. 01:31:45.760 --> 01:31:49.440 He doesn't necessarily need shoes with a cross on them. 01:31:49.440 --> 01:31:53.200 And so you may think again back to that issue of when 01:31:53.200 --> 01:31:56.160 you engage with certain other Christians and they always try to say, 01:31:56.160 --> 01:31:57.920 well, that's not about the cross. 01:31:57.920 --> 01:31:59.280 That's not a matter of salvation. 01:31:59.280 --> 01:32:04.320 That's not soteriological, whatever language they happen to use. 01:32:04.320 --> 01:32:06.640 Think about putting a cross on shoes. 01:32:06.640 --> 01:32:08.800 It's completely ridiculous. 01:32:08.800 --> 01:32:10.800 That is what they are arguing. 01:32:10.800 --> 01:32:14.240 And quite frankly you should probably laugh at them. 01:32:14.240 --> 01:32:17.280 Because at the very least it's silly. 01:32:17.280 --> 01:32:20.960 Often it is also wicked because there's an ulterior motive. 01:32:20.960 --> 01:32:25.360 But it's just a ridiculous argument because that's not the Christian life. 01:32:25.680 --> 01:32:30.880 Again, justification is one and done, as it were, because it is 01:32:30.880 --> 01:32:36.880 a judicial declaration that you are justified, that you are holy 01:32:37.840 --> 01:32:40.960 for the sake of Christ and his work. 01:32:40.960 --> 01:32:43.680 And then comes the end then. 01:32:43.680 --> 01:32:45.520 Then comes the Christian life. 01:32:45.520 --> 01:32:48.240 Then comes sanctification. 01:32:48.240 --> 01:32:53.360 But you have to actually live a life in order for that 01:32:53.360 --> 01:32:54.880 to happen. 01:32:54.880 --> 01:32:58.560 Sanctification is progress in this life. 01:32:58.560 --> 01:33:03.920 You slowly become sanctified over time due to the work of the 01:33:03.920 --> 01:33:07.440 Holy Spirit and the cooperation of your will, because once your will 01:33:07.440 --> 01:33:11.920 has been regenerated, you do in fact cooperate. 01:33:11.920 --> 01:33:15.280 But that's not the totality of the Christian life. 01:33:15.280 --> 01:33:19.040 Because part of the Christian life is using these abilities, these skills, 01:33:19.040 --> 01:33:23.680 these things that God has given you, these gifts from God, and 01:33:23.680 --> 01:33:26.480 doing the best you can with them. 01:33:26.480 --> 01:33:29.360 It is a Christian life to be a cobbler and make good 01:33:29.840 --> 01:33:33.360 shoes. It is a Christian life to be a baker and make 01:33:33.360 --> 01:33:34.480 good pies. 01:33:34.480 --> 01:33:38.560 It is a Christian life to be particularly good at a sport, 01:33:38.560 --> 01:33:42.400 and to invest the time and the effort to do well, to 01:33:42.400 --> 01:33:46.000 use those skills to train them up and to become the best 01:33:46.000 --> 01:33:49.360 that you can to become excellent in the field in so far 01:33:49.360 --> 01:33:51.040 as you are able. 01:33:51.040 --> 01:33:55.600 And the same is true with regard to every Christian man and 01:33:55.600 --> 01:33:59.440 every single occupation set before them. 01:33:59.440 --> 01:34:04.640 Because it doesn't matter which occupation you happen to have, it doesn't 01:34:04.560 --> 01:34:06.880 matter what undertaking. 01:34:06.880 --> 01:34:09.680 What matters is that you use the gifts that God has given 01:34:10.560 --> 01:34:15.040 you, and you aim toward excellence, and you achieve it to the 01:34:15.040 --> 01:34:19.840 best of your ability, because that is a Christian life actually lived. 01:34:19.840 --> 01:34:21.440 Again, it's not a matter of 01:34:22.320 --> 01:34:24.880 everything has to be the cross. 01:34:24.880 --> 01:34:26.640 That's not scripture. 01:34:26.640 --> 01:34:29.680 That's not what God wants for us. 01:34:29.680 --> 01:34:35.200 The whole point of you being justified, of you being saved, given 01:34:35.200 --> 01:34:39.040 the free gift of faith, is that so you can live as 01:34:39.040 --> 01:34:43.120 a Christian, so you can live as a redeemed son or daughter 01:34:43.120 --> 01:34:45.920 of God. 01:34:45.920 --> 01:34:48.880 Those who try to tell you that everything about the Christian life 01:34:48.880 --> 01:34:53.120 has to be soteriological, it all has to be the cross. 01:34:53.120 --> 01:34:56.720 Really, what they're denying is the very existence of such a thing 01:34:56.720 --> 01:34:58.720 as the Christian life. 01:34:58.720 --> 01:35:01.520 We don't want you to do that, and God certainly doesn't want 01:35:01.520 --> 01:35:02.880 you to do that. 01:35:02.880 --> 01:35:06.000 And some of them will bring up, Paul says, For I decided 01:35:06.000 --> 01:35:10.480 to know nothing among you except Christ and him crucified. 01:35:10.480 --> 01:35:13.360 That's with regard to teaching justification in the Christian 01:35:14.640 --> 01:35:18.880 It's not with regard to the Christian faith itself and the Christian 01:35:18.880 --> 01:35:20.800 life lived. 01:35:20.800 --> 01:35:24.880 The same sort of ridiculous argument comes up when people try to 01:35:24.880 --> 01:35:27.440 argue that Christ said he came only for the lost sheep of 01:35:27.440 --> 01:35:28.000 Israel. 01:35:29.840 --> 01:35:32.400 Well the issue is what does he mean by Israel? 01:35:32.400 --> 01:35:35.920 And of course he means the church, not ethnic Israel, but that's 01:35:35.840 --> 01:35:38.000 a topic for another time. 01:35:38.000 --> 01:35:41.200 When people try to argue that it's Christ and him crucified, and 01:35:41.200 --> 01:35:43.680 that's all that Paul wanted to know and so we should just 01:35:43.680 --> 01:35:45.920 imitate Paul. 01:35:45.920 --> 01:35:48.480 What they're arguing is utterly ridiculous. 01:35:48.480 --> 01:35:50.240 Read Paul's letters. 01:35:50.240 --> 01:35:51.680 Is that all Paul says? 01:35:51.680 --> 01:35:52.960 Is that all that Paul teaches? 01:35:53.760 --> 01:35:57.680 No, because it's not the totality of the Christian life. 01:35:57.680 --> 01:36:03.120 The Christian life is a matter of striving toward excellence, insofar as 01:36:03.120 --> 01:36:05.040 it has been given you by God to do so 01:36:07.200 --> 01:36:09.280 God has given you gifts. 01:36:09.280 --> 01:36:10.960 You need to use them. 01:36:10.960 --> 01:36:15.520 Let other men, who are excellent, serve as motivation. 01:36:15.520 --> 01:36:17.360 Recognize that excellence. 01:36:17.360 --> 01:36:21.040 Recognize that you can achieve a form of it, and give thanks 01:36:21.040 --> 01:36:24.000 to God both for the excellence of those other men and for 01:36:24.000 --> 01:36:25.600 the gifts that He has given 01:36:25.600 --> 01:36:26.240 you.